Bloody Sunset
Page 33
The hatch inside there was standing open, air sucking in, sucked down by the fans, and a steel ladder led down vertically into a glare of brilliance, warmth, the fans’ roar… The orang-utan paused in the hatchway, gazing down: seeing a steel grid about three-quarters of the way down – across the front of the oil-fired furnace – and a stoker with a cloth tied round his head, bare-chested, just leaving it, expertly skimming down an extension of the ladder to the lowest level. He wouldn’t have heard a shout over the noise the fans made. The orang-utan swung himself on to the ladder and started down – one-handed, pistol in the other, the steel sides of the ladder sliding through that palm silver-bright and oil-coated, slippery – same as the rungs, and he’d missed his footing, grabbing to save himself but somehow failing to make contact – probably part-blinded by the glare, over-confident initially and then in panic as he fell backwards. The stoker heard the crash above him, saw the body sprawled on its back on the narrow gridded platform which he – the stoker – had been standing on only seconds earlier. He dashed up the short ladder fast, a wheel-spanner still clutched in one hand…
Muttering ‘What the flaming hell…’ And in the same breath then – swinging himself on to the platform – ‘Oh, Christ…’
Aghast: staring down at the prone figure of the orang-utan. It did look like one – or like something maybe semi-human – or out of hell except he’d come crashing down from up there… The creature’s eyes opened, focused momentarily on the figure looming over him with what might have been a weapon in one hand: getting its own hand up slowly – a dying insect raising its sting – and the pistol jumping as he fired with no aim but point-blank: his eyes were shutting, but he’d fired again, then a third time absolutely blind.
* * *
Nick had the Lewis loaded and cocked, trained on the Schichau’s crewmen lined up on the ship’s port side. They’d been arriving in small groups escorted by Krebst, who’d been parking them here then going back to Bob and the ship’s CO for more. But this was the whole crew now, and they were all back here now – Bob, Krebst, Dherjakin, and Bakin.
‘All right, Lieutenant – over there with the others.’ Bakin appealed to Dherjakin: ‘Comrade Captain – I can’t believe you’d permit this – outrage.’
Bob cut in, ‘Shut up, Lieutenant. Do what you’re told.’ He counted them: sixteen in all – and now realized the orang-utan wasn’t present. Looking round… ‘Where’s Majerle?’
‘Went down here.’ Nick pointed downward. ‘You told him to check out the engineroom.’
‘God – engineroom watchkeepers!’ He’d thought of them earlier, then forgotten… At immediate notice for sea, fires would be lit, they’d have been maintaining a head of steam, there’d have to be watchkeepers below – and the Czech shouldn’t have needed more than a few minutes to hunt them out. He turned towards the shelter: glancing up at Nick as he went inside: ‘Bloody hell…’
Not an inappropriate comment: with a bird’s-eye view of the debris on that steel shelving – two bodies, the orang-utan’s and another sprawled on top of it, a lot of blood…
‘Krebst!’
A movement amongst the machinery even further down: human but like a crab scuttling into shelter – not that there was much of it, you could still see him through the web of steel. Small, wizened, terrified. Mechanician, stoker, whatever… Bob shouted and beckoned, but he only stood staring up – open-mouthed, shaking with fright. Bob and Krebst went down and herded him up, then carried the bodies up between them – the stoker’s first, with three bullet-holes in its torso, then the orang-utan’s with the back of its skull a bloody pulp. It seemed obvious what had happened – more or less…
So there’d been eighteen of them, not sixteen. Seventeen now, bunched along the port-side guardrail with Nick Solovyev facing them, crouched behind the Lewis, one hand fondling the trigger-guard, his green eyes flickering towards Bob with a question in them.
A question like Is this the lot now? Or possibly a request: May I?
Bakin began – wrenching his eyes off the stoker’s body, obviously in no doubt of what was about to happen – ‘If you please – comrades – comrade Engineer Captain – please, hear me out? We’ve done no wrong – I and my crew are loyal servants of the Revolution – we know you are also, comrade Captain, so…’
Dherjakin turned away. Washing his hands…
‘Krebst – here, a minute.’
Krebst stood up. He’d been squatting on the iron deck, pulling off the orang-utan’s boots. Bob glanced back at the Count: ‘Don’t shoot unless they make real trouble, Nick.’
The green eyes blinked at him. Surprise – anger – and hesitation: he might have been asking himself why he should accept this outsider’s orders. A lot of eyes were fixed on him and on the gun; the Schichau pitching slightly, a gentle rocking to the surge, metallic sounds from for’ard as she tugged intermittently at her mooring.
‘Nick – it’d be plain murder. Their speciality, not yours.’
NO reaction, other than that green stare, no relaxation of the tension in him. Harbouring recollections perhaps of ropes, buckets, cellars, his own humiliation, Red Guards dragging young women off trains…
Then he’d seemed to relax; he’d nodded. Bob said, ‘Good man. Hang on a minute now.’ He hurried aft, with Krebst behind him, and called down, ‘Come up here? The ship’s ours now.’ The launch’s bow line had been secured to a cleat near the ladder; he crouched, taking the turns off, then handed the line to Krebst. ‘Lead the boat round the stern and up that side, so the crew can embark from where they are now. Understand?’
‘Ponimayu, ponimayu…’
But not liking it all that much. By his manner, as disconcerted as the Count had seemed. Bob turned back to the ladder as the girls came up – Nadia first. He reached to her, helped her over on to the deck: then she’d taken him completely by surprise – her arms round his neck, voice breathless in his ear – ‘Bob, oh Bob, my darling, how wonderful!’
Her arms tight, her lips, body…
‘Nadia!’
Irina – shocked, a squawk of protest. And having had to climb aboard unaided… He’d been freeing himself from that hot embrace, in any case, was dreading the sudden clatter of the Lewis opening fire if he didn’t get back there fast. Telling them both in a rush as he broke away, ‘Wait here, would you – right here – just a minute?’
He could still feel her arms: and her lips – soft, open, leaving no shred of doubt – even right under that kid’s shocked eyes. On his way for’ard, trotting, his mind was reeling, dizzy… Despite knowing damn well this was neither the time nor place, that there were new and pressing problems facing him now, and a lot of hard work: and even shorter-handed now than he’d expected… Nadia, though – Nadia! Incredible… if she’d display her inclinations so openly in front of Nick’s sister, she’d make no bones about them to Nick himself. So then – all right, he’d have Nick to deal with. And – all right. Nadia was a lifetime’s happiness at stake – he didn’t even have to think about it, he knew it, felt certain she did too.
Nadia filling his mind in one second, wiped from it in the next… Catching the look the Count threw in his direction as he got back to them – the intention he’d had before, and – it was plain in that moment – decision to do it now…
‘Hey – Nick!’
‘Where are they?’
‘Uh?’
Then he caught on: the question had been where were the girls – whom he’d left back there to be out of harm’s way until he’d got Bakin and company off the ship.
Wanting an audience? What he’d been waiting for?
‘This is Russian business, Bob!’
‘Makes it half mine, then.’ He put himself in front of the Lewis – between it and the Schichau’s crew. Close-up, masking it – the gun, and the eyes glaring at him over its sights… ‘Think you’d get this ship away without me, Nick?’
A second’s pause… Then the barrel swung up. He turned his back on it.
18
It was a good moment when he had the armed merchantman HMS Slava’s tail-funnelled, rather elegant shape in focus in Lieutenant Bakin’s binoculars. No surprise – he’d been looking for her, searching the grey, tumbling sea ahead for half an hour before he picked her up. He rang down to Dherjakin in the engineroom for a reduction to half speed, woke the Count for about the sixth time since departure from the delta and cajoled him once again into taking the wheel, then got up in the raised wing of the control position – you could hardly call it a bridge – to talk to Slava, or rather Jimmy Roebuck, RNR, her captain, by signal lamp.
Slava had been sent north from the patrol line to meet them. At first light, by which time they’d covered fifty miles by log since leaving the delta, he’d first made a careful inspection of the surroundings to make sure there were no Bolshevik ships around, then broken wireless silence on the RN flotilla’s frequency to announce his identity and the capture of the Schichau, his estimated position, course and speed, the names of his passengers – the girls had been prostrate with seasickness even before they’d been out of the delta, and the Count had surrendered to it soon afterwards – and details of what might laughably have been called his ship’s company – a one-legged Russian engineer captain running the machinery with the help of a deserter from the Czech Legion, and Lieutenant Robert Cowan, RNR, as captain, navigator, quartermaster and telegraphist.
Receipt of this signal had been acknowledged by HMS Emil Nobel, on the patrol line, and shortly afterwards SNO Caspian – the Commodore – had come on the air, calling for a preliminary report of proceedings commencing midnight 11th September to be wirelessed forthwith. This meant giving him an outline of everything that had happened since Johnny Pope’s CMB had left Zoroaster that night. Bob acknowledged the signal, spent half an hour putting the briefest possible account together while also supervising Nick Solovyev’s helmsmanship, then about ten minutes tapping it out. The Schichau meanwhile standing on her nose and then her tail, plunging around like a marlin on a hook. In fact it had been getting easier by then – from about sunrise onward. But the skiff wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in the wind and sea they’d had in the preceding hours. Gusts of up to about force 7 had forced a reduction in speed, since with that amount of pitching the screw had a tendency to lift out of the water and race, with a danger of stripping the shaft bearing. Dherjakin had expected to deliver seventeen knots but they’d been down to twelve at the worst time, and were making fifteen at the time of this rendezvous with Slava.
A light blossomed on Slava’s bridge, answering his call, and he flashed to Roebuck, Good morning. Both women and one male passenger still sick, also Engineer Captain Dherjakin complaining of heat exhaustion. Will you swap them for the spare hands already requested please?
The answer was affirmative. Also, informative. Transfer of passengers would have been necessary in any case. Slava would be taking them to Enzeli, while the Schichau was to proceed to Krasnovodsk. So – parting of the ways; he’d dumped his lamp back into its bracket and was wondering what arrangements he could make privately with Nadia for getting in touch later, here in Russia or elsewhere: his dream of course was that she might come to England, as so many of the aristos were doing, in which case if she had the address of Messrs McCrae and McCrae she could let him know where he’d find her when he himself got home – eventually… Then the flashing had started up again, and Roebuck’s signalman had morsed to him, For your information, Dunsterforce evacuated to Enzeli fourteenth September, Turks now in Baku town and port.
Bob flashed an acknowledgement. Adding, as an afterthought, a request for an ensign to be sent over in Slava’s boat. But with a thought to the Muromskys – remembering in particular Leonide’s Uncle George’s certainty that they had nothing at all to fear. And maybe he would have had ample warning and got away: or at least got poor little Leonide away.
Slava made a lee in which to launch her boat, and Bob brought the Schichau up to within a cable’s length of her on that side. Then he had the Count put the ladder over the starboard side abreast the control position, where he – Bob – could take a hand in the proceedings – notably, say goodbye to Nadia – without having to stray too far from the wheel. He had the address of McCrae and McCrae scrawled on a sheet of signal-paper in his pocket; nobody else need see him give it to her.
Enzeli might suit the Solovyevs very well. Nick had told him, when they’d been steaming down the delta and before things had become less comfortable, that if there was any way of getting to the Crimea he hoped to take the girls there and – he hoped – leave them under the protection of the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna. And from Enzeli it might well be possible to reach the Crimea by some roundabout route, initially of course through Persia.
So God only knew when he’d see Nadia again…
The boat from Slava brought him a Russian engineer officer and two stokers, a Russian watchkeeping lieutenant whom he’d met before, two Russian able seamen, a signalman and telegraphist – both Royal Navy – and an Armenian former Russian Navy cook. With about four hundred miles to cover – say twenty-six hours’ steaming – this reinforcement would (a) ensure safe navigation, (b) allow one to get a few hours’ sleep and maybe a hot meal or two. As there’d been eighteen men living on board there had to be food of some sort down below.
The Russian lieutenant, Ugryamov, had brought him a choice of ensigns, British and Russian. Jimmy Roebuck hedging his bets, Bob thought. But the Schichau was his prize – at least until he delivered her at Krasnovodsk: then, if she was to be returned to the Imperial Navy – well, fine… Dherjakin had appeared on deck meanwhile, leaving Krebst in sole charge of the engineroom, and Bob asked the newly-arrived engineer to take over immediately – realizing that Krebst would have been doing all the hard work – under Dherjakin’s direction – for the past eight hours or more.
Nadia and the Solovyevs arrived on deck then, looking nervous of the boat trip awaiting them. Which made one think again about the trip they might have had. But he thought they seemed nervous of him, too, as he went out into the ship’s waist to meet them. One of the ABs had taken over the wheel by this time, having dumped his gear somewhere below, and Ugryamov came back up as well; the relief in being able to leave the ship in other hands for a minute – or for an hour, or several hours – was tremendous.
But this diffidence – from Nadia…
From Irina – well, who gave a damn. She’d take her cue from her brother anyway; and he was still sulking – had been in all his waking moments since last night.
Nadia, pale and frighteningly distant, gave him her hand. ‘Bob. We owe you so much.’
The artificiality was – painful… And this was suddenly a bad – really awful – moment. As if nothing had ever happened between them – or as if what had happened had meant nothing to her. Denial of complicity was in her eyes, her voice, her whole manner, and – he thought – nothing to do with being – or having been – seasick. She wasn’t even meeting his eyes: it seemed to be that kind of goodbye – an embarrassment, to be got over with quickly. And – for ever? He had the tightly folded signal-paper in his hand, but now the moment had come there was no question of trying to give it to her: she’d have rejected it – or asked ‘What’s this?’ But when that thought hit him – for ever? – the enormity of it, and that there was nothing he could do – that voice in his shocked brain rasped impatiently Oh, grow up, boy! One’s own conclusion, of course, but stemming from an old habit of asking oneself in certain situations what would he think, or do, or say… Reaching for her hands: he drew her towards him, touched his lips to her cheek. His right hand and her left one meanwhile palm to palm. She’d felt it: her fingers curled, taking the small wad of paper: then they were separating and it was Irina’s turn: he kissed her cheek too. Nadia meanwhile had turned away, her manner unchanged, rev
ealing nothing: in his imagination he was hearing his father chuckling to himself while Irina thanked him, wished him – oh, good luck, success – that kind of thing… He barely heard, he was watching Nadia as she moved towards the rail, two of Slava’s boat’s crew waiting to help the passengers embark.
‘Bob.’ Nick Solovyev was pale above his beard, and dull-eyed. Offering his hand somewhat diffidently. ‘Robert Aleksand’ich – I have to say this – you were right, last night. I’m sorry. And thank you – for that as well as for so much else. I am – enormously indebted.’
‘You saved my life to start with – remember?’
‘Oh…’
‘And since then we’ve come through quite a lot together, I agree, but it hasn’t been all my doing.’
‘Well – the plain truth is that without you I’d have been dead, and they—’ a movement of his head towards the girls – ‘God knows… Robert Aleksand’ich, if ever I am in a position to make recompense, in any way at all…’
‘Thank you, Nick. And I’ll remember it. But I’d say we’re all square. Truly.’
And if she gives me half a chance, I’m going to steal your girl.
It put a stopper on other things one might have said – such as hopes of meeting again in happier times. For which, if it hadn’t been for the Nadia angle, he would have hoped… And – who could tell, in these present circumstances. If she and Nick broke off their engagement first, for instance – and according to her it wasn’t a real engagement anyway…
‘Nick, I hope we’ll meet again. But you’d better get along now. Look after these two – and yourself – and best of luck…’