by Craig Thomas
The doorbell rang again, releasing him. He turned round, and saw her hand a little extended. He smiled in satisfaction.
'Work,' he said.
'I'll go, then.' She hesitated, then: 'Shall I come back — later?'
He wanted to hit her, at least banish her. He nodded.
'Yes, if you want to — ' He would not offer to go to the flat on Kalenin Street — he had to preserve that much. She nodded, reached out as if to touch him, and then dropped her hand.
'Later, we can talk properly,' she said.
The doorbell rang again. He acquiesced with a nod.
To the manager of the Matkailumaja-Turiststation, the only real hotel in Ivalo, they were from the Central Electricity Generating Board, studying the hydro-electric schemes in the Inari region. Philipson, the man the Helsinki Consulate had loaned them, spoke Finnish and established their cover. The staff of the nearby Kirakkakoski power station lived in their own compound, and only came into Ivalo at the week-ends. By the time that happened, Waterford and Davenhill would have left, probably be back in London.
Philipson had a jeep for them, and had stocked it with supplies, had driven north-east out of the town with them, and then watched them as they turned south-east, towards Raja-Jooseppi. Then he turned up his fur collar and headed back to Ivalo. He had little idea of their intention, and small wish to know. It was his role to fend off any awkward enquiries con cerning the presence in the area of two British electricity experts.
They camped the first night off the single road just south of the village of Ruohokangas. Waterford, it seemed to Davenhill, paid little heed to the bitter cold, to the discomforts of travel and pitching camp, to the inadequacy of the food, or to him; while he resented, ever more bitterly, the decision that had placed him there. He had been shunted by Aubrey in the most high-handed way, and made to appear nothing but an errand-boy.
He was cold in his sleeping bag, his teeth chattering, his feet numb. He could hear the steady breathing of the other man, and hated him. He had always found it difficult to resent himself for very long, or indulge in recrimination; but he could, he knew, be satisfyingly viperous towards others. Now, that feeling towards Waterford warmed him, and eventually he drifted into sleep.
In the morning, he awoke aching with cold and senilely stiff. When he moved, his whole body protested. He reached out of the sleeping bag, and his hair was stiff with rime. He sat up, groaning. Light, grey and unwelcoming, was coming from the open tent flap, and he saw Waterford's face grinning at him without humour.
'Your turn to cook breakfast.'
'Push off!' Davenhill snapped, rolling the unzipped flap of the bag away from him, and climbing wearily to his feet. 'You like this, don't you?' he asked, as Waterford allowed him out of the tent. 'This Hollywood stuff- very manly.' His voice was acid; but there was a bile of memory, as if they had shared an unsatisfactory physical act.
Waterford said, 'I thought you were the man's man.'
Davenhill's unlined face narrowed with spite. Then he seemed to control himself, and said softly, 'Is that how you get your kicks? Despising people? It's a sign of weakness, you know.'
Waterford walked away. He had set up the primus, and Davenhill crossed to the jeep and fished out the provisions box. Then, not looking at Waterford again, he began to prepare the breakfast. His mind came free of ice and acid at the smell of the coffee.
They shared the breakfast in silence, then Waterford stowed the tent, and they pulled back on to the road. It had snowed heavily in the last forty-eight hours, and the narrow road was clean of vehicle tracks. The chains on the wheels bit and stuttered at first, then they made better going of it as they entered thicker forest; the snow was light covering over compressed snow-ice. Waterford drove in silent concentration, and Davenhill became enervated by the passage of silent, snow-heavy firs which crowded against the road, a flowing, dark tunnel on either side of them.
'Bloody silly,' he said after perhaps a couple of hours.
Waterford appeared to digest the remark as a piece of vital information, then he replied, 'Any suggestions?'
Davenhill's surprise at the alkaline tone was increased when Waterford halted the jeep. Then he found Waterford looking at him. 'Well?' the older man said. 'Anything to suggest?' There was the edge of contempt again, but controlled.
'Why aren't we stopping — looking?'
'This is the only road, Davenhill. I don't intend being caught, like Folley. So far, there's been nowhere anything big could have left the road. This… 'He waved a hand at the lines of the firs. 'This isn't deep cover, not enough for the kind of thing.. '
Davenhill studied the trees lining the road. Dark and impenetrable they appeared to him.
'God — it's hard to believe in Aubrey's idea out here!'
'It isn't Aubrey's idea, and it isn't hard.' Waterford said drily. 'It's just the way you civilians look at it that makes it hard to believe.' His breath smoked around him. He was big and solid in the driving seat. He still frightened Davenhill who, used as he was to the Foreign Office, and the professional detachment that allowed only glimpses into souls in moments of indiscretion, could see no further than the skin with Waterford.
He was not a type of person he had met before; and his self appeared as hooded as his eyes.
'Well, then?'
'Well what?
'Will we find anything?'
'Who knows? Anything may find us.'
'That's a pleasant thought to start the day. I — hadn't thought of it like that before.'
'You wouldn't.'
Waterford started the engine, which coughed like a cry in the cold silence. He eased out the dutch, and the jeep skidded, then rolled smoothly forward, the packed surface of the road now rutted tangibly below the skin of snow.
'What are we looking for?' Davenhill asked after a while, 'Not tracks — just a clearing, or a track. Damage to trees — anything.'
'Right.'
It was more than another hour before Waterford stopped the jeep, a look of irritation on his face.
'You and your bloody water!' he snapped. Davenhill smiled disarmingly, and jumped out of the jeep. 'Christ!' Waterford added as he moved away. 'Who's going to see you? I shan't be looking!' Davenhill was already off the road and moving more clumsily through deeper snow.
When he had finished, he moved from behind the tree, and knelt in the snow. With a smile on his face, he fashioned a snowball, looking up to see Waterford with his head averted, and aimed and threw. The ball of snow spattered like a ripe fruit against the side of the jeep. Waterford looked round, brushed some snow from his sleeve, and tossed his head. He appeared as if he might be amused. Davenhill walked towards him. The white gouge in the trunk of a tree almost slipped his gaze.
Then he went back to it.
'Waterford,' he called.
'My mother says I can't come out to play,' Waterford replied.
'Look at this,' Davenhill said firmly, already moving to another tree. A hole in the trunk, a piece of bark plucked away when something was removed. 'Where are we on the map, Waterford?' he asked, his voice still uninflected with excitement. He did not understand, as he moved from tree to tree, what the spike-marks might be. But understood they were man-made, and recent. Snow had been brushed from the places where the wind had fixed it, as if by heavy curtains or a large gloved hand.
Waterford said, close beside him: 'The forest is deeper here — begins to stretch for a couple of miles, maybe more, either side of the road. Trees are thicker, too.'
'What does it mean?' Davenhill said caustically.
'Not much,' Waterford said quietly. 'Perhaps the fixing-points for camouflage nets.'
Davenhill looked at him. 'What?'
'Maybe. But maybe not Russian, anyway. The Finns do have an army, you know.' Davenhill suspected Waterford's habitual sarcasm, but his face was expressionless — except for a thoughtful frown as he peered at the gouge in the tree. Then he bent down, and brushed at the snow, disturbing it.
&
nbsp; He stood up, brushing the snow from his gloves.
'What were you doing?'
'I wondered about the pin, that's all — they took it away, like good soldiers should.'
He crossed to another tree, then another, working his way in a vague circle back to Davenhill, studying the trunk of each tree before which he paused.
'Well?' Davenhill was impatient now.
'Something has been pinned to these trees all right. Possibly netting — enough to cover half a dozen vehicles.'
'Tanks?'
'Possibly. Troop-carriers, whatever.'
'Thank God.'
'Hardly. Not really evidence.'
'What do you want — a packet of Russian fags, the odd Kalashnikov rifle dropped in a hurry?'
'More than this. Let's find where this unit, if unit it was, pulled off the road, shall we?'
'Aren't you going to take pictures?' Davenhill sounded childishly disappointed.
'Make a real impression on the Pentagon and NATO, eh?' Waterford said with a slight smile. 'Please, gentlemen — conclusive proof that the Red Army invaded Finland — pictures of nail-holes in trees!'
As he walked back to the car, he was laughing, Davenhill trailing in his wake, his shoulders hunched with disappointment. He had perceived only then how ridiculous he must seem to Waterford.
'How could they move through those trees?' he asked as he climbed back in the jeep.
'They couldn't — not far without damage, anyway. No delightful groves to assist movement.'
He started the engine, and they followed the road once more, Davenhill now alert for any break in the trees.
'They wouldn't cause damage, though — would they?'
'Not unnecessarily.'
A few minutes later, Davenhill said excitedly, 'There 1'
'I see it.'
Waterford pulled into the side, and switched off the engine. There was a gap in the trees, probably caused by a felling operation, on a small scale, the previous summer. A wedge of trees had been lifted from the forest, a slice of dark cake.
Waterford got out, and said: Stay here. I don't want your fairy footsteps over that ground just yet.'
'Why not?'
'Because I am looking for something in particular.'
He walked away while Davenhill savoured the new ease in their relationship. Waterford, engaged in action, was easier. Not more human, enlarged in compassion. Merely distracted from bitterness; indifferent to his contempt for others.
Davenhill watched him kneel just off the road, and sweep gently at the powdery snow which crackled as its iced surface was disturbed. The sky was palely blue now, and high and empty. The scene, Davenhill observed, was losing its hostility, becoming photogenic.
'What are you doing?' he called.
Waterford went on brushing, over a wider area, his hand smoothing the snow aside until he exposed the packed ice-snow beneath. Then, eventually, he stood up.
'Bring the camera over here, would you?'
Davenhill joined him. Waterford had exposed, like the tracks of some strange species, the rutted ridges of caterpillar tracks. Tanks, or personnel carriers.
'Well done.' Davenhill observed, capitalising on a new familiarity. 'How many?'
'Just a few. Outriders. Some sort of advance guard, close to the road, ahead of the main column.'
'But they're not here now!' Davenhill burst out with the pure disappointment of a child.
'I should hope not. If they are, then there could be a couple of regiments, even a couple of divisions — in there.' He pointed towards the trees.
'Mm.' Davenhill photographed the exposed tracks, then said, 'What next?'
'Fancy a walk in the woods?
Waterford said, 'That depends. What are we looking for?'
'What we find. Come on — let's get the jeep off the road and under the trees, then we'll scout around a bit.'
For more than an hour they combed the ground beneath the trees, working gradually further into the forest, taking any path that suggested itself as wide enough for the passage of tanks. The search proved fruitless, and when they returned to the jeep, Davenhill was disappointed. He understood that they would find very little — perhaps nothing. But to kneel in drifts of snow, to part the blanket or examine the bark of trees for marks — was an invidious, tiring, frustrating job.
'We need to get further east.' Waterford observed, swallowing from a small flask which he then passed to Davenhill. Davenhill felt the brandy warm his stomach.
He said, 'What happened to Folley, Waterford?'
'Christ knows.' Waterford looked at.him, as if appraising some reaction. 'Probably dead. We know they've been here. He must have found them, too. And they found him — otherwise we could all be sitting in London listening to his report.' He looked at the camera, still slung round Davenhill's neck. 'Fuck,' he said softly. 'All we've got is some caterpillar tracks. I wonder what he saw?' He looked at the trees as if envisaging camouflaged vehicles beneath them.
'Where was the main body? The heavy stuff?'
'East of here.' He reached over and lifted a folded map from the pouch at the side of the door. He pointed a finger. 'Look, the forest is Y-shaped, stretching north and south of here. In either arm, I should think.'
'Where are they now, then?'
'Gone home?'
'Because of Folley? Perhaps they've called the whole thing off?' It was not a serious suggestion.
Waterford said, 'I doubt it. I think they had a dry-run. Timing would be of the essence to them — getting to Ivalo, then north-east to link up with a main attack.' He traced their route on the map. Davenhill, looking over his shoulder, nodded as he saw the line of advance unfold. Waterford pointed out Kirkenes, in Norway, and the road from the Russian border. 'That's where they'd cross,' he said. 'Down here would be the second thrust, to link up — oh, there.' His finger picked out Lakselv, on the Porsangerfjord. 'But they'd hop along that road with airborne troops, and land men by amphibs in the fjords.' He looked up at Davenhill. 'It would be a shit to stop them,' he added unnecessarily.
'A few pictures of tracks in the snow won't stop them, either.'
'What we want is Folley.' Waterford admitted. 'But he won't be in very good voice, even if we should find him.' He threw the map into the jeep. 'Come on, let's get moving.'
An hour later, they stopped for the fifth time. At each of their previous stops, they had inspected likely gaps in the hedge of the forest that pressed in on either side of the road. They had uncovered nothing. There was something phantas mal to Davenhill in the way a simple snowstorm had obliterated any trace of the forces he now knew had been on Finnish soil. Perhaps as recently as forty-eight hours ago. Folley — he thought of him with a wince of pain, sharing the man's route now — must have found them. And as Waterford had said, they had found Folley.
He climbed reluctantly out of the jeep, and trailed after Waterford towards a star-shaped pattern of forest rides that was obviously used to allow the passage of lumberjacking equipment and the removal of felled trees. It would appear that here they were at the heart of the forestry operations.
'How would they have known about these paths?' he called as a thought struck him.
Over his shoulder, Waterford said, 'Low-level photography — under the radar net, snap, snap, and off home. Easy.'
'I see.' He paused, as Waterford had done. Four trails snaked away through the forest. The trees seemed dense, heavy with snow, silent. 'Here?' he said.
'Here — if anywhere,' Waterford replied. Then he turned to Davenhill, and the younger man saw a flicker in the eyes, as if the blank mirrors had been removed. It was excitement, Davenhill thought. Perhaps love? Something strangely absorbing to the soldier. Then he understood it. The passion of the hunter close to the game. The spoor was beneath the thin film of snow at his feet. He could sense it. It did not make him like Waterford; but it added a kind of respect, and he placed himself more readily in his hands.
'What do we do?'
'Look. We'
ll need the jeep. Each one of these trails. And — watch out for felling work that may have taken place.'
As they walked back to the jeep, Davenhill said. 'Why were they here, Waterford? In my enthusiasm to believe, I didn't ask why.'
'Why? I don't know.' He started up the jeep, and pulled off the road, heading up the trail which most nearly paralleled the road from Ivalo. After a while, he said, 'The theory is — to succeed, at high speed, entails airborne operations, air-dropped supplies, all that kind of thing. That means transport aircraft. And they may not have sufficient. If so, an armoured column would take Ivalo, to support the lightest possible airborne assault. Then consolidate at Ivalo, air-drop light forces ahead, and follow up with armour. Sending armour up these roads…' He smiled as they bucked out of their seats. 'Like pouring a waterfall through a bottle-neck. Overcome lack of airborne transport by using armour as quick as you can. In this case, someone decided that it needed practice. The dry-run, as I said.'
'Then when will they be back?'
'I don't know.' He pulled off the track at that moment, into the softer snow under the trees. 'A nice tunnel,' he said enigmatically. Almost immediately, they came to a clearing, roughly circular. And the trees, shorn of branches, stacked as if for the spring. 'There.'
Davenhill sat in the jeep, absorbing the innocent looking clearing.
Waterford got out and cast about. Walking as if over a film of ice, he moved around the circle. Then Davenhill saw him stoop over the snow, brush at it with the tenderness of archaeology, then raise his hand to beckon him.
The snow beneath the freshest fall was stained with engine oil.
'This is it,' Waterford said. He stood up, and waved his arms around the clearing. 'Bright as a new pin.'
'What's under here?'
'Troy,' Waterford replied. 'Get digging.'
'So that's it,' Vorontsyev ended, looking at Alevtina and the three men gathered in a crowded, littered study. While he had talked, they had looked at the walls, eyes straying to the scattered files, the pasted, clipped strips of information.
There was no relief now that there was silence, no release. Rather, all four of the junior officers seemed insistently appalled by mental digestion of what they had heard.