Windrush: Crimea (Jack Windrush Book 2)

by Malcolm Archibald

  'You will forgive me if I keep you two gentlemen apart,' Kutuzov said. 'I do so like it when my guests stay a while, and somehow I suspect that leaving you together might tempt you to try and escape. I assure you that I have guards all around the house and they have orders to shoot on sight. I think of my guests as family and an unnecessary death in the family is always unpleasant, don't you agree?'

  'Oh assuredly,' Maxwell gave a little bow. 'You are quite correct of course, Major Kutuzov. We will try to escape as soon as we can.'

  Kutuzov gave another of his little heel-clicking bows. 'As you should, of course, Colonel. I will warn my guards to be especially vigilant. They will kill you if they catch you.'

  'Well then,' Maxwell said, 'they had better not catch us.'

  'There is a very simple solution,' Kutuzov said. 'You can give me your parole, either for twenty-four hours at a time or the duration of your visit to Sebastopol. That way you will have the freedom to wander in the city.'

  Jack glanced at Maxwell, seeing him properly for the first time. He was about five foot ten inches in height, with mobile, humorous eyes and a new bruise above his left eye.

  'I would never have ordered you to surrender to save my life,' Maxwell said.

  'I could not continue and have you murdered,' Jack told him.

  Maxwell nodded. 'This is not the place to discuss such things.'

  'Do I have your parole, gentlemen?' Kutuzov's smile did not falter.

  'Certainly not,' Maxwell said at once. 'You have my men in captivity, and you shall also have me.'

  'As you wish, Colonel. And you, Lieutenant Windrush?' Kutuzov asked.

  'I am with Colonel Maxwell,' Jack said.

  'You may change your minds later,' Kutuzov said. 'If so you may ask your guards to notify me. Are you both certain that is your choice?'

  'Certain, sir,' Jack said.

  'I have said as much.' Maxwell gave Kutuzov a look that may have been disgust that his word could ever be doubted.

  'Then I shall have you both escorted to your new quarters.' Kutuzov gave another bow and snapped something to the Cossack guards, who came at the double, bayonets fixed and eyes wary.

  With a Cossack at each elbow and one at his back, Jack was quickly separated from Maxwell and hustled out of the house. It was nearly dawn, and the streets of large, clean buildings were busy with men in military and naval uniforms. He saw no woman as the Cossacks hurried him through a doorway flanked by two flaming torches into a sizeable factory-style building where there were more uniforms and more Cossacks; then a flight of stairs descending to a solid door guarded by two hefty-looking guards.

  After a short conversation with the Cossacks, the guards opened the door, and Jack was hustled through and down another flight of steps to a broad, vaulted stone corridor that stretched into the gloomy distance and off which were half a dozen iron-studded wooden doors.

  'This is not as nice as that last house,' Jack tried to make light of his situation although he was beginning to wonder if he had made the correct choice. The Cossacks did not reply but lifted a bunch of medieval- looking keys from a hook on the wall, unlocked one of the doors and pushed him inside.

  He sprawled on a stone-flagged floor and heard the door clang shut behind him. The sound seemed to resonate inside his head for a long time.

  Darkness. Only darkness. For an instant, Jack was back in the trench buried under a pile of dirt after the shell had exploded. He fought the panic, took a deep breath of the stuffy air and pushed himself to his feet. The darkness already looked less intense, and he realised he was in a bare stone chamber with a vaulted ceiling, lit by two tiny arched windows. He became aware that he was not alone; simple wooden bunks lined the walls, each one occupied by a man.

  'Morning sir. So you decided to join us then?' Sergeant O'Neill raised his voice. 'Right lads: officer in the room. Stand to attention!'

  'Thank you, men,' Jack said as he acknowledged O'Neill's salute. 'Relax now; this is no place for parade ground drill.' There were a dozen men present, all British soldiers. Logan was there, with Coleman and men from other regiments. 'Where's Riley?'

  'Not with us, sir.'

  'I see that, O'Neill. Do you know where he is?'

  'They asked our names, sir and that Cossack major looked at us right close and then hustled him away. I don't know where they took him.'

  Jack nodded. That did not sound good. Why would the Russians single out Riley? The only possible reason was for the burglary at Dar-il-Sliem.

  'Thank you, O'Neill. Major Kutuzov appears to be a gentleman. He gave his word that we would be well treated, so I have no reason to think otherwise.'

  'Do you know where we are sir?' O'Neill asked. 'We were hurried here so quickly I did not have a chance to look.'

  'In a large building in central Sebastopol,' Jack told him. 'That is all I saw. The Russians took me to a short interview with Major Kutuzov and then brought here.'

  'What do we do now, sir?' O'Neill asked.

  'Nothing,' Coleman slipped onto one of the bunks, lay on his back and folded his hands behind his head. 'We sit tight as a bug until the war ends and we are exchanged and sent home. No more digging trenches; no more cookhouse duties, no more getting killed by Russian cannonballs.'

  Logan lifted a stray boot from the bunk beside him and threw it at Coleman. 'Maybe you like being in jail, you bugger, but I dinnae.'

  'Does it bring back too many memories then?' One of the other soldiers asked and swore when Logan threw another boot at him and jumped off the bed to finish things.

  'Enough!' Jack was glad that O'Neill was present to separate the two. 'Let's see if there is any way out of here. Like Logan, I don't fancy being in a Russian jail until they decide to exchange prisoners.'

  'Why bother? We're safe and dry, and the rations won't be any worse than when we were in the army.' Coleman said.

  'You're still in the army,' Jack said.

  'You made us surrender,' Coleman said, 'and now you want us to get out.'

  'That's enough from you,' O'Neill said, 'any more and I'll have you on a charge.'

  The other men in the room, privates from the 118th foot and wounded men from other regiments looked on with interest.

  'What regiment are you lot from?' The Rifleman had both legs swathed in bandages.

  '113th Foot,' Logan said defiantly. 'How?'

  The Rifleman groaned. 'The bloody Baby Butchers. Stop grousing and leave real soldiers in peace for God's sake.'

  'How do you mean: real soldiers!' Logan reacted predictably until O'Neill pulled him back.

  'Let it rest, Logan. He doesn't know us yet.'

  'Coleman,' Jack said, 'poke at the walls and see if there are any weaknesses. O'Neill, try the door. They locked us in, but the locks may be weak. Logan; you're the smallest here, see if you might fit through the window.'

  'And how am I going to get up there?' Even at full stretch, Logan was three feet short of the window.

  'Get on my shoulders,' one of the 118th got out of bed. 'Come on Sawnie.' He knelt on the bed immediately below the window and allowed Logan to mount his shoulders.

  'The window is too wee,' Logan said, 'and it's barred as well.' He tugged at the bars. 'Firmly set in the stone as well. Bloody Russians.'

  'How about the door, O'Neill?'

  'Solid oak sir and the lock is huge. The hinges are set in stone as well.'

  'The walls?' Jack felt his hopes slide away.

  'Stone, sir. I can't see anything but stone.' Despite his earlier complaints, Coleman was pushing at the walls.

  'We'll have to think of another way, then,' Jack said. 'Anybody have any ideas?'

  Most of the soldiers stared blankly at him. Officers in the British Army did not ask their men's opinion of anything let alone ask for original thought. Infantry soldiers were there to follow orders and kill or die on demand. Nothing else. Only his men of the 113th responded.

  'We could wait till they feed us, kill the guard and break out.' Logan said.
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  'Or try and break the lock at night-time,' O'Neill was slightly more practical.

  'Even then, we are in the basement of some huge building with Russian guards everywhere,' Jack pointed out.

  The Russians had taken his watch, so he had no method of judging the time. He began to pace the floor, walking up and down between the rows of bunks as he tried to think of a solution. After a while he realised he was only tiring himself out and irritating the patient soldiers, so he found a vacant bunk and lay down, hands behind his head.

  He was in that position when the door opened, and half a dozen Russian soldiers entered. True to his nature, Logan threw himself at them, to be banged over the head with a musket butt and kicked as he lay on the floor. Two of the Russians grabbed Jack and hauled him outside, slamming the door behind him.

  'You are the officer?' A man Jack took to be in charge asked. 'You are Windrush?'

  'I am Lieutenant Windrush,' Jack agreed and they pushed him across the broad corridor and down another flight of stairs to a small room. They opened the door and shoved him inside.

  'What the devil?'

  Four men stood there. One was as broad as he was tall, with a flat, ugly face and forearms like a blacksmith. The second was Major Kutuzov, smiling as he watched Jack stare at him in confusion. The third was the tall man with the eye-patch, and the fourth was slender, elegant and thoroughly sinister.

  'Lieutenant Windrush,' Kutuzov was still smiling. 'I am sure you know why you are here.'

  Jack looked around the room. It held a wooden chair and a flat, bare table with ominous looking straps across it. In one corner was a vast sink brimming with water, in another there was a brazier.

  'I know I am a prisoner of war,' he heard the nervousness in his voice. 'And as such am entitled to decent treatment. You gave your word for that.'

  'I did.' Kutuzov said, 'and I will keep my word. All British or French army officers or men who fall into my hands by the fortunes of war will be treated correctly.'

  Jack looked around. 'So what is this place?'

  'This is an interrogation room,' Kutuzov said. 'This is where we find out truths that the owner may sometimes be…' he exchanged a smile with the man with the eye-patch, 'reluctant to share.'

  'It is a torture chamber,' Jack said.

  Kutuzov shrugged. 'Some may call it that.'

  'I am a British officer,' Jack said, 'and I demand to be treated as such.'

  'You are also a spy,' Kutuzov said, 'and could be treated as a spy.'

  'I'm no spy!' Jack protested as the squat man wrapped those powerful arms around him, lifted him bodily and dumped him on top of the table. The elegant man was waiting there and with moves so swift they must have been practised a score of times, the pair of them spread-eagled Jack face up and strapped him securely.

  Kutuzov smiled down on him. 'You do not look very comfortable there, Lieutenant Windrush. I saw you at in Malta as you fled the scene of your theft, and never thought to see you again until I heard that you were at that encounter at the Alma.' He gestured to the man with the eye-patch. 'My compatriot here witnessed you hiding behind the savages in skirts.'

  Jack hoped that his glare conveyed at least some of his dislike while hiding the fear that gnawed at him.

  'And then you played that dirty trick on me with the explosive dummy.' Kutuzov shook his head. 'That gave me both your name and your regiment. The infamous 113th Foot, the Baby Butchers. Your commander, the sickly Colonel Murphy is every inch the English gentleman and would not dream of further sullying the name of his regiment by allowing an officer to be captured using such dishonourable methods. How fortunate for us all.'

  Kutuzov shook his head. 'Except you, of course, my dear young spy.' He lit a long cheroot and inhaled slowly. 'I had to wait until you were on picket duty and then lose some of my Cossacks to capture you. The gallant Colonel Maxwell was a fortunate happenchance.' He drew on his cheroot until the end glowed red and touched it to Jack's forehead.

  Jack flinched and pulled away as best he could.

  'Now my young spy. I do not think that you would go to Dar-il-Sliem in Malta without orders. All you have to tell me is who sent you and what your orders were, and then there will be no more unpleasantness.'

  Jack looked around. There was no point in yelling for help, and he was prepared to guess that Kutuzov already knew more about Bulloch than he did. All the same, honour dictated that he should say nothing. 'I do not know,' he said.

  'Then we shall have to help you know,' Kutuzov said. 'My two companions here are very experienced in making people remember what they do not know.'

  'I am sure that they are,' Jack tried to hide his fear.

  Kutuzov stepped back. 'We will leave you to think about what may happen, Lieutenant Windrush. When we return, I hope to find you in a more amenable frame of mind. We will leave a lantern on in case the dark scares you.'

  The four men left, with only the aroma of Kutuzov's cheroot and the horrors of Jack's imagination to remind that they had been there. He tugged at the straps, becoming ever more frustrated as he realised he was unable to do anything other than lie there and wait for whatever nightmare Kutuzov and his colleagues had in mind. He swore softly and desperately to himself, repeating the mantra: 'I am not a spy: I am not a spy' while hating the knowledge that he had acted as one and had been caught out.

  'If I had joined the Royal Malverns I would never have been asked to act the spy.'

  By leaving the lantern burning, Kutuzov had allowed him to view the other objects in the room, which fed his imagination, as was probably intended. He wondered to what use the sink could be put, or the brazier, and the hooks he now saw in the ceiling.

  'This is like something out of the Spanish Inquisition,' he said. 'Damn it to hell, I am a British officer, and this is 1854, not 1554.' He tore at the straps again, pointlessly. He had not expected life as an army officer to include this sort of experience.

  He heard the faint click of the door and tensed himself for the torture to come. 'Good evening Sir. If you hold on a moment, I'll soon have you out of these things.'

  'Riley!' Jack looked up. 'How did you get free?' He could not express his relief.

  Riley began to unfasten the straps. 'Their locks are ancient, sir. It was easy to open the cell door.'

  'How did you know I was in here?'

  'Just a guess sir,' Riley had his arms unfastened and began work on his legs. 'They had me in here, you see, so it was not hard to work out that you would be next.'

  Jack sat up, rubbing the places where the straps had bit into his flesh. 'I am happy to see you, Riley.' That was an understatement.

  'Glad to see you too, sir.' Riley sounded unemotional, as all public school boys should be.

  'What sort of questions were they asking you?' When Jack slid off the table his legs were shaking so much he nearly fell.

  'Careful there sir; you're all a tremble.' Riley supported him with strong hands. 'Take a minute now, or you'll be on the ground.'

  'Thank you, Riley,' Jack took a deep breath and stepped free. 'I came over a bit dizzy there.'

  'Yes, sir. They were asking who sent us to Dar-il-Sliem and what we were looking for, sir.' Riley kept his hands stretched out.

  'Did you tell them anything?'

  'No, sir. It was not hard to convince them that I was only a simple private soldier and I knew nothing.' His smile reminded Jack of a sixth form schoolboy. 'Their private soldiers are only peasants sir. They would not have the ability to crack a crib or the imagination to know what to do even if they did.'

  'Some officers think that about our men.' I wish I had not said that.

  'I am sure there are sir, just as there are some of the men who would not believe the officers know what day it is.' Riley stepped back. 'Begging your pardon sir.'

  Jack did not hide his smile. 'I think you and I know better. There are many very good men in the ranks, and fine men among the officers.'

  'Yes, sir. This way if you please,' Riley ope
ned the door a crack, peered outside, gave a brief nod and slipped out. Jack joined him, feeling a mixture of relief at having left the torture chamber and apprehension at the thought of being caught again.

  'This way again sir, if you please.' Rather than heading up the stairs Riley pushed open the door to steps that led downward. 'Watch your head, sir; it's rather low and dark here.'

  'How did you find this?' Jack winced as he banged his head.

  'People are predictable, sir. Escapees would run to the nearest exit; so it's better to head in the opposite direction, the place the Russians won't look.' Riley stopped at a small door halfway down the stairs. 'The door's locked, sir, so give me a second.' There was a gentle click. 'There we go: may I go first, sir?'

  'Yes, lead on, MacDuff.'

  The door led to complete darkness until Riley lit a lamp and Jack saw they were in a long stone chamber. 'I've no idea what this room is, sir, but it's out of the way and empty so it will do us just now.'

  Jack nodded. 'Let's hope nobody comes here while we decide what's best to do.' Somehow it seemed correct to use the inclusive 'we' rather than 'I' as an officer should. 'Now can we get out of this blasted building, Riley?'

  'We can try sir,' Riley hesitated a moment, 'I don't like leaving the men behind sir.'

  'No more do I, Riley.' Jack said.

  'I mean sir, I would prefer to take Logie and the rest along with us, or at least try to.'

  Jack considered the idea. 'Is that practical, Riley? Two of us may slip out of the building somehow but half a dozen men, or more if the other prisoners join us, will be hard to keep quiet.'

  'We can try, sir.' Riley did not withdraw, and Jack was struck with the loyalty that the men in the ranks displayed for each other. He had been brought up to believe that only gentlemen had such qualities as faithfulness, while the rankers were little better than beasts or children, and infinitely less important than horses. That, he had learned, was patently untrue and time and again he had witnessed scenes of amazing devotion and selflessness from the men.

  'The Russians will treat them fairly,' Jack had no doubts about that. He knew that the British or the French would do their best for prisoners of war, while spies were brave but seen as dishonourable and treated as criminals by all sides. That was just the way things were.