Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves

  A bit of a blabbermouth, this Tinsdale. Bob asked him, Are there still trains passing through here northwards?’

  ‘Oh lord, yes. And you want to get away as soon as possible, we’re told. So I’ve got transport here, and – well, unless you’d care to come along to our Mess for a meal first—’

  ‘I’d sooner get on a train.’

  ‘Sure? Despite this long wait – for which I really do apologize—’

  ‘Not your fault at all. But no – thank you all the same.’

  ‘Right you are then, sir… Although I should mention there’s no way of knowing in advance when a train’s coming, or leaving, or—’

  ‘Only by being there when it does come. Shall we go?’

  After you, sir – please…’

  A Russian officer and half a dozen riflemen had met the whaler at the steps where Granger had put his boat alongside. There’d been several rifles pointing at him as he climbed the slippery stone steps, and others had been aimed down into the boat. Clumping his way up, one hand hefting the canvas holdall with his gear and food in it and the other resting on the pistol in his pocket, he’d been looking for red armbands or sashes amongst the reception committee. But it was all right – Taganrog was still in White hands, and after he’d shown the officer his papers and explained where he’d come from and what for, there’d been a considerable relaxation. Granger had been allowed to set off on his return journey to the ship, Bob had been ushered into this office at the end of a cargo-shed, which they were using as a guardroom, and the officer had gone off to telephone the British Military Mission, also to warn his own people about those launches heading up the gulf.

  That had been about an hour ago. He’d been left here with the two soldiers guarding him – ensuring that he stayed put, effectively, but according to the officer their purpose had been to ensure his safety until his own people came for him – ‘own people’ as represented now by this lieutenant of the Royal Fusiliers.

  *

  The car was an old Ford with a flapping canvas hood and a bearded Russian driver in a fur cap, ground-length coat and for some reason goggles. As they moved off, Tinsdale asked Bob, ‘Is it actually Kharkov you’re making for?’

  ‘The Kharkov region. I’ll know better when I get there.’

  ‘I see… And you’re confident you will get there?’

  Bob looked at him, through icy darkness. The Ford wasn’t anything like sleet-proof. It was grinding rather slowly through a typical docks area, bumping over rail-lines and pot-holes and weaving between the really deep ones.

  ‘You mean because things aren’t too good on that front at present.’

  ‘Might be nearer the truth to say they’re bloody awful, sir. At least, according to – well, can’t say there’s been any hundred-per cent reliable intelligence, this last day or two, but – well, for the last week – two or three weeks, I suppose—’

  ‘What’s the latest you’ve heard?’

  ‘Well – nothing specific, really. Rather startling numbers of dead and wounded – that kind of thing. But – rumour, none of it’s confirmed. Only thing is, it does rather fit into the picture we’ve been getting for quite a while now – Volunteer Army hanging on by the skin of its teeth, you might say… Oh, one thing – we’ve moved a Flight of 47 Squadron – RAF you know, intrepid birdmen with their Sopwith Camels? – they’ve been transferred to that front, passed through day before yesterday, as it happens.’

  ‘Well – that could make a lot of difference!’

  ‘Might stiffen a few sinews, that’s true, sir… And incidentally, General Holman’s gone up there, too. So I suppose it can’t be all that unsafe.’ He began to laugh, then checked himself, added, ‘Joke. Sorry, sir. Actually Holman’s rather a good egg.’

  ‘Commands the military missions – am I right?’

  ‘Commands all of us in south Russia. Instructors and advisors mostly – as you’ll know, sir. Holman took over earlier in the year from old Biggs.’ Grinning… ‘My God, there’s a character…’

  ‘What’s Holman doing? Tour of inspection?’

  ‘I suppose – up to a point… But – well, the assumption is that his tour’s not unconnected with plans for us all to be pulled out pretty soon.’

  Silence, now – except for the Ford’s thumping, rattling progress. There was a military guard-post ahead of them, as the driver negotiated a corner and the wheels began to thrum on cobbles. He drove with the awkward, jerky movements of a beginner: slowing even further, to no more than walking-pace. Making sure of being able to stop at the guard-post, perhaps. Bob meanwhile with food for thought, weighing up those two apparently contradictory items of information. The general was said to be touring his various missions in preparation for a withdrawal, but the transfer of a Royal Air Force unit to the threatened front certainly didn’t suggest passive acceptance of defeat. General Holman – it would be his responsibility and decision, presumably – would hardly be risking those pilots and their machines unless there was at least some reasonable prospect of the Volunteers holding on.

  In fact one might guess the intention would be to get the offensive on the move again. Not that one knew a damn thing about the Army – or the Air Force, for that matter…

  They’d stopped at the guard-post. A sergeant peered in at them, then called to another man to raise the barrier, and both saluted as the Ford lurched on through – at a snail’s pace – and swung left.

  Tinsdale cleared his throat.

  ‘We don’t see much of the Navy in these parts, sir. Quite a novelty, in fact.’

  ‘Be even more so at Kharkov, I imagine.’

  ‘Lord, yes…’ He added, after a pause: ‘May I ask – if it’s not a State secret – what kind of duty takes you that far inland?’

  ‘If I told you, you might not believe it.’

  ‘Oh, I swear—’

  ‘I’m looking for a brace of English governesses.’

  ‘Er –’ another clearance of the throat – ‘you said – governesses?’

  ‘Nurses now – in one of the Volunteers’ mobile field hospitals. Letuchki, as they’re called… You talk some Russian, do you?’

  ‘Well – darned little, I’m afraid—’

  ‘Letuchka number seven, anyway. These girls were employed as governesses in the Crimea, joined up as nursing aides and now their families in Britain want them found and sent home. As others have been, but this pair seemed to have disappeared – and – well, there you are.’

  ‘Yes. I see… Well, good heavens…’

  The motor was now trundling along a narrow street, tall housefronts on both sides, lights here and there haloed in the sleet. This was certainly better than walking, as he’d assumed he’d be doing.

  ‘How far now?’

  ‘Oh – a mile, or thereabouts… I was thinking – I very much hope there’ll be a train through in the next few hours, but—’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He added, ‘Long as there’s somewhere warm where I can wait.’

  At the extremity of the headlights’ beams a shadow – a man, the white of his face visible for a second and then averted – ran stooping across the road – joining two others on that corner… The car’s feeble lights on the three of them now, one with an arm up to shield his eyes as he turned – all three, stumbling, as if in panic – into a doorway – no, alleyway, there… Passing it now; pitch-black, empty. Tinsdale, who’d been peering out, wiping at the glass to see better, muttering angrily ‘Like rats – damn rats…’ then: ‘These governesses, sir – what I find puzzling is why would they give a job like this to – well, to a naval commander, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Which he didn’t much want to tell. But he gave him the gist of it – being on the staff of SO(I) at the Bosporus, the assumption that the girls would be somewhere on the Crimean coast, and now this second stage… ‘Matter of one thing leading to another, really.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see… And the imperative now – obviously,
the urgency is to get hold of them – get them out – before the roof falls in.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘I mean while the front still holds. Because once it cracks – well, my God—’

  ‘If it’s going to crack – yes. But if we’re reinforcing now, there’s no such immediate…’ He paused, leaning forward to stare over the driver’s shoulder across a sleet-swept open square… ‘Arrived, have we?’

  From the outside the station was palatial, incongruously so in the run-down area of devastated-looking railway yards through which they’d been passing in the last few minutes. A show-piece façade: one could imagine an official opening, twenty or thirty years ago perhaps, by some bewhiskered and bemedalled representative of the Tsar, applauding crowds around this great arched entrance with its pillars, and the dome above it. Dim lighting now, deep shadows across a cobbled forecourt where the car drew up – like something at its last gasp just managing to drag itself this far… And a voice, strident through the icy darkness – from a far corner of the square where a small mob of soldiers was being addressed by an individual standing on some kind of platform – farmcart probably. It was obviously a political harangue. Tinsdale muttered as he got out, ‘Bloody agitators…’

  ‘Morale not too high, hereabouts?’

  ‘Rock-bottom. The rumours don’t help. When things were going well, the swine were anti-Bolshevik to a man.’ He stooped to the driver’s window, told him in Russian, ‘Wait here.’

  ‘For how long?’

  In English – explosively – ‘Until I come back, damn it!’

  Bob cut in: ‘Only a few minutes. I won’t delay your lieutenant.’

  The dark eyes held his. Then he’d nodded. ‘Very well, Excellency.’

  Tinsdale grumbled, as they went in together under the arch, ‘You’re lucky, having the language. Bloody frustrating, otherwise.’

  ‘Must be.’ Pausing, looking around at the virtually deserted station. As gloomy and unwelcoming as any other railway station in the small hours of a miserably cold, wet night. Some benches were occupied by slumbering military-looking bodies, but there was very little movement, certainly nobody hurrying anywhere – possible implication being that there were no trains either coming or going. He told the younger man, ‘You’ve been very helpful. No need to hang around now, though. I’ll get on a train, all right – when there is one.’ A group of soldiers slouched past, a bottle going from hand to hand between them. Cropped heads, thin white faces, threadbare brown greatcoats, rifles, blanket-rolls… Tinsdale said, watching them with a look of contempt on his face, ‘I’d rather see you on your way, sir. Or at the very least find a waiting-room that has a fire in it.’

  ‘Very decent of you, but – oh, look there…’

  A lot better than any waiting-room – at any rate to an optimist – was the fact there was a train standing at the farthest platform. Or at least part of a train: from here he could only see the tail-end of it, three or four box-cars. He thought, All right, even that – if it’s going the right way…

  And if it had an engine attached to it, somewhere. Which it had – as indicated a second later by a rush of escaping steam – from that direction, vaguely, but out of sight, around the pillared corner that hid all the rest of it. Getting the smell of it too – steam, coal, oil, whatever, that worldwide railway reek… ‘Come on.’ He began to trot – clumping awkwardly in the seaboots. Knowing it was probably not about to leave – probably just goods cars being shunted – and that even if it was, it was as likely to be bound for Rostov, Ekaterinodar and Novorossisk as for the north. But also that if it steamed out now without him and it was the Kharkov train – well, you’d deserve all the frozen hours of waiting for the next one. Worse than that – infinitely worse – was an echo of Tinsdale’s phrase, before the roof falls in. It had annoyed him when he’d heard it, but in fact it was an entirely valid observation… He’d almost collided at the corner with two women, cloaked and hooded, one of them quite pretty and the other less visible but not ceasing her chatter as they both shrank back against a pillar and the two men lumbered by, Bob calling an apology. Then, rounding the corner, the whole length of the train was in view, another gush of steam belching up – suggesting imminence of departure. There was a crowd up there, too – or it looked from here like a crowd – filling that end of the platform, so if there were any passenger coaches that was where they’d be.

  Warning himself as he ran that whether there were or were not, whatever kind of a train this was it wouldn’t be going the way he wanted…

  He passed a corporal embracing a rotund, red-faced girl, the soldier’s arms reaching barely halfway round her. And two other soldiers nearby – older men, bearded, leaning against a box-car, staring. He shouted ‘Kharkov? This train for Kharkov?’ One took the pipe out of his mouth and laughed, bawled some answer in a heavy country dialect which Bob couldn’t make out, but the tone was derisive and the final words had been – decoding the meaning as they pounded on – If Kharkov’s still there!

  ‘Catch any of that?’ Over his shoulder to Tinsdale, who panted, ‘God, no!’ It seemed less than promising: he knew he’d be walking back this way in a minute, winded and feeling like a damn fool… But – there now – emerging from what was in fact only a sprinkling of people near the platform’s top end, abreast the engine more or less – was what looked like an official of the railway.

  It was, too. Short, squat, middle-aged, heavily moustached, in a tall, peaked cap and black coat, with a whistle on a brass chain as badge of office.

  Slowing to a walk… ‘Station Master?’

  ‘Excellency?’

  ‘This train’ – he was short of breath, but not as chronically as Tinsdale – ‘going to Kharkov, by any chance?’

  Blue-eyed stare, at Bob’s naval cap and insignia of rank: then he’d put a finger to the peak of his own cap.

  ‘Yes, Excellency. Passenger carriages up there.’ Magisterial wave of one hand towards the engine: as far as Bob was concerned that hand could have had a magic wand in it. Marvellous – almost too marvellous to believe… Here where they were standing was a flat-car with a tarpaulin-covered load on it, then a closed-in box-car, and beyond that, where this fellow was pointing, the passenger coaches.

  ‘Only two carriages, Excellencies – and fourth class, I regret to say – but there’s an adequacy of vacant berths. And the stoves are lit, you may be sure… May I see your Excellencies’ papers – a propusk, d’you have?’

  ‘Yes. Here.’ Propusk meaning a travel pass. ‘Train just leaving, is it?’

  ‘Oh no, sir…’ Glancing at Tinsdale – who pointed at himself and shook his head: ‘I – not travel’ – then turning back to Bob… ‘Regrettably, Excellency, this one won’t be leaving for – oh, at least one hour, perhaps two. There are some – problems.’ The blue eyes shifted, private anxieties showing through… A shrug, then: ‘Telegraphs not working, that’s—’

  ‘Needn’t have run.’ Tinsdale, rather irritatingly stating the obvious. He added, ‘But what luck, eh – what amazingly good luck?’

  ‘Thanks to you.’ Bob handed the man his pass. ‘I’d expected to have to hoof it. Might’ve got here by about first light – if I’d found the way, mind you.’

  ‘Angliskii…’

  ‘Britanskii – da.’

  Steam hissed deafeningly. For a train that wasn’t going to leave for an hour or two, they were wasting an awful lot of it. The official, carefully refolding Bob’s travel document and handing it back to him, waited until he could make himself heard, then enquired – with the strained air of a man forcing himself to be jocular, rising above adverse circumstances – ‘No battleship in your baggage, sir?’

  He managed a smile. ‘Not this trip. Why?’

  ‘Forgive me.’ Jerking a thumb back towards the flat-car and its tarpaulin-covered cargo. ‘My feeble sense of humour, Excellency. We have aviators on board – and they bring their flying machines, so I thought – well, a naval gentleman, now…’ The
insecurity was in his eyes again: even a slight tremor in his voice.

  As well there might be. If – or when – the Bolsheviks took over here, he’d last – what, ten minutes?

  *

  He found them – the aviators – in the nearer of the two carriages. Stopping abruptly – surprised at finding them so quickly – in the doorway of a compartment in the middle of the coach where he’d just climbed in… Ignoring Tinsdale’s shout from the platform – Tinsdale wishing him good luck for the third time, for God’s sake – and already appreciating the warmth as he stood looking in at these two men in khaki breeches, brown boots, sweaters under their military tunics, revolvers in holsters on their Sam Brownes. One was a major – neat moustache, eyebrows raised over brown eyes at this moment narrowed, speculative – and the other a captain, a smaller man with glossy black hair, bluish-black jaw, deepset blue eyes. This one nodded, after a brief inspection: ‘Zdrastye.’ Then in English – he might have heard Tinsdale’s final shout from the platform – ‘Or should I have said –’ he put on a stagey voice – ‘do come in, old fellow?’

  ‘Well, hold on there, Jim.’ The major, cutting in… ‘You know the goddamn rules, don’t you?’

  ‘Ah – sorry…’

  ‘Indeed, you should be.’ This major sounded American. A slimly-built man, wide-shouldered, who’d be tall if or when he stood up. About Bob’s own age: with medal ribbons that included a DSO and an MC with a bar to it. And the younger man had an MC… The major telling him, ‘No offence, sir, but this is Royal Air Force accommodation – exclusive, all that sort of rot… Grand Dukes and commissars may be admitted but only through personal introduction. You’re not a commissar, by any chance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well – Grand Duke?’

  The captain said, ‘Could’ve sworn you were a Russki, anyhow.’ Lilting intonation – Welsh… ‘That get-up – Navy, is it?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Royal, or Merchant?’

  ‘Royal. My name’s Cowan – Lieutenant-Commander. Levels with major, in case you didn’t know. But far be it from me to break your silly bloody rules, so—’