Afterwards, Gwen wasn’t sure what had been more magical about the ballet. Her engineering mind said the automatons, with how superbly they had been crafted, but the girl in her, that still remembered those nights in London, insisted that it had been the dancing itself, which had been every bit as good, if not better than what she had seen in Covent Garden.
Mac had complained at having to go to the ballet, but she was sure she had seen him laughing at the antics of the inventor and he had clapped just as loudly as everybody else during the curtain calls. Bruce had also been very reluctant, but when Mussorgsky took them backstage and introduced them to the ballerinas, he was very enthusiastic in his praise. Freddy Featherstonehaugh had stayed at the palace to fulfil his journalistic duties in reporting on the far more important state dinner, but he had sent Mr Jones along and the photographer took dozens of pictures of the pilots backstage with the company, making sure that the world would see that they weren’t just killers, but had an appreciation of culture as well.
Gwen congratulated the dancers, many of whom spoke excellent English and had danced on the London stage during tours, and got as many of them as she could to sign her programme, intending to keep it and put it with the rest of her collection at home. However, at the first opportunity, she slipped away to examine the automatons, wondering if they had some kind of mechanical brain, but was disappointed to find that they were merely incredibly complicated clockwork dolls, like in the libretto of the ballet.
In the end, the pilots stayed so long that Mussorgsky had to round them up and usher them out so that the dancers could prepare for the evening’s performance.
It was dark by the time they came out of the theatre and, while Mr Jones went to rejoin his partner at the palace, the Misfits piled back into the autocars to go to dinner.
The place that he took them to was only a few streets away from the palace and was a cross between a pub and a mess hall. It was dimly lit and decorated as if it were a wooden hut in the forest somewhere, with wooden beams overhead, wooden panelling on the walls and wooden furniture. A bar ran the length of one side of the room, behind which several men and women were kept busy fetching drinks, usually vodka, for the patrons, most of whom wore some uniform or other, the dark grey of the Air Service mixing freely with the dark blue of the Navy and the dull green of the Army. The rest of the space was taken up by long tables lined with cushioned benches, only about half of which were full.
The Misfits attracted a fair amount of attention as Mussorgsky led them across the room towards an empty table, but, unlike in the streets, nobody made much of a fuss of them, although the Captain was greeted by many of the people as he went past, quite a few of whom shot curious glances at the pilots and asked him questions, obviously about them. He didn’t stop to talk to them, though, but just shouted out answers to them, loudly so that the whole room could hear, and kept moving.
The table he took them to was one of the smaller ones in the room, seating only a dozen or so and it had apparently been reserved for them because there was a sign on it in Cyrillic writing. As soon as they sat down, a waiter appeared and whisked the sign away and, after a short discussion with Mussorgsky, the food and drink started to arrive.
The bottles of vodka were immediately attacked by Mac, Bruce and the Captain, but the rest of the pilots filled their glasses from the jugs with a tasty beer-like drink called “kvass” made from bread which, they were assured, was only lightly alcoholic.
‘A toast!’ Mussorgsky stood, holding his glass aloft. ‘To the Russian Empire and the British Empire, may they last forever! Za nashu druzjbu! To our friendship!’
‘To our friendship!’ The Misfits stood and clinked glasses with him.
The Muscovite threw back his head and downed his vodka in one gulp, followed by Mac and Bruce, but the others just settled for large gulps of their kvass.
The Captain smacked his lips and smiled at the Misfits. ‘Well, my friends. I was tasked with bringing you here tonight so that you could meet some of our fighting men and women.’ He gestured around the bar. ‘As you can see, this is where many of our soldiers come when they are off duty. Here you will find Royal Guards like me and aviators like yourselves, general officers and common privates. In this hall rank does not matter, regiment does not matter; here we are all united by a single purpose - to defend our home. We do not stand on ceremony, we mix, we make friends. Sometimes we even find lovers.’ He winked at Scarlet, who he had obviously already pegged as someone who enjoyed life to the full. ‘Do not feel that you have to stay at this table to eat; all the food is paid for by the Tsar and nobody will mind if you join them and sample what they have.’
He looked at Bruce and Mac. ‘There are a couple of women at the bar who have been looking at you two since we came in, perhaps you might satisfy their curiosity as to who you are?’
Bruce laughed. ‘You don’t have to tell me twice, mate!’ He slapped Mac on the shoulder. ‘Come on! On your feet soldier!’
Mac chuckled and picked up his glass as he stood. He gave the table a bow. ‘See yous in the mornin’!’
Scarlet stood up as well. ‘I see some likely looking lads over there, I’m going to see if I can get them to teach me some Russian!’
Mussorgsky turned to the few Misfits that remained. ‘And you, ladies? Gentlemen?’
Derek, Charles and Monty shared glances. None of them were heavy drinkers so that was off the table and they weren’t the most sociable of people, preferring more intellectual pursuits to romance. After a few seconds of silence Derek shrugged. ‘I think I saw some people playing with military figurines near the door.’
Mussorgsky chuckled. ‘Those would be our amateur tacticians, they like to recreate famous battles and discuss how the generals got things wrong, while showing how they would do things better if only they had the chance.’
Monty laughed. ‘That sounds like a discussion I could enjoy.’
‘Me too,’ said Chastity. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Monty smiled. ‘Of course not!’
The four stood and wandered off to the other end of the room.
The Captain looked back and forth between Kitty and Gwen, the last two pilots left, and nodded as if they had answered an unspoken question. ‘Perhaps you would like me to leave you alone?’
Gwen raised an eyebrow at his perceptiveness, but after a quick glance at Kitty she shook her head. ‘Actually, I wondered if I could ask you a question.’
‘My name, correct?’
‘How did you know?’
He shrugged. ‘It is the first thing that everyone asks, and yes, I am the great-grandson of Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky.’
‘Did you know him?’
The Captain laughed. ‘No! He died thirty years before I was born!’
Gwen chuckled wryly. ‘Sorry, I know the music, but not much about the man.’
‘That is fine. To tell the truth, neither do I!’
The three of them laughed and the captain turned to Kitty, about to ask her something, but, before he could, a woman arrived at their table and he immediately fell silent, giving her a nod.
The woman was in a grey Air Service officer’s uniform, but she was wearing a similarly coloured greatcoat over the top which hid the rank boards on her shoulders. However, by Mussorgsky’s respectful gesture the two Misfits could tell that she was a very high rank, one which required deference despite the Captain’s assertion that everyone was equal in the hall.
She was a rather plain woman, in her late thirties or early forties, but there was an air about her of quiet confidence that spoke of giving orders and having them obeyed without question.
She smiled at the Captain then spoke in excellent English as she offered her hand to the two Misfits in turn. ‘Good evening, Captain, ladies. My name is Ana, how do you do?’
‘Gwen.’
‘Kitty.’
After the pilots had shaken her hand, the woman she sat down opposite them, squeezing in next to a suddenly very nervous-l
ooking Mussorgsky. She nodded in the direction of Scarlet, who was in the centre of one of the noisier groups in the hall. ‘Your friend there told me that you had flown against one of our Polikasparov fighters.’
‘If they are what the “Wolfpack” squadron fly, then yes,’ said Gwen.
‘They are. And what did you think?’
Gwen thought carefully before replying, not wanting to offend. ‘They’re not bad at all. They’re very agile and should do well against most Prussian aircraft, but the MU9s and HH190s will pose a real problem for them.’
Gwen was surprised when the woman considered her words seriously instead of just dismissing them out of hand and insisting on the invincibility of Russian aircraft.
‘And what would you do to improve them?’
‘Well, for a start they would perform much better if they weren’t so covered in unnecessary decoration that spoils the airflow around them.’
The woman, Ana laughed. ‘True, true, but you try telling a Muscovite that he cannot express his individuality! What else?’
Gwen thought back to what she had seen of the fighter and how it had handled, picturing its design in her mind, seeing its thick wings with the four machine guns on each side, the wide fuselage. There was no point telling the woman that the design itself needed changing, though; the Muscovite war machine couldn’t afford to change existing machines, instead it had to use what it had the most effectively. ‘The faster Prussian fighters are going to want to use their superior speed to make passes at them rather than getting into a turn fight and the only thing your pilots can do is to try to use their manoeuvrability to always present their front to them. To capitalise on that you should equip them with heavy cannon instead of their eight machine guns and put more armour on them - you need to make the Prussians fear going head to head with them.’
The woman nodded. ‘Interesting idea and that would also help them to destroy the bombers when they come.’ She stood up. ‘I will see what I can do. Thank you and happy hunting.’ She gave them all a nod and a smile, which the Misfits returned, then patted Captain Mussorgsky on the shoulder, said something in Russian to him, then walked away to disappear into the crowd.
Kitty frowned at Gwen. ‘What was that about? Who was she?’
Gwen jerked her chin at the Captain, whose hand was shaking as he poured himself a vodka then downed it in one go. ‘No idea, but I’m sure he knows.’
‘I’m not sure if he’s up to telling us; the poor guy looks like he’s seen a ghost.’
‘Or run out of vodka.’
Kitty laughed with Gwen and the two women smiled at Mussorgsky, waiting for him to recover, but the man just continued to stare into his empty glass.
‘Captain?’ Gwen called out softly after several long seconds.
Mussorgsky came out of his trance and blinked at them, his eyes wide. ‘What? Sorry?’
Gwen raised an eyebrow at the haunted look on his face. ‘Who was that? Your wife? You look like she told you not to stay out too late or you’ll be sleeping on the sofa.’
Kitty joined in the teasing of the poor captain. ‘Or warned you against getting too close to us.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not married. That was Grand Duchess Anastasia.’
Gwen’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh, wow. You really weren’t kidding about the rank thing...’
Mussorgsky shook his head mutely.
‘So, what did she say to you before she left?’
‘I shouldn’t...’
‘Oh, come on, it’s just us. We won’t tell anyone else.’ The two women smiled, trying to put him back at ease and leaned forward over the table so that he didn’t have to raise his voice as much.
The Captain took a deep breath then looked them in the eyes. ‘She said that if anything happened to any of you tonight then I would be executed in the morning.’
Kitty craned her head to peer into the crowd, trying to spot the Grand Duchess. ‘Wow, and she seemed so nice...’
‘To us, maybe.’ Gwen huffed then looked back at Mussorgsky. ‘She wouldn’t really do that, would she?’
The Captain refused to meet her eyes and poured himself more vodka.
Gwen saw that the man was extremely uncomfortable with the subject, but she found the perfect excuse to change it when something the woman had said came back to her. ‘Polikasparov. She said that they were Polikasparov fighters. Isn’t that the Staff-Captain’s name?’
The Captain smiled weakly, grateful for her thoughtfulness. ‘The Second-in-Command of the Wolfpack is the son of the designer and manufacturer of the aircraft.’
Gwen rolled her eyes and laughed, trying to return the mood to what it had been before Anastasia’s visit. ‘Is there anybody in this country who isn’t related to someone famous?’
Mussorgsky nodded. ‘I'm sure there are a few people, yes. I just don’t know any’
Despite being sure that Anastasia wouldn’t carry out her threat, even if something happened to one of the Misfits, the mood had been spoiled and not even the sight of Scarlet joining in with some traditional singing and dancing then regaling the hall with a rather bawdy Irish folk song could restore them to the carefree attitude of before. In the end Gwen and Kitty decided to call it a night and go off to get some sleep after an hour of food and conversation with the Captain. Mussorgsky had to stay to keep an eye on the rest of the squadron, and while he went to find a soldier to escort them to their assigned quarters, the two Misfits wandered over to the bar where Bruce and Mac were still drinking with the women, both junior army officers, who the Captain had pointed out.
Bruce introduced his partner as Natasha, a good-looking dark-haired woman in her early twenties and Mac introduced his as Katerina, who was slightly older than her friend, but stunningly beautiful, with blonde hair that was a shade lighter than Kitty’s and almost as fair as Polikasparov’s. The women nodded politely to Gwen and Kitty, but it was clear that Gwen and Kitty were interrupting something, and they were relieved when Mussorgsky came back with a young army officer in tow to take them to their billets. They said goodnight to Mac and Bruce, who barely heard them, then went to tell the others that they were leaving. Chastity decided to accompany them, but Charles, Monty and Derek were caught up in recreating the Battle of Waterloo, so it was just the three of them who followed the soldier out into the night.
Their new coats were surprisingly effective against the chill air and it was only a short distance, less than half a mile, so they elected to walk instead of going by autocar so that they could better appreciate the city, which was even more beautiful by night than it had been during the day.
The air was crisp and very clean, with none of the particulates or pollutants from steam engines in the air that plagued most other major cities, mainly because there were virtually no such engines in regular use in Muscovy. In the past, Russia had always been a big proponent of clockwork, using it for everything that they could and only consenting to use steam when they absolutely had to. They had never been satisfied, though, and had always sought an alternative to the dirty and inefficient technology.
Early attempts to harness electricity as an effective replacement failed, but then, in 1881, Fyodor Blinov, one of the scientists who had been instrumental in the invention and introduction of farming machinery throughout the country, had come up with a spring powerful enough for a small vehicle - the precursor of the ones that were now in universal use in things like the Misfit’s fighter aircraft. His idea was developed and expanded and in the space of only a few years, steam power had become almost extinct, the only remnants being the long-distance trains like the one they had come to the city in and the larger vehicles used by the army and for transporting heavy goods. So, the few autocars that passed them on the streets were naturally all spring-powered and silent, as were the clockwork trams that went by, hissing along shining brass tracks inlaid into the streets, providing public transport for free to the populace. The trams were strangely proportioned iron and glass boxes, which were tall and
double-decked, but thin and quite short and looked like a stiff breeze would topple them easily. They were painted in gay colours and with gold leaf on their sides proclaiming their destination and moved along on rubber wheels with metal strips attached that slotted into the tracks in the streets. The pilots followed a couple with their eyes as they went past, curious to the mechanisms that ran them, and the officer offered to flag one of them down for them. The pilots were tempted, wanting a closer look, but in the end they refused, just like they had the autocars and instead continued their leisurely stroll through the almost deserted streets.
The Prussian bombardments that had plunged night-time London into darkness hadn’t reached St. Petersburg yet and all the major buildings they could see were brightly illuminated by electrical arc lamps, giving them a pale white glow and making them seem to float above the ground.
Immediately outside the dining hall was St. Isaac’s Cathedral and they wandered arm-in-arm around it, taking in its huge golden dome, shining to rival the sun in the artificial light. The rest of the white stone building was liberally embellished and highlighted with an abundance of gold leaf, but they were surprised to see that there wasn’t a single cogwheel in sight and, when questioned, the soldier explained that the only symbols allowed on churches in Muscovy were ones that pertained to religion.
Past the cathedral was a wide boulevard that ran alongside a park with twinkling lights in its trees, which fronted the large building that was the Navy Headquarters. This building, despite being military in nature, was also brightly illuminated and, unlike the cathedral, its designers had felt no compunction against plastering it with symbols of a less esoteric nature and gold sextants warred with bronze compasses, which fought with brass telescopes that contested silver anchors for space on its walls. All surrounded by the ubiquitous cogs.
The Russian Resistance Page 23