The Russian Resistance

by Simon Brading

  A few minutes later, they passed into the marble-paved square in front of the Winter Palace, where they had met the Tsar. They weren’t staying there, though, and they left its brightly lit, but remarkably unadorned, green and white façade behind as they turned right into the smaller streets that surrounded it.

  Their quarters were only a few streets away in a building that overlooked one of the smaller rivers running through the city. A couple of guards had been posted on the street door and there were several others inside, playing chess just inside the entrance.

  The Misfits had been allocated the top floor in its entirety and a clanking clockwork lift took the three pilots and the soldier up to where another guard was waiting in front of a large wooden door. He opened it for them and saluted as they went past.

  Their guide followed them inside. ‘Your bags in bedrooms. Captain Mussorgsky come get you at seven and a half for go to train.’

  The women smiled, thanking him for the escort and he grinned, saluted them and left.

  As soon as the man had gone, Gwen deflated, or at least tried to in the painfully tight corset. ‘I don’t know about you gals, but I need to get out of this damn uniform.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘You still haven’t gotten used to it?’

  ‘Not one bit and I don’t think I ever will. I think, instead of asking the King to let us wear these, admittedly rather fabulous, fur coats we should get him to let us wear our flightsuits as dress uniforms.’

  Chastity wrinkled her nose. ‘You mean go out in public wearing form-fitting leather? Don’t you think that would be rather indecent? Besides I rather like these uniforms and we don’t get nearly enough chances to wear them in my opinion.’ She turned to admire herself in one of the several floor-length mirrors next to the exterior door, fluffing up her skirts and the white petticoats beneath them until the outer ones stuck out almost horizontally.

  Gwen gave herself a brief glance and couldn’t help but cringe; apart from the coat, which was truly spectacular and she hoped would be added to the Misfits’ uniform, she wouldn’t normally have been caught dead in anything like the getup which comprised the RAC’s dress uniform, no matter how fashionable; the corset didn’t look bad and gave her a nice figure, which she didn’t actually have, but the skirts and the voluminous and far too numerous matching petticoats underneath gave her the aspect of some kind of cake decoration.

  Kitty came and stood beside Gwen. Her eyes travelled up and down Gwen’s body appreciatively, lingering momentarily on her bosom. ‘You look lovely, Gwen, but I do have to admit I like you better in a flightsuit as well.’ She grabbed Gwen’s hand and made a show of trying to pull her away. ‘Now come on, let’s get you out of these clothes!’

  Gwen laughed as Kitty started playfully tugging at her clothing, batting at her hands but not making too much of an effort to stop her, but then blushed and froze when she caught Chastity staring at them - it seemed that the new Misfit pilot either hadn’t quite realised where the American’s interests lay or was even more innocent than she looked. She cleared her throat and waved vaguely in the direction of the bedrooms. ‘Why don’t we go and see where our stuff is.’

  After having a quick bath and getting changed for bed, the three women went and sat in the small sitting room that was just beyond the reception room to wait for the others.

  Abby, Owen and Wendy arrived an hour or so later, shortly after eleven, all three looking exhausted and not a little bit green after having sat through such a long dinner, but it was well past midnight when the rest of the Misfits showed up, Derek and Monty all but carrying an almost comatose Bruce between them.

  ‘What the hell happened to him?’ Abby laughed, but then frowned when she saw that they were missing a Misfit. ‘Where’s Mac? Wasn’t he with you?’

  Charles grinned and spoke up in his soft voice. ‘Mac has apparently fallen in love. He’s gone for a midnight walk along the river with Katerina. He’s not nearly as drunk as this daft bugger,’ he patted Bruce fondly on the head, ‘and he promised he’d be waiting for us at the Palace before eight tomorrow.’

  Abby sighed. ‘I certainly bloody hope so otherwise there’ll be hell to pay.’

  Gwen shared a glance with Kitty and by the American’s wide-eyed expression saw that the same thing had occurred to her and that they had to hope that if Mac did indeed miss the train, it wouldn’t be enough to bring down the Grand Duchesses ire on Captain Mussorgsky.

  To the relief of everybody, Mac was waiting for them when Captain Mussorgsky delivered them to the palace the next morning at eight. Bleary eyed and hungover and still in his dress uniform, now quite dishevelled, he nonetheless had a huge smile on his face.

  ‘Good night, Mac?’ asked Abby with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Best ever. Thanks for not sending the Ruskies out looking for me, Abby.’

  ‘You haven’t betrayed my trust yet, Mac,’ she looked around the group. ‘None of you have. And that means you all get the benefit of the doubt.’ She smiled sweetly at them. ‘But I will be very disappointed if you ever do.’

  Campbell, along with Featherstonehaugh and Mr Jones were also on the platform waiting for them, the Sky Commodore looking almost as bad as Mac. She didn’t smile when she approached Abby, though. ‘Safe journey back, Abby.’

  ‘Thank you. You’re not coming with us?’

  Campbell shook her head then grimaced and put a hand to her temple. ‘I wish, but I’ve got too much to do here; Sir Robert Swollocks, the Ambassador was supposed to have been taking care of negotiations for the alliance between Britain and Muscovy, but he’s gone missing, so I’m stuck doing it.’

  Abby frowned. ‘Gone missing? What does that mean?’

  ‘Just that - that nobody knows where the hell he is. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him for a few days.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  Campbell shrugged. ‘No idea. What it does mean, though, is that I can’t go to Vaenga to take command, so you’re going to have to do it. You’re going to have to run the whole show up north until I can get away, which, by the way it looks now, might not be until it’s all over. The people in Archangel and Murmansk are going to include you in their planning sessions, so I’m afraid you’re going to be very busy the next few weeks and not just flying. However, and I know it’s scant compensation, but I have spoken to Whitehall and managed to arrange for you to have a field promotion to Group Captain, so at least you’ll be the same rank as any of the Muscovite pilots and won’t have any problems there.’

  Abby opened and closed her mouth like a fish, for once not quite knowing what to say, either about her sudden promotion, or the responsibilities that had been unexpectedly thrust upon her.

  Campbell laughed and stepped forward into the silence to give her friend a hug. ‘You take care of yourself, Abby, alright? And take care of our boys and girls. Get them all home safely.’

  Dot gave Abby a last squeeze then stepped back and looked around the squadron. ‘I have to get upstairs; today we’re discussing canned vegetables. It promises to be very exciting.’

  The pilots laughed sympathetically, not wishing for one moment to be in her shoes.

  Campbell drew herself up and fixed her eyes on Abby. ‘Happy hunting, Group Captain.’

  Abby stood to attention and saluted smartly. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  After they had said goodbye to Captain Mussorgsky and thanked him for taking care of them, the Misfits climbed onto the train.

  Freddy Featherstonehaugh and Mr Jones weren’t going with them. They were staying in St. Petersburg for a few days to cover the negotiations and Chastity again tried Abby’s patience by saying a prolonged farewell to the journalist. Finally, though, blushing furiously, she joined the rest of the squadron and they waved to Campbell through the lounge windows as the train pulled out of the station. However, as soon as they had been swallowed by the tunnel that would take it out of the city to the north, they surrounded their commander and bombarded her with congratulations.<
br />
  Abby wasn’t very happy, though. ‘Thank you, everyone.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Owen asked. ‘You’ve finally gotten that scrambled egg for your hat you’ve always wanted!’

  Instead of smiling happily like the rest of her pilots, Abby just sighed. ‘That’s nice, yes, but I can’t help feeling that it’s just a consolation prize.’

  Chapter 16

  A waiter informed the Misfits that breakfast was ready for them and they eagerly made their way to the dining car, but Mac said he wasn’t hungry and headed straight to bed, telling everyone in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t to be woken until they arrived at Vaenga.

  The pilots had a slap-up English breakfast, which had been specially prepared for them from fresh supplies obtained from the palace, and then, when they were all stuffed, they trooped up to the glass observation deck to talk, feel the sun on their faces and gaze out at the scenery in comfort while their food went down.

  St. Petersburg had disappeared behind them by that time and the sun was well and truly up, although it was still low to the horizon because of how far north they were. The weather had been fine, as the Indian summer that they had been experiencing in England seemed to have followed them, but there had been a bite to the air as they had walked to the palace that morning which presaged the winter to come and made them wrap their new coats more firmly around themselves.

  The morning passed very pleasantly, with tea and hot chocolate whenever they wanted it and elevenses actually served at eleven with an assortment of pastries and a very nice traditional Russian layered honey cake which Gwen remembered having eaten quite a lot of when she’d been in St. Petersburg with her parents. But then, at twelve, just as some of the pilots were considering going to the sleeping car to join Mac in a nap, a shadow flickered across the train.

  Every single one of the Misfits immediately squinted up into the cloudless sky, wondering what had passed over, expecting it to be a Muscovite aircraft, on patrol. They had been shown a map of the route the train was taking on the way to St. Petersburg and the Finnish border was only thirty or forty miles from the tracks at some points of the journey, so it was entirely possible that Muscovite squadrons were posted nearby, safely out of bombardment range but within scouting distance.

  ‘There!’ Kitty had the sharpest eyes of the lot of them and it was she who managed to first pick the black speck out of the blinding glare of the low sun. The other pilots followed her arm and encountered it with ease.

  Gwen frowned. ‘That’s...’

  ‘Down! Everybody down!’

  Abby’s shout had the pilots diving for cover behind the sofas just in time as the HH190 opened fire and the train rocked from the impact of its guns.

  The Prussian fighter streaked past with a roar, only yards over the top of the train and climbed back into the sky.

  ‘It’s coming around for another run!’

  Charles’ panicked cry had them scrambling around the opposite side of the sofas to put them in the way again, but Gwen knew that they would be scant protection against the twin cannon that the fighter had mounted under its nose and she called at Abby. ‘We have to get downstairs and find some proper cover, maybe get off the train and into the woods; we’re sitting ducks here.’

  Abby nodded. ‘I know, but it’s too late now. After this pass.’

  ‘Here it comes.’

  Derek’s voice was calm, and Gwen lifted her head to stare; he was standing with his hands on his hips looking up at the fighter with interest, having come to the same conclusion she had, that the sofas wouldn’t protect them from the guns. However, she knew that the bullets weren’t the only threat - if the fighter hit the observation deck it wouldn’t just be a direct hit that the people sheltering inside would have to contend with, but razor-sharp glass shards as well. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly that, prepared to physically tackle him and get him behind a piece of furniture if he didn’t heed her words, but his gleeful laugh and exultant cry stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘Go on! Get the bastard!’

  Gwen peered over the top of the sofa and looked up at the Prussian fighter. There were two other aircraft honing in on it and as she watched it broke off its run and turned sharply, diving away, heading back towards friendlier skies, pursued by the Muscovites, but it was obvious straight away that they were never going to catch it; it was much faster than they were.

  The aircraft disappeared behind the trees and the Misfits slowly got to their feet and looked around.

  ‘Is everybody alright?’ Abby looked around, searching for injuries.

  Bruce had a small trickle of blood coming from below his hairline and he shrugged when everyone looked at him. ‘Bloody teapot fell on my head. Hurts like hell. Just as well it wasn’t full.’

  It was Monty who started laughing first, but it only took a few seconds for everyone else to join in and soon tears were pouring down their cheeks.

  They weren’t just laughing at the stupidity of the injury Bruce had suffered, though, they were laughing in relief at their close call.

  When everybody had calmed down a bit, Abby craned her head to see through the windows. ‘Can anyone see where we got hit? The locomotive has to be alright otherwise we would have stopped.’

  Owen pointed forwards. ‘It looks like the sleeping car took the brunt of things...’ He trailed off and his face went white.

  The same thought occurred to everybody at the same time and they rushed together for the winding staircase, knocking aside the soldier who had been sent to find out if they were safe.

  They rushed through the lounge car and into the dining car, past several waiters who were picking up broken plates and glasses that had been smashed to smithereens by a few stray machine gun rounds, and then kept going towards the door at the front of the carriage. Abby led the charge through it and into the sleeping car where she came to a halt with a shocked gasp.

  The curtains were closed over the windows and the bunk-lined room would have been dark if it weren’t for the hundreds of holes letting in the sunlight from outside. They were mostly small, coin sized ones from the HH190’s four wing-mounted machine guns, but there were at least half a dozen far larger ones, dinner plate sized, from its cannon. Correspondingly huge holes in the floor showed where the heavy rounds had gone straight through the carriage and they could clearly see the sleepers of the track through them, passing in a blur as the train kept going, fleeing the scene of the crime.

  ‘Mac!’

  There was a snort at Bruce’s desperate shout and the Scotsman bleary-eyed face appeared in one of the larger streams of light coming through a gaping hole, not three inches from his head. ‘Wha... What is it? Are we there?’

  ‘No, but...’

  ‘Then leave me alone, damn ye and stop making so much bloody noise!’ He growled and rolled over, pulling the blankets up over his head. They flapped in the wind coming through the gaping hole. ‘All that thumping around, it’s a wonder I can sleep at all... And someone close the damn window, it’s chuffin’ freezin’ in here!’

  The Misfits could do nothing except stare at him as the sound of snoring filled the carriage once more.

  To everyone’s astonishment, Mac slept through the hasty repairs that were carried out on the sleeping car to cover up the worst of the holes on the floor and walls. It was only when the dinner bell went and the Misfits came in to change that he actually woke up. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes and gazing around in amazement. ‘What the hell happened here?’

  Bruce paused in doing his shirt up to look at him. ‘Woodworm.’

  Just after dawn the next morning, a waiter came to wake them up and informed them that they would arrive at the siding near Vaenga where they had caught the train from in a little over half an hour. They were puzzled, therefore, when only a few minutes later it screeched to a halt, almost throwing them from their feet as they dressed.

  ‘Gwen,’ Abby said, ‘you’re decent, go and see what’s going on.’

&nb
sp; ‘I don’t think I need to; listen.’ Gwen could feel the deck quivering under their feet, despite the train being stopped, and that, added to the faint rumbling, which was more a vibration in her chest cavity than an actual sound, could mean only one thing.

  The pilots quickly finished dressing then climbed up to the observation deck.

  Miles away, in the direction they were travelling, smoke was rising into the clear morning air, staining the bright blue with blacks and greys.

  ‘Is that coming from Murmansk, do you think?’ asked Scarlet.

  Abby shook her head. ‘I don’t know, I just hope it isn’t our airfield.’

  A waiter came up the stairs and they looked at him. He managed to remain impassive in the face of their unasked questions, which wasn’t surprising seeing as he had most likely waited on the Muscovite Royal Family many times.

  ‘There is an air raid over Murmansk. We are waiting for it to finish before moving on. In the meantime, breakfast is served.’ He bowed, then turned and went back down the stairs.

  The Misfits were far more interested in the enemies in the sky than the food, though, and they stared out of the windows, every single one of them wishing that they were up, having a crack at the bombers attacking the city they’d been tasked with defending.

  In the end, Abby sighed and turned away. ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about this raid stuck here, but I’m sure there’ll be more. We might as well go and eat.’

  The wagon ferrying the Misfits from the train arrived at the airfield just in time for them to see the Harridans land.

  Three of the Harridans had RAC markings and were in the factory camouflage, but none of the twelve with red and white Muscovite roundels had been left alone and “boring” as the Wolfpack leader had put it. Most only had a few splashes of colour to make them stand out, but somehow they had found time to completely repaint two of them - Baryshnikov’s with a yellow top and a black belly and Polikasparov’s with a distinctive combination of large bright pink and dark purple checks, apparently choosing to emulate the colours of the Misfits somewhat. However, surprisingly, there was no sign of any unnecessary pipes or cogs having been added to the aircraft.