It had been a very close-run thing, but after several hours of bloody fighting the Prussians were repelled. However, the Muscovite defenders had taken extremely heavy casualties and it was unlikely that they would be able to withstand another such assault.
Inexplicably, though, despite it being clearly demonstrated that they had to have air cover if they were to have any hope of their attack succeeding, that morning the Prussians threw everything they had into the river without any.
The attack came on three fronts. Their main assault came straight across the river, just as it had the previous day, but they also launched two simultaneous assaults further upriver one of which was composed mostly by a few dozen Toads which had arrived during the night with other reinforcements.
While A flight and the two remaining Wolfpack aircraft took care of the main assault and B flight the secondary one, Abby sent Dreadnought to handle the amphibious vehicles; her heavy guns would make short work of the armour. However, Wendy found not only the Toads there, but also several batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had been moved into position during the night and she was forced to move off to a safe distance after sustaining minor damage. It was only a minor setback, though, and the problem was solved by simply swapping Dreadnought and B flight - the faster aircraft were much harder targets for the Prussians to hit and their cannons were just as effective as the ones on Dreadnought against the armoured Toads.
Once more the Prussians suffered heavy losses, but they refused to give up and stuck with the assault well beyond the point where they should have given up, as if expecting some miracle. It never came, though, and in the end what little was left of the enemy forces limped back to the Prussian lines and the Misfits were released back to Vaenga.
Mr Jones was waiting for them in the mess hall with the explanation for why they had been alone in the sky that morning.
There were eight images in total, an entire roll of the special low-light film that Scarlet used on her scouting missions, and they clearly showed her activities of the night before.
At the Irishwoman’s prompting, Mr Jones began to lay the photographs on the table one by one, giving the pilots time to take in each one before moving on to the next.
The first showed a row of buildings, barracks and hangars, flanking an airbase that was very familiar to them.
‘Scarlet, please tell me you didn’t...’ Abby shook her head in disbelief.
‘Just wait.’ The Irishwoman grinned. ‘It gets better.’
The second photograph showed the interior of one of the hangars, filled with about a dozen aircraft, instantly recognisable as Blutsaugers, except for the one at the front which had a check pattern on its nose.
The Misfits couldn’t help but laugh at the third. Scarlet’s camera had a timer on it and she had used it to good effect - the image was of Scarlet standing under the cockpit of Gruber’s machine, giving the V for victory sign that the King had made so popular during the bombing raids on London. A large canvas bag was over her shoulder and she held a metal sphere, slightly larger than a tennis ball, in her other hand. Over her shoulder could be read Gruber’s name and the name of the aircraft - Hölle.
Derek chuckled. ‘Hell? That’s a cheery name for an aircraft.’
The fourth image showed the side of the aircraft again, but this time the ball was stuck to it, at the wing root.
The fifth image showed the side of a different aircraft, an MU9 this time. It too had a ball on it.
Abby frowned. ‘There weren’t any MU9’s in that hangar.’
‘Nope.’ Scarlet shook her head. ‘They were in the other hangars.’
‘Hangars? Plural? How many did you go into?’
The Irishwoman shrugged. ‘All of them.’
‘Weren’t there any guards?’
‘A few, but they weren’t expecting to be paid a visit by the Pitiless Pixie now, were they?’
‘The what?’
Scarlet grinned. ‘That was the nickname they gave me at the Infiltration and Sabotage school you sent me to before France. Y’know, because I’m small, Irish, and show no mercy to my enemies.’
There was more laughter at that, but it was short-lived because the Misfits were impatient to see the rest of the images and Abby motioned for Mr Jones to turn over the next image.
The sixth brought more laughs. Scarlet had taken a can of paint and a brush with her and had scrawled “The Misfits were here” on the wall of one of the other buildings on the base, the mess hall by the looks.
The seventh photograph was from inside Hummingbird’s cockpit and showed Scarlet’s hand holding some kind of radio device. The background through the window was blurry, but they could just make out the shape of the hangars, a hundred yards or so below.
The eighth and final image was taken from a greater distance, but the image was still perfectly clear.
Every single one of the hangars was a wreck, but one of them had been split open like a melon hit by a cricket bat and there was a fire raging in the debris.
When Abby looked a question at her, Scarlet shrugged. ‘I had no idea what kind of bang those explosives were going to make, so I put a couple on some hydrogen I found at the back of one of the MU9 hangars. I don’t think I really needed to.’
Mac laughed. ‘I’d say not!’
Abby surveyed the photographs and nodded in appreciation. ‘While I was rather annoyed by your behaviour this morning, I have to say that you’ve probably done more in one night to change the course of this war than the entire Muscovite army. Bloody well done, Scarlet.’ She picked up the photograph showing Scarlet in front of Gruber’s aircraft. ‘This is definitely going up on the wall and I’m quite tempted to send Gruber a copy.’
The Misfits laughed started up a debate as to how they would get the photo safely to the Crimson Barons, but fell silent and looked up when a Muscovite soldier burst in, grinning and waving a message slip. He handed it to Abby, then shouted something in Russian to the rest of the room, making every single officer, including the two surviving Wolfpack pilots, cheer and jump out of their seats to start dancing.
Abby raised her eyebrow at them, then read the slip of paper. ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about; all this says is that the Prussians are in full retreat back into Finland and there’s a cold front on its way from the Arctic that will be here the day after tomorrow.’ She looked up from the message to smile at them. ‘Misfits, we’re going home.’
Gruber surveyed the wreckage of the hangars through the window of the transport aircraft as it took off, on its way south to rendezvous with Bertha in Italy. With the loss of the fighters, his time on the god-forsaken northern front was finally, thankfully, over.
It hadn’t been a very auspicious end to the campaign, but it wasn’t as if it had been his fault; he had carried out his orders as best he could and been successful in driving the Muscovites back to Murmansk. No, the fault with the defeat ultimately lay elsewhere and the men responsible for it would be punished accordingly, just as he had punished the men responsible for the fiasco of the night before.
He craned his neck to peer back and found that he could just make out the bodies of the officer and three men who had been on guard duty, swinging in the wind down below in front of the mess hall. They had insisted that they had been patrolling, as assigned, but they were obviously lying - no doubt they had been in a warm corner of the mess hall with a bottle of schnapps.
He found that he wasn’t angry, though, on the contrary, he was almost amused with how things had gone and a little grateful for the Misfits for giving him the perfect excuse to leave. He hadn’t done what he’d wanted, he hadn’t killed any of them, but he would have the last laugh - he had sent a coded message only half an hour before, setting plans in motion. Desperate plans that he had hoped he wouldn’t need, but had put in place for just such an eventuality as this one.
He settled back in the deeply padded seat as the airfield dropped away and smiled contentedly; he wasn’t leaving the north empty-handed
by any means and, if everything went well that night, he would have another prize to add to the one that was bound and drugged in the seat opposite him.
He was looking forward to making his guest feel welcome aboard Bertha, where they would have some nice long conversations about Misfit Squadron and about Aerial Officer Gwen Stone in particular.
Chapter 30
Arrangements were made for the Misfits to rendezvous with the Arturo the morning of the day after and all that remained to do was to pack up and say goodbye to their hosts.
Baryshnikov arranged another party, like the first one, in one of the hangars, and again he invited the soldiers from the surrounding woods. More than half of them had been reassigned to defend the city, but they had been given permission to come back for the night, although sadly there were a lot less of them and not all of those that came were in one piece. Their injuries and losses did very little to put a damper on their mood, though, and they celebrations were just as raucous as ever.
Dorothy Campbell would be travelling in Dreadnought with Wendy and Gwen and she arrived soon after dark bringing with her General Popov and a few of the general staff with her. Instead of making things awkward, like high-ranked officers were wont to do every time they turned up to such celebrations, the generals were made very welcome, especially because they brought with them fresh supplies of food and alcohol that had arrived that afternoon on a train from St. Petersburg.
When everybody who was coming was there, Polikasparov called for silence and gathered the Misfits together in the middle of the hangar where they could be seen by everyone. Baryshnikov then stood on a crate to address everyone, speaking in Russian while Polikasparov translated for the British.
‘Tomorrow, our allies, our friends, leave us. Perhaps we will never see them again, although I hope that they might have enjoyed themselves so much that they decide to come back in the spring.’ The Russian grinned at the Misfits, knowing full well that they had no intention of doing any such thing. ‘Just in case they don’t, though, we have a gift for them. This gift is not just from the Wolfpack or the soldiers of this base, though, but from all the people of Murmansk and Russia, every single one of whom have been following our fight here in the newspapers and on the radio.’
Abby caught Dot’s attention subtly and raised an eyebrow, wondering if what the man was saying was true, whether the Tsar had been using the Misfits as a means to raise the morale of his people just like the King was in Britain.
Campbell nodded and shrugged as if to say are you surprised?
Abby chuckled silently and shook her head before looking back at Baryshnikov, who had been handed a small black box by Polikasparov. He held it above his head and turned in place so that everyone could see it.
The box was about two feet wide, six inches tall and maybe a foot deep, lacquered black like Gwen’s Japanese chest, and decorated with blooming flowers and red berries which shone warmly in the light of the fires. It was a simple, yet elegant expression of tradition Russian art and craftwork, but the true value of the gift was hidden within and, when everybody had had a chance to see it, Baryshnikov faced the Misfits once more, then carefully opened it.
Music from a Tchaikovsky ballet filled the hangar as a four-inch tall ballerina, unfolded herself from under the lid.
Normal music boxes had a static figure that turned slowly about itself, the illusion of actual movement given only by mirrors in the lid, this one, however, was a clockwork wonder; the dancer was similar in construction and articulation to the automatons they had seen in the ballet, just on a much smaller scale.
She was dressed in a simple white, form-fitting dress, that went from her neck to her calves, but curling out from between her shoulder blades were a pair of breath-taking and fully articulated wings, like those of a swan or an angel, and as she raised her arms above her head and began to move in time to the rhythm of the music, those wings moved too, in perfect harmony with her.
Involuntarily, entranced by the figure, the Misfits moved forward to get a better look.
Baryshnikov smiled at the wonder on their faces, then, holding the lid open so that it didn’t snap closed, he slowly tipped the box towards them.
The pilots gasped and Gwen had to fight the impulse to leap forward and catch the figure before it fell, but incredibly it didn’t, it just kept dancing, parallel to the ground, seemingly completely unperturbed.
‘How does it do that?’ asked Scarlet.
‘It’s got to be magnetic. Right?’
Gwen looked at Baryshnikov for confirmation of her theory and received a nod in reply. ‘Very good, Miss Stone. Its feet contain powerful magnets.’
He winked at her, then brought the box back to the horizontal before slowly starting to close the lid.
As the music came to a natural end, the automaton somehow detected that the dance was finished and it performed a deep reverence, before sitting, folding itself over and draping its arms over an extended leg, a pose that Gwen recognised from a piece called the “Dying Swan” which had moved her almost to tears when she had first seen it at eight, seeing in it the death of a creature of the air, much like she herself was.
The lid closed, hiding the dancer from sight and everybody in the hangar took a breath, as if a spell had been broken.
Baryshnikov spoke into the silence, displaying the box to the pilots once more. ‘Gold from Siberia, Alexandrite from the Urals, wood from our very own trees and the finest clockwork automatons from the master craftsmen of St. Petersburg. You each have one of these to take home, so that a piece of Russia will always be with you.’ He handed the box to Polikasparov, who gave it in turn to a soldier, who took it away. ‘They are on your beds waiting for you. Please try not to forget they are there when you are drunk and knock them onto the floor!’
While the Misfits laughed, the Wolfpack leader said something to the soldiers surrounding them, then grinned at the British pilots.
‘Hip hip!’
The hurrah from the soldiers was deafening, continuing on and on and in the end, Baryshnikov just laughed and shrugged - it seemed that his comrades hadn’t quite got the message that it was supposed to be three cheers and not just one long one. He stepped down from the crate and hugged each of them in turn, crushing them in a traditional Russian bear hug, although he took care with Gwen and received as good as he gave from Bruce and Mac.
When he was done, he shouted something else in Russian and was received by another cheer, just as loud as the one they had given the Misfits.
‘What did you say to them?’ Gwen asked him as the soldiers went back to their celebrations.
He grinned. ‘I said what every true Russian loves to hear, I said “let’s drink.”’
Natasha and Katerina were among the soldiers at the party and, as soon as the music boxes had been presented and the party got back under way, they latched on to Bruce and Mac as if there were no tomorrow, which, in a way, there wasn’t.
Natasha had been one of the soldiers who had been sent to the front and she had been injured by a splinter of shrapnel from an explosion. It wasn’t too serious, but she was in some pain and walking with a limp. She also had a sad look in her eye, as if she were haunted by what she had seen. None of that stopped her from grabbing Bruce and dragging him off into the darkness after only a couple of drinks for a “proper goodbye” as she put it, though.
Katerina had remained in the woods around the airfield and had visited Mac a few times when she’d been off duty, but they hadn’t had much time together, so they took full advantage, dancing and drinking in the hangar before slipping away quietly after an hour or so.
The rest of the Misfits broke up into groups and sought out those Muscovites who were engaged in activities that they enjoyed: Scarlet automatically went for those who were singing and dancing; Derek, Chastity, Charles and Monty looked for those engaged in more intellectual pursuits; Dot and Abby found a quiet corner to speak; and Wendy and Owen danced together with those engaged in more romantic activit
ies. Gwen’s head wasn’t up to dancing or drinking much, though, so she just sat in a corner with Kitty, sipping kvass and watching the fun.
The party started to wind down around midnight, but many of the soldiers kept drinking and the last of them didn’t wander away to their barracks, carrying unconscious companions and the remaining alcohol with them, until well after one in the morning, letting the fires burn down and leaving the debris where it was to be dealt with in the morning.
Finally, the base was completely silent and dark and appeared deserted except for the two figures slowly walking around the perimeter fence.
During Katerina’s first visits to Mac it had been hard for the lovers to find somewhere private to be; military installations don’t typically have many places where two people can be alone. She had had a brilliant idea, though, and the third time they met she had told him to wrap up warm and taken him into the woods. There, she had set up a small bivouac, no more than a few old canvas sheets draped between some trees, but it was enough to shelter them from the elements and they could even build a small fire underneath it to warm the air slightly. That, combined with their fur coats, made their time together not only comfortable and peaceful, but also quite magical.
They had spent their time that evening making love, but also talking a great deal. Mac had told her all about his life in Scotland, the beauty and solitude of the highlands, and the work he did with his aircraft. He had even told her about the local whisky that he loved, which put vodka to shame. She had laughed at his claim, saying that nothing was better than vodka, then told him about her childhood, growing up in a small village in Siberia called Liniovsk, which was more or less the same size as his own, before going to the school in the nearest town.
The Russian Resistance Page 38