Field of Mars

by Stephen Miller

  No.

  So, gone for a year in March, then. And gone for a lot longer than that, to be truthful.

  … with my greatest consideration and respect, I remain …

  Gone.

  SIX

  It was a grey Bulgarian dawn and Sergei Andrianov woke from his sleep in the back of the Rolls touring car the railway had lent him. It came with a chauffeur, a quiet Italian named Mattei, who had gone inside the shed to talk with the signalman. He checked his pocket watch and there was a simultaneous hoot of an engine’s whistle. Right on time, he smiled.

  He straightened in his seat, found his case and extracted a cigarillo. He had been travelling throughout Europe for nearly two weeks through the dying summer and he was tired. This train, about to pull into the tiny siding, only kilometres inside Bulgaria across the Rumanian border, was the climax of all that work. He had spent his time moving from railway stations to hotels, in and out of telegraphers’ kiosks, and then done it all over again. He had eaten catch-as-catch-can, passed envelopes to men who would pass them to others, assured the timid, threatened the weak. Not for the first time he had wondered if he should empower one of his confederates to take some of the task off his shoulders, but whom could he trust? Not Gulka, he had his hands full with security back in Petersburg, not Evdaev, he was more figurehead than tactician, and much too much the ditherer.

  No, the Plan was a spider’s web, each strand with its own discrete connections, but all of them leading to the centre, with him in control of everything. The smallest tremor in the web would bring his attention to bear, he would move rapidly to the troublesome situation, deal with any problem that might arise.

  And to bring someone in at this late date would mean more risk. A jealous second-in-command would recognize the Plan for what it truly was—an elaborate strategy to preserve the Andrianov business interests. Ideology, while important and sometimes synonymous with his success, was mostly a smokescreen. What he had to do was to provide the leverage, the ideas, and the impetus to bring Russia into a war for which it was ill-prepared. Only Evdaev would have advance warning and would emerge as a hero, but Tsar Nicholas would be humiliated. And a second defeat after Japan would be the last straw. Losers always change their leaders, and that would be his moment. Publishers had been paid, articles already prepared, politicians cosseted, all of them standing ready to inflame the population. With the Duma a madhouse, the right men would come forward at the critical instant and call for abdication and arrest; stripped of its intricacies, that was the Plan.

  He stepped out of the huge vehicle and peered around the corner of the station. Now he could see the train approaching along the tracks from Rumania; there was another careful whistle and at the signal box he saw the points change as the switch was thrown that would shift the train on to the line leading from Bulgaria to Serbia.

  ‘Tea, excellency?’ The chauffeur had come out. He was holding a tray with a single steaming mug on it. The fragrance of the tea was strong in the morning air, a scent of oranges and something darker. Everything was different in the Balkans …

  He took the offering without a word and carefully sipped. Together the two men watched the train pull up to a watering tower. There was a great hiss of steam as the engine braked to a stop, a rumbling as the couplers collided with each other along the length of the train.

  ‘Do you want your boots, excellency?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ They moved back to the car and he sat on the edge of the seat, took off his dress shoes, and laced up a pair of walking boots over his trousers. It was already getting warm, the mist was rising over the railway sidings and he could see clearly the trees beyond, the open fields extending to the east. The countryside was damaged from the recent movement of troops, even the station had not escaped. A fire had blackened one end of the building and there were holes where bullets had chipped the bricks around the entrance.

  Andrianov fished into his pocket for the key and walked down the train to the first of the goods wagons. When he got to it he broke the Bulgarian military seals, and opened the doors.

  He pushed his foot into a cleat and clambered up. Inside the wagon were two Schneider 122mm field artillery pieces nailed to the floor of the rail car and secured with chains and chocks. Their steel barrels were newly painted field grey. In the shadows at each end of the wagon, turned over with their wheels removed for cartage, were the guns’ caissons. Andrianov checked the serial numbers, stood for a moment in the gloom, touched a finger to the lip of the muzzle of one of the pieces. It was raw metal, painted with thick grease to protect against rust. The finest product of the Putilov plants. The guns had been ordered to reinforce the Bulgarian army; only his money and Count Ivo Smyrba’s willingness to betray his country had diverted them to this tiny shunting yard.

  He turned to exit the wagon and saw a young man standing there. ‘Welcome to Greater Serbia, excellency,’ the young man said. His accent was Serbian and something else, maybe Galicia. His hair was matted and his white shirt was spotted with soot. He hadn’t shaved for weeks and he clearly had been riding along in the engine. ‘There’s no need to check, further. Nothing’s been touched.’

  Andrianov stood there for a moment looking at the stranger. Then he climbed down. Together they slid the doors closed and started down the line of carriages. There were fifteen of them and a random inspection was enough.

  ‘I am Krajic,’ the young man said. He had taken out a cigar himself and struck a match against the side of a car as they walked. ‘I’ve been with the shipment since it crossed the Danube. Well, too bad for Bulgaria—it’s spoils of war, now. That will teach these barbarians to turn on us, just because they don’t think they got enough in the peace settlement, eh?’ The way he said it exuded self-satisfaction. A proud young man. Beneath the flap of his jacket, Andrianov saw the handle of a revolver. He stopped.

  The young man caught the direction of his look. ‘Apis sent me, and let me tell you something, friend. If I’d been planning to do you, you’d be welldone by now.’ He paused for a moment and then came the clear white smile of the new Serbia.

  ‘Good …’ said Andrianov and together they continued to the rear of the train. Andrianov stopped in front of a wagon and broke a second set of seals. The locks snapped open, the doors slid away. Another two howitzers indistinguishable from the first pair except for their serial numbers.

  ‘The shells are stacked in the last two wagons, but it’s not enough. We’ll need many more than that,’ the boy put in.

  ‘I thought the war was nearly over? Haven’t you taken what you wanted?’ Andrianov could not resist prodding him.

  ‘As long as we’re winning I see no reason to sue for peace. They can talk all they want to in London, but this is our land and we will have it back. We don’t call it Greater Serbia for nothing. We were here running things long before the Turks came along, long before the Bulgarians took advantage, and we’ll have it back. We’ll have all of it back,’ the boy said grimly, looking down at the gravel as they walked along the tracks.

  Andrianov inspected the last two wagons—artillery shells packed standing upright with wooden collars and, alongside, separated boxes of fuses. There was an interval of two empty flatbeds and behind them a last carriage packed with crates containing bags of smokeless powder. They put out their cigars and waited while the stationmaster undid the locks, terrified of making a spark.

  Andrianov moved through the pallets and checked the seals and when he pronounced everything satisfactory and rewarded the sweating stationmaster with his envelope, the man smiled and bowed profusely. A second young Serbian had detached himself from the engine and had walked down the train to meet them. ‘We can leave anytime,’ he said to Krajic.

  ‘Would you care to share some lunch?’ Andrianov offered. The chauffeur had packed a hamper in case there had been some delay.

  ‘The faster we get away from here, the faster we can kill some Bulgarians.’ Krajic laughed and the second boy joined in. The stationmast
er beetled on ahead of them, anxious to be done with the entire thing.

  ‘You seem to be adept at difficult tasks. You certainly are courageous,’ Andrianov said to the two of them. The second one nearly blushed. Andrianov reached out and grasped the young man’s shoulder. ‘Give Apis my thanks for taking extra precautions.’

  ‘It’s only logical,’ the boy said. ‘There’s value here.’ He looked back along the train.

  Andrianov smiled. ‘Maybe I will need you in the future. Occasionally I need men who can do difficult things. I look for men who can keep sight of the future, I look for someone with heart. Such men are valuable. I may call on you for a favour at some time. I am expanding my business interests here, eh?’

  The boy laughed. ‘Business? That’s for later, eh? We are both from the action cell, and when the Bulgarians finally come to their senses and surrender, then we’ll hide these guns until we can turn them on the Austrians and regain Bosnia.’

  They had stopped by the engine. ‘I want you to know that you’re performing a great service, helping to steal these guns,’ Andrianov said. The two young men were already climbing into the engine compartment. The driver and fireman looked at him for a moment and then turned their faces away, frightened.

  The first boy leaned out of the cabin. ‘We don’t need to eat lunch with you and we don’t need your kid gloves and your patronizing, excellency. Just keep the guns coming. Go!’ he said pushing the driver in the back, and then turned for a moment, still smiling.

  ‘Here!’ Andrianov called. He pulled out a sheaf of bills and held them up to the boy. There was the sharp screech of a whistle and the great driving wheels began to slowly roll along the track. The boys were looking away—maybe they hadn’t heard him. Andrianov started walking along beside the engine. He suddenly felt a wave of admiration for the dirty young men, for their courage, and even for their foolish bravado. He had met them here on the battlefield and they were the real thing. ‘Here!’ he called out again, holding up the money. ‘For the cause!’ he called to them.

  The boys turned and saw him stumbling along, the banknotes drifting out of his fingers. For a moment they watched him and then turned away laughing with their eyes set on the track ahead. Then they were past him and the sound of the engine faded and was replaced by the clanking of the wheels of the wagons as they rolled over the joins in the rails, gathering speed, turning northwest towards its ultimate destination in Serbia.

  Andrianov looked around at the little station. The whole place was filthy and there was a sour reek from the toilets. Now that the guns were on their way to Serbia, he might as well get back to Bucharest.

  Mattei, the chauffeur had come out of the little house. ‘Do you want me to set out something, excellency? Or shall we continue to the city?’

  He turned to the chauffeur. ‘Let’s drive for a while. This place is tiresome.’

  He settled himself in the rear seat, undid the boots and laid them on the floor, sat there in his stockinged feet as the big car gathered speed. There was no traffic to speak of, only an occasional cart. The road was too bumpy for him to read or do any work. He opened the windows and stared out at the torn fields. Every few kilometres they would see someone. A collection of huts in various states of collapse along the road. The soldiers had stripped everything, the fields had been harvested early and then abandoned. The landscape was bleak. At Novi Pazar they had to pause to cross a hastily built dyke where the road had been repaired.

  The car slowed for a crossroads further along and they stopped waiting for a ragtag parade of Rumanian infantry staggering along in the dust. They were the heroes of the war, having rushed down to attack Bulgaria from the rear, and now they controlled this entire region. They were victorious, but you would never know it; they were caked with dirt, some had lost their headgear, others wore bandages. The chauffeur sat there, the engine idling along while they waited. The soldiers looked up at them as they walked past, grumbling abuse and curses in their direction. They were led by an officer who rode a brindled nag and appeared to be falling asleep in the saddle. His men’s curses woke him up and he looked up and then saw their car there, marvelled at it for a moment, tried to peer through the darkened glass, then touched his hand to his cap in salute.

  The soldiers took only a quarter of an hour to file by. There was a gap where the fighters left off and the walking wounded began. They were escorted by a single mud-caked wagon drawn by four mules. From the back of the wagon Andrianov could see the bloody splints on the legs of men who couldn’t walk projecting over the lip of the tailboard.

  The chauffeur put the car in gear and they wove their way across the bumpy intersection between the groups, shifted up a gear and continued along the road to Bucharest.

  Only a few kilometres further there was what passed for an inn. Here there was no destruction. They slowed down to look at it; only a dilapidated house, stables, and a brace of privies set against the edge of the road, with a single acacia casting some shade in the courtyard. Mattei looked around at him and shrugged, Andrianov motioned in the mirror, and they pulled over.

  It had grown hot and he had taken off his jacket. Now he undid his cravat and opened his shirt. Across the road there was a burned-out building, some telegraph poles that had been uprooted and pushed down into the ditch. A tangled coil of wire.

  He was stiff from sitting in the hot car and he walked up the road to loosen his legs. In the distance he glimpsed a figure, someone working in the fields. As he got closer he saw it was a woman. She was bent over, grasping handfuls of straw and severing them cleanly with a short type of sickle, more of a knife. She was working her way along a row and then she would stop and hoe in the stubble. She had been doing this all day judging from the expanse of turned earth around her.

  The wind was warm and he could smell the rot of the soil. The sun had arced towards the west. Above him a single hawk wheeled in slow watchful circles.

  He walked closer until she saw him, then he stopped and gave a little nod, smiled. She straightened from her cutting. He could see now that she was possessed of that particular kind of peasant beauty that was so rare; a young woman with her husband gone to the war, a widow perhaps. Tall with strong legs and full breasts that pressed against the fabric of her simple blouse.

  The light was rosy and it brought out her colour. She was deeply bronzed from her labours in the fields, and her dark hair was streaked with amber highlights from the summer’s light. To gather her hair she had tied it back with a simple kerchief of lime-green cloth, imprinted with some tiny pattern. Her eyes were clear and blue as she looked at him, a blank expression on her face. The way someone would behold an angel, or an apparition.

  She held her hand up to her brow to shade her eyes, and there was a flash of white as she grimaced to make him out in the flare of the sunlight. Exquisite, he thought. Pure.

  From behind him there was a rustling and he turned and saw a cackling old woman approaching from the adjacent field. She ran up to him as best as her bowed legs could carry her—toothless gums, muttering a stream of unintelligible commentary to him, bowing, stooping, and curtsying as she hobbled out of the ditch.

  As she reached him she began to extend her hands, her fingers wanted to tug at his rolled-up sleeves, but then would draw back at the last moment, afraid to soil the fabric of his shirt.

  The girl looked at him for a long moment, then bent and continued with her crops. He watched her a little longer, then searched in his waistcoast pocket, dug out the banknotes the Serbians had refused, peeled one off.

  ‘Tell her to come with me,’ he said, handing the note to the old crone. She grasped it by the corners and stared at it as if there were an important message written across its surface, then began rubbing it to see if it would simply fade away. After a moment she looked up at him and then back out to where the girl was working.

  ‘Tell her.’

  Andrianov started walking back towards the car. Mattei had spread out the basket on the bonnet, but he h
ad already made up his mind; they would leave right away, he would feed the girl on the way to the city, have her cleaned up and dressed. Buy her something, something she could treasure always. He could afford to spend another day or two in the city.

  Just as he reached the stables there was the sound of a motorcycle rattling down the road, and he turned to see a courier approaching, a little man in leather riding-clothes, holding out a telegram.

  The cipher was based on a short sequence of numbers that repeated themselves backwards. It was a code he used for financial matters and would not hold up to a thorough analysis, but it was quick. He climbed in the back of the car and worked out the solution in minutes. Business called, the pull of money triumphed over everything. Money was fuel, money was blood. One day there would be time for goddesses in fields, but not today. He sighed, called Mattei to start the car, flung some coins at the courier.

  Mattei gathered the hamper up and put it in the back seat so that he could eat as they drove along, then ran around to the front of the car to crank the engine. When it sputtered into life, he climbed back in, set the gears and they swerved out on to the bumpy road.

  As they raced away they passed the old woman; she was standing there in the ditch, and as they went by she spat and cursed the girl who had thrown down her hoe to meet him.

  SEVEN

  When Ryzhkov came back to consciousness he’d not only forgotten all about the tooth, he’d even forgotten who he was. He stared at the white ceiling until fundamental concepts began to filter through: that is a lamp, that is a ceiling. That is a nurse hovering over me. I am Pyotr Mikhalovich Ryzhkov. I am an investigator with the secret political police. Where am I?

  He had to ask to find out that he was in a ward of the Military Hospital, and that he had been asleep for nearly a week. He could only dimly remember clutching the arms of his dentist’s chair, being forced to listen a lecture from Dr Tchery on oral hygiene. Though he must have seen much worse, Tchery had claimed to be horrified at the extent of the infection: Ryzhkov should have taken better care of himself, he should have come around more often, he should have …