He shook his head and grinned. ‘Not a sausage.’
‘Good.’ She grunted in satisfaction. ‘You might want to look away now.’
Drake nodded and turned his head to one side.
It was a strange sensation. He could feel the tugging on his skin, could feel the vibrations deep within his bones as she did whatever she was doing, but there was no pain at all, the anaesthetic extremely effective.
He heard her root around in the tin with the medical supplies again, then there was the sound of another canister opening and the smell of antiseptic as she wrapped saturated bandages around his arm.
‘I need something to splint this. Have you got something I can use?’
Drake looked down at his arm. It was straight again and the wound was hidden underneath a thin layer of white cloth. ‘There’s a metal sheet under the lid of the med kit. It’s designed to snap apart into six-inch lengths.’
She blinked at him in surprise then smiled in wonder, shaking her head. ‘You British think of everything.’
Drake barked with laughter. ‘I wish. If we did, then there wouldn’t be any war and I’d be in a cafe somewhere instead of freezing my arse off in the woods.’
Tatiana laughed then opened the medical kit again. She quickly discovered the metal sheet and slid it out, then turned it over in her hands, finding the scored lines that allowed it to be broken cleanly. In only a few seconds she had two inch-wide strips, like ribs from a corset, which she bound tightly around his arm with twine provided for it in the kit and one of the straps from his knapsack detached to become a sling.
Tatiana gave the rest of his injuries a quick once over, painfully prodding his ribs underneath one of the more impressive bruises he’d earned tumbling from the remains of his aircraft, tutting and shushing him with a grin when he complained at the rough treatment. When she’d finished she got him dressed and settled comfortably, then sat facing him, extremely close in the confined quarters. ‘There, all done.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You are welcome, Lieutenant.’
With the pain gone and his head clearer than it had been since the crash, Drake finally looked around. The two of them were underneath a tree, a pine or a spruce or something similar, in the small space, just enough to lie down in, between its lower branches and the ground. It was dry, almost warm, and fairly dark, most of the light and wind blocked by snow drifts on all side, which also effectively hid them from the outside world. Tatiana must have dragged him there while he’d been unconscious.
He smiled at her. ‘And thank you for helping me. I hope I won’t slow you down so much that you regret it.’
‘If you doI’ll leave you behind.’
The woman grinned, but Drake wasn’t sure if she was entirely joking, neither was he sure if he wanted to know if she was or not. He pulled his knapsack towards him and turned his attention to the contents of the survival kit, laying it out on the ground between them.
Aside from the medical kit there was water and rations for three days, including chocolate, biscuits and a small bottle of brandy. There was also a small penknife, one of the Swiss-made ones that had useful tools that folded out, a length of fishing line, and some wire that was supposed to be for trapping rabbits and such. The penknife was the only thing he had that even approximated a weapon, although the inch-and-a-half-long blade wasn’t going to be much of a threat to anything, not even a rabid squirrel, and next to Tatiana’s knives it was laughable. According to the RAC, the survival pack was enough to keep a pilot alive almost indefinitely if they were able to do at least a little hunting and find water, but he really didn’t want to have to depend on the foraging skills he was supposed to have learnt during the survival training course all pilots went on, especially not in an unfamiliar forest in winter.
Tatiana saw what he was doing and added her own meagre supplies to his, but they were insignificant in comparison, just a couple of hip flasks and a few small packets of meat jerky which Drake suspected was reindeer. Fortunately she’d gotten a better haul from the soldiers. For a short-range patrol, the men had been carrying a surprising amount with them, as if they were scared of being trapped away from camp for some reason - perhaps a sign of their unfamiliarity with the terrain and weather. There was food, which unfortunately comprised mostly of the putrid dried sausage the Prussians favoured, but there was also enough schnapps for even a Muscovite to get rip-roaringly drunk.
Tatiana shook her head. ‘The food will only last four days, perhaps five or six if we’re careful. We will need to find more.’
Drake frowned at Tatiana. ‘Why do we need that much? When it gets dark we can just sneak across the border. We’ll be with Muscovite troops in a few hours.’
Tatiana rolled her eyes at him, once more making him feel stupid and naive. ‘We can’t get across the border here, there are too many Prussians.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Haven’t you ever looked at the map in the Operations Room?’
Drake blinked. ‘What map?’ For that matter, what Operations Room?
‘There is a big map on the wall in the Operations Room. It is kept updated with our intelligence on Prussian troop positions, much of which is provided by your own pilot, Charles Isaacs. How could you not have seen it?’
Drake shrugged and grinned cheekily. ‘I don’t really worry about what’s on the ground; I have enough trying to teach Muscovite pilots how not to crash British aircraft.’
Tatiana stared at him coldly, long enough to make him think that he had gone too far, but then she chuckled. ‘That’s a fair point. You’re a funny man, Lieutenant. I like you.’ She slapped him on his good shoulder, jolting him and almost knocking him over. ‘I’m hungry, what are we eating?’
Drake fished in his bag and brought out a pack of rations - a highly nutritious mixture of cereals, nuts and herbs, bound together with a hard, sugary, honey-like substance. It was designed to give the body everything it needed in one meal and by all reports it did. Unfortunately, it also tasted like a mixture of animal dungs held together by sewage and smelled just as bad. He’d lived off of them on a week-long training hike in the Brecon Beacons and had hoped to never have to eat another one in his life.
He tore the wrapping, then broke half off and gave it to Tatiana. ‘Here. I apologise for the taste, but it’s good for you, I promise, and we need to keep our energy up.’
Tatiana sniffed at the bar, doubtfully, then took a bite and started chewing. Her face lit up in delight. ‘Mmm, thank you! It’s good!’ she said, speaking with her mouth open.
Drake stared at her for long seconds, looking for sarcasm in her expression, but found none and shrugged mentally. What do you expect? These people eat beetroot with every meal. He took a bite of his part of the bar, hoping that the powers that be had changed the recipe since he’d had one last and made it palatable, then grimaced when he found out that they hadn’t. He chewed carefully, feeling the awful stuff tugging at his teeth and not particularly wanting to lose any.
After a few minutes he managed to loosen the mouthful up enough to swallow. ‘By the way, you should call me Rudy; there’s not much point on standing on ceremony any more, is there?’
Tatiana nodded and spoke around another mouthful of rations. ‘Very well, Rudy, then you must call me Tanya; it is what my friends call me.’
Drake raised an eyebrow. ‘What? We weren’t friends before?’
She scoffed. ‘Of course not! Before, you were just a strange man I had to rescue, but now we have shared food. In some parts of Russia that would mean we are married.’
She pointedly ignored his stare while she took another big bite of the rations, but then gave him another wide, and he had to admit extremely attractive, smile.
He laughed. ‘And I thought all Russian humour revolved around vodka.’
‘Not all. Most.’
Drake went to take another bite, but changed his mind and looked at the woman instead. ‘So, if we can’t go directly to the border, what do you suggest we do?’
‘We go south.’ Tanya answered with her mouth full, praying crumbs, but then finally realised what she was doing and covered her mouth with her hand. She chewed rapidly and swallowed before smiling sheepishly. ‘Sorry. They tried to teach us table manners at officer training school, but most of us are from places where you eat meat straight from the fire with your hands.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Drake smiled and waved away her apology; he had known boys with worse manners at Eton. ‘You were saying?’
Tanya nodded. ‘We have to go south. The charts in Operations were clear - the Prussians are strong all the way from here to the sea, but they thin out further south, nearer to the Baltic. We have to go around them.’
Drake nodded. ‘Alright, so we go south a couple of days before we turn east. No problem.’
The woman shook her head. ‘We have to go more than a hundred miles. That’s at least four or five days if the weather stays good, but if it turns bad we might have to find somewhere to camp for a while. Which is why I said the food won’t be enough.’
Drake frowned. ‘We have to go that far south?’
‘Yes, maybe further, depending on what we find.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t worry; I was a guide before the war, I won’t let us get lost. And besides, I have a map.’
Drake didn’t return her smile, but just stared at the ground in silence, his mind racing. The ice was already closing in on Archangel and the latest estimates had said that the weather might turn too bad to fly or fight before the week was up. When that happened, Gwen, the Misfits and his fellow instructors would go back to England.
He shook his head. ‘No. We have to get back before then; I need to be on the Arturo when it leaves, otherwise I’ll be stranded in Muscovy.’
‘I’m sorry, Rudy, but it’s not possible. We can’t get back any quicker than that. Not safely, anyway.’ She smiled sympathetically and patted him on the knee. ‘Perhaps we will be lucky and the weather will hold until we get back to Vaenga, but if not you can always winter with me - I have a nice dacha near Novosibirsk and it only gets a bit colder than this. Then, when the spring comes, you can go back to your friends.’
He smiled weakly. ‘Thank you, that’s jolly decent of you.’
They continued to eat in silence for a while, but eventually they finished and Drake started putting the supplies back into their bags. ‘Right then, shall we go?’
‘No, it’s too easy for us to be seen during the day. We’ll travel at night when the Prussians are asleep and looking only across the border.’ She checked the chronograph on her wrist, an incredibly cheap-looking one with a scratched face - Muscovite standard issue. ‘There’s still a few hours until dark so we’ll rest for now.’
She shifted over to sit next to him, her leg right up against his. She pulled one of her hip flasks from a pocket of her flightsuit, unscrewed the cap and offered it to him.
‘Water?’ Drake asked.
‘Vodka.’
He shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I shouldn’t with the anaesthetic.’
‘Da. That is probably for the best. And it leaves more for me!’ She saluted him with the flask. ‘To an easy walk home.’
Drake picked up the canteen from his survival pack and returned the gesture. ‘To the walk home.’
As she swigged from the flask he took a long draught of the water and grimaced. ‘Bleurgh, that tastes like it’s been there for months.’
She winked. ‘Why do you think we get supplied with vodka? It’s much healthier.’
Drake laughed with her, but then the Muscovite turned serious. She took a big swig from the flask as if working up her courage for something, then looked him in the eye, her voice suddenly quiet. ‘Do you know how the fight went, Rudy?’ She blushed, ashamed. ‘I was shot down in first pass, so I didn’t see... Did we get any of them?’
‘The fight went badly, I know at least three of the Wolfpack were shot down. I managed to bag one, though, before Gruber shot me down.’
‘You got one?’ Tanya smiled, her eyes lighting up. ‘Then it was worth it!’ She put her arm around him, pulled him close and kissed him on the cheek.
Drake struggled to free himself and she pulled back, frowning.
‘What is wrong?’
‘How can you say that? How was it worth it? It was a slaughter!’
She shook her head. ‘Russia is a big country, there are millions of us. If one dies, ten more come. But the Barons... There are only a few of them. Killing one is worth four, five, perhaps even ten or twenty of us. Only losing three pilots is a miracle.’
It was Drake’s turn to shake his head. ‘The Barons aren’t that good.’
She looked at him frankly. ‘You’ve seen us fly - compared to us they are.’
‘You...’ He began to deny it, but found that he just couldn’t; most of the pilots he’d trained in Muscovy had been mediocre at best. Compared to a Baron they weren’t good. Compared to a Misfit, hell, even he was bad compared to a Misfit. He forced a smile, knowing that in some way her twisted logic made sense, but hating it nonetheless. ‘You just haven’t been given a chance to show how good you are. If you’d had even a week of training, then I’m sure you would think differently.’
‘You are a bad liar, Rudy.’ She laughed. ‘I like you.’
She put the cap back on her hip flask, then patted him on the knee again. ‘We should try to sleep.’ She started to lie down, but then stopped and frowned at Drake’s greatcoat. She reach out to finger the lapel and eyed it in disgust. ‘What is this? Are you supposed to keep warm in this? It’s... it’s... I have no words.’
Drake laughed. ‘I’m fairly sure the coat is supposed to be supplemented by a large dose of stiff upper lip and British stoicism, but you’re right: I get the feeling that the RAC quartermasters had no idea how damn cold it was going to get here.’
‘Take it off.’
Drake blinked at her as she started taking off her parka, not entirely sure what was going on.
She paused and glared at him when she saw he wasn’t doing what she’d told him. ‘Take it off!’
He gave her a half grin. ‘Yes, ma’am!’ He manoeuvred his arm out of the sling and awkwardly began to struggle out of his RAC greatcoat.
She took it from him and lay it on the ground, then pointed to it. ‘Lie down.’
Tanya waited for him to get comfortable on his good side, then laid her parka over them. She then got under it and folded herself against his back.
He tried not to think about the woman pressed up against him and more especially what was poking him in the back, but it was impossible. ‘Um, Tanya...’
‘Do not get any ideas. This is how we survive the cold in Russia. Now shut up and sleep, I will wake you when it is time to go.’
‘Alright, I’ll try, but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to.’
Whether it was the anaesthetic patch, the injury, or the bump on his head, in spite of his doubts, Drake found his eyes closing by themselves and almost immediately fell into darkness.
Chapter 4
Blood. There was so much blood everywhere. On the snow, the trees, the rocks. But this time it wasn’t the cheerful Tanya holding knives and Prussians lying on the ground like so much meat; this time it was Hans Gruber from whose duelling sword the red liquid dripped and the bodies were his fellow instructors and the Misfits.
He searched the faces, grotesquely contorted with the agony of their death, but the one he dreaded finding wasn’t there and he dared to hope.
‘I’m sorry, but there’s nobody waiting for you at Vaenga, Lieutenant Drake.’ Hans Gruber’s movie star smile widened as he stepped aside to reveal one final body draped hideously, bonelessly, over a rock behind him.
Drake fell to his knees in despair, but instead of giving up, the sight of Gwen’s body provoked a rage in him that he couldn’t contain.
He snarled as he surged back to his feet and leapt forwards, ready to exact his vengeance or at least join Gwen in death, but faceless Prussia
n pilots appeared, as if from nowhere, and grabbed him with clawed hands. He struggled against them, but it was no use and he was forced to watch impotently as Gruber picked up the body of the only woman he’d ever really loved and carried her away, deeper into the forest, laughing maniacally.
‘No! No! NO!!! Bring her back!’
‘Shut up!’
The dream faded only slowly as his brain became aware of the cold reality, but the last vestiges of the dream still clung and when he found that he couldn’t move he fought, biting at the hand that covered his mouth and tearing at the arm holding him.
It was only when he realised that the swearing he was provoking was decidedly un-Prussian and female that he stopped struggling, but then, fully awake at last, he gasped as the full agony of his arm made its presence felt once more.
‘For God’s sake, Rudy, calm down!’
He tried to obey, but found that he couldn’t; he was shivering violently. ‘I can’t. S-s-s-sorry.’
The warmth disappeared from his back as Tanya pulled away and a few seconds later there was a rapid clicking noise, followed by a blinding flare of light, which was accompanied by more swearing, before it dimmed to a mere glow.
He blinked, adjusting to the light of the small clockwork lantern they’d taken from the Prussians, and peered up into Tanya’s concerned face.
‘It’s probably my arm.’ He could barely get the words out through chattering teeth. ‘The anaesthetic has worn off.’
She reached out to touch his brow, then his cheek. ‘It’s not just that. You’re burning up.’
While she turned to look for one of the tubes he tried to get out of his flight suit, but his fingers wouldn’t stop shaking and he couldn’t get them to grasp the fasteners.
‘Here, let me do that.’
In the end, all he could do was sit there and allow her to take care of him, as if he were a baby.
She applied the patch, then held the light over his arm to look at her handiwork. ‘I don’t like the look of the bruising, but I don’t think there’s any infection; there are no red veins or anything. I think the fever is just your body reacting to what it’s going through.’
The Lion and the Baron Page 3
