by Ashton, Hugh
“Of course I do, Your Honour. A very good suit of clothes here, hardly worn, and it looks as though it was made for you.”
Kolinski changed into the new garments. The shopkeeper was right. The suit was good quality, and it really almost did seem as though it had been made to measure.
“That will be five roubles,” demanded the shopkeeper.
“Send a bill to the police department,” replied Kolinski. “That is, if you still feel up to it after this,” as his fist smashed into the jaw of the hapless pawnbroker. Kolinski stooped over the fallen figure, and encircled the man’s neck with his massive hands. After a few minutes of squeezing, and a final twist that produced a snapping sound, Kolinski was satisfied that once again he'd proved the worth of the old adage that dead men tell no tales. He left the shop, carrying the police pistol in the civilian coat, and wearing his own belt and boots containing the gold.
Satisfied that no-one would recognise him now, he walked quickly to the station, where he bought a ticket for Moscow, first class again, as he had in Germany, again on the principle that no-one would look for him among the bourgeoisie.
-oOo-
On arrival in Moscow, Kolinski made straight for the railway depot from where military trains started for their destinations; the front, the armaments factories, and so on. He didn’t think he would be allowed to travel on these trains in civilian clothes, and he was getting a little worried about the growing trail of corpses that he was leaving in his wake. Sooner or later someone might make connections, and he would be discovered. His best hope was to smuggle himself on board one of the trains making its way to the training area where the Netopyr was being developed. The alternative was to talk his way on board, and he had his doubts as to whether this last option would be possible. Kubinka was one of the Imperial Army’s most closely-guarded and secretive installations, and it wasn’t likely that he would be able to bluff his way through the security in that way. But first things first. He needed to get inside the depot. That would be a little easier than Kubinka.
He decided that he needed to improve his image a little. He left the area of the depot, and bought himself a smart-looking hat of the kind worn by civilian government officials. Next on his list was a stationer’s, where he bought an official-looking notebook, together with a pen and ink.
He returned to the depot wearing the hat and ostentatiously brandishing the notebook. At the gate, the guard on duty demanded to see his pass.
“Here you are,” replied Kolinski, putting his hand in his breast pocket. “Damn! It must be back in the office. Well, I’ve no time to go back and fetch it, unless you want to go and fetch it for me, that is? No? I thought not. Well, you’ll just have to let me through, won’t you?”
“I can’t do that,” replied the young sentry.
“Damn it all, you son of a donkey!” Kolinski exploded with simulated rage. “Do I have to call your officer and explain to him that you refused to let me do my job? After you’ve let me in here for the past week and you know my face by now?” Kolinski prayed that this guard actually had been on duty for the past week – his bluff would fall flat if the guard had only just been appointed to the post.
The sentry looked Kolinski up and down, seemingly checking his memory. At last he reached a decision. “Sorry, sir,” he said, drawing himself up to attention and saluting. “Beg your pardon for having held you up, sir,” letting Kolinski pass into the marshalling yard. Continuing his act, aware that the eyes of the gate sentry were still following him, Kolinski strode purposefully towards a pile of sacks, presumably containing grain, and started to count them ostentatiously, at times making notes in the book he was carrying and sneaking a look back towards the gate where he had just entered. Making a final entry in the notebook, and shaking his head regretfully for the benefit of the guard, who still appeared to be watching him, he moved to the next pile, a little further away from the gate. By the time he had reached the fourth pile, it appeared that the sentry’s suspicions had been allayed, and he was able to start exploring without becoming an object of suspicion.
He made his way over the tracks, and through the piles of military supplies, stacked in seeming chaos around the area. For a moment, he pitied any genuine officials whose job it was to make order out of the muddle that surrounded him, but he realised that this inefficiency and disorder was the very sort of thing that would help the Revolution to succeed. He must remember this scene and tell the Chief all about it when he returned to Zurich.
As he made his way between crates of artillery shells, he came across a soldier smoking, leaning against the ammunition boxes. He decided to have a little fun. Striding up to the soldier, he smacked him hard across the face with the palm of his hand, sending the cigarette flying, and sending the unfortunate soldier sprawling on the ground.
“What the devil are you doing?” he asked the soldier. “Smoking near high explosives, you stupid swine. Pick that cigarette up. With your mouth! Hands behind your back, you ox!” he ordered, giving the man a sharp kick.
The soldier obeyed, cringing.
“Now eat it,” ordered Kolinski. “Maybe that will teach you to put the lives of all around you in danger. You swine, you imbecile donkey, you piece of rotten offal, you!”
Unhappily, the soldier chewed and swallowed the muddy cigarette. His face turned pale as the last shreds of coarse tobacco went down his throat.
“Right. Now run as fast as you can, ten times around the perimeter. I want you never to forget this for as long as you live. Drop your gun. Now! At the double!” As the luckless soldier, now green in the face, jogged off unhappily, Kolinski picked up the rifle. He considered keeping it, and decided against it, but detached the bayonet, which he tucked into his coat. He still had the police revolver, and before he’d changed out of the police uniform, he’d discovered a carton of ammunition in one of the pockets. The bayonet, though, was a silent weapon, and one that often had more effect when used to threaten victims than a pistol, as he had found in the past.
He looked over at the soldier, painfully making his way around the wire fence surrounding the rail yards. Time to move on.
He passed a closed shed that obviously held locomotives, and as he did so, the great double doors at one end opened, and a strange vehicle emerged, making its almost silent way past him. Painted a dark Army brown, it looked like some sort of giant tortoise, with a rounded front and back, and two turrets mounted on the top. What appeared to be machine-guns stuck out of ports on the sides of the strange train, which seemed to consist only of a single car. The train made a soft purring sound, like that of an expensive motor-car. Kolinski watched, entranced, and imagined himself commanding one of these armoured monsters driving into Petrograd and terrifying the Tsarist soldiers as the shells from the guns did their awful work. That and the Netopyr between them would win the Revolution for the Chief and the Party. He took out his notebook and, not without a certain skill, sketched the shape of the strange train that had just passed him. The Chief would be pleased with what he had just found out, he thought. If he could somehow get control of that train, or at least discover how it could be controlled, as well as the Netopyr, he would almost certainly be promoted within the Party organisation.
A sudden thought struck him. It was just possible, he felt, even likely, that the tortoise was on its way to the testing fields where the Netopyr was being developed. All he had to do was follow the train. Fifty kilometres was really no problem – a matter of two or three days’ forced march – but the major problem was that he didn’t know which way he should go. If the tracks divided at some point on the way to Kubinka, he would have no idea which path to take.
The tortoise seemed to have come from the shed. Perhaps there was another train in there that would also be going to Kubinka. He looked back, and saw that although the main train doors had now been closed and were guarded by sentries, there was a small unguarded door at the side. He decided to try his luck. With a jaunty confident stride, he walked to the door
and pushed it open. To his amazement, the shed was full of armoured trains, some of them single-vehicle affairs, little more than locomotives with steel plates bolted to their sides, and some with many carriages and trucks behind a locomotive, which looked as though a whole troop of artillery had been attached to an ordinary train. There was no other train that looked like the tortoise that he had seen, though. Obviously what had passed him was the newest and the most formidable of these monsters. But all these massive machines could strike powerful blows against the Revolution, if the Party ever fought the Tsarists in an extended military campaign.
Kolinski’s worry was that none of these trains appeared ready to move out. The shed seemed almost deserted, except for a few mechanics who seemed merely to be going through the motions of servicing the iron monsters.
As he stood pondering his options, one of the mechanics came up to him.
“Can we do anything for Your Honour?” he asked. Obviously the clothes and the hat that Kolinski was wearing had had the desired effect on him.
Kolinski was inwardly amused by the title he had so easily acquired. “Yes, as it happens. I have orders to go to Kubinka, and I was told to catch the special armoured train, but I seem to have missed it. I think I saw it go past me as I came here.”
“Ah, you mean the Zaamurets?” said the mechanic. “Yes, the rail cruiser left here only a few minutes ago.”
He seemed to be waiting for something, and Kolinski, who had himself been in the man’s position many times before, fished in his pocket, and brought out a coin which he displayed, but not too ostentatiously. This, as expected, loosened the mechanic’s tongue.
“If Your Honour can wait another hour, there is another train due to set off for Kubinka from here, and I am sure the Colonel could easily find room for Your Honour to travel on it.” He stood there stolidly, and Kolinski inwardly cursed the greed of the Russian proletariat which forced another coin out of his pocket.
“Ah, thank you, Your Excellency,” replied the mechanic, pocketing the money. “If you’ll just follow me.” He led the way through the maze of massive iron machines. They reached one of the larger trains, painted a dull grey, with a steam locomotive clad in flat metal plates, and several wagons, bristling with guns, coupled to the back of it. The mechanic gestured towards the train.
“This one, Your Honour. You may want to wait in the command car at the back. When the Colonel arrives with the crew, I will let him know you are here. What name should I give him?”
“Simply tell him that Kharitonov is here, from the Ministry. I’m sure he’ll understand.” Kolinski had picked the name of one of the Okhrana’s most brutal interrogators, whose name was a feared byword for cruelty among revolutionaries. “Now show me to the command car,” he ordered.
Obediently, the mechanic led Kolinski to one of the central wagons, and opened a heavy steel door. “This way, Your Honour,” he invited. His hand was half held out, but no more money materialised. Slightly sulkily, he climbed up the steps. “This way,” he repeated. Looking quickly around him to ensure no-one was watching, Kolinski bounded up the steps. For such a large man, he could move very quickly and quietly, and as a result, the mechanic had no forewarning of the arm that gripped him from behind like a vice, nor the bayonet that sliced his throat open. Kolinski dragged the body to a locker, which he guessed was usually used to hold ammunition, and stuffed the corpse in there, kicking the door shut. He moved forward to one of the fighting compartments in the front carriage of the train, and hid himself in a cramped position in one of the main gun turrets, where he guessed there was a good chance he would not be seen when the crew eventually turned up.
-oOo-
Chapter 9: Kubinka, Imperial Russia
Brian had leapt to his assigned machine-gun, and was squinting along the sights, as soon as the Zaamurets started sliding to a halt.
The journey to Kubinka took most of the morning. The weather was mild, and Brian and Harry enjoyed sitting on the roof, once they had found a place out of the wind. Petrov puffed his way up the ladder once or twice, but declined the invitation to join the two British officers. Maria stayed below for the whole journey.
Eventually, after a long stretch through birch forests, the train stopped.
“Hello?” said Brian, standing up to see what was happening. “We’ve come to a damn’ big fence with a gate, running across the track, and there are some fellows pointing their guns at us.” He put his hands above his head and shouted something in Russian.
“What’s that?” said Harry, who had likewise raised his hands.
“I’m telling them that we’re friends, and they should be talking to Colonel Petrov about us if they are worried about who we are and what we’re doing here.”
At that moment, Petrov himself, attracted by the noise, put his head through the hatch.
“Ah, Colonel,” said Brian. “Would you mind explaining to those gentlemen below us that we are not spies or Bolshevik agitators, and we would welcome the chance to put our hands down soon?”
Petrov came up onto the roof. The sight of his colonel’s uniform seemed to make the rifle muzzles waver a little, and the stream of Russian abuse directed at them had even more effect. The guns were lowered, and Brian and Harry put down their hands with a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Colonel,” said Brian. “I’m glad to see your chaps are on the ball and all that but it would have been dashed annoying if we’d been shot as spies or something.”
“Not to mention embarrassing,” said Petrov. “Still, as you say, it is a relief to know that at least this part of the Imperial Army is carrying out its duties efficiently. There are certainly days when I have my doubts.”
The Zaamurets started off again and crept forward into the test area – a huge clearing surrounded by dense forest. Petrov stayed on the roof with the two British officers, obviously proud of what he was showing them.
“This is impressive,” said Brian. “You’re re-creating different kinds of terrain here, it seems?”
“Yes, we have a trench system over there,” pointing to one corner, “based on the trenches where we have been fighting against the Austrians. We also have forest terrain, as you can see all around you; and we have steppe here. In winter, this is all covered in snow, so we can test winter warfare plans and tactics. And there’s a river and small lake just over that ridge to test amphibious assaults and river-crossing tactics.”
“Am I right in assuming that all this is your doing, Colonel?” asked Harry, waving a hand at the area surrounding them.
“Yes, Lieutenant, I suppose this is my contribution to the Imperial Army. I am not happy about throwing thousands of under-equipped peasants into the meat-grinder of the battles we have fought, and I want to make sure that our Russian soldiers have an advantage in quality as well as quantity when they face the Germans. I can tell you I have had to fight hard against some of our more conservative generals, but I am pleased to say that his Imperial Majesty has been pleased with some of the results we have obtained here. Even more important, to my mind, is the fact that through our program of practical testing here, we have stopped many thousands, if not millions, of roubles, being spent on crackpot ideas that would never have come to a practical conclusion. But now, lunch. We can’t do our work on an empty stomach, and I think you’ll agree that the cook we have in the officers’ mess here is the equal of any working in the restaurants in Petrograd.”
“When will we be meeting the inventor of the Netopyr and his assistants?” asked Harry. “I’m really excited to meet him and to see what he’s come up with.”
“Well, that depends on how ready the Netopyr itself is to receive visitors,” said Petrov. “I’m afraid Lebedenko is a little touchy about his invention, and if it’s not working to his satisfaction, then he’s very reluctant to show it to any visitors at all, including me. Unless the visitor happens to be His Imperial Majesty, of course, but that’s a rather different matter.”
“You let him take that attitude
?” asked Brian, curiously.
“My dear fellow, we don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Nikolai Nikolaivich is one of those temperamental geniuses. One day he’s full of life, singing like a bird, and working nineteen to the dozen. But one word of criticism, and he’s down in the dumps, and it’s all we can do to get him to even grunt out answers to questions, let alone do serious work. But mark my words, he really is a genius. Wait till you see the Netopyr for yourselves. When you see it, you’ll agree that only a genius could have dreamed it up and brought it to a working state.” His eyes almost glowed with excitement.
The meal, as Petrov had promised, was of a high standard. At the end of it, a servant came up to Petrov and whispered in his ear.
“Show him in, then,” said Petrov. “Damn it man, can’t you think for yourself?” He shrugged as the servant departed and switched back to German to address Brian and Harry. “You see, this is one of the problems we face. A lack of initiative. If only some of our people could learn to make their own decisions instead of waiting to receive orders for everything.” He sighed.
A young man in oily mechanic’s overalls came into the room. “Sir,” he said to Petrov, while standing in a pose that suggested, without actually quite being, military attention. “Engineer Lebedenko sends his regrets, but the project is encountering some problems, and the demonstration will have to be postponed. He is, however, confident that tomorrow morning, he will be able to demonstrate the Netopyr to its full capacity.” His tone did not in any way suggest regret.
“Thank you, Alexander Alexandrovich.” The engineer took the hint and left the room.
“One of Lebedenko’s nephews. Apparently a good engineer, but not always the easiest person to work with. It must run in the family.” Petrov sighed.
“Since the Netopyr seems to be off today’s menu, maybe you would be good enough to show us around the proving ground this afternoon, sir?” suggested Brian.
