The Frozen Circle

by Peter Watt

  ‘It’s all over,’ he said, hauling George to his feet. ‘No casualties to report on our side. Bloody well done, cobber.’

  In a daze, George blinked, glancing around to see his section, some drenched in blood, watching him. At their feet were the bodies of not five but eight Bolshevik soldiers. The extra Russians had been concealed in a small trench just behind the machine gun post.

  ‘You did well for your first real action,’ Joshua continued, wrenching the bayoneted rifle from the chest of the huge Russian now looking at the sky with lifeless eyes. It came out with a soft plopping sound. ‘I think your section will have a bit of faith in their commander from now on.’

  George accepted the praise without comment. One minute he had been waiting for the whistle, his stomach on the verge of strangling itself; and next he was stabbing a total stranger to death. He noticed that his ears were still ringing from the very close explosions of the Mills bombs. The young lieutenant was now by his side.

  ‘Well done, Corporal Littleton,’ he said, slapping George on the back. ‘But one could expect such an achievement from a fellow who once held the King’s commission. I think it would be wise if you had your men do a thorough search of these chappies and their position to see if there is anything of worth to be retrieved for our intelligence chaps. Corporal Jackson will be in charge of recovering the Bolshies’ arms. We don’t have time to bury the Ruskies.’

  ‘Sir,’ George acknowledged, waving his section to him as the reserve section swept past them to probe further into the forest in case the machine gun post had been a forward element of a deeper defence. He had finally tasted combat and was surprised to see that his hands did not shake as badly as those of his friend, Joshua Larkin. But then, he had not been at this for as long as the former Australian captain.

  Crouching in the cold rain, George wondered at the sanity of volunteering for the British force serving in Russia. Night was falling and around him the men of the battalion attempted to keep warm if not dry. Weeks had passed since his first action and since then he had engaged in other situations that brought him face to face with death. They had been heavily attacked in their defensive positions along the road and rail track and fallen back. But in a counterattack they had seized the lost ground, and in one attack the mostly Australian company that he belonged to had stumbled on a large force of Russian Red Army preparing to counterattack them. With fixed bayonets and hands full of Mills bombs they had pre-empted the enemy move by counterattacking themselves and routing the Bolsheviks, inflicting heavy losses. Within a week, George was involved in an attack on an artillery gun emplacement located at a railway siding. Again, they had swept aside the enemy, captured the gun and two hundred Russian prisoners. Now, his hands shook as much as those of his friend, Joshua Larkin.

  ‘Want some cha, corp?’ a soldier of George’s section asked. He was a boy from a small country town who had arrived in Britain – as George had – to also miss the war. Like George, the young soldier volunteered to fight with the British in northern Russia. A British commander had generously allowed his Aussie volunteers to wear their Australian army uniforms and they had quickly established their national identity within the ranks of the British soldiers around them.

  ‘Thanks, Fred,’ George replied, huddling inside his greatcoat against the sleeting rain. ‘Wouldn’t mind if I did.’

  The soldier slipped away to fetch the welcome mug of tea as Joshua appeared beside him. He and George were never far from each other although Joshua’s duties as the platoon sergeant kept him busy with the platoon commander.

  ‘G’day, young George,’ Joshua said, squatting beside the corporal. ‘All section commanders are wanted at platoon HQ at eighteen hundred hours for a briefing.’

  ‘What’s up?’ George asked, shivering as he spoke.

  ‘Looks like we are in for a big show,’ Joshua replied. ‘Seems that all up to now has been no more than a bit of skirmishing. General Ironside has decided that we have everything under control in this part of the world and he will be going after the Bolshies along the Dvina River. I think he wants us to come with him,’ Joshua added with a wry smile.

  Inwardly, George felt stricken. If what he had endured until now was little more than skirmishing he had no desire to confront a real battle. Why had he not taken Joshua’s advice to go home when he had the opportunity? Right now he could be sitting at the family table tucking into a beautiful meal of roast lamb and baked potatoes. That would be followed by a round of port in the library of the family mansion and a good cigar. Instead, here he was, a mere enlisted man in someone else’s army fighting a war very few outside Russia even knew about – let alone cared about. The prevailing atmosphere was of peace that was expected to last forever – after the devastation of the war just gone. And why was it that Joshua who had experienced so many years of war on the Western Front would opt to volunteer to continue soldiering? Maybe one day he might tell the truth.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Joshua asked, noting his friend’s melancholy.

  ‘Nothing much,’ George shrugged.

  ‘I always said you were a fool for volunteering for this stunt,’ Joshua said with just a note of anger in his voice. ‘You have so much to go back to in Aussie.’

  ‘What about you?’ George flashed. ‘You have so much to leave behind on the fields of France.’

  Joshua sat back on his haunches and stared up at the blackening sky. Rain poured down his face and George could see pain there. ‘My wife died just before the Armistice,’ he said quietly. ‘Bloody Spanish flu got her. She was the only real thing worth anything to me in my life. I prayed that if there were a God He might take me instead of her – considering what I had come through. Jessie was waiting for me and in all the years I was away it was only her letters that stopped me going mad. You see, what was behind me in France was the knowledge that I would survive to return to Jessie.’

  George was stunned by Joshua’s admission. He could never imagined that this tough, taciturn man had a gentle side. He had witnessed the sergeant in battle roaring orders and exposing himself to the hottest of fire without any consideration for his own safety. It was no wonder the man had been recognised in the past for his courage. But was his courage simply the act of a man who no longer cared if he lived or died?

  ‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ George replied. ‘I was not even aware that you had been married.’

  Joshua rose to his feet, his rifle in his hand. ‘Although I may be in danger of sounding like one of those romantic poets I have read,’ he said, ‘I was fortunate in this life to have met a woman who I could give my very soul to.’ George could see that Joshua was considering saying more but true to his more usual style, he dropped into a silence.

  ‘I will see you at the briefing,’ George said awkwardly. He realised that Joshua’s admission as to why he was in Russia was an act of faith towards him as a friend. War had a way of cementing bonds between men that could never be duplicated in times of peace. They were men apart socially but George had to admit that, given different circumstances of birth, Joshua Larkin could have been anything in life other than the clerk he had been as a civilian. Still, as a soldier, he was second to none in the battalion.

  FIVE

  South London

  Present day

  The architecture of the imposing building on the banks of the Thames River was typical of the 1960s, when it was constructed. Tall and angular with telecommunications towers atop the levels of concrete and glass, it housed Britain’s elite MI6 offices. The Military Intelligence Section Six organisation had been charged for almost a century with protecting the UK against those who would do Her Majesty’s people serious harm. Over the years the organisation had undergone many changes but its basic structure of counterintelligence work of foreign powers remained at the heart of its operations.

  The young man who had been assigned a watch on foreign media broadcasts could hardly believe his eyes when one of the department’s special icons flashed on the screen ind
icating some Aussie item about the discovery of a skeleton – possibly being that of one Captain Joshua Larkin. It had to be a mistake, he told himself as he leaned forward in his ergonomic swivel chair. As an employee of the secretive organisation even his family and closest friends did not know that Samuel Briars was in fact on his way to being installed as a fully fledged agent. He had answered an intriguing ad in the paper while finishing his IT studies at university. It led him to an interview and he was snapped up when his course results were revealed. Sam Briars was considered a leading expert on encryption programs and breaking firewalls. His skills were badly needed by his potential employers and the young man of twenty-five years jumped at the chance of joining the secretive organisation and possibly becoming a real James Bond. At least that was his expectation – but the more he worked at his desk the more he realised intelligence work was less than glamorous and more bureaucratic. For now in his career at MI6 as in any other civil service job, it was a matter of doing the tedious grunt work of news watches before further training for work in the field.

  When the icon had lit up the name Joshua Larkin Sam presumed the computer system had thrown a wobbly; it was apparent from the news item that the man had been dead almost a century. Either that or someone should have updated the files to delete all outdated information. Sam dutifully noted the code that the icon flashed in his log-book and clicked to another website broadcasting Aussie news items. He hoped that one of them might display a picture of an Aussie beach and a few scantily clad girls in bikinis when he remembered that the former colony south of the equator was emerging from a very cold winter. The next broadcaster also had a small feature on the discovery of two skeletons and once again the special icon flashed on the screen highlighting Captain Joshua Larkin’s name. This time Sam could not ignore the warning and, stretching his long legs, stood to alert his supervisor that something rather unusual was happening on his watch.

  His supervisor was equally perplexed.

  ‘Could be a bloody mistake,’ he muttered, taking down the flashing code. ‘But I will push it upstairs and see what they have to say about this Larkin chap.’

  Sam shrugged. He had done his bit and now someone on another level could make a decision. He did cover his backside by downloading every item he could find on the Aussie police investigation, for in the press releases were names, places and times and his was the business of taking raw information and possibly turning it into intelligence. He glanced at his watch and was pleased to see that he only had another hour to go before he could stand down from his shift. But before he did, he would transmit what he had found to the woman he most dreamed of getting into bed with. The mention of a Russian connection would be of interest to her when she clicked on his encrypted attachment. She was, after all, in St Petersburg on assignment working undercover. Being an awkward young man, Sam believed that demonstrating his prowess with a computer had to impress beautiful and intelligent women. This interesting find would at least entertain Sarah Locksley when she clicked on to receive information from her supervisor in the UK.

  The four men who sat around the shiny mahogany table represented the powerful forces of British intelligence. Before them were carefully prepared folders of copies of original, yellowing papers held in the archives. The meeting had been called to discuss the almost forgotten matter raised almost ninety years earlier by their predecessors.

  The president of the committee, Harry Stanton, was in his late fifties. His energies were now diverted to collecting information on the disturbing rise of neo-fascist organisations in Europe, but in his early days with the service, he had been assigned to the Cold War department. He spoke Russian fluently and vaguely remembered the old file from when he had commenced his duties on the Russia desk. At the time it appeared so improbable of ever being activated on account of the time that had passed Harry had relegated its memory to passing interest. But the opening of an old grave in far-off Australia had also opened a door to the modern world of international intrigue in Europe.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘I never thought I would see this again.’

  The other three glanced at the open folders before them.

  ‘Do you think it has any relevance today considering the time that has passed?’ one of the men asked, frowning.

  Harry screwed up his face as if agonising over the question. ‘One would consider the matter dead and buried,’ he replied, ‘considering the changes since the end of the Cold War. But it is those very same changes that have made this file as relevant today as it was when it was first raised back in 1919. In fact, I believe the issue could cause more instability in Russia today than it could have back in 1919. It is bad enough that we have a premier antagonistic towards the West, let alone that we give him an excuse to ride on the back of a new militaristic surge of Russian nationalism.’

  ‘Do you think that if the information was somehow released to the world it could affect us?’ one of the men asked, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead.

  ‘Considering the basis of the information,’ Harry replied, ‘I fear that the danger is posed closer to home than we can afford. There is a chance that the matter will die a simple death – that the Aussies know nothing of Captain Joshua Larkin – and by the end of the week it will not be reported any further in their press. If so, then this file will be relegated to the archives and forgotten to history. What is intriguing, but may answer some of the old questions raised by the file, is if what eventually happened to Captain Larkin according to the police findings is true. It appears he met a sticky end,’ he added as a postscript.

  ‘If is a word we should consider,’ the man leaning back in his chair said. ‘I think that we should take pre-emptive measures to ensure that the matter has not the slightest chance of being uncovered – either by accident or investigation.’

  Harry could see that the other two members of the meeting were nodding their heads and a look of doubt crossed his face. ‘I think that the matter should be pushed upstairs to the PM’s department for a decision,’ he said, using the civil servant’s out to any sticky situation. ‘His people can take responsibility.’

  The three men nodded with some vigour and closed their folders.

  Valley View

  Present day

  The discovery of the two skeletons was now two weeks old and the initial stir it had caused in the town was tapering off. Gladys Harrison was still vigorously pursuing any information on Captain Larkin however, and DNA samples from the bones had been sent by the NSW Police Department to an American laboratory for a possible profile. There had been no clue on the second body discovered and Morgan had been convinced that the first, tentatively identified as Larkin, was not in fact the man. As far as he was concerned both bodies were a mystery and would probably remain so forever.

  As it was Saturday night Morgan was out on patrol, cruising the main street of the village as a warning to would-be drink-drivers. Spring was around the corner and the cold nights had less of a bite. The police frequency mostly relayed information for the cars in Hume City and Morgan’s experienced ear blocked out anything that had little interest to him.

  ‘Valley View One,’ the female dispatcher called. Morgan grabbed the mike on the dashboard, acknowledging the call.

  ‘You have a call to a possible prowler at a residence …’

  Morgan recognised the address immediately. It was the old sandstone house. He immediately put his foot down, choosing not to hit the lights and siren in the hope that he might catch the reported prowler by surprise.

  The house was not far out of town. Within a couple of minutes he slewed the four-wheel drive to a sideways halt while reporting off on his police radio. The house was well lit. Gun and torch in hand, Morgan quickly scanned the backyard that still bore the scars of the excavation. The dense shrubbery would give a prowler many places to hide, he realised.

  A light went on, flooding the yard with a weak glow. Morgan could see Monique standing in the doorw
ay, a silk dressing gown wrapped around her and a worried expression on her face. Joshua slipped the Glock pistol back into his holster.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he called, walking carefully across the yard to greet her.

  She nodded. ‘I may have called you on a wild goose chase,’ she said when Morgan stood before her – her breath a mist in the air. ‘I thought I heard strange sounds outside but I think I may have been imagining things. I’m sorry.’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘You don’t have to apologise,’ he said. ‘Better to be wrong than be right and not call us.’

  ‘It’s cold outside and I think that I owe you another apology for appearing so rude towards you at the meeting some nights back. Can I offer you a hot drink?’

  ‘Is David here?’ Morgan asked, prompted by a sense of concern for the young woman who had faced the threat of a prowler on her own.

  ‘He is away in Sydney on business,’ Monique replied, turning her back on him.

  Morgan followed her into the warm kitchen heated by an old-fashioned, wood combustion stove of cast iron. The kitchen had an air of not having progressed into the 21st century, and even the furniture was dated to sometime in the late 19th century.

  ‘Tea, coffee or hot chocolate?’ Monique asked.

  Morgan felt just a little uncomfortable for accepting the invitation. ‘Coffee will be fine,’ he replied. ‘White with one.’

  Monique reached for a jar from an open wooden shelf above the sink. ‘I am afraid it is only instant,’ she explained. ‘I feel that I was a bit short with you the other night at the meeting.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Morgan said.

  ‘You should sit down,’ Monique invited. ‘You look a little awkward standing there.’

  Morgan grinned and sat down at the small wooden table. It looked like it had seen many years of service, nicked and scratched as it was.