Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  ‘Who did? The governesses?’

  Bob laughed too… ‘No. But – listen, just for the moment… Thing is, we do now know where the girls are

  – or where they were very recently. Up near Kharkov – four hundred miles inland, roughly – with a mobile frontline hospital. They’re working as nurses now, you see. And – here’s the worst of it – the front’s given way, or anyway it can’t hold much longer. Bolshies have outflanked Kharkov – we have this from Constantinople by signal this afternoon. So—’

  ‘Your governesses are – not well placed.’

  ‘Putting it mildly – they certainly are not. In fact it may be too late, even now. But it’s supposed to be my job to get them out – if there’s any hope of doing so.’ He paused, holding Everard’s hard stare. ‘The obvious answer’s to get up there by train – the line from Novorossisk via Rostov was mentioned. But that’s the devil of a long flog – days of it, time we haven’t got. So I’ve been looking at an atlas and a chart or two, and it struck me—’

  ‘Taganrog?’

  He smiled, at the destroyer man’s quickness. ‘Exactly. Exactly what I’ve come to ask your advice on – since you’ve just come from the Azov, and you’d know as well as anyone… D’you think it’s a viable proposition – to get in there, get ashore?’

  3

  Three-thirty, roughly. Dark, and cold, Terrapin moving to the long, low swells while her cable came clanking in, the regular metallic crashes as each iron link banged in over the hawse seemingly loud enough in the night-time quiet to have everyone else in the anchorage awake and cursing. Then it stopped: you heard the sea’s jostling, the creaks and groans of the ship’s structure as she pitched, the wind’s thrum in and around her mast and superstructure, and above all that chant-like cry from the fo’c’sl – ‘Cable’s up-and-down, sir!’

  Meaning that all the slack had been dragged inboard now, so that the next few turns of the steam capstan would break the anchor out of Sevastopol’s black mud. Everard, one of several figures in a group in the bridge’s forepart, said quietly ‘Weigh’, and his first lieutenant, Harrison, leant over to shout that order down to the cable party. Torchlight flickering down there, and the steady clanking starting up again. Bob Cowan, at the back of the bridge out of the others’ way, aimed borrowed glasses at Caledonian’s three-quarter profile some three cables’ lengths away on the bow. He’d seen movement on the bigger ship’s quarterdeck, and found a group now static in a glow of light spilled between an open screen-door and the rear of the after six-inch gunhouse.

  Captain Fellows might well be one of them, he guessed. Waiting with his middle-watch quarterdeck staff to see the destroyer leave. Slipping out like a thief in the night… In daylight there’d have been a ritual of salutes exchanged as they passed: the shrill of a bosun’s call from Terrapin, a bugle-call in answer from the cruiser. But none of that now, and no signals of farewell either. Farewells, handshakes and ‘Good lucks’ had been finished with half an hour ago.

  ‘Anchor’s aweigh, sir!’

  Everard said, ‘Slow ahead together. Come fifteen degrees to port.’

  ‘Slow ahead together, sir.’ Mackeson, the chief quartermaster, was on the wheel and voicepipe. ‘Fifteen degrees to port. South eighty-five west, sir.’

  Clang of engineroom telegraphs: then the first trembling in her steel frames as the propellers turned. The night air was like a serrated knife: Bob turned up the collar of his greatcoat. Conscious not only of the cold but also of a sense of unreality: that it could all have happened – at least, started – this fast, almost instantaneously with the conception of the idea and its tentative broaching first to Everard and then to Fellows.

  To be honest – with oneself, at least – the feeling wasn’t only of unreality. It was also of fright. And recognition that whatever came of this he’d deserve it, would have no-one to blame for it but himself. Although it might also be true to say that he had not either consciously or deliberately put himself in this situation: he’d put an idea forward, that was all, raised a possibility. Then – snap, trap closing – closed.

  Another hail from the cable party, down there where it would be even colder – ice-cold spray, most likely, in the wind lashing over that dark, wet fo’c’sl – a cry of ‘Clear anchor!’ telling Everard that they could now see the anchor itself in their torch-beam and that there were no cables or wires fouling it. Caledonian meanwhile looming closer to starboard, a long black cut-out with only that pool of radiance on her quarterdeck and her anchor-lights with haloes around them in the freezing salt-damp air. Everard’s voice again: ‘Half ahead together. Steer west. Pilot – take over, please.’

  ‘Pilot’ meaning the navigating lieutenant, Johnny Cruickshank – tall, thin, slightly stooped, doubtless from long hours bent over charts and binnacles; and caustically humorous in his observations, especially on the Service and the foibles of its senior officers… One knew all these people, of course, from the few days spent in their ship on passage from the Bosporus – at which time, he recalled, his expectation had been to spend just a week or two in the Crimea and then return in some other ship with the ex-governesses.

  The recollection reminded him of Captain Fellows’ question an hour or so ago: ‘Happy with this business are you, Cowan? Think you’ll pull it off all right?’

  He’d hesitated: having no easy answer… To a similar challenge from Everard – earlier, in Terrapin’s chartroom – he’d told him, ‘I talk Russian, and I know Russians. Well, I am one – half, anyway… And I’m a big lad, I can look after myself…’ Everard had laughed: ‘Bet you can!’ Laughing with a kind of happy enthusiasm which at first Bob had welcomed but then found rather puzzling. Right from the start Everard had seemed to jump at the chance of making this trip: almost as if there was some personal satisfaction in it for him. It was puzzling because you’d have thought that having just come from the Azov and about a week of semi-sleepless nights he and his ship’s company would have been looking forward to at least one restful night in harbour.

  To that question from Fellows, though, Bob had only been able to mutter something to the effect that he thought finding the two women might not be as difficult as one had imagined at first sight of the problem. To get there in time was the crucial thing: but there couldn’t be more than two or three mobile field hospitals, and military units must surely be kept informed of their whereabouts. So as long as the front was holding, or at least as long as the Volunteer Army were conducting a more or less orderly retreat, not in complete rout – well, with a modicum of good luck… He’d shrugged, and Fellows had sat there blinking at him as if he thought this fellow Cowan was something special. Or something peculiar, might be closer to it…

  In fact, the issue was simple. These two girls would probably never see their families again if one did nothing, but conceivably might if one had a shot at finding them. And having been given the job, that was it, all there was to it.

  Everard’s motivation might have been similar, and as simple. He was a fairly straightforward sort of man, Bob thought.

  They’d done the preliminary chart-work together on board Terrapin before Caledonian’s motorboat had come for them. Then, having arrived on board the cruiser – Everard as a commanding officer having the honour of being piped aboard – Bob had hung back, or rather hung around, until Fellows had sent word that he should join them.

  The choice of drinks on offer was absolutely standard. Gin and water, pink gin, or gin with a dash of lime. Bob had asked for gin and water, and the captain’s steward had poured it for him and then withdrawn to the pantry.

  ‘Well now, Cowan. Everard here tells me you want him to take you into the Gulf of Taganrog. Eh?’

  He’d nodded. ‘I went over to ask him whether he thought the approaches to Taganrog might be navigable. Having given thought to Colonel Temple’s signal – an alternative to getting on a train at Novorossisk. The next question of course is whether there’d be any ship going that way – which of course there is
not…’

  ‘Stuart and Mistral are due in here about noon tomorrow, as it happens.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ He’d nodded – without enthusiasm. ‘Only thing is – time’s so short… If I’m to go at all – with the situation as one reads it between the lines of that signal?’

  ‘If I could explain this, sir.’ Everard had chipped in. ‘We’ve done our homework – times, speeds and distances. Two essentials being – well, first the urgency, and second is that despite navigational hazards – shoal water for one, and there’s ice now too, certainly at the top end – fact remains, I’d sooner not arrive in daylight. It’s narrow, in places, and there’s a strong Bolshevik infestation along the north shore. You never know where they are, places change hands almost daily. It could endanger us, could also endanger my passenger when he lands. Can’t be sure how close to Taganrog itself we can land him, you see. And I’d like to be out of the narrows before daylight, too. What it comes down to is that if we were going at all I’d want to start well before dawn.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Well – early morning. That’s to allow for a fifteen-knot passage most of the way and a few hours at twenty knots at later stages. One has to think about fuel consumption, of course, and I’d propose refuelling in Theodosia when I come out of the Azov on completion. Then I’d sail directly from Theodosia to the Bosporus, en route Marmara.’

  Fellows had screwed his eyes up, making calculations…

  ‘So if this diversion were to be authorized, you’d reckon to be roughly three days adrift on present schedule. Am I right?’

  ‘Sooner say four days, sir. Maximum five – but yes, probably four. That’s allowing for possible unforeseen delays. In Theodosia, for instance – might reckon to spend a night there.’

  ‘Very well.’ Fellows had nodded. ‘We’ll draft a signal, Cowan, to your Colonel Temple.’ He reached, touched a bellpush, gestured to the steward when he appeared to refill the glasses… ‘Points to be made are that in the light of the information which he’s supplied you’re proposing to get on a train at Taganrog if you can be landed there, that the only ship immediately available, if she can be spared for it – etcetera…’ He nodded to his steward. ‘Thank you, Collins.’ Back to Bob: ‘It’ll be in Temple’s lap, then, up to him to twist whichever arms need twisting. Look, you draft it – use my desk there…’

  The answer, approving the mission, came just before 0300, and at the same time Everard received his own orders directly from Rear Admiral, Black Sea. Terrapin had been kept meanwhile with steam up, at immediate notice for sea; within minutes of the signals being decoded ‘Special Sea Dutymen’ was being piped and Bob was boarding her from Caledonian’s motorboat. About forty minutes ago, that had been; now they were almost out of Sevastopol’s long, rather narrow harbour, with North Point abaft the beam to starboard, the open mouth of Quarantine Bay discernible as a gap in the shoreline to port, and a faint aura of light over the town itself back on that quarter. Terrapin working up to fifteen knots, heeling as Cruickshank brought her round to a course of south 67 west, for a run of about six miles – half an hour, roughly – to the point off Cape Khersones where they’d alter to south-east.

  ‘Wishing you hadn’t started this, Cowan?’

  Everard – a dark shape materializing from the front part of the bridge, reaching to a flag-locker for support as with his ship’s beam exposed to the north-wester now her roll became more violent. Bob shouted back, over the racket of wind and sea and the ship throwing herself about, ‘Not yet. Later, dare say I will.’

  ‘What Britain does for her governesses, eh?’ A bark of laughter, and a hand on Bob’s elbow as he pushed past to the ladder. ‘Get your head down, if I were you.’

  * * *

  He had the use of Cruickshank’s cabin – back aft, one of four that opened on to the wardroom flat. The navigator would be catnapping, he’d said, on the padded bench in his chartroom right below the bridge. But for Bob not even a catnap was coming easily. Conversations from recent hours replayed almost audibly in his brain, and behind them was the continuing doubt as to how much sense there could be in making this trip at all. Whether there’d be any trains passing through Taganrog, for instance.

  But of course there would be – when a front was under threat you didn’t suspend supplies to it, you reinforced it, for God’s sake! Denikin would probably be sending up everything he had to spare. And there’d be ammunition trains, rations, surely…

  A question from Captain Fellows – ‘What thoughts d’you have as regards extricating yourself – or yourselves, if you do find these silly girls?’ – was much less easy to dismiss. Bob and Everard had touched on the subject earlier, Everard pointing out that there’d be no question of a pick-up from Taganrog at any later stage. He’d be putting Bob ashore at some time after midnight, this coming night, and aiming to be on his way out of the Gulf by 0300 at the latest, so as to be out of those dangerous narrows before daylight. Foreseeable dangers being Bolshevik artillery at close range from the shore, navigational hazards from shallow patches not all of which would be accurately charted, and a possibility of mines in the channels between those patches. Everard’s job as he saw it was to land Bob as close to Taganrog as possible, then get his ship away quickly; and as a withdrawal of all British forces was seen as imminent there couldn’t be much prospect of a later pick-up – even if there was any way to set one up, which there probably would not be.

  Bob had told Fellows, ‘Only way will be through Novorossisk, sir, I imagine. Train again – join up with some military mission on their way out, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes. Yes…’

  The cruiser captain frowning thoughtfully, fingertips feeling the late-night stubble on his jaw. ‘One – er – complication you should perhaps be aware of, Cowan, is – well, in Novorossisk one hears it’s of epidemic proportions now and getting worse, and of course any greatly increased influx of refugees can only make it much worse –’ glancing at Everard, then back to Bob – ‘I’m talking about this damn typhus. You may not know it, but – you do know Ashmore was supposed to be going there, at the admiral’s behest, just before you arrived—’

  ‘Yes, I—’

  ‘He was diverted to Batoum – Mistral was, he took passage in her. The admiral thought it prudent to change the venue of that conference – which incidentally was to assess the numbers potentially eligible for evacuation, and the ports to be used for it and so forth… And – look, this is confidential, both of you, not the sort of thing we’d want broadcast, but a steamer full of refugees from Novorossisk, the SS Panama, is currently anchored off Malta, they won’t let her berth.’ A grimace. ‘Typhus. Riddled with it. She’ll be sent back here, no option. Black Sea somewhere – God knows where… Anyway –’ Fellows had shrugged – ‘as well to bear it in mind, Cowan. Not that there’d be anything one could do, but—’

  ‘No…’

  Not a damn thing; and no way one could take any consideration of it into one’s plans. ‘Plans’ in any case being rather a grand term for one’s present notions of (a) getting ashore, (b) boarding a possibly non-existent northbound train, (c) arriving somewhere or other behind the Kharkov front and asking about letuchka – about one particular letuchka that had two British women on its staff – and (d) getting out again, somehow or other, with them in tow.

  Some plan.

  Novorossisk, incidentally, would be icing up before long, Fellows had pointed out. Just to add – Everard’s comment, afterwards – to the joys of spring…

  Terrapin had begun to roll harder: she was pitching as well but the roll was savage suddenly. He had a knee against the ship’s side and his feet jammed against the bunk’s leeboard, left hand hooked over the mattress’s edge. Enormous thumping crashes meanwhile, hundreds of tons of salt water hurling itself time after time against thin steel plating inches from his head, the steel trembling from the impacts, the ship’s whole framework loud with it. She’d be under helm, he guessed, turning around Cape Khersones
, getting the worst of it for a few minutes but this wouldn’t last; once her stern was into the northwester there’d be a lot less roll, a lot more pitch. He could visualize it up there, breaking seas sheeting over from the quarter then from right astern, the bridge watchkeepers having a drier time of it then but having to cope with the danger of the ship being pooped – big seas rolling over her from astern, even perhaps flooding down into the wardroom flat if the screen-door up there wasn’t shut and clipped, or if a heavy one caught someone on his way out or in. Another hazard was of the destroyer’s screws racing if the stern rose so steeply that they came out of water – the danger of stripped shaft-bearings, so you’d need to keep the revs down.

  Their worry. He told himself, Make do with your own.

  For instance – Fellows’ voice again…

  ‘It’s the finale now – you realize? We’ve withdrawn from Murmansk and Archangel, and we’re out of Vladivostok as far as dry land’s concerned. Italians and Frogs have pulled out too. Last situation report was the Americans were following suit – railwaymen as well as troops they’d shipped in there, did you know? Anyway, they were getting ’em out as much to avoid problems with the Japanese as with the Bolshies. Japs seem to be hanging on, and the Czech Legion’s still on that railway of course… But by and large, certainly as far as we British are concerned, intervention’s been a flop. Oh, your Caspian campaign fulfilled its purpose, but there’s nowhere else you could say the same of. Except – well, yes, I’m wrong, from a purely naval point of view the Baltic’s a very different story.’ Looking at Bob, Fellows had cocked an eyebrow: ‘Meant to ask you this before, Cowan: are you any relation of Walter Cowan?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir.’

  Walter Cowan being the rear-admiral who was very effectively commanding a Royal Navy cruiser squadron – plus submarines and CMBs – in the Baltic, defending the Estonians’, Latvians’ and Lithuanians’ newly-gained independence against Bolshevik as well as residual German forces. That was justified intervention, all right, and much to the Royal Navy’s credit.