Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  ‘Where is this getting us right now, Cowan?’

  ‘Well – I’m supposed to be bringing them back, damn it!’

  ‘So you meet ’em, bring ’em back.’

  ‘We couldn’t possibly squeeze them in with us?’

  ‘Not on your damn life, we couldn’t!’

  ‘Not one in with me and the other with you?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Well – ignorant. But—’

  ‘Listen.’ Scott checked the time, then looked to see that the fuelling was still in progress. They were wheeling the steel drums out on a hand-trolley and over the rough, snow-packed ground; it wasn’t happening very quickly. ‘I’ll tell you – when we were flying from Kotluban, one of these Nines did make it back with two extra guys on board. One crate had been shot down – up on the Volga, this was – the other landed, picked that crew up. There were Reds on the ground, and our boys were using their Lewis to keep ’em at a distance – the other machine got hit too, on its way down, but it got back into the air – just, by luck they had room for a long run – with two guys in the rear cockpit and one riding up front here – on top, between those centre struts, one hand to hold on with and the thumb of the other one plugging a bullet-hole in the gas tank. But – see, this was a real emergency – and what’s more, if any of ’em had been your size –’ he shook his head. ‘Oh, and it was a short flight home, mind you – not a hundred bloody miles!’

  He nodded. ‘All right. Sorry.’

  ‘Look at the map now, shall we?’

  Back on the ground, he spread it on the aircraft’s lower wing, and Bob joined him, crouching in over it between the two pairs of struts.

  ‘First we’ll be flying over this high ground west of us.’ He glanced up, nodding towards what looked more like cloud. ‘Heading west-sou’-west – all the way – and on that course we’ll have say fifteen miles of the plateau under us. Then it falls away – here – to low-lying plain – steppe – and after maybe another fifteen miles we’ll be over the Donets river. Here… Then – well, twenty-five miles, roughly – when we’re about due south of Kharkov, see – we cross the north-south railway line and the Orel river right close to it. Should be easy to make out – long as this clear weather holds. I’ll be flying at five thousand, by the way – or thereabouts, depending on the cloud-base. Saying prayers we don’t get more snow before dark, incidentally. If we do –’ he grimaced – ‘nothing to sweat over, just – you know, better without it… Anyhow – here’s Petrovka, smack on our line of flight. No railway or river, but it must be on a road of some kind, and once we’re there we’re over the triangle you want to search. Still heading west-sou’-west – brings us to Konstantinograd, which is on a railway track. That’s, say, fifteen miles after Petrovka. Or if we’ve gone over Petrovka and not seen it, about fifty after crossing the Donets back here. Making sense to you, this far?’

  ‘Can one use a map up there?’

  ‘Sure. If you need to. Now, at Konstantinograd, we’ll make a turn to starboard, follow the railway west-nor’-west to Karlovka. Twenty, twenty-five miles, and that’ll be the farthest end of the triangle. If we haven’t struck lucky by then we’ll come around to east, fly across the middle. But listen, I do have to set myself a deadline, leave us time to get back here before dark, with some allowance for a weather change. When the time comes to turn for home I’ll tell you – and I don’t care how any red crosses you may have in sight. Understood?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Behind them, the leading airman told Scott, ‘She’s ready when you are, sir.’

  ‘I’m ready now, Jamieson.’ He put a hand on Bob’s shoulder. ‘But I want you to show Commander Cowan here how to swing a prop. Then we’ll let him do it on his own.’

  * * *

  A crowd had gathered to see them off. Kinkead calling up to Scott, ‘If you sight any Budyonny-type formations anywhere near, Sam, come straight back and tell us?’

  Scott raised a gloved thumb. Bob was standing by at the front of the machine; Jim Davies had shouted to him, ‘Making you do all the work, is he, Cowan?’

  He’d called back, ‘Most of it.’

  ‘Give my love to Mary, will you?’

  ‘Only if she’s the ugly one.’

  ‘My God, d’you hear that?’

  Kinkead shouted, ‘Hope you find ’em, Cowan.’

  ‘Thanks. And thanks for—’

  ‘On your marks, sir…’ Jamieson, his instructor, was standing close behind him and keeping an eye on Scott. They’d already done the so-called ‘sucking-in’. Bob put both his gloved hands on one of the blades, moved the propellor round until he could feel the compression work against it.

  He swallowed. Then: ‘Contact!’

  Scott drawled back, ‘Contact…’

  Davies won a laugh with his shout of ‘Anchor’s aweigh!’ just as Bob sent the propellor whirling: having placed his feet very carefully, so as to be sure of standing clear. His hands pulled back off the blade as off something white-hot as the engine fired. There’d be a few minutes of warm-up time, they’d told him – all the time he’d need to climb up and settle in, pull the helmet on and fasten its studs, say his prayers… But the colder the conditions, the longer the warm-up. Engine just purring, meanwhile, and Scott’s growl hollow-sounding through the tube: ‘Nice work, Cowan. You’ll make an airman yet.’

  ‘Hell I will…’

  Several more minutes passed: then a grunt of ‘She’ll do’, and a roar of sound as Scott opened his throttle and the machine bumped forward. It would be very bumpy until they picked up speed, he’d warned. They were waving from the touchline: must have been about fifty of them there. The airmen had rifles slung on their shoulders. This take-off would amount to at least something happening in a day when they had nothing to do except sit or stand around and place bets as to who’d arrive first – Collishaw, Holman or Budyonny.

  He hoped there would not be any sight of approaching Bolsheviks. Also that the letuchka would be there and they’d find it, and that it would be the right one and have the girls still in it. Although for their sake it would be better if they were already in Novorossisk, or on their way. Whether or not one actually brought them out – he’d realized when he’d been talking to Scott – was of no importance; having them out was what mattered, not ways and means – or the personal achievement.

  Speed building: and much smoother now, wheels only skimming the crests of the uneven ground, instead of hammering. Then suddenly no bumps at all – none of that bone-shaking vibration – total contrast… Lifting: the machine’s nose tilting upward, and – his head over the edge, looking down – the ground already some considerable distance below and receding fast. The Camel looked like a toy down there; the headless train, too, could have been a Hornby product. Midgets were straggling back towards it through the gap in the fence, although a few still stood there with their heads back, staring up.

  ‘How’s it feel, Cowan?’

  ‘God, it’s – I don’t know, it’s—’

  ‘Words fail you, huh?’ The wings tilted as he began to bring the machine round to the course of west-south-west. Canadian voice coming again through the flexible, metal-bound communication tube: ‘Don’t see any cavalry, do you?’

  ‘Don’t see much at all.’

  ‘Well, try identifying features on the ground. Takes practice. Goggles need getting used to, too. If the letuchka’s there it’s going to be up to you to spot it, see.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Won’t be this much shindy, once we level out.’

  Bewildering. Could not be happening. But was. Over the high ground that was shown brown on the map; and the railway tracks which led westward at this point were right below them. Leading slightly to the right, a five- or ten-degree divergence which suggested that Scott had her pretty well on course now. Still climbing, over the snowbound Ukraine.

  9

  Just minutes ago Scott had told him through the tube, ‘Getting close to the deadlin
e’ – deadline meaning turn for home, finish – and with that threatening-looking sky in the east you couldn’t have blamed him if he’d cut it even shorter. Thank God, he hadn’t. Bob had his head over the side in a rush of wind like steel flails, making sure before he spoke that he wasn’t suffering from an attack of red crosses before the eyes.

  Back astern there – unless you’d put it down to blurred goggles and wishful thinking…

  But those were red crosses.

  ‘Scott. Seven o’clock. Red crosses on tents. See that bridge over the river? Between that and the railway line.’

  Silence – inside the helmet. Outside, a roaring that could have been the sound of the world spinning on its axis… Then inside the cocoon, Scott’s growled answer to that unvoiced question: ‘Must be stone blind…’

  ‘Can you get down there?’

  ‘Let’s take a look. But – why not…’

  Wings tilting against low grey cloud, nose up but the machine beginning to drop down from four thousand feet, a part-closing of the throttle achieving this, engine-note a lower rumble but the wind screaming in struts and wires while the ground down there swivelled, confusing sense of direction – sense of reality even – and his brain warned him that either it wouldn’t be the right letuchka or the governess girls would have left it a week ago. The ground’s realignment slowed and rested. The tents with the red crosses on them were several miles away but on this other side now, and beyond them was the curve of ice-bound river with its bridge – tiny, from this distance – and the snow-rutted road which you could only see or imagine you could see – because you knew it was there, and because otherwise the bridge wouldn’t be – leading from it to some kind of railway crossing. Scott was easing his stick back, opening his throttle again as he levelled out at about two thousand feet and applied right rudder – putting the scarlet pinpoints of crosses out of sight for a few seconds before they reappeared on the left side.

  Mary Pilkington, Katherine Reid?

  Scott’s mutter – a response to telepathic communication, maybe – ‘Guess it’s them, all right.’

  ‘Certainly it’s a letuchka, but—’

  ‘Two to one on. Right area, huh? But we flew over just about here before, damn it. How come—’

  ‘A bit to the north, surely.’

  ‘Not all that—’ He’d stopped. ‘Hold on. Farmstead or somesuch at three o’clock. See? See?’

  A big farmstead – or small hamlet – down on the right, with woods encircling it to the west and north. Something like six or seven miles from the letuchka – and there was a lot of activity around it. Men running – to horses, a swirling herd of them in a yard between the buildings: the picture began to revolve as the port wings dipped and the nose angled downwards. Scott’s growl: ‘Too close to your friends for comfort. If they’re what they look like.’ His head was out to the left – the side the Vickers gun was fixed – while he brought her down to about fifteen hundred feet. Or less: much less, probably. And still diving. Below them men were still converging on that yard where the horses were charging around as if they thought they were in a circus ring… Now, surprisingly, rifles popping – small puffs drew the eye to them, and that meant bullets coming, reminded one of how flimsy this structure was. Not, surely, that one would be in range of them – yet… Except that Scott was jamming on rudder to jink his machine away: as proof that he hadn’t done it any too soon, a bullet ripped through the fabric of the lower wing. More of them doubtless singing past – but in the space of those few seconds that was the one you noticed. He’d side-slipped, was now in a tight, climbing turn to starboard, with a revolving bird’s-eye view down there astern of – God knew what, but there must have been twelve or fifteen horses and at least that many men.

  Reversing the turn. Banking left. A snipe might have admired the last half-minute’s jinking.

  ‘Budyonny scouts, I’d guess.’

  ‘What’s our height now?’

  ‘Huh?’ A pause, then the double-take: ‘Oh. Four hundred. We were at two-fifty… Scouting troop, for sure.’ The wings were levelling. ‘Listen. I’m putting some distance behind us, then I’ll follow contours around and set down beside the letuchka. Then, you’d better move twice as quick as you thought you would.’

  They’d have seen the RAF markings before they’d opened fire. So there was no doubt which side they were on. Probably no Red Air Force in these skies anyway. But so damn close to the letuchka: he wondered whether either knew of the other’s presence. Or whether that crowd would respect the red cross. It would depend on the individual commander, he guessed, but the Bolsheviks weren’t exactly famous for their respect of international conventions.

  With some distance behind him – some – Scott was easing her down closer to the ground again. From about five hundred feet, say, steadily losing height, and bumping a little, now. There were trees off to the left, a long straggle of them extending from the thickly-wooded area to the north of the farmstead. They seemed to be more or less in profile. So you were at treetop height. Circling right. Bloody low… Nothing to do but shut your mind to it, cling to blind faith in the man up front – who presumably knew what he was doing. But guessing at it – well – a circular route, more or less, to the letuchka: and staying this low because if he’d been much higher the rifle-happy Bolsheviks might have seen the ’plane when it went down again, wondered what for and ridden out to have a look. Instead of just passing out of their sight at low level.

  That would be it, near enough… Searching for the letuchka now. Imagining Nurses Reid and Pilkington seeing the roundels on the wings and hugging each other, jumping up and down with excitement…

  Except that it was distinctly possible that they weren’t even within two hundred miles – and perhaps better if they weren’t, with cavalry scouts so close and the presence of that small troop surely presaging the arrival of larger forces; and when one’s own feeble contribution was going to be Start walking, girls…

  ‘Cowan, you hearing me?’

  ‘Yes—’

  Flying over trees now, the trees seeming to topple over in swathes as the ’plane raced over them. Scott explaining, ‘Holding this course to the railway tracks, see, then I’ll turn up that side of ’em and put her down on the far side of the road. Should be all right for take-off from there, after you’ve had your two minutes flat with ’em.’

  He grunted. Deliberately not rising to that. Looking down over the side as the last of the trees flashed back astern. Skimming low over level, snow-covered steppe-land now with a line of telegraph posts marking the railway line ahead at right-angles across this line of flight. Nose lifting, and Scott’s mutter inside the helmet, ‘Should’ve brought a bomb-load. Put those characters to rights if we had bombs.’ Low-voiced, quite possibly talking to himself: it sounded like it, that kind of mutter. At something like two hundred feet now, with the railway just ahead, starboard rudder coming on and the parallel steel lines beginning to swivel anti-clockwise. Scott continuing his soliloquy: ‘Thought I’d have no use for ’em. Save weight. Can’t always guess right. Damn shame though.’ Still on about bombs: and he’d probably been explaining himself to his passenger, not to himself. Bob guessing – reading between the lines – that if he’d had his load of bombs he could have used them because that would have amounted to obliteration, whereas shooting-up a few men and/or horses would only have stirred up the hornets’ nest.

  The railway tracks were steadying from their swing – like some huge compass needle settling, down there on the right.

  ‘Here we go.’

  Nose up – surprisingly. But engine-sound right down, as he throttled back and the ground swam up towards them. Bob couldn’t see the tents, but they had to be somewhere close ahead.

  ‘Hold tight.’

  ‘Bet your life.’

  ‘May be a little rough…’

  He’d pulled his stick back, the wheels touched, then the engine roared as he opened up for taxi-ing. Tremendous jolting. Mud, ice and stone
s flying back. Bob keeping his head down, but still managing to look out: catching a glimpse of a red cross on dirty-looking canvas, then – surprisingly, one more surprise in a whole succession of them – a horse rearing with a man hanging on to its head, his boots well clear of the ground. Other figures here and there appeared and disappeared like snapshots while a silly little jingle ran repetitively through his mind to the drumbeat rhythm of the wheels’ slowing and lessening impact on ridged, hard-frozen ground: Mary Pilkington, Katherine Reid…

  ‘All right, back there?’

  ‘Scott, listen. I must have time to talk to these people. Even if it’s not the right bunch, they may know where—’

  ‘Just don’t waste time. Helmets off now.’

  The engine’s last rumbles had ceased, and the machine itself came to rest. Flat, dismal-looking surroundings abruptly static: telegraph posts starkly black receding into grey, frozen distance. He’d wrenched his helmet off and was turning to look back towards the tents when a male voice called in Russian, ‘Are you all right?’ The man who’d shouted was loping towards the aeroplane. Bob waved, then he had a leg over the side, probing with the toe of his boot for the first of two cut-away steps. Scott, also in the process of dismounting, told him, ‘I’ll take your place there at the Lewis.’

  On the ground, in a shambling trot to meet the man from the letuchka, he thought about this and realized his replacement by Scott must be a routine precaution. There’d be sense in it, probably, not to risk being taken by surprise. If the letuchka were full of Bolsheviks, for instance: or if those horsemen, or others like them—

  ‘Royal Air Force?’

  Russian-accented English. A wide-faced, square-built man of about – forty, perhaps. Grey-black moustache, grey also at the temples and a sprinkling of it in the stubble on his cheeks. Cavalry boots showed under the skirts of his overcoat, on the outside of which he wore a revolver on a belt with a diagonal shoulder-strap to take its weight. Fur shapka pulled low on the broad forehead, over wide but slightly slitted eyes. No insignia either of rank or unit. A doctor? But they didn’t go armed, surely. He didn’t have the look of one, anyway. He looked – behind that rather formal manner – as hard as nails.