Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  ‘Am I seeing things, or is there a moon?’

  ‘There’s a moon. Off and on. Cloud did seem to be thinning, didn’t it, during the day. Must be breaking up. Well – to some extent, it’s covered some of the time, or has been.’

  ‘As well we aren’t on our travels, then.’

  ‘Because we might be caught?’

  ‘Well – you have a point… Not as sharp as I should be – yet.’ Catching up – or trying to… Realizing that the hole in the wall would be how he’d seen they had a fire. Then – from the thought of moonlight – wolves – ‘Oh, God, just remembered – Mishka, tied to a bloody tree up there!’

  ‘Yes, I know. I was thinking that if the worst comes to the worst we might tell them where she is.’

  He thought about that – and about what ‘the worst’ might amount to. But Schelokov was right, there was no reason she should suffer. And they might welcome the gift of a horse – even a short-legged, barrel-bodied, shaggy animal like that one.

  If she was still on her short legs, by this time.

  He asked Schelokov, ‘What d’you think’s in their minds for us? Why take us alive like this when they slaughtered the others?’

  ‘Remember that, do you?’

  ‘Only the order to kill them.’

  ‘Well, you’ve missed a great deal. But you’re right, of course, I remember – it did all happen very quickly at that stage. Then as far as you were concerned – wham… But the killing – slaughter, you’re right again, that’s a better word for it – it was a rare spectacle, you might say. Not just an earful, like it’s been here – and you’ve missed 99 per cent of that, even… Some of the patients were quite mobile – two of them hobbling on crutches which I’d say Ibraim must have made for them – how the hell she thought they could have gone back to active duty in a week, or anything like it, is a mystery… But – well, naturally the poor devils tried to get away, and –’ he drew a deep, loud breath – ‘these fellows caught them, and – I’ve seen action, Bob, really savage close-quarters fighting with sabres and no quarter asked or given, but I tell you, never anything like that kind of – the word’s murder, but to them it was sport. Cat-and-mouse – you know?’

  ‘Why haven’t they killed us too?’

  ‘Maltsev told them about us. And he’d got you down as a foreigner. Your uniform, for one thing, and a tendency to talk to yourself in English, for another. Yes, you do. You have that in common with Ibraim here, he natters to himself in his own barbarous tongue… So – I admitted it. You were going to tell them the truth about yourself, you told me, didn’t you? I told the NCO you’re British, Royal Navy, and that you were here to find some British nurses. Who in fact aren’t here, we don’t know where they are, probably in some other letuchka.’

  ‘What about yourself?’

  ‘I came along as your guide and companion. I’m Krotov – Ivan Leonidovich. The papers I – acquired?’

  ‘Yes… So did he accept—’

  ‘Unfortunately he decided the Cheka might want to question you – us, I should say. He’s sent a man off with a despatch – to Kharkov, I think.’

  ‘Thirty miles?’

  ‘Say a hundred versts there and back. Unless he gets to some telegraph that’s working, in which case he’ll save himself a long ride. The message is do they want us, and if so will they come here or should we be sent to them – which would take up some of his manpower that’s allocated to patrolling down here, see – that’s what they’re here for, apparently, to police the road – so he’d need orders. He told his man to be back here before dark tomorrow.’

  ‘Gives us the rest of tonight, and tomorrow.’

  ‘There’s more, if you want the whole picture.’

  ‘Affecting us?’

  ‘Not – directly–’

  ‘Later, then.’ He was up on his knees now. It was all right as long as he didn’t move his head, or jar it by any other abrupt movement. Also to move without thinking too much about it – without expecting it. If it was going to hurt, it would hurt – and you’d know it, didn’t need to anticipate it. To move as smoothly as possible, was the secret. And to concentrate the mind on other matters. Like this about the bloody Cheka. CHEKA standing for Extraordinary Commission to Fight the Counter-Revolution. They were the professional inquisitors, torturers and executioners. One could understand they’d be interested in a foreigner who’d been netted here in the backwoods of nowhere, and that they’d want to question the foreigner’s accomplice as well. It was very unlikely they’d believe the first cover-story they were offered.

  Strange, that thinking on these lines should alleviate pain.

  Well – it didn’t. It stopped you thinking about it, that was all. What you were thinking about instead was future – discomfort, say…

  Might be better to keep off that, too.

  ‘Why Ibraim, though?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘What would they hope to get out of Ibraim?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they might think he’d spill whatever he did have for them. I heard Maltsev tell the NCO that Ibraim was Irina’s hatchet-man. So if they thought the letuchka had been involved in some kind of conspiracy with us—’

  ‘Then surely they’d save the girls for the Cheka too.’

  The concertina – or accordion, whatever it was – was ending its current rendition in a long, off-key wail.

  ‘They can still question them I imagine.’

  ‘D’you really think so?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘That scream – just as I came round—’

  ‘Yes. And no sound since… Frankly, for her sake I’d hope…’ He paused… ‘Anyway, they’re only letuckha staff. I doubt they’d expect to get anything of interest out of them. They’ll shrug this off – “boys will be boys”, don’t you know… You and I are the mystery men, the ones they’ll want to suck the brains out of… Oh, incidentally, Maltsev told the NCO that I’d told him we killed five Bolsheviks in sixty seconds. I’m sorry, Bob. They’ll haul us over the coals for details of that, you can bet your life. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What did you say about it to this NCO?’

  ‘Denied it. Said I was only trying to frighten Maltsev.’

  ‘Well, that’s believable.’

  ‘To the Cheka?’ A snort… ‘The Cheka believe nothing they don’t sweat out of you with red-hot irons!’

  He was on his feet now. A bit wobbly, but – not too bad. Getting better, in fact, every minute. Physically, anyway. He thought part of the improvement might be due to not having the blood pumping into his head as it had been when he’d been lying flat. Like he’d seen it pulsing in that swollen throat… Might be the answer to the metaphysics of it, the vision he’d had and which he could still recall in graphic detail: that he’d part felt it, thus making the image so appallingly real. He was leaning on the wooden wall for support – wooden partition, rather, between this tack-room and the stable next to it. Thoughts still on the subject of the Cheka and prospects of survival – or rather non-survival, which was a comparatively nice word for a number of other, extremely unattractive spurts of imagination. Over the last year or so one had heard a lot about Cheka methods. Including a report that they were using some of the former Chinese Labour Corps – ditch-diggers, menials formerly employed in the Imperial Army’s rear echelons – for the more important torture-sessions. The Chinese were specialists, apparently, perfectionists who took great pride and pleasure in such work. He told Schelokov, ‘Wouldn’t make much difference, I’d guess. If this is any comfort to you, Boris Vasil’ich. I mean they’ll kill us anyway – when they’ve finished with us. You might imagine I’d have preferential treatment – as a foreigner – but in the first place I’m half Russian, so they could ignore the other half if it suited them, and second – well, look at all I’ve seen and heard. In their shoes, would you let me go, to tell the tale abroad?’

  ‘I might think twice about it.’

  �
��Damn sure you might. And I’m sure you’ll agree you don’t stand a chance.’

  Ibraim spoke then, out of the darkness – his nasal tones coming as a surprise, when he’d been so quiet and presumably immobile that one had forgotten he was here. He blurted, ‘No chance me, also, I think.’

  ‘Did they knock you about at all, Ibraim?’

  ‘Beat – beat hard. But no hurt.’

  Perhaps hurting Tartars wasn’t all that easy…

  They were singing again. An old Cossack ballad, this time. Intrepid Cossack – Udaloi Kazak – riding alone, above the river slowly-slowly, through fog and lashing rain…

  ‘Boris Vasil’ich – this partition’s seen better days.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean the boards are loose. Can be moved – prised back.’ He put a little pressure on one of them: the nails in it groaned as it shifted, and he stopped immediately. ‘Hear it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Schelokov was beside him. ‘Not that it could help us much. Except… No. No, it couldn’t. There’s an armed sentry on the other door – and a dozen more of ’em, when we haven’t even got a toothpick… Maltsev took his knife back from you, by the way.’

  ‘Did I have his knife?’

  ‘Yes. I gave it to you, when I took it from him. Anyway – you’re right, this does give – quite easily… There aren’t any horses in there, incidentally – just their saddles and bridles, so they’re under guard same as we are. Two birds with one stone. Horses are in the barn across the yard… Look – tell you what—’

  ‘Excellency.’ Ibraim was on Bob’s other side. He could smell him as well as hear him. ‘I beg Your Excellency… I, Ibraim – getting out this way, kill the soldier?’

  ‘Wait, Ibraim. Great minds think alike, they say, but – wait, just a minute… Bob, I’ll tell you what we have here. My guess – more than a guess, the door’s been built up as well, it was a half-door like the others, now has a top on it… I’d say this was another stall, and at some stage they converted it to a tack-room. Fellow who lived up at that ruin and kept his nags here – until then this partition would have been only five feet high, like all the others.’

  ‘And unlike the door, the new bit’s flimsy.’ Bob said, ‘I’m going to sit down for a moment. Sorry, but—’

  ‘We will, too. Ibraim – sit. Sit here, talk… Bob, listen, I think there is a way—’

  Avdotya screamed. High, thin, piercing, a child’s scream of pain…

  ‘Christ almighty…’

  Ibraim began, ‘Gospodin Major—’

  ‘Wait a moment, Ibraim. No good just rushing out there. There are three of us, thirteen of them, we have to plan it carefully or we get nowhere. Except dead. Understand? Shut your mind to that, now – what’s going on out there… Bob – how fit are you? Or conversely—’

  ‘I’m fit.’

  ‘For action? Think you could handle a rifle like you did the other day?’

  ‘Fit for anything except having to listen to much more of that.’

  ‘Even with you on top form – and myself ditto – it’s a devil of a slim chance. And with you in the state you’re in – whatever you say, however willing…’

  His voice tailed off. They were singing, and the squeeze-box was being played again. She’d only screamed once since that first time. Schelokov resumed, whispering, ‘All right. Listen. The sentry out there changes every half-hour – has been doing so, anyway – and the last change was about five minutes before you came back to life, Bob. So – quarter of an hour from now, say. The point is, we need two rifles. Am I making sense?’

  ‘Perfect sense. Thirteen men, you said—’

  ‘Eleven. We’ll already have killed the two whose rifles we’ll be using.’

  ‘Right.’ He managed not to shake his head, but he damn near had. ‘I’m being slow. Sorry – go on.’

  ‘Ibraim – d’you understand all I’m saying? Ponimayesh?’

  ‘Ponimayu. But I, with my bare hands – s’rukami—’

  ‘Yes. Indeed. The first one, certainly, probably the second too. First, the one who’s on duty now. Bob, you wait here – please. You may not like it, but we need you to be at your best, or as near as you can get to that, and the longer you have between now and then the better. Quarter of an hour ago you were still flat out – remember that.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Ibraim – you, with me, we climb through, go to the other door – very quietly. When we’re ready – when I say, not before – I throw the door open, you grab the sentry – cover his mouth, don’t let him shout – pull him inside—’

  ‘Kill him.’

  ‘Yes. Quietly. No sound.’

  ‘Ponimayu.’

  ‘If the door’s locked – I don’t think it can be – we’ll have to force it open. Shoulder to it. Wouldn’t take much doing, nothing here’s all that robust, but in fact I doubt there can be a key or that the lock would work. I can’t remember there being any latch on it, even. Could be a bolt… Anyway – we kill this first one, then leave the door ajar. When the other one comes, he’ll think his friend’s inside. We’ll let him come in – farther in the better – I’ll shut the door and you kill him, Ibraim.’

  ‘Khorosho.’

  ‘Or if he hangs back – no reason he should, but if he does – we nip out and grab him. Tell you what – I’ll have the first man’s coat and cap on, just in case—’

  ‘And I just bloody sit here…’

  ‘Yes, Bob. Leave this part to us… Ibraim – when we’re prising the planks out here, then getting through, we’ll time it with the noise from outside there. Including any screams. And you do exactly what I say, and nothing else – uh?’

  ‘Konyeshno, Gospodin—’

  ‘Boris – soon as you’re out, pull the wedge out of this door before you start all that?’

  ‘Of course. But you stay put, mind. Three of us’d be falling over each other anyway… Christ, it’s a madcap scheme, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so. In the circumstances. No – I’ve no ideas how you’d better it.’

  ‘Instant bloody planning… Bound to be some snag, something I haven’t allowed for – can’t allow for—’

  ‘So why worry?’

  ‘Well – you’re right…’

  ‘It’s got to be now, hasn’t it – or as likely as not, never.’

  The music was as loud as it had ever been. Schelokov’s hand rested on Bob’s shoulder as he pushed himself up. ‘Ibraim – when the noise stops, we stop. Understand?’

  * * *

  The wedge must have come out without a sound: he was close to the door and heard nothing until it opened and Schelokov whispered, ‘There. Sit tight now.’ He could see him: there was a ventilation slot halfway along the front wall, high up, and although the moon must have been cloud-covered there was enough light for him to be in darker silhouette against it. Then he’d gone – through it, ghost-like, Ibraim a crouching shadow that vanished with him. Bob squatted, then sat – in the open doorway, and avoiding the natural inclination to lean back. His head still throbbed, but much less painfully than it had.

  If it was only superficial damage – stunning, with lacerations and bruising – he’d be damn lucky.

  Hugging his knees: forehead resting on forearms. Listening…

  Here, close-to, nothing. Outside, forty or fifty yards away, the concertina wheezed out some dirge-like tune. Nobody singing now. Sleeping maybe. He had no idea what time it was. It had been early evening and still daylight when they’d knocked him out. Could be midnight – or before, or after…

  Then – more howl than scream – ‘No – o – o!’

  Avdotya: her protest drowned out then in a roar of cheering.

  Cheering…

  Close on his right, though, a thud, the sound of splintering timber and the start of an explosive ‘Nu – shto takoi—’ that was cut off by a different kind of impact, followed by a clatter – something falling, weapon perhaps, his rifle – and then regular
, short gasps – muscular effort, Ibraim’s – crushing, strangling…

  Half a minute passed – roughly…

  ‘There.’ A muffled thud.

  ‘Well done.’ Schelokov’s voice, low-pitched, in rather the tone he’d used when being nice to Mishka. ‘Let’s have him in here. Here, I’ll take—’

  Another clatter like that first one. ‘Damn it…’

  They’d cheered again, outside there. It was best not to allow one’s imagination any scope in that direction. Better to confine the reaction to Be dead soon, every one of them… The total obliteration of the patrol – troop, whatever it was – was in fact a prime necessity. Same as on that recent occasion in the forest, you couldn’t afford to let even one of them get away. It was obvious and unarguable, but happened also to suit one’s inclinations. Except that the chances were they’d die quickly – a mercy none of them deserved. Mightn’t be all that easy, either: with the varying light, and good cover all around. Anyway – cross one bridge at a time… He was outside now, in the passage, straining his eyes towards movement down at the end to his right. The moonglow didn’t reach that far, he couldn’t make out individual figures or what they were doing. But hinges creaked, and he heard Schelokov mutter to Ibraim, ‘I’ll be back in two seconds.’

  Coming this way now…

  ‘All right, Boris?’

  ‘So far. One down, one to go… My God, I’m glad Ibraim’s on our side… Here, now – present for you, Robert Aleksandr’ich. It’s a cavalry rifle, shorter and lighter than you’re used to. There’s a clip in it and four spares in this pouch. Five rounds in each clip.’

  ‘Bloody marvellous.’

  ‘All right, are you?’

  ‘Yes – fine—’

  ‘Fine, he says… Anyway – this has a peep-sight, Bob. God knows how it’s set – hundred metres, as a guess. Try it against the light there, get the feel, so—’

  ‘Learn to suck eggs too, shall I?’

  He eased the bolt back – there’d been no round up the spout – extracted the magazine, checked the rounds in it by feel and the spring-pressure under his thumb, and reloaded. Sliding the bolt forward, carefully, with his ear down to it to hear the top round come off the top and snick into the chamber. Schelokov murmured, ‘You realize we’re going to have to kill all of them?’