Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  ‘Is there reason to believe the bastards might be in a condition to counter-attack?’

  ‘Could be. Who knows. But we’re organized now, we’ve got their measure… You were in it, up there, I suppose?’

  ‘They moved us east from Kiev. We took that, a while ago. But the Kharkov front was broken before we got there. Then I was detached – well, as I’ve explained… You were in that show, were you, comrade?’

  ‘The thick of it… Got a map there?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Christ! No map?’

  ‘I told you – damn-all. Because we’d’ve been up with ’em by this time, if—’

  ‘Here. Take a look at this one. Memorize it, comrade…’

  * * *

  ‘Helpful fellow, that Shikhin.’

  Pyotr Shikhin: he’d told Sergeant Krotov to mention his name to Captain Fedorenko at the cavalry headquarters, explaining that Shikhin had directed him there in the certainty that Fedorenko would allow him to rest and feed his horses before setting off again on the long ride south.

  They were riding stirrup to stirrup, with a string of horses behind, then Ibraim with his string. Bob said, ‘On the road like that is one thing, Boris Vasil’ich. But actually to bed-down in a Bolshevik headquarters…’

  ‘No reason we shouldn’t get away with it. We fooled him—’

  ‘But as I say – just a brief meeting, on the march. And with this damn stuff to hide all the blemishes.’ The snow, he meant. It did have a camouflaging effect. ‘Quite another thing to stop in some kind of headquarters establishment – spend a day or two – my God, fraternizing?’

  ‘Robert Aleksandr’ich – please, listen. We fooled him completely. And why not – he’d no reason to be suspicious of us. Now we go to this Fedorenko with an introduction from his brother-officer Pyotr Shikhin – he’ll have even less reason to look askance at us!’

  Plodding on… Thinking about it. The conclusions being that one had very little option, really. Certainly no good alternative to suggest. He shrugged. ‘All right… But – supposing it is as easy as you say, and we get away with it – what then?’

  ‘Then we’re a lot better off than we are at this moment.’

  ‘In the short term – yes. And I agree, we have to – risk it. In the spot we’re in now – all right. But we’ll still have

  what, a hundred and eighty miles to go – two hundred, even?’

  Schelokov was brushing accumulated snow off his now heavily-bearded face. Turning down-wind then to blow it out of his moustache… ‘What I’m hoping is they may have another depot further south that we can aim for. With Comrade Fedorenko’s blessing, d’you see.’

  ‘A tour of Red Army establishments—’

  ‘Once we’re in, we’re in. Now, we have Comrade Shikhin’s endorsement of us. After that, as long as we play our cards right we’ll have Fedorenko’s. Eh?’

  Silence – except for the softly thudding hooves, creak of saddle-leather, and the wind… Bob thinking that there had to be some limit to one’s luck…

  ‘Listen, Robert Aleksandr’ich.’ Schelokov reached over, patted his shoulder. ‘There’s no reason to expect problems. All right, we’ll have to be very careful. And if it turns out it’s tricky – well, we’ll go back to scrounging from farms, thereafter.’

  ‘What if word’s sent out from Valki – three escaped prisoners, thirteen horses—’

  ‘Ah – well – then, I grant you—’

  ‘Like walking into a cage.’

  ‘But we don’t know they have the telegraphs repaired yet. Even if they caught on that quickly, it mightn’t be easy to get word out very fast. In any case it’s unlikely they’d be so quick: and even if they were, they can’t know which way we’ve gone. Then again – would anyone believe escaped enemies of the revolution would ride into their cavalry headquarters and ask for a night’s lodging?’

  ‘No. Not unless they were bloody lunatics.’

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon they turned into the ornate gateway of what must have been some nobleman’s country seat. There’d been about a mile of high wall and a smaller gate – barred, with a ‘No Entry’ board on it – before they’d come to this one.

  A soldier with a red band on his arm emerged from the gatehouse. A hand up to keep the snow out of his eyes as he stared at them… ‘Where you from, comrades?’

  ‘Kursk. If it’s any of your business.’

  They’d agreed on certain rules and principles, one of which was that Valki should not be mentioned. Schelokov told the guard gruffly, ‘Looking for Comrade Captain Fedorenko. He commands here, am I right?’

  ‘Delivering remounts, are you?’

  ‘I’ll tell the comrade captain what we’re here for, lad. Where’ll I find him?’

  ‘At the house.’ A wave of the hand. A driveway led through snow-covered parkland towards a distant view of roofs and chimneys. Another man had appeared in the gatehouse doorway, was leaning there, not in any hurry to leave its shelter… The first one said, ‘Miserable-looking bunch you’ve got there, comrade.’

  ‘You’d look a damn sight more miserable – if you’d come as far as they have.’

  He’d glanced at Bob, and laughed. Bob grunted, staring contemptuously at the soldier.

  ‘Your name, comrade?’

  ‘Krotov. Sergeant.’

  ‘Unit?’

  ‘Twenty-third Regiment of Hussars. Was, anyway.’

  The man blinked at him. Then: ‘All right, comrade sergeant. Follow the driveway, report to the guard up there.’

  Schelokov glanced back at the others, and flipped his reins. Another guiding principle was not to say or explain more than was necessary. Ibraim would speak virtually no Russian, Hussar Galanshin would be more surly and taciturn than most, and all three would be obviously played out – wanting only to see to their horses, have some sort of meal themselves, then sleep. Sergeant Krotov, moreover, would ask the comrade captain’s permission for the three of them to sleep with their horses – being determined, as an experienced and cynical as well as conscientious NCO, that none of them should disappear while in his charge.

  * * *

  The house was fairly large, of classical design with a pillared central portico, a two-floored middle section behind it, and extensive single-storey wings. There’d been a four-man guard on the front steps, clustered in that shelter from the driving snow, and one of them had led Schelokov inside while Bob and Ibraim waited out here with the horses.

  These guards were beardless boys, recruits by the look of them. Edging rather diffidently out into the forecourt now, probably embarrassed at having been caught skulking in the dry, and by the sharp contrast between their own indoor look and these new arrivals’ heavy plastering of snow. Not to mention the way they sat their horses out there, ignoring it.

  ‘Have you – come far, comrades?’

  Bob stared at the boy who’d asked it. He asked him, after a short silence, ‘Novobranyets?’

  A nod, and an embarrassed glance round at his friends. He was a recruit. He’d blushed slightly. Bob looked away, shifting his hold on the reins of Schelokov’s horse, yawning.

  Easy, really. Until they rumbled you…

  He wondered what had happened to the owners of this house. In general terms, it wasn’t difficult to guess. Details were better left obscure. One had heard – and seen, now – more of that kind of detail than you’d want in any lifetime.

  Ibraim seemed to have fallen asleep. Perhaps he had. Schelokov had told him of times in his experience when troopers had slept in their saddles when actually on the march: in tight formations, stirrup to stirrup, riders nodding off while the horses kept on, mile after mile. Ibraim’s chin was on his breastbone, and his slumped body might have had no bones in it, have been dumped there in the saddle like a sack of flour.

  Five or even maybe ten minutes, Schelokov had been in the house. Fedorenko might be keeping him waiting before he saw him, of course. Or he might be tearing holes i
n his story. So who commands the Twenty-third now, sergeant? Might even have a Cheka man there grilling him. All major military units and establishments had Cheka representatives, to keep an eye on security, political attitudes and so forth. At Enotayevsk, in fact, Nadia had worked as secretary to a Cheka boss whose job had been to collate reports from the various military outposts in that command.

  If she’d been here now – here, this minute, dressed as a cavalryman – her hair shorn, of course, not as it had been in the dream – and her lovely features hidden in a greatcoat’s upturned collar…

  You wouldn’t have come here. Couldn’t have chanced her being seen at close quarters. The very thought of it: you’d have been in panic – even if she’d remained as cool as he guessed she might have – you wouldn’t have been able to breathe, or think straight…

  A voice from the steps woke him out of daydream: ‘Very well, then, comrade. I may see you again before you leave.’

  ‘Most grateful, comrade Captain!’

  He’d got the voice and intonation exactly right, Bob thought – watching him come quickly down the wide steps, stride across to take his horse – a wink as he took the reins from him – then swing himself up. Glancing round at them then: ‘We’re in luck, comrades—’

  ‘Show them to the stone stables, Losev.’ Fedorenko, calling down to one of the young guards. ‘Then find

  Corporal Fomin, tell him these horses are to have all they need.’

  Schelokov saluted, wheeling his horse to follow the boy, who was setting off at a run along the west frontage of the house. Then with some distance behind them he told the others quietly, ‘Everything we wanted. Including a hot supper in about an hour. Glad we came now, Robert Aleksandr’ich?’

  * * *

  You had to be glad of it – of shelter, food, new life in the horses. Only two things were wrong: one, it seemed so easy that you could hardly believe in it lasting, you had this feeling it could explode in your face at any moment. For instance – suppose the Twenty-third Regiment was billeted somewhere in this region and Fedorenko knew it, might have suspected something and sent a message to them? It was possible: all you actually knew of the Twenty-third was that you’d annihilated a small detachment of them up at Valki. They could have been here, even. Calculated risk… Or not even that – just a frightful risk.

  Except that it was only your own neck on the block. All right, your own three necks: but it did help to remember how much worse it might have been. It even allowed you to hope you might get away with it – simply because objectively the issue wasn’t of such vast importance.

  The other snag was that this was only a stop-gap answer to the main problem – the distance to be covered, and the time factor. Fedorenko had told Schelokov that in his own estimation Taganrog was likely to be in Red hands within a few days. Rostov and Novorossisk would be the targets then, with the primary aim of stopping the flow of seaborne supplies to Denikin. He’d spoken of the port of Novorossisk solely in that context, with no reference to its being also the Whites’ only remaining escape route. But what one was facing now, in brutal fact, was what Colonel Temple must have foreseen when he’d wound up that signal with the words Your return here by first available sailing is therefore authorized.

  Perhaps one should have taken the hint. But at least those two nurses would be out by now – and might not have been.

  Now, in the old manor’s stone-built and stone-paved stables, supper was about finished although the horses were still munching happily. There was as much hay for them as they wanted, and a few handfuls of oats as well. The platoon which had been on the road this morning – Shikhin’s – had been quartered here and another should have arrived to take their place by now, but – Fedorenko had guessed – might have delayed their move, waiting for weather conditions to improve. If they arrived before Sergeant Krotov left with his remounts, there was other accommodation for them anyway.

  ‘Less palatial, apparently. Sheds or some such. Anyway, we won’t overstay our welcome – eh?’

  ‘Start out at first light?’

  ‘Well.’ Schelokov frowned. ‘Might let ’em give us breakfast, don’t you think?’

  They’d fetched their supper from the kitchens at the back of the house, being accompanied there and back by Corporal Fomin, who was a cripple with a twisted leg. A horse might have fallen on him at some stage in his career. They took mess tins and mugs from the saddle-packs with them, and were issued with buckwheat gruel, goat-cheese, tea, and three loaves of black bread. Better rations than usual, Fomin said, on account of one whole platoon being away.

  ‘So we’re in luck, comrade.’

  ‘You are that. Timed it just right.’ Glancing around at the weather, as he hobbled back to the stables with them. Bob aware that he was more or less hobbling too – stiff as hell, and sore. The stiffness might have been slightly less acute than it had been the night before, but the saddle-sores were worse. Fomin was saying, ‘Snow’s letting up, I’d say. Might have a better day of it tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ve done us proud anyway.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, comrade sergeant. And great days we’re living through, eh? Victory just around the corner?’

  When he’d left them, Schelokov commented, ‘Simple fellow. Means well enough. My regiment was stiff with men very much like that one.’ He’d added as they’d settled down to eat, with bales of straw to sit on, ‘Speaking of which, there’s one thing really frightens me, Robert Aleksandr’ich. Here – and anywhere like it that we may find ourselves next – fellow like that, face to face round some damn corner, and it’ll be an hussar from my old regiment. Couldn’t help but know me.’ He touched his beard. ‘Even under this disguise. Walking into that kitchen just now, for instance – one of the cooks, it might be. Imagine it – Hey, your name’s not Krotov…’

  * * *

  Dropping off to sleep – preparing to – on a blanket spread on straw – he concentrated his thoughts on Nadia. For pleasure – of a bitter-sweet kind, but still pleasure – and to escape present anxieties which otherwise tended to nag on, in and out of sleep, and even more in the hope that any dreams might be of her and not of events at the Valki farmstead.

  That was a dread. So – Nadia…

  As he’d last seen her – which was how he tended to remember, visualize her – that last snapshot in his mind again. Not that she’d been exactly at her best. Pale, tired, bedraggled, on the pitching deck of a little German-built torpedo-boat – in the middle of the Caspian and in the aftermath of what had been a very rough sea. It had still had plenty of movement on it. There’d been another ship’s boat tossing alongside, and he’d been saying goodbye to her – under the eyes of Nick Solovyev and Irina. Irina positively hawk-eyed, and Nadia very much aware of it so that her manner to him – Bob – had been so reserved that it had been actually hurtful, had seemed to be a cruel denial of the relationship that had been developing between them. But he’d had a message – a contact address – scrawled on a screw of paper in his hand, and in the act of kissing her goodbye – or rather, touching her cheek with his lips, which on its own had been enough to sharpen Irina’s green eyes – he’d opened his right hand against her left one, palm to palm, she’d felt the small wad of signal-pad and her fingers had curled, enclosing it. Turning away then she’d had it hidden, and there’d been no change or sign of anything in her face or manner. He’d realized afterwards, when he’d had time to think, that she’d needed the Solovyevs at that stage, for her own security – to be taken with them to the Crimea. Hence the formality, having to mind her p’s and q’s with Irina. But if one had only been quicker off the mark, not always needed so damn long to think… In fact he’d pondered this only a day or two ago, but it seemed much less fanciful now – that he really could have, should have – instead of saying goodbye, should have begged her, ‘Stay with me – please? Don’t go with them. I love you – let me look after you? Marry me? Nadia, my darling—’

  There’d have been a most frightful s
hindy with the Solovyevs, but you’d have weathered it. And she’d have been alive today.

  Nadia, darling… So sorry…

  He pulled an arm free from the blanket, used a corner of it to dry his eyes.

  * * *

  He woke out of a heavy, dreamless sleep, at what later turned out to have been two o’clock in the morning, with light flickering, a blast of freezing wind – snow in it, even – and a lot of angry shouting. The light was from an oil-lamp held aloft by a stranger – cavalryman, the one who was doing most of the shouting – and the stables’ main doors were open with snow swirling in and a crowd of men and horses out there. The dismounted man with the lamp was bawling at Schelokov – who was on his feet but still had his blanket round him – ‘—no damn business here, you and your bloody nags! Get ’em out, I tell you, take the bloody lot of ’em and—’

  ‘Comrade lieutenant.’ Fomin, the corporal: he’d squirmed in, with that dipping and twisting limp of his, squeezing in through the pack of horses blocking the doorway. ‘Tovarisch Leitnant – excuse me, but these comrades are here by order of the commanding officer. It’s the truth, comrade, he’ll tell you himself—’

  ‘At the gate they assured me these stables – they’re my stables, damn it—’

  ‘But you were overdue, comrade.’ Schelokov spoke in his sergeant’s voice, a bit of a Moscow accent. ‘Captain Fedorenko assumed the weather’d delayed you. But he told me if you did turn up there were other stables you’d use.’ He nodded towards the boxes. ‘My horses here – remounts, we’re in transit southward – needed a good feed and a night’s shelter. And we needed a night’s sleep – begging your pardon, comrade.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll be out of it in the morning, see.’