Bloody Sunset

by Bloody Sunset (retail) (epub)

  Inhaling smoke slowly: and thinking about his father. Struggling to come to terms with the strangeness of there being empty space where all his life there’d been solid rock. Like one moment the certainty of a handhold if you reached out to it, and the next – thin air. Nothing. It was almost unbelievable – that the old man could be simply not there, not exist.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. ‘This is the second time I’ve caught you dreaming, Robert Aleksand’ich!’

  Startled, he’d glanced round – at the green eyes and stubbled face.

  ‘Nikolai Petrovich – I didn’t hear you coming.’ He flicked the stub of his cigarette away down-wind… ‘I suppose I was… somewhat preoccupied…’

  ‘Dreaming of the young lady you left weeping in Baku?’

  He was stumped again, for a moment – by the Count knowing of Leonide’s existence, even… Then realizing – getting the grey matter back into action – that he most likely would – especially with his habit of asking questions. He could have heard about her from someone in the Dunsterforce mess – or from Grintsev, after he’d left them in the saloon earlier on. There was a fair amount of gossip, he knew, about himself and Leonide Muromskaya, and it was largely because his colleagues failed to grasp the basic fact that he was half Russian, that it was perfectly natural for him to have social contacts ashore. They saw him as one of themselves – which he was too, of course – who happened to have spent some of his childhood in this benighted country and thus spoke the language: and the story that had been passed around was that ‘old Kiss-’em-quick Cowan’ had been ‘chasing some girl in Krasnovodsk’ and she’d since ‘followed him to Baku’. This was the legend, and nothing he could say would change it – he hadn’t much wanted to discuss it anyway – and the odds were that Solovyev with his sharp curiosity would have heard about it.

  He’d shrugged… ‘I wasn’t thinking about any young lady. Not at that moment… How about you, d’you have any special – er – attachment – or attachments?’

  ‘Attachment. Just one.’ Grasping the rail: exerting pressure, by the look of it, tensing his muscles… ‘Except that at this wretched time we’re unfortunately very much detached, have been so for—’ he shrugged – ‘more than a year… But I tell you, if she and I both come through all this – this mess we’re in—’

  ‘Hey.’ He interrupted. ‘When – not if.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Count’s expression was serious, earnest. ‘You’re right. We have to beat them, you’re absolutely right.’

  And he was completely genuine. Surely… Bob felt a twinge of shame for his earlier suspicions. Although there had been grounds for them. Besides which, suspicion was a fairly standard attitude, seeing that in present circumstances virtually nobody could be trusted – without his hands tied and a pistol at his head… But this fellow: he thought again, surely…

  He asked him, ‘How will you get to Enotayevsk? On foot?’

  ‘I think probably I’ll go by train. Depending on – well, train as first choice. Coming back – that’s something else… These are matters I’m working at in my thoughts – while yours are on girls all the time.’ He laughed – as if involuntarily, finding his own humour irresistible. ‘No – the answer is I must take it as I find it. The major problem is of course the journey back, when I have them with me. But getting there’s really not much problem at all. I’ll just stick my chin out, and tell anyone who wants to know, “Here I am – I’m Anton Ivan’ich Vetrov, I’m from Askhabad, I have to get to Moscow.”’

  ‘Have you got papers?’

  ‘Yes – new ones, fixed up for me in Baku. Came from a Bolshevik they had in the prison there – suitably altered, of course, but much better than straight forgeries.’

  ‘Forgery’s quite an industry, I’m told, in St Petersburg and Moscow now.’

  He shrugged. ‘Would be, wouldn’t it.’

  ‘Anyway – you make your way to Enotayevsk – by train, you say – and what then?’

  ‘Oh.’ He drew a long breath. ‘I don’t know. Until I—’ he swung round, letting go of the rail and facing him: ‘—get there… But that thought – arrival, what I may find there – it frightens me. Really. I have nightmares. Getting there, finding I’ve come too late, and then I find their bodies. I can’t describe to you…’

  ‘Dreams are just dreams, Nikolai Petrovich. Nick – if I may… Dreams don’t have any bearing on reality.’

  ‘I know. But it comes back so often that now I try to stay awake.’ He turned away, looking out towards Allaverdi again. ‘Ridiculous, I know – weak…’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it either ridiculous or weak. After all, you’ve lived with it for – three months, is it, since you had the message? And your own mother and sister…’

  ‘You’re – very kind.’

  ‘One thing I’d advise – if you want advice, which you most likely don’t…’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘On the subject of sleep – if I were you I’d grab a few hours between now and midnight. Forget about nightmares, just get your head down.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m going to, for sure. Right after supper – that’s at seven. Tell you what, Nick – I’ll arrange to be given a shake at, say, eleven o’clock, and I’ll send the messenger on to make sure you and Johnny are awake too. Then we might all meet in the wardroom for a hot drink and a bite to eat – d’you think?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Excellent…’

  Formal tone. Grim expression. Nightmares still in his head… Bob tried to take the man’s mind off his nightmares – which might indeed be reflections of a grim reality – ‘You said the house at Enotayevsk is in beautiful surroundings – riverside, of course… Is it a big place?’

  ‘Oh – not so big. Big enough that since ’14 it’s been a – well, convalescent home, for badly wounded officers. And – this might interest you – it was a summer cottage, belonged originally to a family – God, my memory’s so bad…’ Banging his forehead… ‘Ah, Stukalin. Grigor Stukalin was a supporter of the rebel Pugachov, and allowed him the use of the house as a base for his operations. Do you know your Russian history?’

  ‘You’re talking about – 1790, thereabouts?’

  ‘Not quite, but not far off. Late eighteenth century, anyway. My’ – he counted on the fingers of his left hand – ‘great-great-great-grandfather led a force of Cossacks in the campaign which ended with Pugachov’s capture and execution, and the Tsar in his gratitude made him a present of this house. Its former owner, as you can imagine, had no further use for it.’

  ‘He was executed too, you mean?’

  ‘He was pulled apart between Cossack horses – in the meadows between the house and the river. They say on a certain night of the year his screams are still to be heard. Not that I ever heard it – although as children we liked to pretend we did. My father, God rest him, used to joke that the poor fellow wasn’t up to it any more – because his throat was sore from screaming every year since 1774.’

  Bob laughed. ‘Marvellous!’

  ‘Yes… And the house – well, it has – I think – considerable charm. And the setting truly is beautiful – the river and a huge lake, birchwoods and willows, meadows…’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll live there again. Eventually.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s a very happy thought. The right kind of dream – and it could come true – please God…’ He swung round – a look of excitement on his face as a new thought hit him – ‘Robert Aleksand’ich – Bob – if it does, will you visit us – come and stay?’

  Visit us…

  He smiled. Inclined his head: formal acceptance of invitation. ‘Thank you very much.’ And wondering whether – despite his own insistence on when, not if – there could possibly be any happy outcome to this vast upheaval, wholesale slaughter and individual murder, the misery of man’s incredible brutality to man: whether the Count didn’t share his own suspicion that any thoughts of rainbows just around the corner could only be pretence, playactin
g, whistling in pitch darkness.

  * * *

  Dark as sin…

  Zoroaster had stopped her engines and was under helm, turning to make a lee on her starboard side – some shelter in which the CMB, which by now would have cast off the tow, could come up alongside. Eleven-forty. Bob and Nick Solovyev were out on the side deck, getting their eyes used to the darkness after drinking mugs of cocoa and munching ships’ biscuit in the saloon.

  Solovyev had slept well, he’d said. No nightmares… He was wearing a leather herdsman’s jacket that was shiny with age, riding breeches that didn’t fit him properly, well-worn boots that did – desirable, if you were contemplating a walk of at least a hundred miles – and round his neck a red woollen scarf with its ends pushed inside his shirt. He’d told Bob, ‘The red scarf is important. One red item clearly visible – they like to see it, eh?’

  ‘You’ll find it damned hot in daytime.’

  ‘So I let it dangle loose, then.’ He’d added, ‘I’ve done this before, you know.’

  The night air was noticeably cool. Leaning over the rail, above flickering torchlight where they were lowering the gangway and Johnny Pope was watching anxiously for his CMB to make her appearance from the darkness astern, Bob was glad of the thick sweater he’d put on under his reefer jacket. He wouldn’t be back on board until about dawn, and the days didn’t start warming up until the sun was well above the horizon and burnt the mist off the sea’s surface. Then, it made up for lost time; but for now, this could have been an English autumn.

  The deep rumble of the CMB’s engine at low revs came throatily out of the darkness, over the shrill squeaking of the descending gangway. Then he could see her: the low bone in her teeth first, as she came pitching in from the quarter. It seemed to him an unnecessary risk, bringing her right alongside when there was this much movement on the sea; if he’d been in Pope’s shoes he’d have had her lie off, asked Barker to lower a seaboat. But it was Pope’s business, not his.

  ‘Won’t be long now, Nick. Better go down.’

  ‘Good…’

  The Count had no baggage, not even a haversack. Only half a loaf of bread and some apples in his pockets, and a knife, and a Browning automatic pistol inside his shirt. Bob envied him the little pistol – in comparison with the weight of a Service-issue .45 revolver on his own hip. On the other hand, for nipping in and out of boats he was much better off in his plimsolls than Solovyev was in those heavy boots.

  The CMB was closing in towards the gangway by the time they got down to that lower deck. Two sailors were down on the gangway’s lower platform with boathooks, ready to both hang on and fend off – Henderson would have put rope fenders over on his own account, of course – and from the wing of Zoroaster’s bridge an Aldis lamp was spotlighting the ship’s side at that point.

  ‘Starter’s orders, Johnny?’

  ‘Ah – there you are.’ Pope hadn’t been with them in the saloon, he’d been on the bridge with Barker, and this was his first sight of the Count in his shore-going rig. He murmured, ‘Snakes alive…’ and turned back to Bob. ‘Mustn’t forget to sling that aboard.’ Pointing at a canvas holdall. ‘Rations. Bit peckish already, actually… But look here – we’ll have Keane inboard first, and McNaught into the boat in his place. Then Willoughby out, and the Count in. You too, Bob, better stay with him. And then I’ll swap with Chris. But in that order, I don’t want a buggers’ rush.’ Glancing at the Count’s boots: ‘And you’ll look after him – huh?’ He slapped his own .45 revolver in its webbing holster: ‘Anyone’d think we were going on a Bolshy hunt, what?’

  Eric Barker appeared then, bulky in a duffel-coat, Pope meanwhile using a megaphone to address Henderson in the CMB. Barker said, ‘Best of luck, you chaps. And we’ll see you and Pope in about four hours’ time, Bob, right?’

  He nodded. ‘Don’t forget to switch on your anchor lights, sir.’

  ‘I won’t. Don’t worry.’ He offered his hand to Solovyev. ‘All the best, Count. Bring ’em back alive, eh?’

  Solovyev glanced enquiringly at Bob, who translated, ‘He wishes you success.’ The Count smiled, shook the offered hand, then managed, ‘Senk you very moch.’

  The transfer went more smoothly than it might have done. Three out, four in: within a matter of seconds, after the hours of waiting… The CMB drew away from the ship’s side slowly at first, then when she was clear of it Pope began to open up, the engine’s mutter expanding into a roar and the bow beginning to lift, the boat heeling to port then as he edged her around on to her north-westerly course.

  4

  Committed, now. Whatever one might not have allowed for or foreseen was out there ahead, on the black Kirghiz coast.

  Pope had said he’d take her as far as Ukatni island – nineteen miles from this starting point. Best part of an hour, therefore, at twenty-five knots, to which he’d adjusted the revs after settling her on north thirty-eight west. The night was cold, at sea-level and in the rush of wind, colder still with the salt spray in it, Solovyev huddling his leather coat around him and Bob turning up the collar of his reefer; Johnny was all right, he was dressed as Bob was but on top of that had a duffel which McNaught had handed up to him out of the engine-space where it was kept – even kept warm, for God’s sake… Bob had taken it from McNaught, and passed it on. ‘Here. All right for some.’

  ‘Right. Some aren’t gormless…’

  To be heard, you had to shout. The wind and a smallish choppy sea were from ahead; there was still a low swell too although the short waves disguised it, the CMB hammering through the chop as well as slamming rhythmically, regular thudding impacts that jarred from your feet right up through your teeth.

  The Count had declined an invitation to sit inside, where he’d be warm. Wise, probably: it was hellishly noisy in there, bearable only by mechanics with leather eardrums. And conducive to sea-sickness – noise, diesel stink, claustrophobically small space.

  Bob ducked in there anyway, for a brief chat with McNaught.

  Pointing at the thundering engine: ‘All right?’

  The MM raised an oily thumb, screamed, ‘Had a good stand-off, didn’t she!’ During the tow up from Baku, he meant. And Jacko Keane would doubtless have started her up and run her for a minute or two now and again… ‘You goin’ ashore with the Russki, sir?’

  ‘God, no!’

  ‘Ah. So we shan’t be getting the skiff back, then.’

  ‘No, not this trip. He’ll hide it somewhere – and come off in it when we come back for him.’

  For obvious reasons: the Count might find he could get quite a long way inland before he beached himself, and the CMB wasn’t going to hang around once he’d departed. He’d find some hiding-place for his boat – under the overhang of a river bank, for instance, and it had been suggested to him that he should remove the bung, let the boat fill or half-fill so she’d settle, be less visible and also less of a temptation to anyone who might find her. Then he’d have to bale her out – somehow, finding something to bale with… But he’d have the women – including a pair of young Grand Duchesses, please God – to help him with that labour.

  Back in the cockpit – Zoroaster out of sight astern by this time – Bob slung Henderson’s binoculars around his neck and settled down to the business of keeping a lookout. Pope was at the conning position needing his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the compass, and Solovyev leaning back in the angle between the after bulkhead and the fore end of the torpedo-trough, his boots jammed against the cylinder of the hydraulic ram to hold himself in place against the violent, thumping motion. He was out of the main blast of the wind there, too. Whereas Bob, propped against the forward bulkhead and up on the starboard-side step, was right in it, his head above the windscreen and in the spray as well. Keeping binoculars dry was impossible – for more than a few seconds, on any forward bearing, and travelling at this speed meant that looking-out on anything but forward bearings didn’t have much relevance…

  Visibility was none too good hor
izontally – because of the spray, which created an aura of mist around the boat – but the sky overhead was clear, stars at elevations of more than a few degrees bright and glittering. There’d be a moon later, but not until they were well on their way back.

  Binoculars were a waste of time, in these conditions. You spent longer drying their lenses than actually looking-out. Naked eye was the thing. Eyes slitted against the wind and flying salt water, and concentrating on the bow and about fifty degrees each side of it.

  * * *

  He picked up the low-lying shape of Ostrov Ukatni forty-five minutes after leaving Zoroaster’s side. Well out on the port bow but only about five thousand yards off the CMB’s track, when he spotted it: not easily even then, so low to the sea that untrained eyes might not have known it was there at all.

  Moving over, shouting into his ear – ‘Thirty on the bow! Rat as a pancake!’

  Pope used binoculars one-handed, standing back at arm’s length from the wheel and then up on the side step, to see over the curve of salt-wet, by no means transparent windscreen. Glasses soaked immediately: cursing, letting them fall on their strap, then concentrating through narrowed eyes: ‘Right…’

  She’d drifted off by a few degrees. Adjusting course, he yelled at Bob to watch that bearing and take the time when the island was abeam. Conditions wouldn’t have allowed for any chartwork, but they had the distances and courses memorized – knew for instance that after this they’d have a smaller island about the same distance to starboard after another twelve miles – at twenty-five knots, say thirty minutes – and then shallows around a nearer island close to port after another seven – from now, say forty-four minutes… So if forty-five passed and you hadn’t picked it up, you’d start sweating… But in any case you’d be reducing speed by that stage, since you’d be nosing in among a whole lot of islands, most of which weren’t shown on the chart. You’d be feeling the way in, by then; and not many miles short of the sheltered water where the Count would be taking to his dinghy.