Bloody Sunset

by Bloody Sunset (retail) (epub)

  ‘Parasha.’

  He hadn’t understood.

  ‘Parasha!’ Pointing at the bucket. Bob getting it then: very much a prison word, dictionary interpretation something like close-stool. The guard ordered, ‘Bring it out!’

  He picked it up carefully. It had an iron lid on it and it wasn’t anything like full, but it stank and he was wary of it. Wary of the guard too, who had a club in his right hand and was pointing with the other: ‘Along there.’

  The backup guard was carrying a Nagant. It wasn’t cocked, Bob noticed. They were both smaller than he was; he had the impression that they were aware of it.

  At the end of the stone passage – after passing the fourth and last cell, in which he supposed Nick would be – was an open drain in the cemented floor, a channel that led away under the wall close to the corner. And a tap on the wall above it. He put the bucket down, removed its lid and put that down beside it, tipped the bucket’s contents into the drain and then re-covered it: managing not to breathe in, meanwhile.

  ‘Drink.’

  A gesture with the club, towards the tap. Bob moved closer to it, turned it on, rinsed his hands in its thin stream and then cupped them, drank…

  ‘All right. Back in your kennel, sonny boy.’

  He looked at him as he passed him: thinking, I’ll know you again – sonny boy… Asking himself then, as he went obediently into his cell and they slammed its door shut, what point there could be in thinking anything of the sort. Mere bravado: wishful thinking…

  Should have asked them When does Khitrov get back?

  He stood now, leaning against the wall with his face in the patch of light projected through the little window. Thinking about the blundering that had put him here: that it had been more bad luck than bad planning or execution. Just hadn’t paid off, that was all. And remembering the run of luck they’d had earlier – getting through the train journey and the platform checks without papers, getting a lift in the truck, and finding old Mesyats available with his boat – might have realized, with any foresight, that you’d been getting more than your fair share of it.

  Then: Shouldn’t have come on this hopeless expedition in the first place…

  Absolutely true. Incontrovertible fact. Starting with Nikolai Solovyev’s barefaced lies at Baku and compounded by one’s own decision down there on the marsh to accompany him up-river. Should have got in that bloody skiff, waved goodbye and rowed out to sea.

  * * *

  No notion of time. Might be noon – or later, could be mid-afternoon. And for all one knew, Khitrov might be back. Taking his cue from the boss, dealing with Anton Vetrov first.

  Remember: whether Nick broke or didn’t, they’d try to convince you they’d got it out of him…

  His situation was a lot worse than one’s own. If he broke, told them who he was – and maybe he could do so without mentioning the girls – they’d still kill him in the end, and probably very nastily. Whereas if ‘Robat Khan’ confessed to being Robert Cowan, RNR – well, it was a toss-up, but by no means inconceivable that one might survive.

  Except they’d still want to know what one had come here for. Which Nick – touch wood – would not have told them. So they probably wouldn’t give up, without having extracted that information.

  Key in the door…

  His heart banged: pulses began to race… Some delay now: Khitrov fumbling it, not getting the key in properly… Then it clicked over, and the door swung open.

  The figure standing there peering in at him was about half the size of the one he’d been expecting. This was Maroussia. There was a guard behind her, leaning against the wall on the other side of the passage. She had a tin mug in one hand and a brick-sized lump of black bread in the other. He’d moved towards her – to make sure she could see him properly, recognize him. Accepting the mug, muttering ‘Spasibo, bolshoi spasibo…’

  ‘Turnip soup and good fresh bread.’ Then in a barely audible murmur, ‘Don’t bite into the bread too hard.’ Louder again: ‘Got good strong teeth, have you?’

  ‘Come on, grandma.’ The guard pushed himself off the wall. Signalling to her with his club to move on. ‘Another one here, let’s get on with it…’

  She backed out, and he swung the door shut.

  The bread was heavy: even for the solid, yeastless black bread that she made in that old stove of hers, it was a hell of a weight for its size. And – not to bite into it too hard…He crouched, put the mug down, pulled the bread apart with his fingers.

  An iron key, and a kitchen knife.

  * * *

  A jingle in his mind, derived from the nursery-days plea for fine weather:

  Khitrov, Khitrov, stay away

  Come to play another day…

  Before the old girl’s visit he’d almost have opted to get it over. Now, his prayer was for the hours to pass, the sky to darken.

  There’d be no waiting for the moon to set, tonight. It would be up there for about half an hour longer than it had been last night, and that would make it just too damn late. Have to risk the moonlight, therefore. Risk everything on this one chance.

  Even though it could only land one back on that marsh. Better there than here…

  Ideas churning: forming, some then discarded as impractical or too risky, others sticking but needing change, adjustment to fit in with the concept as a whole. Also, one had learnt a lesson – namely that when up against an enemy who was completely without scruple or mercy, one’s only hope of winning was to adopt the same rules – or lack of them. Down on the boat last night, for instance – he suspected that it had been partly his aversion to the idea of killing in cold blood that had made him delay it by going to fetch the Count.

  There’d be no such hesitation now.

  The key and the knife were under the parasha. So if they hauled him out now for questioning or other processing, they wouldn’t find it. Suppose Khitrov came for him now, for instance. From as much as one had ever heard or read, torture sessions tended to be of limited duration – often terminating with the prisoner unconscious, but usually lasting only an hour or two. It might be easier to hold out, too, he guessed, knowing those precious items were lying there under the stinking bucket.

  * * *

  Dark enough now. Anyway it would be darker still in ten minutes, and the preliminaries were bound to take at least that long.

  He went to the bucket, tilted it, fingered the knife and the key out, pocketed the knife and went to the door.

  This bit might be as chancy as any. No sounds carried through the heavy timber, you might be opening it in the surprised faces of half a dozen Khitrovs.

  One way to find out – if the key fitted…

  It did. He heard the now familiar clack as the lock turned. Withdrew the key, put it in that pocket in place of the knife, which was transferred to his right hand.

  One of the decisions he’d made was to take care of whatever guard or guards were around before he let Nick out. Preferable to rely on oneself alone, he’d decided, particularly as one didn’t know what sort of shape Nick might be in.

  He crept past the other two cells, paused to listen for a moment at the door into the cellar, then slowly turned its handle, edging it open.

  One guard: sitting at the table with his back this way – reading a newspaper, smoke curling from a cigarette. In the last few inches of the door’s opening its hinges groaned: the guard jerked upright on his chair, was pushing himself up, swivelling, as Bob burst in with the door crashing back, launching himself in a running jump and landing more or less on top of him, left arm locking round the man’s neck and tightening, and the table collapsing under their combined weight. Kneeling then, wrenching the guard’s body up and backwards and stabbing from the front, driving the knife in upwards under the ribs on the left side of the arched torso. The body thrashed in a climactic spasm, then went limp, and he let it drop.

  First time ever… And now – the door, the one into the house. Quickly back up the steps… The door had bolt
s top and bottom, and he slid them home. As Khitrov would have done, no doubt, before starting work… Then back to the cellar below to check that the guard was dead: and finding his other knife, in the sheath Nadia had made for it, amongst the wreckage of the table. Nick’s ought to be here too – they both had been…

  And a Nagant revolver. Must have been lying on the table. Six rounds in its cylinder: he snapped it shut, stuck it inside his belt. Nick, now – and the question of whether this key fitted the other cells as well – or had Maroussia given Nick his key… He looked to where a key had hung, on the wall. It was there, all right… And it matched this one, they were twins. So – one to take away, and one to leave in the outside of Nick’s cell door: so there’d be nothing to tell them that either prisoner had had a key, they’d have to believe that the dead guard, for some unexplainable reason of his own, had let one of them out.

  Blood was leaking from the body. He stepped over it, ran up the steps and past three cell doors to the one at the end. Minutes counted – even seconds – to get out of here and away before another guard came to relieve this one. The bolted door wouldn’t hold him for long – once they caught on. There might be hours to go before a relief was due – or even all night, if the dead man would have slept here – but on the other hand there could be – well, no time at all…

  The key did fit. He pushed the door open, swinging back into the dark cell… ‘Nick?’

  A gasp… Then: ‘Holy Mother of God…’

  ‘You all right, Nick?’

  ‘I’m—’ staring, crazed-looking: in the doorway, his arms out like a blind man’s… ‘Bob? Am I dreaming – is this real?’

  ‘Didn’t Maroussia tell you?’

  He seemed to be – intact. Just as well: since one was counting on his thinking straight now. Giving him a minute first – half a minute anyway – to get over the shock…

  ‘Maroussia said – she said to have courage, it was going to be all right… But – how—’

  ‘Talk later, Nick. Sorry to rush you – here, come on, this way—’ pulling him along – ‘we’ve a lot to do, long way to go… Hey, what’s the time?’

  Blank… Then a bare wrist exposed… ‘They took it. I don’t know – no idea, what…’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Only to have known how many hours they might have, hours of darkness… ‘Nick, listen – this first bit’s up to you – we need a way through the house that does not pass that guardroom. Maybe to a window we can get out of? Otherwise the back door’ll be our best bet – a sentry there, I know, but only one, we could—’

  ‘Oh, Christ…’ He’d stopped, pulling free: like a horse shying, at the body. ‘God… You do that?’

  ‘Yes. Here’s your knife, by the way.’

  Staring at it, as he took it… ‘With this, you—’

  ‘No, no… Come on now, Nick – which way through the house?’

  Dull green eyes blinking… ‘Through the house – no…’

  ‘Look – I just explained—’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Taking his eyes off the dead guard, at last. Glancing at the door, shaking his head. ‘Not possible. Not a hope.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘They flop everywhere. All over. Every room, corridor, the hallways. On the stairs – the kitchens, even. Maroussia was telling us – yesterday, was it? Honestly, we’d be mad, even to—’

  Even to try. Going on, driving the point home…

  But one had to try. All the thinking and planning of the last few hours had taken this bit in its stride, hadn’t taken it into account as any problem. Partly because he couldn’t have worked it out on his own, knowing so little of the house’s layout – beyond the fact one certainly couldn’t go through to the front past that guardroom – and Nick obviously knew every square foot of it.

  Pointing at the door: is it locked?’

  ‘Bolted. But listen – we’ve no option. Except to stay here – which personally—’ He stopped, shook his head. Conscious of wasting precious time. And the driving need… ‘Look, there’s no other—’

  ‘There.’ Pointing again – down across the cellar, at the coal-heap. ‘That’s a way. There’s a chute somewhere behind that. They dump the coal from a cart outside and it slides down. So if we clear it…’ Pausing, looking round: he seemed dazed, still: ‘See? If we could clear it – then crawl out?’

  But how long might it take… There was a shovel – one only, and not up to much either, by the looks of it. One man shovelling, though – as long as the thing held together – and the other using his hands… But there was no way of guessing how much coal – how many tons of it, for God’s sake – might be piled against the wall outside, to keep filling the chute as fast as one could shift the stuff down into the cellar.

  Could take hours…

  But Nick was probably right about the house. Hundreds of Bolsheviks lying around – and some of them quite sharp, like those fishermen. It would only take one challenge – then you’d be back where you’d started – worse, with this guard killed… Staring at the mass of coal: imagining the two of them toiling away at it – hour after hour. Might work out, but…

  New idea, then. He considered it for a moment, then rejected it. On the grounds that it would create – well, at least exacerbate certain later problems, and quite possibly create new ones.

  But – what else?

  And standing here talking about it didn’t get one anywhere – except back into a cell, if you waited long enough…

  He put a hand on the Count’s shoulder. ‘Look here. Two of us, shifting that lot could take all night. But what if there were four of us at it – if we let the Czechs out…’

  * * *

  So they’d got them out. Two bewildered – at first scared and suspicious, therefore hostile, Czechs… Both odd-looking – anyway at first sight: like strange beasts emerging uncertainly from their cages… But at least not maimed, as he’d guessed they might be if Khitrov had been at them during their stay here.

  This was probably a mistake, he realized. Especially in relation to questions of weight and space in a small boat. Two small boats: one on the river, then the skiff down in the delta. Except perhaps by that time they’d have gone their own way… In any case this was the answer now: even if it meant signing a blank cheque for payment later. During the hours of waiting this evening he’d thought about letting the Czechs out anyway, for plain humanitarian reasons – Maroussia having mentioned that they were going to be shot – eventually, or soon, anyway something about their being shot – so to free them had been a natural impulse. He’d decided against it because it would complicate his own escape plans and the priority of saving the girls’ lives – on which he’d no right to compromise. Now, therefore, if it worked out, they’d owe their lives to a heap of coal.

  The first problem had been how to explain the basics of the situation to the one who looked like an orang-utan – Maroussia had been right when she’d said the officer looked like one – as he spoke practically no Russian, and certainly no English. Bob wasn’t getting anywhere with him until the other Czech, a young sergeant who spoke Russian quite well, was let out of his cage. He was quick to pick up the essentials and passed them on in German to his captain – Captain Franz Majerle, the orang-utan – orange hair and beard, receding forehead, deep-sunk eyes, wide shoulders and long arms… The sergeant, who’d said his name was Joseph Krebst, was also of distinctive appearance – Germanic-blond, only about five-six or five-seven but stocky, built like a small bull – dead right for the job of shifting a few tons of coal. Could have been his own father’s son, in fact, Bob thought as they started work… All four looking like coal-miners within minutes. Three anyway – he assumed he’d be no different. Majerle – the orang-utan – plastered in sweat and coal-dust, deepset eyes gleaming under the ridged forehead as they held Krebst’s for a moment – pausing, shaking sweat off, grunting a few words in German. The sergeant grinned: an easy-going character, seemingly quite relaxed, taking this abrupt change
in circumstances for granted – telling Bob, ‘Captain say not believing – dying, he say, gone to hell!’

  ‘Could be right.’ Coal came sliding in a long, tumbling avalanche… He left them at it for a moment. Noticing as he moved away that Nick looked like some creature out of a story by Jules Verne… He stooped, got a hold on the legs of the dead guard and dragged him up into the area of the spreading coal-heap. The body left a wide, smeared trail of blood, but coal-dust would effectively disguise that soon enough. It seemed like a good idea to have it out of sight – burial being so easy, in the black flood piling behind them as they worked in towards its source. It might be some days before the Bolsheviks’ noses detected it: meanwhile a guard as well as four prisoners would seem to have vanished.

  Seeing the body, when they’d come through from the cells, had delighted both the Czechs. It had served as visible proof of bona fides: whoever had killed that Bolshevik was their ally – had his heart in the right place, so to speak. Much the same as they’d accepted this move now – he’d seen their interest, then comprehension and approval; lumps of coal were already landing on the body as he restarted work. Krebst and Nick Solovyev were so to speak at the coalface, Bob now joining the orang-utan behind them, clearing away the coal as the other two shifted it back. Bob stopped again: another thought sending him back to the corpse – before it disappeared – in the hope the guard might have had a watch. Should have thought of this before… But no wristwatch anyway: in fact he’d only have had one if he’d stolen it. Pockets – nothing… Except possibly – last chance…

  One battered timepiece. Rather more than battered – smashed. Its glass was gone and the metal casing had been squashed in. Hands still on the dial, stopped at five minutes to nine… Glancing up, at a shout from Krebst: seeing him snatch at the Count’s arm, pulling him back out of the way of a sudden rush of coal pouring in from where the mouth of the chute would be – must have cleared a blockage, and this was an influx from the heap outside, thundering in like black lava; its dust filled the cellar in a choking cloud.