The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  ‘Don’t go away.’

  ‘No, we’ll all stay with you. Try to sleep again.’ She laid him back on the bed and looked at his sisters with sadness in her brown eyes, but she made her voice hopeful when she said:

  ‘The doctor said there was nothing to worry about so long as we keep giving him the pills. So you mustn’t be afraid.’

  ‘No, of course not, Evie,’ said Dindin, cheerfully. ‘We met Dick on the way back from the druggist’s and he told us the same. What was it he said, Tallie?’

  ‘That lots of chaps he knows have had it and it’s not very pleasant but there’s no danger. Then he said he’d come here in a little bit to take Dindin out for lunch. And Dindin said …’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said her sister, sharply enough to break into Evelyn’s concentration on Sasha. She looked up.

  ‘Going out to lunch, Dindin? With Sasha as ill as this, are you sure?’

  ‘Well, why ever not? I’m not a nurse. There’s nothing I can do to help him. You’ve been trained in the hospital. You can do all there is to be done. Why shouldn’t I go out with dear Dick? He understands how cruel all this revolutionary nonsense has been and the sort of life I ought to be living …’

  ‘Oh, Dindin, stop it. I know you long for balls and reviews and theatres, but really! At a time like this. You might at least … Oh, never mind. Go and titivate and have your fun.’

  ‘I’ll help, Evie,’ whispered Natalie, putting her hand on her cousin’s knee.

  ‘I know you will, Tallie. Thank you. We’ll make him better.’

  Dindin flounced out of the room and they heard her go downstairs as soon as Dick’s voice called up from the hall.

  ‘She didn’t even say goodbye,’ said Tallie, surprised. ‘Or come to see how Sasha is.’

  ‘I think she must be as worried as we are, Tallie,’ said Evelyn, not convinced by her own statement. ‘Perhaps it’s just difficult for her to sit here not being able to do anything to help him. Oh, listen. Is that Uncle Bob?’

  ‘Hello, you two,’ he said, coming into the room and dumping a large pile of fine white netting on the table. ‘I saw Dindin whisking off in the opposite direction with Markham. What’s she up to?’

  ‘Oh, the selfish creature just went out to luncheon. She …’

  ‘Hush, now, Tallie.’

  ‘All right, but she is selfish.’

  Evelyn tried not to agree, but over the next few days as she battled to keep Sasha cool during the savage bouts of delirium and fever and warm enough when his temperature suddenly dropped, she could neither control nor conceal her anger.

  Dindin was rarely in the flat except for dinner and at night, and she almost always brought Dick or one of his friends up the steep stairs when they escorted her home. Trying to tell herself that if it helped Dindin’s anxiety to live in such a whirl of activity that was her right, Evelyn did her best to be charitable. She also tried to be glad when she noticed that Dindin had regained much of her old prettiness. Since Dick had started to finance their larder, food had been more plentiful and Dindin’s pink cheeks had begun to fill out again. She had begun taking extra care with her appearance too, and would examine herself approvingly in their one looking-glass. One afternoon when Evelyn had had a particularly difficult time with Sasha and knew that she was dishevelled and sweaty in the close heat of the attic, Dindin said to her:

  ‘Evie, I can’t think why you’ve let yourself go like this. You used to be so good-looking, but now in those clothes and with your hair like that you might be a kitchen maid. It’s no wonder that Dick is ashamed of you.’

  Pushing the heavy dark hair, which was beginning to come unplaited, away from her sticky face, Evelyn said only:

  ‘Dindin, with Sasha so ill my looks matter nothing. I wish you could just concentrate on the important things and …’ What was the point in going on? ‘Never mind. Go out and enjoy criticising me with my idiotic brother. Go on, off with you.’

  Bob, who had just come quietly into the room, stood aside to let Dindin out. Ignoring for the moment what he had overheard, he said:

  ‘How is he, Eve?’

  ‘I think the quinine’s beginning to take hold. Samenev warned me it would take some days. But he’s frighteningly weak, Bob.’

  ‘Samenev seems to know his job all right; if he’s satisfied, I don’t think you should worry.’

  ‘No. I do try not to. Where’s Tallie?’

  ‘She was a bit tired after our walk and is lying down.’

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks for taking her out. You’re being so good to us all.’

  He smiled at her. Since Sasha’s illness they had both managed to ignore the scene at the river.

  ‘You deserve some help, Eve, with Dindin carrying on like that. Don’t believe too much of what she says, will you?’

  ‘No, of course not. And anyway, what does it matter what I look like or what Dick says about me, especially now.’

  Bob came much closer to her and hesitated, trying to find words to tell her that with the last vestiges of fashion and adornment abandoned, she looked far lovelier to him than she ever had in the silks and velvets she had worn in Shenkursk, but not wanting to sound as though he was renewing his pursuit of her.

  ‘Evelyn, circumstances may have stripped you of the trappings of young-ladyhood, but your face, your eyes, your lips, are as beautiful as they always were and always will be.’

  She laughed at that. ‘Bob, your kindness doesn’t have to extend to compliments. I’m just so thankful that you’re helping to keep Tallie all right – and sitting with Sasha so that I can get out.’ She dipped her handkerchief in a bowl of water by the bed and wiped the child’s forehead again. ‘I only wish that I could get them away from here. Much as I hated the winter, this sticky heat is almost worse. I don’t see how Sasha can get better in this place.’

  ‘I’m looking into it, Eve. The US troops will be leaving soon, and …’

  ‘When?’ she demanded, her face whiter than ever and her large dark eyes staring at him.

  ‘Soon. I don’t know when exactly. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Are you going too?’ she said at last. At that he put a hand on her shoulder and said:

  ‘Eve, you can’t think I’d go and leave you all here, with Sasha ill as he is. I’m going to get you all back to England if it’s the last thing …’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said hurriedly, hit by a new fear. He smiled.

  ‘All right, I won’t. But you must trust me, Eve. I will get you back.’

  She did now trust him, but she could not imagine how he was going to fulfil his promise. There were no ships available to the refugees who wanted to leave Archangel by sea; and the railway led only south, directly into the path of the Red Army. Evelyn thought it might be possible for her and Bob to get the Suvarovs across land to Murmansk, but Dick had told her that there were refugees stuck there in no better situation than hers.

  Bob saw her doubts and renewed his determination to find a way to get out of Archangel. He went out as soon as he could to talk to one of his contacts in the US headquarters, who quickly put paid to any ideas he had of getting them all out on an American ship, but told him of an Archangel resident who had a sea-going ketch which he might sell. Bob got the man’s address at once and sallied forth to negotiate with him for the boat. On inspection, it proved to need considerable repairs and so Adamson fought a spirited battle over the price and eventually agreed to pay half the total then and half when all the repairs had been done and he had had a chance to take the boat out for sea trials. He and the owner shook hands and he went triumphantly back to Baines’s.

  Evelyn’s face was almost peaceful when he walked into her room, and her whole body seemed to have relaxed.

  ‘He’s better,’ said Bob, not even making a question of it.

  ‘Yes, the fever’s broken. His temperature is nearly normal. Samenev has just left and he said it ought to be just a matter of time now. Sasha woke a few minutes ago and he said he was hun
gry. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ he answered and, slightly surprised to see Dindin at the makeshift stove, said kindly, ‘What are you making for him, Dindin?’

  ‘A kind of milky slop, but it’s what Samenev ordered. I just got back in time to make it. Tallie grated the breadcrumbs.’

  ‘Well that’s terrific. And I’ve got some good news too. We’ll all be out of here within the month. I’ve bought a boat.’

  Evelyn looked up from the book she was helping Tallie to read and the face she turned to Bob showed nothing but weariness and some anger.

  ‘What’s up? I thought you’d be pleased for God’s sake.’

  ‘Bob, it’s too important to joke about.’

  ‘It’s not a joke. I’ve bought a ketch and as soon as it’s been overhauled we’ll be off.’

  ‘Oh, don’t. How could you possibly afford to buy a boat? I know that Dick is generous enough about the food, but he could not possibly have given you enough for a boat.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s nothing to do with your brother. And of course I can afford it.’ He saw that she was genuinely puzzled and, becoming less annoyed and more surprised himself, he went on: ‘Why d’you think I couldn’t afford it? Didn’t Piotr or Georgii ever tell you anything about me?’

  ‘Plenty of things, but …’

  ‘But not that. Well, you ought to know: my family has always had more than enough money and much as I hate the stuff, I’ve plenty too – far too much. But at least it’s coming in useful now.’

  Evelyn thought of her assumptions about his background, of her care to protect him from the knowledge of their poverty in Archangel and reliance on her bother’s money, of his shabby clothes, of his hatred of the Petrograd rich, of his political opinions, and shook her head.

  ‘What’s the trouble? Have you been judging by appearances, Eve?’

  At that she smiled ruefully.

  ‘Yes. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I thought you knew. Everybody else did. It was no secret. Besides, what does it matter? It has nothing to do with who I am.’

  Dindin turned, a dripping wooden spoon in her hand, and said:

  ‘It would have mattered quite a bit this last year. Didn’t you know how worried Evie was about money? Until kind Dick arrived, in any case. There wasn’t going to be enough to eat. He came just in time. How could you have been so selfish?’

  ‘No, Dindin, don’t,’ said Evelyn, seeing that Bob’s strong face was suffused with an unaccustomed and most painful blush.

  ‘Eve, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. There you were with your legs so bad and I thought you were far from well-off – it would have been so unkind to whine at you when there wasn’t anything you could have done about it.’

  He suddenly sat down, an expression of horror in his eyes.

  ‘Eve, you don’t think that …’ Then he broke off and looked at Tallie, who was staring inquiringly at him. But Evelyn stretched a hand across the table to touch his.

  ‘No, Bob. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I asked Samenev. Truly. It’s the mosquitoes; nothing we could have done would have prevented it. You mustn’t think that.’ They were speaking very quietly, but Sasha woke up just then, thirsty and rather miserable. To distract him from his woes, Evelyn told him the news.

  ‘Uncle Bob, have you really got a boat?’ he demanded, his faint voice strengthening with every syllable. ‘Will you be able to find the way in it? Isn’t it very difficult to drive a boat?’

  ‘You sail a boat, Sasha, or steer it. Driving’s for carriages and motors. I do know how to. And Eve has done some sailing too, haven’t you?’

  ‘Only a bit – in Tony’s little dinghy – and never very far from the shore. I won’t be much help to you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well there’ll be time to practise. As soon as the repairs are done, I’ll have to take her out to test her seaworthiness and I’ll need a crew – it’ll serve both purposes. Although I am having her rigged for single-handed sailing, I shall need help – and time off to sleep.’

  ‘Can I see it, Uncle Bob?’

  ‘When you’re stronger, Little Dove,’ murmured Evelyn, laying one of her thin hands on his clammy forehead to check his temperature. ‘You have to stay in bed for a bit longer. Doctor Samenev insists. Now, here’s Dindin with your food. She’ll feed you.’

  She stood up to allow Dindin to take her place and moved out into the corridor with Bob.

  ‘You were right, I was taking Dindin too seriously. I think she really was worried about him. It just takes her a different way. She is as pleased as Tallie and I that he’s beginning to get better.’

  ‘Do you think she’d sit with him tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’m sure she would, but why?’

  ‘I’d like to take you and Tallie to see the boat. She needs quite a few repairs, but I’d like you to see her. It’d do you good to get out and smell the sea.’

  ‘All right, if he’s still without a temperature in the morning.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tallie was as excited as though she were going to a pantomime when they set off towards the docks, and Evelyn looked across her small dark head at Bob in deep gratitude. This pleasure was the first that Tallie had shown since Sasha’s illness. Bob smiled back painfully, feeling that he deserved no gratitude at all from Evelyn and still unable to understand his own insensitivity. Had it not been for his ridiculous reluctance to use any of the money his family’s trust fund had paid him, he would have been able to give Evelyn practical, necessary help months ago. Looking back, he could not understand why he had never asked her how she was buying the food they all ate. Struggling to cope with the pain in his legs and his fears for the future, he must have simply assumed that Baines was providing it, or that Andrei Suvarov had made some kind of arrangement.

  Fortunately his uncomfortable, humiliating thoughts were interrupted just then by a burst of raucous cheering and the brazen sound of a military band.

  ‘What’s happening, Uncle Bob?’ asked Natalie nervously. He answered in his most reassuring voice.

  ‘It’s the relief troops from England, Tallie. They’ve come to take the place of the Americans who are leaving. Don’t be afraid.’ She pushed her small, damp hand into his and together with Evelyn they walked towards the marching troops and waving, clapping people. Evelyn pointed out to Natalie the magnificent figure of General Ironside, standing huge and handsome with the bearded Russian generals and the mayor of the town waiting to take the salute.

  They watched until the military formalities were done, when the mayor came forward with bread and salt, which the commanding officer of the new troops ceremoniously ate. The Russian town had welcomed the new wave of invaders with all the power of its ancient traditions and the British had signified their acceptance of the responsibilities of friendship.

  But Bob knew and Evelyn guessed that there were less happy feelings on both sides. Very few Russians from the town had come forward willingly to join the army that was fighting the Bolsheviki on their land; the British command despised most of the Russian officers, who seemed to spend all their time and energy composing unnecessary Orders of the Day in absurdly flowery language, or hatching plots and plans that they were entirely incapable of carrying out. Many of them treated their men in a way that shocked the British and Americans, and provoked mutinous riots among the regiments under their command.

  Bolshevik leaflets were continually appearing in the town, plastered on to the sides of the houses, drifting along the muddy streets, deposited anywhere and everywhere to exhort Russian and foreign soldiers alike to leave their commands and cease the fighting. Spies were thought to have infiltrated almost every part of Archangel life, and anonymous or pseudonymous articles appeared in the town’s newspapers criticising the Intervention and trying to alert the populace to what must happen when the invaders deserted those who had befriended them.

&n
bsp; The one hopeful sign that co-operation was possible was the existence of Dyer’s Battalion, a group of Russian prisoners who had been formed into a labour battalion under a young Canadian officer named Dyer. With care, training and efficient discipline, he and his fellow officers had turned the surly and rebellious rabble into a fighting unit. They had been allowed to see action on various of the small fronts during the winter, and had acquitted themselves well. Poor Dyer had been killed, but the spirit he had instilled seemed to continue and Dyer’s Battalion was an achievement of which many of the British were proud, although some of the officers did not entirely trust the men even then.

  But Ironside had confidence in them and they and their Allied officers were to go down the Dvina with the relief troops to try to crush the Bolshevik forces in the region so that a peaceful evacuation could be successfully carried out.

  Evelyn watched them march past to the sound of their own regimental band and wondered what would happen when they faced their own countrymen in a major battle. It was one thing for ‘White’Russians like Sergei Voroshilov and Georgii Suvarov to fight the Bolsheviki, but these men, whom she had once heard called ‘the very riff-raff of the Revolution’?

  ‘D’you think they’ll fight, Bob?’

  ‘God knows. But it is a great gesture to send them.’

  ‘You sound almost admiring.’

  ‘You can’t help admiring it,’ he said, not explaining exactly what he meant by ‘it’. ‘I disapprove of the Intervention with every bit of me, as you know, but now I can see both how it happened and that parts of what they do are admirable.’

  ‘Such as?’ asked Evelyn, not sneering, but wanting something hopeful to admire.

  ‘Oh, this business of Dyer’s Battalion. I suspect that left to themselves the Russians would have shot them – or sent them to be worked to death on one of the islands at the mouth of the Dvina. But your people have fed them, trained them, made them fit and adequately healthy, given them a band, given them status. It is hard not to admire, even if it fails in the end.’