The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  ‘Well, out with it.’

  Dobrobulyov felt in a pocket inside his grey tunic and brought out two thickish envelopes.

  ‘Simple enough: we just want you to deliver these two. The names and addresses are on the envelopes. All you have to do is conceal them somehow while the Customs clear you and the boat and then get them to their addresses.’

  ‘And if we fail – not deliberately, but through some accident?’ asked Bob carefully. Dobrobulyov smiled coolly.

  ‘The only accident that would save you then would be one that had sunk the boat and drowned you all. We shall know from the actions the two Comrades take and the answers they will get to us somehow whether they have received these instructions. If they have not, it won’t be too late to get a message through to the authorities in England that they should investigate the Suvarovs, the Markhams, and a journalist from the United States. I think you would have trouble wriggling out of that one, Comrade. You will be questioned in any case, I expect, by the Foreign Office. You must be careful.’

  The rescue of Piotr Suvarov had taken on a very ugly aspect. There was treachery somewhere in it now, not simply bending an inconvenient but irrelevant fact of war. Bob watched Evelyn’s stricken face, and wished that this horrible choice had never faced her. There was nothing he could do to help. That he too was faced with the same choice did not seem to matter. He would do whatever he had to, but she had already been through too much. It wasn’t fair, the child in him cried out, but there was no answer. Her voice surprised him in its firmness when she spoke again:

  ‘And you, Dobrobulyov, how will you fare when the Allies leave and you are left with the vengeance of the Whites?’

  ‘Well enough. If Archangel gets too hot for me, I’ll melt away. It’s not my home, you know. I’m here only to do a job. He’s different,’ he said, jerking his sharp chin towards the yacht, which looked incongruously graceful as it pulled gently at the ropes that held it to the quay and rocked on the swell. ‘He’s ill – won’t be strong enough to escape on his own feet for months, if ever. He needs nursing. Frankly I couldn’t give a tinker’s curse – that’s what you say, isn’t it Adamson? – whether he lives or dies. He’s of no particular value to the Revolution, whatever you say. But those packets – they’re different. I have to get them to England and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this for months. Well? We haven’t all that much rime.’

  ‘Of course we’ll take them,’ said Evelyn, not even looking at Bob. There was no choice. She could not leave Piotr to the vengeance of his countrymen. If it had been only the Intervention Army, she might have had doubts, but with the stories she had heard about both Whites and Reds echoing horribly in her mind, she was not going to risk his life.

  ‘How wise of you Nurse Markham. I wish you a pleasant voyage.’ She winced at the sneer in his voice, but waited until he had picked up the shafts of his dreadful cart and pulled it out of the boatyard. Then she turned to Bob.

  ‘We had no choice,’ she said, ‘and we can always hand the letters over to the Foreign Office when we get back, and try to explain. I’m sure they’ll understand.’

  ‘We’ll have to hide him from Dindin until we’re well away from here,’ he said doubtfully, not sure at all.

  ‘It may not be quite like that,’ Evelyn said, and then told him of the execution Dindin had witnessed. He was as horrified as Evelyn had been.

  ‘D’you think it will have changed Dindin’s mind about Piotr? Was the shock enough?’

  ‘I think it might have been. I almost told them this afternoon – especially Tallie, who loves him as much as Sasha did. But it didn’t seem quite safe. And I needed her to tell Johnson that we’re leaving. He’s going to escort them both here. I couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘No, you were right to say nothing, I’m sure.’

  Together they went on board and climbed down into the cabin, where Evelyn went at once to her unconscious cousin and stripped the ugly and stinking uniform off him. She wished aloud that she had some medical equipment with her and bent to tackle the filthy makeshift bandages that covered his shoulder.

  ‘There should be a box in that locker there – the cupboard by your right hand,’ said Bob. ‘I never sail without some kind of first-aid kit. Petrovitch did the best he could.’

  Evelyn found the box and saw that at least there was antiseptic and a roll of lint, together with a few bandages. She turned to smile briefly but with real gratitude at him and did what she could for her cousin. When it was over, and the groans that had begun to issue frighteningly from between his livid lips had stopped, and he was back to coughing again, she brushed the hair away from his forehead and whispered:

  ‘You must make it, Piotr. You must live.’

  ‘It might be easier if he did not,’ said Bob and the sadness in his voice took away any cruelty.

  ‘I know,’ she answered. ‘But easiness isn’t the point.’ There was so much in her mind that she could not explain it all to him. The years since John had died had taught her that nothing could ever be certain, but they had also taught her that whatever was done to you or to other people by fate or enemies or war or revolution, you had an absolute obligation to keep your humanity intact.

  For that reason, if for no other, she would have done anything in her power to save Piotr. To have consigned him to murder by his own countrymen, would have been to sink to their level. To refuse to save him merely because the price of his life was to import into England letters containing seditious ideas would have been to concede victory to the Bolsheviki. It was only when ideas or theories were considered to be more important than people that men like her cousins or Sergei Voroshilov could wish to kill each other. It was only when ideas made people into ‘enemies’that wars could rampage through the world, killing, laying waste, torturing, starving and sending people mad. In any war, she now believed, there could be no real victor. And if risking trouble with the authorities of her country was the price for saving one man from his own, she would pay it.

  Wishing yet again that she could talk to Nikolai just once more, hating the knowledge of what might be happening to him, Evelyn touched his locket. Before Bob could say anything, Piotr began to stir. They both looked down at his bunk as his eyes opened and focused. Evelyn smiled in reassurance and said:

  ‘You’re going to be all right, Piotr. We’ll get you away from here and you’ll be all right.’

  He moved his tongue around his lips as though he was thirsty, and then put a thin dirty hand up to his head, before saying in a tone of exhausted astonishment:

  ‘Evelyn? How are you here? What’s happening? And Bob?’ Then a smile came to his face and he said hoarsely:

  ‘So Bob couldn’t resist, after all. I’m glad.’

  She was not sure what he meant, but she said in her most professional manner:

  ‘Don’t try to talk. The gas has attacked your throat and lungs and you must concentrate on breathing as well as you can. Don’t waste your strength.’ The tired, heavy-lidded eyes closed as she spoke and he drifted away again. Evelyn pushed herself up off her knees at the side of his bunk and turned to Bob, who was watching her with an expression that drove the breath out of her lungs for a moment. Her hands went out to him.

  When she could speak again, it was difficult to remember what it was she had meant to say. Then she shook herself out of the mood.

  ‘The others will be here any minute now. Let’s go on deck. There’s nothing more we can do for him now.’

  They went up to wait. The sea glittered almost like elaborately cut sapphires in the bright sunlight and Evelyn looked out from the shore towards freedom, longing to leave Russia at last, but terrified of the voyage ahead. She had lived in Archangel long enough to know how dangerous the sea could be and she could not help thinking of all the disasters that might overwhelm them. They might capsize. They might lose themselves and miss the anchorages where they expected to pick up food and water. They might run into heavy weather and … She tried to take hold
of herself and find some courage.

  Bob had assured her several times that the navigation would be relatively simple and well within his competence. He had picked up plenty of information about the tides and currents, the hazards they were likely to encounter, and the way that sailors experienced in those waters dealt with them. But in spite of all his reassurances, Evelyn was beginning to panic – and then Bob smiled at her.

  She realised that she had been chewing her bottom lip unconsciously and made herself relax. Then she walked towards him. He gripped her hand and whispered so quietly that no one else would have been able to hear:

  ‘Don’t be afraid, love. Whatever happens, I’ll get you home.’ Her hand moved in his and she started to speak, but he was before her. ‘And then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives. We’ll get it right this time.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered suddenly almost as confident as he. ‘We will get it right.’

  At last Dindin and Natalie appeared at the gate of the boatyard, escorted by one of Baines’s Russians and Captain Johnson. Evelyn exchanged glances with Bob and climbed quickly down on to the quay to offer the Englishman her hand.

  ‘It is good of you to have brought them, Captain Johnson. Thank you so much.’

  ‘Not at all, Miss Markham,’ he replied. ‘Now, can I help you load some of this stuff?’

  ‘No, no. Please don’t trouble. It’s all quite light. If you could just help me get it out of the cart then Igor Vasilievitch can take the cart back.’

  Together they unloaded the cart and then Evelyn thanked both men carefully and said goodbye to them. The Russian shook her hand and went at once, pulling his empty cart behind him, but Johnson stayed, chatting to Dindin and teasing Natalie. At last, Evelyn sent Tallie on to the yacht and began to pass the bags up to Bob, who was waiting at the top of the companionway. When Johnson at last dragged himself away from Dindin, warmly clasping both her hands and promising to visit her in England, Evelyn shook his hand again and waited until he, too, had walked through the gate.

  ‘Phew, I thought he’d never go.’

  ‘Oh, Bob, why are you so horrid? He was charming to bring us here and say goodbye.’

  ‘Yes, Dindin, of course. Now, will you pass up those last bags, please?’

  When they had everything loaded, Dindin was at last allowed on board. The gangplank was pulled up, and Petrovitch unwound the ropes that held the yacht to the Archangel jetty. Evelyn did her best to coil the ropes neatly as she pulled them up across the side.

  The strip of water between the yacht and the jetty widened. Bob turned the wheel and the yacht took the wind in her great sails and came alive. Evelyn stood with the Suvarovs on deck as they waved to old Petrovitch and said farewell to the Russia they had known all their lives.

  Tallie was pressing close to Evelyn, and Dindin was in tears. While Evelyn was trying to think of something that might comfort them both, Dindin said in a voice so different from usual that Evelyn put an arm round her shoulders:

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever see any of them again?’

  Infinitely relieved that Dindin seemed to be able to think sanely about her family again, Evelyn said warmly:

  ‘Yes, I’m sure we will. When all this madness is over they will come to England or send for you all and you’ll be able to go home … and besides …’

  ‘But it won’t ever be as it was before, will it?’

  ‘No, Dindin, I don’t see how it ever could go back,’ answered Evelyn, accepting that the moment to tell Dindin about her brother had not yet arrived. ‘But would you want it to, really? Back to the Okhrana, spies, unjust courts and savage punishment for speaking out against the Government, and starvation and riots and all that cruelty?’

  ‘Not those, no. Of course not. But the old things, the good ones. Skating on the Neva, dancing at the palaces along the embankment, the opera, whizzing over the ice in Papa’s sleighs, summers in Finland, winters in Petrograd, Easter service in the Kazan Cathedral. All the old life with all the family together? Will we ever be able to go home?’

  ‘I hope so, dear Dindin.’

  By then Bob had steered the yacht through all the moored transport ships and cargo vessels and they were heading for the open sea. As the land dwindled behind them into a thin pencil-line in the hazy distance, Evelyn took a deep breath and said:

  ‘Let’s sit down for a moment.’ The two girls obediently sat on the bench to the right of the wheel, and, smiling briefly up at Bob, Evelyn went on: ‘There is some good news. Piotr escaped from the battle. He’s down in the cabin. We are taking him back to England – to safety.’

  Before she could say anything else, Natalie stood up and glared at her sister. Then she cried out:

  ‘Dindin, aren’t you pleased? It’s Piotr – don’t you care at all?’ Then she ran to the companionway and went down into the cabin. Dindin looked after her for a moment and then said to Bob and Evelyn, more calmly than they had ever heard her speak:

  ‘Of course I care. Don’t you think that after yesterday I haven’t seen him tied half-dead and groaning to some execution post in some vile barrack-yard every time I think of him. Why didn’t you tell me? Did you really think …?’ She broke off, in tears again, to fling herself on Bob’s chest.

  He held her with one arm while he kept the other on the wheel. Evelyn left them together. In the cabin she found Natalie kneeling on the floor by Piotr’s bunk, gently if clumsily sponging his forehead with cool water.

  Evelyn stayed with them for more than an hour, trying to get used to the increasingly sickening movement of the yacht and not to listen to the conversation that buzzed down through the boards of the deck. At last she heard footsteps coming towards the companionway and waited for Dindin.

  Natalie heard them too and said:

  ‘Here’s Dindin, Piotr.’ He opened his tired, battered-looking eyelids and said in that cracked, rasping voice that hurt Evelyn whenever she heard it:

  ‘Good.’ Watching Dindin, Evelyn saw that she was still in tears. Then the painful voice started again: ‘Who else? Sasha? Did he get out?’

  Both his sisters looked at Evelyn. Summoning up her dwindling emotional courage, she said as quietly as she could:

  ‘He’s dead, Piotr. He was ill and he just died – very quietly. I mean, he wasn’t killed. No bullets.’

  Piotr closed his eyes again and they might have thought he had lost consciousness if it had not been for the deepening lines between his eyes and the slight quivering of his jaw. Before anyone could say anything else there was a sharp shout from on deck:

  ‘Eve, get up here, would you? There’s too much ice about – I need a lookout.’

  Scrambling up from the floor, Evelyn said, ‘Look after him, you two,’ and climbed up on deck. Bob greeted her with a tenseness that was quite foreign to him and a quick command:

  ‘Get up there in the bows, Eve, and keep a damn sharp lookout for ice. Some of these chunks are big enough to send us to the bottom. Sing out when you see one and stick your hand out so that I can see where it is. OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, and went forward, leaning carefully against the cabin roof.

  The passage up through the White Sea towards the Kola Peninsula was terrifying. Her heart lurching, sinking and rising almost as much and as often as the bows of the yacht, Evelyn kept her eyes on the treacherous lumps of ice that dotted the green sea like mines. At times Bob only managed to sway the yacht by a few inches from the small bergs that bobbed and floated so innocent-looking yet so dangerously in their path.

  But eventually, exhausted and with their minds ringing from the tension, they rounded the flat coast of the peninsula, and sailed out into ice-free sea. Bob called out to Evelyn that she could come back, but it was a while before she could combat the dizzying weariness brought by relief. Then, stiffening the muscles in her legs, she hauled herself up by the sheets and stumbled back to him.

  He greeted her with a warm hug and a quick, hard kiss. Then he said:<
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  ‘We’ll need something to eat if we’re going to keep going. Will you do something about it?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said and went below. A quick glance at Piotr made her say: ‘Dindin, will you get some food for Bob? And you and Tallie, if you’re hungry. Don’t bother to try to cook anything: some of that sausage and bread would be best. We‘ll try to make something hot when we anchor. I must see to Piotr.’

  She did not wait to see whether Dindin was going to obey, but went at once to raise Piotr’s shoulders and help him breathe. He coughed and gasped in pain for several minutes until the spasm passed. Then he lay against her shoulder, too exhausted to speak. She laid him down again on the thin pillows, and turned to reassure Natalie.

  It was hours before she dared to leave Piotr, and he only regained consciousness just before midnight, long after the girls had gone to sleep. Then he looked up at Evelyn and said:

  ‘They said you’d be looking after the girls. Thank you.’

  For a few moments she did not understand. Then she whispered:

  ‘They?’

  ‘My parents; in Shenkursk. I was there last week. They said they’d sent the children to Archangel with you.’

  Dizzy with relief that they were safe, hardly daring to ask the question that had been tormenting her for so long, Evelyn said:

  ‘They’re all right then? Thank God. And … and Nikolai?’

  ‘Yes, he’s fine. Troubled, of course. Aren’t we all? But safe and well.’

  She put her head down on the side of his bunk and let the blessed relief flood through her mind. Then she felt his hand touch her head and looked up again.

  ‘Thank you, Piotr. I must … Will you be all right if I go up and tell Bob?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Not until she stood upright on the deck watching Bob at the wheel, bracing himself every now and then against the swell, did Evelyn realise how confined the cabin had been. She stood silently watching his figure outlined against the low sun and the dark green-blue of the sea until he noticed her.