The Winter Soldiers

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘You seem certain of that.’

  She smiled broadly. ‘I am. I endure.’

  ‘I wish I was so confident of my own future.’

  ‘You should have faith in yourself. I have faith in two beings, God and myself. Both of us know I will survive this war. I shall grow to be an old lady in some mountain village, perhaps in Georgia, or Turkey. All the other old women will talk about me because I shall refuse to wear black and sit working with a crochet needle all day long on some rickety wooden chair outside my hovel. Instead I shall leer at the men who pass by my door, invite them to my bed, and laugh when they scuttle away, their faces white with worry. I shall wear scarlet and keep my hair dark with range blacking. I shouldn’t be surprised if they try me as a witch and finally drown me in one of the five rivers that serve the Black Sea. The Danube I think, or the Kuban. One of those two would be a good grave.’

  He laughed. ‘You are an extraordinary woman.’

  She looked deeply into his eyes. ‘You are a gentleman. The way you look at me, I know you like me. Not many men look at me at all. They simply grab, take what they can get, and leave me without knowing even what I am, let alone who I am. Yet you gather me in with your eyes. That is very flattering, to be treated like a person. A real person. Are you in trouble with the law?’

  He was alarmed by these words. ‘No, why should you think that?’

  ‘Because, though you are here with me, and you look at me and talk with me, your eyes continually flick towards that door over there. Who do you think will come out of it? You’re nervous. Not many people would notice, but I notice.’

  ‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘There are men I would rather not meet. My friend has gone into that room with a woman. I would like him to finish so that we can leave this place. If you’re still curious, I must tell you I sell contraband goods. I smuggle them in, past the army, who would of course confiscate them if they found them, and sell them on the black market. Does that disgust you?’

  She shrugged and took a long pull of her pipe. ‘Not really. People have to look after themselves in times like these. But I think you’re lying, anyway. You’re more anxious than the crime warrants. And all you would need to do would be to give the army their cut. No, you are concerned about being caught for a worse crime than that, I think.’

  Out of the corner of his eye Crossman was relieved to see Diodotus forcing his way through the crowd towards him. The Greek was doing up the buckle of his belt.

  ‘You’re a clever woman. I must go now,’ he said to her. ‘I hope you’re right about surviving. And you are correct about my liking you. You’ve been a breath of fresh air to me.’

  ‘So nice of you to say so,’ she said, giving him a last smile.

  Diodotus collected him and the pair of them went out into the street.

  ‘What was that whore saying?’ asked the Greek youth. ‘Did you go with her? I hope not. They say she has the pox.’

  ‘Shut your damn mouth,’ growled Crossman, angry. ‘What the hell were you doing, going into that room? I ought to give you a thrashing for putting me in danger like that.’

  Diodotus looked hurt. ‘I meant no harm.’

  They hurried through the streets. A cold damp heavy air had settled on the city. The cobbled streets were slick underfoot and they had to tread carefully. There were few people about, but when they rounded one corner, where the mist was swirling in the darkness, two men appeared with a lantern at the far end of the street. In the artificial light Crossman could see they both carried sticks. Around their right arms each had a white ribbon. Diodotus grabbed Crossman by the arm and pulled him along in a direction away from these two characters of the night.

  ‘What is it?’ hissed Crossman.

  ‘Vigilantes. Self-appointed police. There’s been a lot of looting in the city, as you can imagine. Some of the citizens have formed themselves into a force to patrol the streets.’

  ‘Have they any official status?’

  ‘Not as such. But if they suspect you of anything, they’ll beat you senseless with their cudgels, then drag you before the army. The army lets them get on with it.’

  Crossman quickened his step, following the Greek down a side alley. It was a good job the youth knew the city well. He himself was lost and he had studied street maps for hours on end. The sound of their boots on the cobbles echoed as they went. Finally they came to a place Crossman recognized. There was the house! Diodotus knocked on the door, then entered. Crossman followed, right behind him. A quick look behind revealed that they had lost their pursuers, for the lantern was nowhere to be seen.

  They shut the door quickly. Inside, the room was dimly lit. Amazingly, everyone was still awake. Perhaps they had been anxious about Crossman and Diodotus. Gwilliams was still eating. He had cheese crumbs all down his red beard.

  Just as Crossman was about to address them, the door burst open and the two vigilantes strode inside.

  With little to separate them, both Gwilliams and Ali drew pistols from their belts and fired. The sound of the two shots came almost as one: a deafening noise in the confined space. Unfortunately they had both aimed at the same man, who fell with a groan, two rounds in his chest. Before his body had hit the stone floor his companion was outside, running along the dark street, yelling. Gwilliams moved quickly to the doorway, took careful aim, and shot the running figure in the back. The vigilante stopped, walked a few unsteady paces forward, dropped his cudgel, then fell down beside it.

  ‘Quickly,’ cried Crossman to Wynter, ‘help me drag him in.’

  The two of them rushed out and grabbed the body. The man was stone dead, the shot having entered the nape of his neck and taken away half his face. They lugged him back to the doorway, flung him inside, then closed the door behind them. For a while they simply listened, in case there was any reaction to the sound of the shots. There was none. It seemed the good citizens of Sebastopol did not want to get involved. Better to roll over, go to sleep, and find out what had occurred from the gossip mongers when the morning came around.

  ‘You’ve really done it now, Ginger!’ Wynter accused Gwilliams. ‘That’s what comes of havin’ no army trainin’. Panicked, you did. We could have knocked ’em on the head and no one would be the wiser. Instead you have to go and blast away with your bloody cannon.’

  ‘Be quiet, Wynter,’ said Crossman. ‘What’s done is done.’

  ‘At least I acted,’ growled Gwilliams, still with a piece of uneaten bread sticking out of the side of his mouth. He finally swallowed the food. ‘And Ali. It was instinctive. Who the Hell are they, anyways?’

  Wynter again. ‘Oh, that’s nice. Shoot anyone who comes through the door, eh?’

  ‘Vigilantes,’ said Diodotus. He was visibly shaking. ‘I never saw anything like that before in my life. We must get rid of the bodies. Then we must go to another house. Katra . . .’ He said something in another language to the girl, explaining to the others, ‘I asked her to get sheets.’

  The girl, who seemed the least perturbed in a room full of agitated people, left and returned with two old velvet curtains. The bodies of the vigilantes were rolled in these, then Wynter and Crossman took one, Ali and Gwilliams the other. Diodotus led the way. They went out into the streets again, a very nervous group. The dock was not far away. Diodotus led them down to the waterfront to where some small craft were moored. Satisfying himself that there was no one around he called to the others and they came out of the shadows. The dead men were then rather unceremoniously unrolled on the edge of the dock and into the water. The group then left, slipping back into the streets.

  ‘That bugger was heavy,’ complained Wynter. ‘I’ve got blood all down me trousers.’

  ‘We must go to a new house. I will get Katra,’ Diodotus said. He ran off leaving them on the steps of a church. They waited, anxiously.

  Crossman wondered whether the youth would ever return. Perhaps he had found the whole episode so unsettling he had decided to abandon them? However, he did return with Ka
tra and began to lead them to another part of the city. They passed through a squalid-looking area where one or two hunched people were sleeping in doorways. Here the streets were full of rubbish and murky foul-smelling water trickled down cobbled slopes. Finally they came to a flimsy-looking shack on the edge of what appeared to be a fishing community to the north of the city. There was a rusty lock on the door which, when Diodotus pulled on it, opened without a key. It had been left closed but not locked. Inside there was a dirt floor with sacking spread about. It was not nearly as comfortable as the house.

  ‘I’ll catch my death in ’ere,’ said Wynter. ‘By buggery, it smells too. What’s that stink?’

  ‘Fish,’ replied Ali. ‘Good smell.’

  ‘For you, maybe. Not for me. I don’t mind the smell of horses and such, but rotten fish . . . I hate rotten fish. Look, there’s damn scales over everythin’. It’s where the fishwives gut the fish, ain’t it? That’s what we’ve bin brought to.’

  ‘Only rarely used,’ said Diodotus. ‘The boats go out only occasionally, when they can.’

  Crossman asked, ‘Can you be traced to the other house? In the morning people are going to start talking. They’ll find the bodies in the harbour.’

  ‘The house belongs to a sailor. He’s not here in Sebastopol. He was at sea when the war started and of course he hasn’t returned. I think we shall be safe, me and Katra. When shall we blow up the crane? We must do it soon. All the time you are here you are in danger, I think.’

  ‘You think the killings will start a search of the city?’ asked Crossman.

  ‘Those two men? No, I don’t think so. They’ll ask a few questions, but a murder in this city is not unusual. These are strange times. They’ll think looters did it.’ Diodotus gave another little shudder. ‘I never saw anything like it. One minute, standing there, the next, dead.’

  ‘That’s how easy it is,’ said Gwilliams, cleaning his pistol simply by feel in the dark. ‘It don’t take but a minute to snuff a man out. Twenty, thirty years those men hung on to their lives, then bang, bang, it’s over. Can we get some sleep, sergeant? I’m pooped.’

  Crossman thought that they should rest. He put Wynter on guard by the glassless window. The rest of them, including Katra and Diodotus, lay down on the fishy sacks and tried to get some sleep. Crossman remained awake for a good two hours, but finally drifted away, just before Gwilliams was due to take over from Wynter on sentry duty. He dreamed some unpleasant dreams. In one he was digging in a deep ditch that constantly filled with water and threatened to overwhelm him. When he woke, it was raining, and large drips were coming through the roof and falling on his face. He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve, then rolled over, to find himself looking into Gwilliams’ magnificent beard. With a start he sat up and surveyed the interior of the shack. In the morning light he could see that there was no sentry. Gwilliams had obviously not been woken. Wynter was nowhere to be seen.

  Crossman jumped to his feet, his toe catching Gwilliams accidentally on the shoulder. The American opened his eyes. ‘What is it? My shift?’

  Crossman didn’t reply. He went to the window and stared out. Wynter was nowhere to be seen. What the Hell was the lance-corporal playing at? Where was he? Why hadn’t he woken Gwilliams?

  ‘Wynter’s not here,’ Crossman said. ‘Didn’t he wake you?’

  ‘Nope. Or I would have taken over from him,’ replied Gwilliams.

  Crossman opened the door and ventured cautiously outside. Their shack was in among forty or fifty others. Most had little metal chimneys with conical cowlings. From some of these chimneys white smoke or steam was issuing. Crossman could smell cooking. Looking west he could see they were not far from a beach of sorts, which was covered in piles of shells. He went back inside and woke Diodotus.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ he asked the Greek.

  Diototus, still muzzy looking with sleep, sniffed hard. ‘That? That is shellfish. They are boiling the shellfish.’

  ‘I thought you said they’d stopped fishing.’

  ‘Not stopped completely. And they don’t need to go out very far to set their lobster and crab pots, or collect the shellfish.’

  ‘What time do they start cooking? Wynter is missing. Do you think he might have gone to one of those shacks to try to get some freshly-cooked crab or whelks?’ Crossman looked at his pocket watch. ‘Four hours ago. It would have been about three o’clock in the morning.’

  Diodotus shook his head. ‘They don’t start cooking at that time. Is the soldier gone, then? Maybe he deserted? Maybe he didn’t like that we killed those two men?’

  ‘Wynter couldn’t care less about those two men. I’m sure he hasn’t deserted.’

  Diodotus said, ‘He seemed unhappy.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Crossman, going to the window again in the vain hopes of seeing Wynter outside, ‘he complains a lot, but he’s not the type to desert, especially here. If he was going to run he’d do it in the countryside. Damn the man. Why does nothing ever go to plan?’

  Gwilliams said, ‘It wouldn’t be a proper war if it did.’

  Diodotus then argued, ‘We must not go looking for this man. We must carry on without him and hope he is not caught and tortured. There’s no time and a search party would arouse suspicion. We must explode the great crane tonight, then you must leave the city.’

  ‘We’ll blow up the crane when I say,’ growled Crossman. ‘I haven’t yet considered how we’re going to lay the charge without being discovered. There’re always people around that machine. It’s not going to be easy. Ali,’ he said to the Turk, who was now awake and chewing on a leathery piece of dried beef, ‘can you make two packed charges now? I’d like to have them ready to use. Long fuses. We can cut them shorter if necessary.’

  ‘I make, sergeant.’

  ‘Katra, can you go out looking for the soldier?’

  Diodotus translated Crossman’s words for her and she nodded in affirmation. He was very impressed with her calmness. The women he met in this war seemed far more capable than many of the men. She pulled a shawl around her shoulders and slipped out of the doorway. Someone called to her in that dialect which Crossman did not understand as she walked past another shack. She answered, briefly, without pausing in her stride. Soon she had disappeared into the streets and buildings of the city proper.

  ‘What am I to do?’ asked Diodotus.

  ‘Can you get us some food?’ asked Crossman. ‘And water? We still have to eat.’

  The Greek left and returned later in the morning with bread and meat. By noon Katra was still not back. Crossman tried to keep his mind occupied but it was difficult. Like most men of action, especially when in enemy territory, he found nothing harder than sitting around waiting for the hours to pass. The fishing hut was cramped, damp and very, very cold. Every so often one of the peloton would stand and thump his chest with his arms to beat the chill out of his torso.

  Periods like this always brought to Crossman’s mind the times when his father had taken him and James hunting deer. Their father would leave them during the final stalking, promising to return for them when he had located the stag. The two boys would sit down in the dew-wet heather by a burn, or in a copse of trees, and wait, and wait, and wait, until, hours later, when they were shivering in their clothes and the light was fading from the sky, their father’s gillie would find them and take them home. Their father, they knew, would completely forget about them once he had the scent of the hunt. It was the gillie, Alistair McCleod, who would remember and take a different path home to pick them up. ‘Ye’ve got tae remember,’ he used to say to them, ‘that yer fether gets so excited when he sees the quarry, it drives everything else out of his heid.’ Oh, they knew that all right. But what kind of excuse was it for leaving two bairns damp and cold for hours on end? None at all, as far as the young Alexander was concerned. The man was a selfish, boorish oaf, interested only in satisfying his own pleasures. Once he reached sixteen or thereabouts, Alexander said so, and tried to draw James in on
his side, but his brother was much too afraid to join him in the enemy camp. Major Kirk roared, spat fire and finally struck his youngest son, and Alexander had to weather the whole storm alone. He did not blame James for that. It was a good thing, he thought now, that James had returned to Britain from the Crimea. Otherwise their father would be sending him as an emissary now, to remind Crossman of his duties to him as a son. This would have greatly embarrassed James and would have put Crossman deeply on the defensive. Crossman could handle the old man, but he couldn’t handle his brother, whom he loved and admired for many things, notwithstanding his subservience to his father’s will.

  Evening came. Crossman went to the window of the hut to see Katra returning. She was weaving through the lobster fishermen, who sat repairing their wicker pots. He could see by her face that she had not found Wynter. Well, the man was on his own now. They couldn’t spend any more time looking for someone who might be in a Russian prison, or dead. It was probably better if Wynter was dead. The Russians did not like spies and saboteurs any more than anyone else did. Dissemblers were loathed and despised by all and giving them pain was one way of satisfying that hatred. Crossman was sure that if he had caught a man responsible for the deaths of many relations and friends, he too might lose his civilized self for a time.

  As he stared through the window at the murky sky above the even murkier sea, something caught his eye. Incredibly, there was Wynter, strolling along arm-in-arm with another man, for all the world as if he were out on a Sunday jaunt. Crossman watched as the two men, the other clearly from some tropical region by the shade of his skin, laughed and joked with one another. They came between the huts and finally entered the room just after Katra came in and began blurting out her tale of woe to Diodotus, who was translating it very badly. She stopped in mid-stream as Wynter entered, followed by his companion.