Cold Blood (29 page)

In the end he gave up—grabbed and hugged me as if I were his son, I suppose also saying farewell to what could never be repeated, the Russia into which he'd been born. Tears were pouring down his cheeks.

He stood back. He said harshly, “Well, goodbye then, Doig. We'll never meet again.”

I bowed to him—and led Tornado and the trolley of weapons away with the old feeling of machine guns trained on my spine. At the gatehouse the soldiers lamped back to the gaol for clearance to let me go. It came immediately—a stutter of flashes—and
they conducted me through a maze of barbed wire and left me on the cart track that went up to the burial pits and thus to the railway.

We set out for the train, Tornado and I, the horse at my elbow, snuffling and rattling his bit.

The moon was riding above the city, our Russian moon. It was impossible to suppose that this was the same moon that shone over any other country, for Russia is a world complete in itself and has no need to share a moon with another nation any more than it needs to share its vast rivers, lakes and mountains, its language, its God, its savagery. How could there be any moon left over for anyone else after it had peered into our forests, silvered our endlessly winding rivers and climbed the peaks of the Tien Shan? It must have been possible, for every school textbook told us it was, but in my heart as in the heart of every Russian, the moon was ours, and so were the stars. It was in Russian pockets that God slipped them for the duration of the day, deep down there, tingling in the furs. And here they were once more on display, spread out above me, a wreckage of sparks scattered over the immenseness of our Russian skies— and I thought again how strange it was that in the pit of a civil war that could have been waged by no other nation on the earth, I should find two Americans bumping along with only the haziest notion of the dark forces around them.

Could it really be as simple as Jones said? That the President had given them a wagon of expensive wireless equipment and said, “Go find out what's happening at a little place called Kazan. Can't be more than one of them on longitude 50. Off you go now, boys, and no slacking while you're out of my sight.”

Was that how power worked? And then the sweet odour of gold had risen to Leapforth's nostrils and he'd jumped into a pit of corpses and lo and behold was now John S. Piler whom no one would ever finger for having once been Captain Jones of the Black Chamber.

I said to Tornado, “Somebody came to me with a tale like that I'd say to him, ‘Do I look like a flat-earther?' “

M
Y TRAIN
wasn't where I'd left it: Shmuleyvich had obviously taken Stiffy to the baths on the far side of town. Having no intention of leaving my new weapons unguarded and no wish to have Blahos wander by and find all these sacks of Red Army uniforms, I sat on the loading ramp of the brickworks and waited for his return.

The moonlight bounced off Tornado's good eye, giving him a rakish look. Tam o' Shanter, my old father would have named him—probably with a few complimentary verses in his stalwart Scottish declaiming voice. It was a curiosity finding in the gaol of this frontier town a man who'd known him well enough to call him a scamp. Which man had given me two machine guns complete with ammo and the rectangular black japanned tin boxes that held all the different-sized spanners and keys with which to disassemble them—and a horse.

Stroking Tornado's nose, I said to him, “Don't want to be uncivil, old fellow, but even if I had ten thousand of you, it'd make no difference. You're old hat. There are subs under the sea, tanks on land, Camels and Fokkers in the air and a flotilla of motor torpedo boats on the Volga. Christ, there's mechanisation everywhere. Consider the tank. Thereby, a soldier's connection with the horse has been almost completely severed...”

I babbled on to him about the tanks the Bolsheviks had captured from the Germans. They had red stars on them now and a name painted on the hull—“Sword of the Proletariat,” “Revenge,” that sort of thing.

“Revenge is a good one.
Mest'.
Maybe I should get it painted
on my loco. What do you say? And how come those bastards Jones and Stiffy were entitled to get a ride to the baths in my train, eh? Couldn't they walk? Thought they already had the gold in the bag, did they? Stiffy all excited with my bottle of 60 per cent Vladimir and a sachet of Roget et Gallet's Elixir of Carnations. To celebrate becoming Dave. I overheard him telling my woman about it. You'd never believe what men get up to, old fellow. Nor the lies they put about. That Jones and his damned smile—no woman could marry someone who smiled all the time like that. If you were a woman instead of a horse, could you lie beneath a man whose teeth were phosphorescent in the night like a shark's? I'm telling you, Tornado... Yet he's claimed a wife back in the States, in Grand Rapids...”

I fell to wondering what the horse smelt of so strongly. It was stale, it was musty—yet it was something more, like the smell of a new roll of felt.

He shook.

A piebald horse shaking in the moonlight, the beams bouncing back off the areas of white hair together with a spray of dust and mites...

So scampering Stiffy and toothy Jones had been chauffered to the baths at my expense and were steaming their impurities away without paying a blind bit of attention to the standard notice, signed by the Governor and therefore meant to be obeyed, oh my God yes, obedience compulsory except maybe in a revolution, “Strictly No Farting.” They'd have volleyed away as they gulped down my Vladimir and would return all clean and precious whereas I—

I was rank, no other word for it. Was Xenia the same, was that why she didn't complain—

Like Cyclops, Shmuley came rushing out of the darkness, the single light on the front of the loco growing from the size of a small ball to a saucer to a bright white plate as he halted a few yards away, steam wreathing him as he leaned from the cab.

“That you, boss?”

“It isn't Karl fucking Marx so go and find me a horse wagon for Tornado here. How long did it take you to get round the
loop and back to the station? OK, go round again. There's sure to be wagons at the station. Get two—I'm going to try for an armoured car. If the stationmaster objects, shoot him. Hitch up to the Yanks' wireless wagon while you're about it.”

“Boss, the spiv has bolted.”

“What does Mrs. D. say to that?”

“Only really special men from now on, that's what she told me.”

“Then that's fine. Send Stiffy to me.”

He appeared soused with Vladimir 60 per cent and Elixir of Carnations. He'd got a babushka to trim his eyebrows.

I said, “Stiffy, I don't give a shit that you're now Dave Cram. You've an hour to get cleaned off. Then your wireless'll be here and you're going to listen at that set day and night until you get word from me personally you can stand down. Yep?”

Hearing me speak, Xenia popped her head out of the carriage. I asked if she'd like to sit in the silky night air with me and Tornado for a while, but saying it in a rough voice from being tetchy.

“Why?” she said, because that's how her mind worked. I said to keep watch over two
machinkas
plus ammo plus Red Army uniforms while Shmuley went for wagons.

She agreed provisionally—so long as I guaranteed there were no Reds operating outside the city at night. “If they crept up and cut your head off, where would I be then? This is exactly the sort of situation I fear most. I told you so, back in St. Petersburg.”

I said, “I keep a spare neck up my sleeve, now come on out of there and join me.”

She said, “Is that a horse?”

I said, “Yes. It's called Tornado and it's got a complete set of balls. Now come on down before I get impatient.”

Does one allow things to happen or does one force them? It's always the question. An optimist does the former. Musket balls beat against his cuirass like raindrops and he smiles: “They're doing me no harm, see, I've got my armour on.” Idle men are also tolerant people. They say to themselves, If I lie in bed for long enough I'll die there, nothing worse can happen.

But I was aflame. The Reds'd be attacking Kazan in the first
week in September. Glebov would be there. I wasn't like a woman who sniffs everything before tasting it, not just the milk. I was buzzing, cocked, hot to go.

Xenia was prickly, let go of my hand as soon as she was on the platform. I quickly discovered why: Stiffy had spilled the beans to her about the antics at the burial pits. She realised that she'd got into more than she'd bargained for—which was to have me look after her and set her up in business as a corsetière. She said she hadn't understood the Bolsheviks' true intentions. The black Fokker had really scared her and now this . . . It was disgusting what the two Americans had done. At least they'd been to the baths afterwards. Whereas I—

“I was never party to the change of identity,” I said, hearing the underlying change in her tone. “What's it got to do with you anyway?”

“You've been drinking,” she said.

“I've had a scoop... What are you bawling about, you had enough men to protect you.”

“How can you go drinking and then tell Mr. Brown off for doing the same thing?” she said petulantly. It seemed the moon was dodging round the sky. One moment I could see her expression clearly, the next her face was in shadow—or what was worse, half her face, so that I was continually glancing from one side to the other to see where reality lay.

I said, “What's biting you, lady?”

She didn't answer that and didn't have to. She was afraid, that's what it was. The Thomas Cook railway tour of Russia that she'd signed up for had turned into something else. She was a shopkeeper. She was out of her depth. It'd be hell getting her to Odessa. She'd be a drag the entire way—and I'd proposed marriage to her.

I said with a kindly manner, “It was that attack by the Fokker, it's just beginning to get to you, isn't it?”

“I can't get it out of my mind. We might all have been killed.”

“Then there would have been no cause for worry.”

“Do you want to make a scene out of this? Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand me? You... you... all I'm here for is so that you can reap me whenever you feel like it. Silly Charlie Doig, you're so puffed up with yourself, so arrogant...”

There was more, a great deal more about my character. She got hysterical—and jealous of Elizaveta. So
that
was the heart of the trouble, not the Americans jumping into the burial pit. Everything came flooding out. It was crude of me to blame Elizaveta's death on Glebov when the decision had been mine and mine alone. Glebov was obviously a pawn of Lenin's, no worse than any other hired man. It had been I who was the bastard. I hadn't done all that I could have done to save Elizaveta. I'd been brutal—selfish—lacking any sense of decency, even of morality. She'd seen this side of me time and time again: she'd had enough—she wished to return to St. Petersburg and Madame Zilberstein's shop.

“My girl, my darling girl . . .” Penitent yet manly, I took her in my arms and chuckled her until Shmuleyvich came clattering back with the extra wagons and Stiffy's wireless rig.

She was assuaged, but only somewhat. Most worrying from an operational point of view were occasional remarks about where my money was coming from. I thought, Did I let slip something about the diamonds in my boots when drunk? Had she unpicked the stitches and got in there with her little corsetmaker's fingers? I didn't think so. I bent to scratch my leg and found the stitches were intact. Nevertheless there was a sweetness in her voice that didn't match up to her words—and I made a note to be extra careful. The moment Shmuley brought the train to a halt, I shoved her into a Pullman with my hand up her backside and said she could twiddle her thumbs for a bit.

Joseph sticking his head out, I told him he was in charge until I got back. I was going to take Boltikov into town to get hold of Kobi. I needed a full establishment. I wanted to get set up for action.