A Splendid Little War (31 page)

“Double pay? You told them?”

“Yes. Their answer was that twenty-five is the absolute safe maximum. They said the locomotives are overdue for servicing. They wouldn't budge.”

“I'll budge them. They're lazy buggers and they want an easy life. Adjutant, put a man with a revolver on the footplate of each locomotive. I'll take charge of the Marines' train. We'll go first. We set the pace. The rest of you – keep up. We're going to catch this war while it's still hot. All clear? Good. Carry on.”

They left, except for Wragge.

“I'm glad to see you firing on all cylinders,” Wragge said. “You were beginning to look like Griffin Mark Two, eating broken glass for breakfast.”

“Oh …” The idea made Hackett chuckle. “I wasn't as bad as that, was I? Anyway, I've got a grip on this job now. I'm going to be busy, so … can you organize this
prazdik
for me?”

“Of course.”

“Make it memorable. Hackett's
prazdik
. Give the whole damn squadron something to cheer its socks off about. Can you see my revolver? It's lying around here somewhere … Ah. Thanks.”

Getting three trains on the move, none crowding the one in front, none falling far behind, was a process that could not be rushed. Hackett stood behind the driver and the stoker on the Marines' train and urged them to work harder. He found the cord for the whistle and gave a few blasts. It didn't improve the speed but it made him feel better. He was in the lead, where the C.O. should be.

Meanwhile, the rest of the squadron had little to do.

Lacey was in his radio room with Sergeant Stevens, the medic. “It's none of my business,” Stevens said, “but that verse which you read so movingly at the funerals of the C.O. and Air Mechanic Henderson. Did you write it for the occasion?”

“A sombre ceremony. I thought something to boost the spirits … Yes, I was responsible. Shall I make some tea?”

“How did it begin?
Now God be thanked
…”

“
From this day to the ending of the world
.” Lacey busied himself with the Primus stove. “Is Fortnum's Black Blend alright?”

“Yes. You pinched it, didn't you? From Rupert Brooke.” Stevens waited, but Lacey was concentrating hard on getting the stove going. “And later you had a line,
Was there a man dismayed?
That's definitely Tennyson. ‘Charge of the Light Brigade'.” Still Lacey fussed with the Primus. “And your splendid ending,
Land of our birth, we pledge to thee
,” Stevens said. “A masterstroke. Rudyard Kipling must be proud of it.”

At last Lacey turned to him. “I'm out of milk I'm afraid. War is hell, isn't it?”

“You wouldn't be the first. Every writer steals. You just did it more thoroughly than most. You pinched bits from all over and tacked them together.”

Lacey screwed up his face and stared at the empty steppe drifting by. “Not stealing. I adapted. Some of those poets are fairly second-grade, you know. I like to think I enhanced their work.”

Stevens found that funny. “You certainly enhanced that funeral. Compared with you, the Bible came in a poor second.”

Lacey returned to his Primus. “Brooke, Tennyson, Kipling,” he said. “Not the reading of the average sergeant in the Medical Corps. Where did you go to school?

“Winchester. Disgusting food, medieval plumbing, excellent library. And before you ask, I never wanted a commission. For reasons too tedious to explain.”

The kettle began to boil. “I have a lemon,” Lacey said. “Lemon is actually better than milk.”

“I may die,” Stevens said. “The Medical Corps is permanently exposed to disease. If I do, will you enhance my funeral?”

“Child's play.” Lacey sliced the lemon. “All it takes is a raging talent.”

After about five miles, the locomotive crew had nudged the speed up to twenty-three miles an hour. The gauge was calibrated in kilometres, which meant Hackett had to do some mental arithmetic. Divide by three and multiply by two. The reckoning was a bit rough-and-ready, but it told Hackett they weren't beating twenty-five. Probably not even touching it. This train wasn't running, it was sleepwalking. Its crew needed to be roused. Hackett knew he could do it. He had enough enthusiasm for all of them.

He smiled. He grinned, until it hurt. He rapped the speed gauge and made up! up! up! gestures. He slapped the driver on the back, sang “Waltzing Matilda”, not that they understood, they could scarcely hear him above the din of the engine. He stood beside the stoker and applauded every shovelful of coal the man threw into the fire. He pointed urgently forward, he grinned and he nodded. They watched him warily. All foreigners were mad. This one acted crazy.

Hackett hid his irritation. He knew they had problems. The driver moved slowly: his right leg was lame. He was old and thin and his hands trembled on the controls. The stoker coughed every few minutes and sometimes brought up blood. An accident had taken two fingers from his left hand. What was left made a hook instead of a grip on the shovel. So – not the best crew in the world. But that was no reason to sleepwalk
to Taganrog. “Faster! Faster!” Hackett roared, with a comradely grin, and rapped the gauge. “Up, up, up!”

Some of the bomber crews had joined the poker school in The Dregs. The game somehow failed to excite anyone. The cards had been given to Tommy Hopton to deal when Chef brought in a fresh pot of coffee. Hopton used the pause to say, “I'll show you chaps a brilliant trick. This will make your eyes pop out.” He made a fan of the cards, held it face down, and said to Jessop, “Take a card. Any card at all.” Jessop made a small performance of almost choosing, rejecting, frowning hard, finally picking a card. “Don't let me see it,” Hopton said. “It's the eight of spades,” Jessop said. Hopton hurled the pack at his head, missed, and hit Maynard's face just as he picked up the pot, which was very hot, and he sprayed coffee over the table, and especially over the cards. That ended the poker. Jessop got the blame. “I didn't have the eight of spades at all,” he protested. Hopton scoffed: “Of course you didn't. I knew that. You had the queen of clubs.” Jessop shrugged. “Did I? I can't remember.” Dextry stopped picking up sodden cards and said to Hopton, “If you knew Jessop was lying, why did you chuck the pack at him?” Hopton was defiant. “It's a matter of the ethos of
léger de main
. You wouldn't understand.”

Now there was nothing to do. Nothing to read. Borodin had the only newspaper, and it was in Russian.

Wragge sprawled in a chair and watched him, and wondered what was so interesting in the dense columns of type. Yards of tripe, probably. Did the Russians eat tripe? Chef would know. Not that it mattered. “Count,” he said. “I've been thinking about what you told us. The peasants and taxes and so on. What a rotten life they have.”

“They got shat upon,” Jessop said bitterly. “From a great height.” He felt badly about being blamed for the hot coffee.

“My point is, it wouldn't happen in England,” Wragge said. “They'd kick up a fuss, and Parliament would pass a law, or something. So why do your chaps put up with it?”

“Their toil is appalling, I agree,” Borodin said. “But look at the holidays. Very generous. Nobody works on the holy days of the church, and they amount to nearly one-third of the year.”

That provoked laughter. “So they don't mind working like dogs for precious little,” Dextry said, “because tomorrow's always a day off.”

“It's not as simple as that. You can't understand the peasantry unless you realize how devoted they are to the Church. Russia is not like the West. Our Orthodox Church is the same as the State. The Church is Russia and Russia is the Church.”

“Well, we have the Church of England,” Maynard said. “It's as English as can be. God Save the King, and all that.”

“Yes. But an Englishman can take it or leave it. A Russian believes that Christ made the Orthodox Church and that's why it's unalterable. And so is Russia, and so is the peasantry, unless the Tsar says otherwise, because the Tsar is God's spokesman. In a sense, he
is
God.”

“Was,” Jessop said.

“And then there's Rasputin,” Wragge said.

“Was,” Jessop said happily. He was doing well. Everyone brightened. They'd heard enough of the Orthodox Church.

“Ah, what a magnificent fraud!” Borodin said. “I knew him, slightly. The smell was memorable. He never washed and his stench was as foul as his language, but he ravished half the noblewomen in Petersburg. Including the Empress Alexandra.”

“I met a chap in France,” Hopton said. “He was on the same squadron as a Russian duke who said Rasputin had three balls. Is that right?”

“I never inspected him. It's possible. His stamina was prodigious.”

“A fraud, you said.” Wragge wanted more. They all wanted more. “A terrific fraud. How so?”

“Oh … it goes back to the Church, I'm afraid. You see, Rasputin was what we call a
starets
, a holy man sent by God for the salvation of our souls. Surrender your soul to the
starets
, and he will save you. Rasputin preached salvation through sin. How can we repent if we have not first sinned? That's where he started.”

“Not so fast,” Maynard said. He was making notes.

“Rasputin recommended sins of the flesh,” Borodin said. “Top of the list for winning God's forgiveness.”

“That's jolly clever,” Dextry said.

“And if God sends a temptation, yield at once, so you can be forgiven. That was Rasputin's trump card. The ladies lined up for a chance to sin and repent in his bed.”

“Heavenly humping,” Wragge said. “Unbeatable.”

“No wonder he was tritesticular,” Hopton said. Maynard looked up from his notes. “Disease of sheep,” Hopton told him.

There was a silence while they contemplated a stampede of naked noblewomen into a hairy, smelly Russian's bed.

“It's a beautiful swindle,” Wragge said, “but I can't see it working in the Church of England. Not unless you shave first.”

“I'll shave,” Maynard said.

Hackett ran out of enthusiasm. Ran out of encouragement, of urgency, of attack. He gave up. They won. It was their locomotive and they drove it at their speed. Twenty-three miles an hour meant reaching Taganrog the day after tomorrow, maybe even later. Well, this was Russia. They would be shot if they went any faster.

He sat on the coal in the tender and fingered his revolver.

Suppose he fired a couple of shots over their heads. That would make them jump. Would it do any good? The driver looked shaky, gunfire might be more than he could stand. If he collapsed it would make matters worse. The stoker couldn't shovel coal and drive. Forget guns.

In fact Hackett began to feel sorry for them. The driver wasn't strong enough to be on his feet all day behind a roaring, rocking engine. The stoker was younger but gusts of smoke got him coughing painfully and the damage to his left hand meant he could never hold a full shovel.

Hackett couldn't sit and watch him struggle any longer. He got up and took the shovel from his hands.

“I know what I'm doing,” he bawled into the man's ear. “I did this job in the Australian Navy.” Useless, meaningless; but he felt he had to say something. He set to work, flinging coal into the fire, remembering the easy rhythm, enjoying the exercise. The stoker sat and watched.

Soon, the train picked up speed. Hackett could tell by the change in the engine note, by a difference in the vibration beneath his feet. He took a break and went to look at the gauge. Divide by three, multiply by two. Thirty miles an hour. And climbing. He grinned at the driver and slapped him on the back. The man looked sick. “Sorry,” he shouted. “Didn't mean to hurt you.” When he turned around the stoker had gone. Hackett searched and saw the man disappearing over the stack of coal,
heading God knew where. “We don't need him!” Hackett said, and got back to work. The coal burned easily. The fire turned from red-hot to white-hot. Hackett took off his tunic, and then his shirt. The engine had a thundering rumble that was different. He turned to look at the gauge and now the driver had gone too. Over the coal. Who would have thought the old fellow had the agility? He looked at the gauge. Nudging forty. It was vibrating so much that he leaned forward and looked closer. It struck him full in the face as if it had been fired from a gun, which in a sense it had. When the boiler blew, the locomotive shattered and bits rained on the steppe. Only the wheels and the chassis survived. It was almost a mile before the train stopped. Even without an engine, forty miles an hour creates a lot of momentum.

At 11.00 a.m., Jonathan Fitzroy met his Working Party as they arrived at the Royal College of Embroidery. Everyone got into an official car and drove to a side entrance of the Admiralty Building in Whitehall. “Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger,” he said. “All will be explained.”