Within a week of Iain’s arrival in Dairen, Manchuria, the weather had turned bitterly cold. In the three months that it took for him to journey north and arrange what needed to be arranged, rain had turned to snow and freezing air had begun to blow in from the high table-lands of the interior.
During that time, Iain had been very busy. To begin with he had to gain an extended leave of absence, attain the necessary entry visas for travel through the Three Eastern Provinces, then make contact with his SIS counterpart in Manchuria and find temporary accommodation. He also acquired several maps of Northern China, a Commercial Traveller’s Guide to the Far East, and bribed several people to keep his movements quiet to avoid suspicion. Everything began moving quickly after that.
Bundled up warmly, wrapped in a woolen scarf and coat, his red hair crinkled in windswept waves, Iain waited for Cooke to arrive. He was breakfasting in the square opposite The Yamato hotel. A bowl of steaming noodles sat on the table before him. He ate little of it.
In the distance he could see the ocean. A torrent of sampans, lighters, cockboats, double-enders, wallah-wallahs and shallops crammed the docks cheek-by-jowl. Ships’ bells clanged in the filthy harbour.
He didn’t like Dairen; at one time part of a Russian-leased territory, it was now controlled by the Japanese, with a Japanese governor general, and aside from the former Russian Governor’s Palace and the properties in Nicholas Square there was little to admire. Iain thought it charmless and ugly – every other building was either a gas works or a sulphuric-acid factory. It reminded him too much of Glasgow.
Cooke, a veteran of Amiens, was tall and slim with a fresh healthy face and thick earlobes. He emerged out of a rickshaw at the circular plaza and came forward now, greeting Iain with a wave. Cooke only had one hand. His left paw was a stump, severed at the wrist like a snapped-off icicle.
He sat down, looking preoccupied. A pot of tea was set before them. Cooke drew in a breath and ran his good hand through his oiled hair. ‘‘Well, I think I’ve got everything you asked for,’’ he said.
Iain rummaged in his pocket and extracted a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth. ‘‘Including a guide?’’ he asked.
‘‘Yes, I found a Russian-speaking guide who can get you across the Amur River.’’
‘‘What about guns?’’
‘‘I’ve found you a pair of M-1891 Cossack rifles. They are standard Russian infantry rifles used during the War. You’ll want to blend in, so no point carrying British weapons.’’
‘‘Yes, that’s good. Well done.’’ His thoughts hurried ahead. ‘‘And furs? You’ve got furs. Good. How cold do you think it’ll be?’’
‘‘If there’s no wind, minus five on a good day. Minus thirty-odd when the weather closes in for the winter. I strongly advise that you to get in there before then. However, there are Red Guard river patrols out in full force at the moment, so your best bet would be to wait for the Amur to freeze over and cross it on foot. How many people are you looking to bring back with you?’’
‘‘I don’t know for certain,’’ he said. He was thinking about the Riedles. ‘‘I know for sure that I’ll have one passenger, a very frail one at that. There’s a chance of two or three others.’’
‘‘The danger is that if you cross too early the ice won’t have set and you might fall through it, too late and your sick passenger’s liable to freeze to death. It’s a small window of opportunity.’’
Above them, a clock struck the quarter hour.
Cooke pulled a watch from his pocket and both men rose from the table. ‘‘Let’s take a walk,’’ said Iain.
They made their way across the square and headed into some backstreets. With the advent of winter, the snow fell like drifts of sifted flour. Beggars and pavement-dwellers, wrapped in tattered animal skins, huddled under lean-tos, scratching out life from the slush.
‘‘Rickshaw! You wan Rickshaw?’’ bellowed the touts from every corner. Despite the wafting snow and harsh wind, dozens of sleet-covered Mongolian ponies and coolie-carts were out on the streets, dragging gunny sacks of grain, rice, melon seeds, blackened bananas, straw braid and lumber from north to south, east to west.
Iain and Cooke continued to walk straight ahead. The route took them past buildings with walls punctuated with Chinese graffiti: Down with Imperialism! Abolish unfair treaties! Boycott all Japanese Goods!
Their feet crunched against the thin snow. The twinkling ice stretched along the street like a long sheet of shellacked tin. Overhead, dark clouds gathered.
Cooke reached into his overcoat and extracted a pair of train tickets. ‘‘I’ve got us a late evening departure, leaving tomorrow. Means we can sleep a bit if we want. We’ll change trains at Mukden and I’ll accompany you as far up as Changchun. That’s where the guide will meet you. We’ve arranged a truck to take you to Heihe from there.’’
Iain thanked him again. After a pause he asked, ‘‘What’s your section saying about Soviet Russia? What’s the current political climate? Do I need to worry?’’
Cooke was expecting the question. He pulled his watch from his pocket once again and twirled its chain round his finger. ‘‘Stalin’s government seems to be in a state of organized chaos. They’ve been trying to put forward the idea of a collective farm system, but they’ve come under heavy resistance. Last year there wasn’t enough grain being produced in Russia, so now there’s a bread shortage. It might lead to another famine. Stalin’s blaming the kulaks.’’
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘The kulaks are the wealthier peasant class. Last year’s grain harvest was three million tonnes less than the year before. The kulaks were accused of hoarding. They’ve refused all along to sell grain at state-fixed prices. Chances are Stalin may invoke a state of emergency and confiscate kulak land and cattle and turn it all over to the collectives. There’s going to be widespread resistance. I’m told there’s rural discontent, a lot of suspicion and widespread resentment.’’
‘‘So I should watch my step.’’
‘‘The countryside’s swarming with urban-party cadres and Red Guards. It’s a rotten time to enter Russia uninvited. Things are getting ugly there.’’
They crossed the street. By the bus terminus, they witnessed a procession of shorn-headed Chinese men wearing wooden blocks round their necks being paraded through the streets of the city. Their legs were in shackles. The message on their block-collars read: ‘Condemned to death for opposing The Japanese Imperial Army.’
A little further on, they looked on as three White Russians were systematically beaten up in front of a Caspian tea house. The Japanese soldiers were demanding to see their papers but all they had were outdated Tsarist identity-documents. With no jurisdiction or consulate to protect them, their statelessness rendered them easy targets.
‘‘Things are getting ugly here too,’’ Iain said.
‘‘It’s a cakewalk compared to what’s happening in Russia.’’ Cooke scratched the back of his head. He let his hand fall to his side. ‘‘These people you want to go in and get,’’ he said, looking puzzled, ‘‘who are they? Why are you doing this?’’
Iain didn’t reply for a while. The questions hung in the air. He felt a pang. Should he confide in Cooke? Would he understand? Should he admit to wasting SIS resources? To being a fool? A romantic? Searching his heart, he only found more unanswered questions. His conscience flooded his throat like sour milk. He had to say something. He decided to tell Cooke the truth.
‘‘I’m trying to reunite a father and daughter. I’m hoping to help a woman, a woman who means a lot to me.’’ Then, to his surprise, he added, ‘‘I’m also trying to ease my own guilt having destroyed my own family.’’
They found an empty compartment, sagged into their fitted seats which folded down into beds, and opened several bottles of beer. Their passage north to Mukden took 8ø hours by train; it was followed by another long rail journey to Changchun, the northern terminus of the South Manchuria railroad. During that time, to calm Iain’s nerves, he and Cooke played a variety of pen and paper games such as squares, battleships and hangman, and occasionally, when very bored, they played fan tan using a cupful of melon seeds acquired from the dining car.
Relaxed by the beer, Iain allowed his mind to conjure up images of Nadia. He knew that she wasn’t speaking to him at the moment, yet he tried to picture her standing by the sea wall with the sun on her shoulders. He tried to imagine the joy in her heart when he returned with her father. But he could not. Instead, the burning sense of anticipation in his stomach grew and grew. And the closer they got to Changchun, the more uneasy Iain began to feel, so that soon it started to show on his face. As he peered into the darkness he thought of all that Nadia had lost – the life that she never had. Her home, her childhood, her father had been snatched away by fate. She’d been robbed of something. It made him remember the day he had stood on the railway platform as a boy, leaving Helmsdale in disgrace, Iain believed it echoed his own life in some respects. But in his case, fate wasn’t to blame, the blame was all his, harsh and bleak and brutal.
‘‘Another couple of hours to go,’’ said Cooke, eyeing Iain narrowly before gazing out the window. A shred of red light came through the narrow mountains. The sky was raw now. Dawn was approaching fast. ‘‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’’
‘‘I think so.’’ In the subdued light Iain held his head in his hands. He let out a long breath. ‘‘What do you think my chances are?’’
Cooke fluttered his eyes and sucked in a breath. ‘‘Let’s look at the facts: you’re entering a hostile environment; you’re searching for a family called Riedle in a village called Elychoko near Blagoveshchensk, but you’re unsure where they live; if you were to find them, there’s no way of telling how they’ll react to your advances – chances are they’ll think you’re dangerous and inform the authorities; but let’s assume they’re friendly and take you to Shaskov – you’ve never met Ilya Shaskov before, so there’s a risk he won’t believe a word you say. Now, you claim Shashkov is ill, do we know how ill? Can he walk? We don’t know. Will he survive the trip? Again, we don’t know. On top of that there are armed Red Guards swarming about, you don’t speak a word of Russian and yesterday’s wind chill temperature in Heihe was estimated at –22 C. All in all, I’d say your chances were pretty slim.’’
Such doubts weren’t new to Iain – he’d been persistently troubled by them for weeks. He didn’t like thinking about this, so he gave a mirthless laugh. ‘‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’’
Cooke gave Iain a searching look. ‘‘You said earlier that you were hoping to help a woman. Forgive me Iain, but who is this girl?’’
Iain started to answer, but drew back and said nothing.
‘‘I presume she’s White Russian and that she’s Shashkov’s daughter.’’
A silence. The volume of the train’s chugging rose and fell. Then. ‘‘Her name is Nadia.’’
Bemused, Cooke said, ‘‘You obviously care for her otherwise you wouldn’t be doing this.’’ He waited a beat. ‘‘But are you sure she’s worth it?’’
‘‘Yes.’’ His voice rang full and true.
‘‘What about the Riedles? I presume you’ll take them with you? What will you do with them once you get back across to China?’’
‘‘There is a Lutheran Mission in Harbin who help Russians from over the border.’’
‘‘And if you make it back, do you intend to marry Nadia?’’
Iain’s lips grew tight as though there was grit in his teeth. His heart ratcheted in his chest. He shrugged slowly.
‘‘Do you think that’s wise?’’ Cooke asked.
‘‘You tell me.’’
‘‘Marrying a White Russian,’’ he said bluntly, ‘‘may cost you your job.’’
For a while they didn’t speak or blink or even appear to breathe.
An hour and a half later, as they approached the city’s edge, the porter knocked on the compartment door and came in with a tray bearing cups of hot tea and a plate of Chinese buns. As soon as he left, Cooke shook his head and brought a cup to his mouth. He watched Iain over the steaming brim.
‘‘They’ll execute you as a spy if you’re caught. Either that or you’ll spend the rest of your life working in a Siberian salt mine. The Soviets don’t treat espionage lightly.’’
This was a phrase he’d heard repeated before. Iain felt himself grow cold. There was something in the way Cooke said ‘they’ll execute you’ that made him quiver. It prised open a weakness in him he didn’t know existed and for a brief moment he resented Cooke for his honesty.
Cooke opened his briefcase with his good hand and removed a square of folded paper. ‘‘Look,’’ he said, ‘‘I realize this is an unofficial operation, and we usually only hand these out to our field operatives, but it might just save your life.’’ Iain unfurled the note. It was made from lightweight paper, measuring 13 by 16 inches, designed to be folded into eighths. It contained both English and Cyrillic text.
‘‘What is it?’’ he asked.
‘‘It’s what we call a Blood Chit.’’
Iain studied the pointee-talkie language chart and the English-Russian pronunciation guide at the bottom: ‘I am a British citizen. Please help me return to the Chinese border. The British Government will reward you. You will be paid handsomely in gold for my safe return.’
There were also phonetic translations for the Russian words ‘don’t shoot’, ‘far, near’, ‘food, bread, drinking water’, ‘doctor, medicine’, ‘sleep, hide’ and ‘I will pay you’.
He pursed his lips, felt himself tense up. His eyes settled on Cooke’s invisible left hand, at the shiny-pink rub of skin. It would have been a grenade, thought Iain, either that or a sniper’s bullet. Had it happened at night? Was he smoking at the time? Had the cross hairs focused on the crimson glow within his palm? The shock would have been brutal and swift.
They’ll execute you.
Iain scraped his palms together and pushed them through his hair. He sat stiffly quiet for a long time. His own hands, he noticed, were quivering faintly.
Iain squinted out the window. The road ahead looked as black as the midnight sky, but his heart knew where it was taking him. Iain’s eyes glinted in the window; there was no retreating now. He was ready.