A thin cry from down for’ard of ‘Clear anchor!’ was repeated to Zakharov by Burmin; would have originated with Lieutenant Vetrov, foc’sl officer. Zakharov responded through rigid-seeming lips, ‘Slow ahead both engines,’ and a petty officer rang that order down on the engine-room telegraph. Zakharov stooping to the funnel-shaped copper top of a voicepipe to tell the helmsman in the steering position four decks lower, ‘Port ten. Steer northeast by north.’ Aiming to take them out clear of what looked like a rapidly worsening mess about a mile ahead of the Ryazan – trembling all through her iron frame as engines and screws began to churn. At higher revs you wouldn’t get that vibration effect, Michael guessed. He’d been here only about five minutes, Zakharov having sent him a message please to come on up – which had come as a surprise, especially as one hadn’t given the reassurance Z had been asking for last night on the subject of the gap between his age and Tasha’s; Z then dropping the subject, seemingly giving Michael up as useless. This in any case was how he recalled or reconstructed it – in one sleepless period during the night wondering whether he shouldn’t have been more diplomatic; having months to spend now in this man’s ship, no option but to get along with him: but rejecting that, finally, for the plain fact that in discussing Tasha there could be no compromise.
Here on the bridge, Zakharov had greeted him with a nod: Michael then keeping out of the way, watching and listening, mentally translating and comparing the Russian orders and acknowledgements with their equivalents in English. He’d borrowed a Russian seamanship manual for reference and study, and there was very little difference in approach, once translated; if he’d been in Zakharov’s place at the binnacle his own orders in imperfect Russian would almost from scratch have produced the desired results. The port helm order now producing a slow swing of the ship’s head to starboard – slow because she was only moving very slowly, this far, and the quartermaster would in any case be easing the degree of wheel as she approached the ordered course. Which would take her reasonably well clear of the mêlée of transports and Enqvist’s three cruisers, who’d made the mistake of moving up astern of the old Oslyabya, who for some reason – aberration – had broken her anchor out before the Suvarov and begun forging ahead as if to lead them westward. Had now stopped, however: by the look of it she might have her engines running astern. Her captain fearful of Rojhestvensky’s wrath, no doubt – and more than likely receiving clear indications of it by semaphore or wireless. Lucky perhaps not to have been shot at – yet. The transports too were all over the place – wallowing hulks pointing in every direction and all of them on the move, making things worse minute by minute and pretty well surrounding the battleships, impeding their movements. Rojhestvensky, Michael thought – adjusting his binoculars’ focus on that slowly shifting area of confusion – Jane’s ‘homicidal maniac’ would not be at his sunniest, right at this moment.
The telegraph clanged. Stopping again, he guessed. Time, seven-thirty. Weighing had been scheduled for seven, and the Ryazan’s capstan had begun dragging her up to her anchor precisely on the hour. Coaling of the battleships had been completed at two a.m. And Felkerzam’s Suez-bound division had sailed last evening at nine, in heavy rain which in the dying light had rendered even their lights invisible within minutes – and which would not have made the Suvarov division’s coaling operation very pleasant: must in fact have resulted in vast quantities of wet coal pounding down the chutes, creating a risk – later on, especially, when the squadron would be getting into the tropics and those internal spaces became ovens – of bunker fires.
The engines had stopped, and she was losing way. Zakharov swinging his glasses to the hospital-ship – also lying stopped, evidently following this ship’s movements, having been told, as her master would have been by Rojhestvensky or his chief of staff, that the Ryazan would be his ship’s individual escort. Burmin had explained over breakfast that while the Ryazan came under Rear-Admiral Enqvist for general administrative purposes, she was in fact at Rojhestvensky’s immediate beck and call, no reference to Enqvist being necessary even as a matter of courtesy: Rojhestvensky might, at a minute’s notice, send her ahead on a scouting mission, or to close-in off some port for purposes of communication, i.e. to send a telegram to St Petersburg through shoreside facilities – the German wireless system having proved to have a range of no more than thirty or forty miles at best. The rest of the time she’d be nursemaid – or chaperone – to the Orel.
Zakharov glanced round, saw Michael and beckoned. Michael joined him and Burmin in the bridge’s forefront.
‘What you see going on there, Mikhail Ivan’ich, is not typical of Russian fleet manoeuvres. The battleships haven’t exercised together to anything like the extent they should have, and the Oslyabya, of course – well, words fail one. The transports I won’t even mention. My concern is that perhaps you will – you’ll be sending despatches from time to time, I imagine?’
‘No, sir. Only a full report of conclusions after – well, after we’ve relieved Port Arthur.’
Another hard stare: as if wondering whether to believe him. Or to believe that he believed in the relief of Port Arthur being even on the cards. There were advantages in that complete lack of facial expression, Michael thought.
Glasses up again now anyway, on the slow-moving circus under its pall of black smoke. Arkoleyev and Skalinin had been critical of the soft German coal last evening: even when it was embarked dry, for heaven’s sake. Zakharov nodding in the direction of the battleships: ‘There are some good men there, believe me. Ignatzius, for one, but also – well, all of them – Bukhvostov of the Alexander, Serebryanikov of the Borodino – and Jung who has the Oryol. Snag is, the older men were trained in sail and some of ’em still think in sail… Ah –’ muttering to himself now – ‘Oslyabya’s out of the way at last. So the transports now – yes, getting them sorted out – to some extent—’
‘Captain, sir.’ Galikovsky – torpedo lieutenant, therefore also wireless-telegraphy lieutenant – worried-looking, hovering…
‘Well?’
‘They’re using their wireless almost continually, sir, and it seems the Anadyr’s got her anchor snagged in a sea-bed cable. The sea-bed cable—’
‘This one linking Tangier and all the rest of Morocco to Gibraltar and points north, sir. It’s shown clearly on the chart.’ Radzianko had brought the chart with him from the table – there was a chart-table here on the bridge, with a sheltering canopy over it. Radzianko looking rather pleased about the Anadyr’s mishap. Winking at Michael: back to Zakharov then, who’d sighed, shaken his head: growling, ‘They’ll have to wait for divers. Either that or lose the anchor and a shackle or two of cable. In which case it’s likely we’ll be told to wait for the divers and bring it along – since we have the speed…’
‘Beg pardon, your honour.’ A petty officer telegraphist – although they were actually called torpedo-machinists. But he was a chief P.O. – chief yeoman of signals, in RN terminology – grey-headed, with a school-masterly look about him – except for tattooings of whales and mermaids on his forearms. He was offering a sheet of signal-pad to Galikovsky, who motioned to him to give it to Zakharov. The chief yeoman muttered, ‘Told ’em cut the cable, your honour. Order from the admiral to Anadyr.’
‘What cable?’
‘The sea-bed telegraph cable, sir. Anadyr’s to haul it up and cut it.’
‘The reason I invited you up here –’ Zakharov, tired from half an hour spent watching the miserable performance up ahead, had lowered his binoculars and beckoned to Michael to join him – ‘is to have you accustom yourself to the running of the ship. Spend as much time as you like on this bridge. Assist with the navigation: well, play that softly of course, but – just use your head… As I was explaining yesterday, or began to, rather than spend your days as a passenger – foreigner at that – it would be in the interests of the ship – your own too, probably – for you to become part of the – community. Morale’s of the highest importance, and in this long haul there are going to be strains enough – although I’ve done my best to weed out potential trouble-makers it’s something we must all remain alert to… On the political front, are you aware of the state of affairs in Russia?’
‘To some extent, yes. Not a happy state of affairs at all.’
Might have blurted, Oh yes, Tasha says… Thinking of that passage in her letter about revolutionary activity in the Tambov-Saratov districts: Injhavino lying about midway between the two – and the Volodnyakov estate actually a dozen versts outside Injhavino… Zakharov saying, ‘It’s a bad time that will pass, please God. Defeats tend to sap morale. We need a victory now – better still a whole string of ’em, the Japanese sent reeling… How would you feel about that, incidentally?’
‘You mean as an Englishman, when my country is—’
‘Well?’
‘It’s a political thing, isn’t it – and Britain’s alliance with the Japanese is only defensive. And obviously, being with this squadron – and since I’d rather return alive than drown—’
‘That’s it, then. When you feel up to it you might even stand a watch. When you’ve got the hang of our systems.’
‘Only snags are – one, I’m at a loss over signals in Russian, either by light or semaphore, let alone flags. So if I was on the bridge alone—’
‘You won’t be, you’ll have the signalmen of the watch to rely on, and a junior officer of the watch to assist you. Never less than that. If you wanted to study the Tabulevich system – I’d guess you’d be the first non-Russian ever to do so.’
‘Intriguing. And pass the time.’
‘A second point?’
‘The political angle – I’d suggest that when or if it comes to action—’
‘You’ll be an observer, nothing more.’
‘I could help your doctor, of course – stretcher-bearing, first aid…’
‘Indeed, why not?’ He put his glasses up again, studied the black smoke-covered confusion of ships on the bow to port. ‘He is getting them sorted out – I think… But thank God there’s some way to go before we meet the enemy. No “if” about it, incidentally, you can be sure we will, Mikhail Ivan’ich – in the Yellow Sea if not before. Togo isn’t going to sit in port and watch us steam past him to Port Arthur, is he! Even if Port Arthur’s still holding out by that time… Anyway – about covers all we had to discuss, doesn’t it?’ He raised his voice: ‘Half ahead together.’ The telegraph clanged: Zakharov glanced round to check on the position of the hospital-ship – still lying there waiting – and Michael, accepting dismissal, moved away, making room up front for Burmin and/or Radzianko – or Michman Egorov, who was also now in attendance.
Propping himself against the side of the bridge he put his glasses up, focused on the squadron which under its drifting canopy of black smoke was at last getting into the formation ordered by Rojhestvensky. Roughly so, anyway – the port column by no means straight as yet, but – getting there. The Anadyr’s adventure with the cable would have been the main cause of delay: but in fact she must have made short work of severing Morocco from communication with the outside world. Perhaps that had been the quickest way out of it. Rojhestvensky’s ruthlessness therefore, more than actual lunacy: but another heavy bill, no doubt, for St Petersburg to settle, this time with the French. In any event, that lot was on the move at last: the starboard column led by the Suvarov, with her consorts in line-astern, and only the older battleship Oslyabya noticeably out of station, as well as emitting twice as much smoke as any other. The port column still snaking or zigzagging across each other’s wakes – led, peculiarly enough, by the Kamchatka. Radzianko had shown Michael the formation-diagram, over breakfast, and in that column the repair-ship was to lead the Anadyr, Sibir, Meteor, Korea, Malaya, Rus, and the refrigerated storeship Espérance – presumably on charter from French owners. The Rus was the tug, formerly Roland, in which Selyeznov had disported himself so spectacularly in the Great Belt; she’d been on charter then from civilian owners but had since been purchased and re-named.
It was a pleasant morning. Getting on for nine-thirty now and the sun well up out of the coastal mists, climbing into a clear sky while a small breeze from the east no more than wrinkled the sea’s surface. And the transports had got themselves into a single column.
Radzianko joined him, gesturing towards the now comparatively well-ordered squadron, ‘Progress, eh?’ That rather oily smile. ‘But look at this.’ Producing a sheet of signal-pad from his pocket. ‘Specimens of the flagship’s signals over the past hour. I’m keeping it for my scrap-book.’
In an educated hand: doubtless copied from the signal-log by himself…
Where do you think you’re going?
Increase your speed!
Stop engines immediately!
Do not continue in that direction!
Steer more to port!
Get out of my way, you idiot!
Are you intentionally forcing me to run aground?
Michael handed it back. ‘Priceless.’ Zakharov had put on more revs: Ryazan was up to ten or twelve knots now, steering to close up on the other cruisers, which were in a double quarterline formation – Nakhimov in the lead flying Enqvist’s flag and with Aurora and Dmitry Donskoi more or less on her quarters, cutting across from the deep-held where they’d been playing safe, moving now to take station astern of the main body. Neither Ryazan nor the hospital-ship had been shown on that formation diagram: presumably they’d be tagging on astern.
Start a new letter to her today, Michael thought, have it ready for posting at Dakar. If they let us into Dakar of course – which they might not, if they’d heard of Rojhestvensky’s cable-cutting. Perhaps he is mad… He was leaning out over the rail now with his glasses trained astern, seeing the white hospital-ship following at a distance of about two cables, silvered water curling away from that elegant clipper bow. As elegant as a swan – and, extraordinarily, full of Russian girls of noble parentage, following this lumbering herd to God knows what.
Switch of mind to Tasha, then: the switch being less plain escapism than the thought of returning or not returning to her. And from there to the question in her letter: it started here in Yalta, didn’t it? For you, my lover, wasn’t this really the time and place?
In the sense of having finally realized how he felt about her, yes, it had been. And in going to the brink – starting what they’d finished or rather continued at Injhavino. As in answering that letter – starting this evening, maybe – he’d admit. But not admit to the state of frustration he’d been in at an earlier stage, resulting in an attempt at flirting instead with her mother – with whom the age-gap though even wider applied in the reverse direction, the thought being – if you could call it ‘thought’ – that in fooling with an older woman one couldn’t be accused or even accuse oneself of taking advantage, or trifling with – or whatever. Anna had been alone – Tasha supposed to have joined them on the terrace, for tea or it might have been for wine, but she hadn’t and he’d made his move really without any thought at all – a spur of the moment, unpremeditated blunder. It had been Tasha, not her mother, about whom he had been – well, meditating. If that could be the word for not being able to keep his eyes off her.
Eyes or before long – God help us – hands. Which he’d reason to suspect might have been welcomed. By this schoolgirl.
Anna had pushed herself out of his embrace. ‘Silly, Micky! Aren’t you forgetting I’m married to Methuselah?’
‘Well – exactly—’
‘What’s that mean? Unless the thought’s insulting… But never mind – don’t look so hangdog… Just tell me though, don’t you find Tasha sufficiently attractive?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Well, then?’
‘Anna, she’s fifteen years old! Fifteen, for God’s sake! I know, to look at her or talk to her she could be nineteen. But – in fact, a child!’
‘If you really think that, take another look!’
‘What?’
That soft laugh of hers. ‘I knew you were right for her when she was nine, you silly man! Don’t you remember? You’d made her angry, and you came to me moaning that she’d probably never speak to you again? You were still very young at that time, of course—’
‘Very much attracted to you, as it happens.’
‘D’you think I was unaware of it?’
‘Amused you, I dare say.’
‘No, not amused, but already then wondering if, in the distant future, you and Tasha might not—’
‘You told my mother that I bore a close resemblance to your first husband.’
‘And she promised not to mention it to you. I’ll tell her off for that. But – yes, as a boy to the man – as you might have been his little brother – it’s true – and still is now. Extraordinary. But we won’t discuss Boris, please. Except I might tell you it’s not Methuselah to whom I’m faithful unto death, it’s him, the memory of him. That’s all I’ll say on that subject. But you and Tasha, Micky – no, wait, I’ll tell you, even though it may sound to you like nonsense – I’m certain Boris knows what a fool I was, how as soon as his mortal back was turned, so to speak—’
‘My mother told me that you’d been left in a dreadful situation.’
‘A mine of information, is Lizavyeta Andreyevna. Anyway we have to learn to emerge from dreadful situations. And let me tell you, Micky; Tasha won’t make any such errors. All right, so she’s that old devil’s daughter—’
‘Prince Igor’s—’
‘Technically, poor lamb. What I’m telling you though – strictly between us, please – is that I think of her as Boris’s. As the child I would have had from him. It’s a way of thinking that I find – comforting, that’s all. I’m a very practical woman, Micky – now, I am – and – listen, I’d like nothing better than for you and Tasha to get to really know and love each other. Listen to me – she may be down at any moment; and then we have the Krylovs coming… Micky, I’m thinking of the future, and very seriously. While the conclusions to which you were fairly leaping – I am not offering you my child now as a plaything, to satisfy your – cravings – or hers, for that matter—’
‘Please – I never suggested—’
‘You didn’t have to, did you. And never mind that anyway. As I say, it’s the future I’m looking to. Her future. I want you two to become in your hearts entirely committed to each other. What you do together – today, tomorrow or the day after or next week – that’s for her to say. She’s had my advice and reasoning, be sure of it – and we’re close, as you’ll have realized, she takes notice. In any case, you’re a man of honour – genuinely fond of her, wouldn’t do anything that might bring harm to her – if I didn’t know it I wouldn’t be talking to you like this. You following me, Micky?’
‘I miss words when you talk so fast, but by letting them go I get the rest – most of it. But if you’ve given me the reasoning behind what you’re saying, Anna – which I don’t altogether understand—’
‘The reason is that Methuselah has plans for her. For himself, I should say, but using her – which is anathema to me and would be hateful to her. So, being warned of his intentions this far in advance, since she still has years of schooling ahead of her, it’s his ultimate intention I have to keep in mind and guard against. He sees her as a saleable – oh, asset. A bargaining chip to win some rich man’s support for that crumbling, barely workable estate. Rich old man’s, if necessary. It’s the answer he sees to a great weight of financial problems – and quite natural to him as a solution; he’s mentioned it several times, and to him it’s normal, proper.’ Her dark eyes intent on his, again querying his understanding; he’d nodded, and she’d continued, ‘I have not told Tasha. I don’t want her frightened and unsure – or at this stage set against her father. He’d guess at once. Keep it to yourself, please. Nothing’s required of you, Micky – you’re going to be away a long time, half a world away, and Tasha’ll be at school, where, for the time being, she’s safe from anything of that kind. Well – I said that nothing’s required, I should have said nothing beyond convincing Tasha – please, please – of your love. Which I’m assuming exists, believe it does – or will – because as far as she’s concerned – at least, as she feels now…’
Not all that clear, in the emotional flood of fast Russian. He’d got about three words out of five, maybe. Was not expected to commit himself, only to be what she called ‘open-hearted’ with Tasha – and to be around, if he and Tasha both felt that way about each other, in a few years’ time. To stand as an alternative candidate, more or less, the candidate her mother had had in mind – she said – for years.
Blue sea, hot sky, and the scent of flowers. The house, which they called a dacha, suggesting that it was smaller than it was, was white-plastered, had its foundations on rock and nestled in acres of roses, wisteria, oleander, magnolia, bougainvillea. He’d been there about a week, had a fortnight left of his leave, and that had been the first time in several days that he’d found Anna Feodorovna on her own. It was June, the month of cherries, pears and peaches, and the sea already warm enough for lazy swimming. Steps were cut into the rock leading down to their own private swimming place. Swimming from rock, not sand; there were sandy beaches all along that coast, but this was out to the northeast, closer to Mount Kastel than to the more populated centre of the coastal strip – between mountains and sea – which in the course of the past hundred years had become built up with the palaces and summer houses of the immensely rich, as well as more modest places such as this. Well – not all that modest…
No more than Tasha was. Practically naked on that rock, within arm’s length of him. Acting as if she didn’t know the effect it had on him: as if she were a child, baring herself in innocence. And that place entirely private, rocks all round and no sight of it from the overhang above. Other situations too, other moments. Although they weren’t by any means always alone; there were other families close by, friends of long standing, with young sons and daughters. Tasha was extremely popular – so bright, such fun, such marvellous company. He’d found himself wishing she was nineteen. Which she truly might have been, and as many of these others were – all older than her in any case. Nobody seeing her out, either in that crowd or alone with him – that last day for instance, in Yalta itself, lunching on their own in Vernet’s café – nobody could have thought, ‘Oh, what a pretty child with that young man!’ They’d have murmured, ‘Don’t look at once, but have you noticed that absolutely stunning girl?’
It had been such a lovely day, that last one, for all the element of sadness in it. He remembered the sea as blue and the air at least as warm as this through which the Ryazan was now ploughing westward – soon, southwestward – with the mass of the squadron out to port, clear of the roads by this time; Ryazan with the Orel following astern of her overhauling the others, following some signalled order from the flagship. Michael remembering, assembling the memories ready for inclusion in the letter he’d start this evening; how from the village that afternoon they’d taken a cab out to Oreanda, and walked and walked, and in the evening sat together on a bench beside the church, looking down at the sea: behind them the mountains, and trees all round, and the chorus of cicadas’ voices. There was an open-air restaurant out there at which they’d decided to have a lobster supper. He’d told her, answering a question about the cruiser he’d be joining shortly as navigator – ‘big ship time’, and a break in his service in destroyers – ‘I’ll be gone about three years. As a matter of fact I don’t care how long – since you’ll be slaving away at school.’
‘Finishing school, when that’s over. By the time you’re back I’ll be – oh, heavens, seventeen, eighteen even—’
‘Almost past it. On the shelf. Unless I take you off it?’
‘Will you be a commander by then?’
‘No fear. Only a senior lieutenant. That is a snag, I admit. Be getting a bit long in the tooth, too – twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Tasha, I want streams of letters from you – and I swear I’ll write every week – or thereabouts—’
‘In all that time, what’ll you do for girls?’
‘Do for them?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘There’s only one girl, Tasha. I’ll be writing to her, and getting letters from her – if that’s what you mean?’
‘Have you had many girls, Mikhail?’
‘Hundreds.’
‘Seriously!’
‘Dozens, then.’
‘Truly?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘But some… Mikhail, put your lips—’
He told her a little later, ‘No difference anyway, one simply does not reveal, or discuss—’
‘If we did it – if I’d allowed myself—’
‘Tasha—’
‘Could I count on that, that you’d keep it a total secret? God, this is so huge, I doubt I could possibly—’
‘One day.’ Kissing. Could have swallowed her whole. One hand where his lips had been; and kissing. Up for air then: ‘And we’ll remember this…’
In the event, in all the time he’d been away there hadn’t been many weeks in which they hadn’t heard from each other. But in the letter tonight he’d remind her of that last Yalta evening: the lobster and the wine, and the cab-drive home in scented, gathering darkness, kissing, loving – as a man of honour, naturally…
A howl from a petty officer – that yeoman of signals, the tattoo’d one – ‘Your honour – the flagship’s—’
Other shouts confused it: but from the head of the starboard column, the Suvarov had turned sharply to port, was charging at the wallowing Kamchatka: who had now put her helm over – which you would, with fifteen thousand tons of battleship coming at you like a charging elephant from a distance of about a hundred yards.
‘Stop both engines. Yeoman, hoist…’
Hoist something. And stopping engines. Michael glancing aloft, seeing a black sphere rushing up Ryazan’s mizzenmast: that was the hoist Zakharov had ordered, telling the hospital-ship astern My engines are stopped. Total confusion in that port column though: the Kamchatka seemed to have saved herself all right; had acted fast enough to be more or less stern-on to her crazed attacker, and the other transports were scattering or stopping or both while the Alexander was leading the other three battleships out to starboard. The cruisers were also turning away – northward – making their escape. Enqvist on his toes, Michael thought – as well he might be, knowing the state of affairs in general and having some instinct for self-preservation… Suvarov by the look of it more just drifting on now than driven – passing between the Kamchatka and the Anadyr with so little room to spare that it had been either sheer luck she hadn’t hit one or other of them or creditable ship-handling in a very quick reaction to emergency.
Galikovsky produced the answer then: bawling from the after end of the bridge, ‘Signal from Knyaz Suvarov, sir: steering engine failed…’