Five days out from Dakar, a thousand miles of this leg covered, another thousand or twelve hundred to go. Michael had the morning watch, the four to eight, with a michman – Egorov – as assistant officer of the watch. The sun was up, a blaze of fire rising over what traders called the Grain Coast – although with Cape Palmas coming up on the beam to port, you’d be swapping that by about midday for the Ivory Coast, and adjusting course from southeast to east after rounding it. Not that it would look any different – coastline hidden in a heat-haze shimmering like a mirage, where at the moment you couldn’t look without being blinded and from where there was already a positive radiation of heat. By mid-forenoon heat would be striking upward as well, from armoured decks hot enough to fry eggs on. But although one might have been thankful for some wind or breeze other than that of the squadron’s progress at nine and a half knots through warm, coal-stinking air, you had only to look at the ships ahead to see how lucky you were with the continuing calm – the battleships especially, wallowing so deep that the Suvarovs for instance, the core and main strength of the force, had their lower decks awash even with no wind, no movement whatsoever on the sea, other than their own disturbance of it. On those lower decks were 3-inch guns, ten each side, and although all the ports at that level were being kept shut they still leaked all round, as did whole rows and sections of loose rivets that were normally above water. Pumps were being kept running, of course; but with the increased draught and altered trim – evidently it hadn’t been possible to distribute the weight better, they’d simply had to use every cubic foot that could be allocated as bunker-space – the ships were practically uncontrollable, needing all their captains’ skills to handle them even in the open sea.
Ryazan was all right, anyway. Zakharov had stipulated that no more than ten degrees of rudder should be used in any circumstances, and Michael, who’d been keeping watches since departure from Dakar, had found she responded well enough to half that much. Not that anyone was performing fleet or squadron manoeuvres at that stage: only altering when necessary to remain in station on the crowd of ships ahead of her, or to stay clear when they all stopped for breakdowns. The Borodino had had a lot of trouble. The eccentric strap on one engine had broken on the second day out; she’d stopped for a while, then got going on her other engine at seven and a half knots, which perforce became the speed of the whole squadron until early yesterday when the damage had been made good and speed increased to the squadron’s standard nine and a half – for a few hours, until Borodino’s other engine packed up. An overheated bearing was said to have been the cause. Narumov to the rescue, yet again: and why not, since he’d overseen her building and fitting-out. Then the old transport Malay – with her holds full of Cardiff coal although she was now bunkered with the German rubbish – had temporarily given up the ghost. Something had gone wrong with her engine during the arrival at Dakar, it was remembered, and Narumov’s verdict had been that she’d be able to stagger on – no more than half joking, in using the word ‘stagger’ – as long as they kept her air-pump running. Which no doubt they would have been doing, so something else must have gone skew-whiff. Whatever it was, they’d fixed it, after a few more lost hours, and she was plugging along all right now, somewhere ahead there under the pall of smoke.
One didn’t trust her, though. Didn’t trust any of them. Michael, lighting a cigarette, looked round at Egorov. ‘Smoke?’
‘No – thank you—’
‘No breakdowns today, please God.’
‘Please God.’ Crossing himself, and really meaning it. A gangly young man with a toothy grin and a dry, harsh cackle. His father was a colonel of engineers on General Kuropatkin’s staff in Manchuria, so he had this added personal anxiety – desperation, it looked like sometimes – to reach Port Arthur before its defences collapsed. All the obvious reasons – the squadron’s raison d’etre in fact – but on top of that, fears for his father’s safety, because rumours of the land war situation were all bad – and on the other side of the coin a daydream of steaming into Port Arthur with bands playing and Papa delirious with happiness on the quayside. He’d talked about it one night in the wardroom – brandy playing its part of course, but oddly enough as a foreigner one did now and again find oneself the recipient of confidences.
‘Perhaps we’ll get news soon, Gavril Ivan’ich.’ Michael added a warning, ‘Not at this next stop, mind you.’
Egorov had his glasses up. ‘Why not at—’
‘Well – as you know, we’ll be coaling outside. Probably won’t have any contact with the shore. Anchoring three miles out – if weather conditions are right.’
‘Look good enough now.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Mikhail Ivan’ich – fresh trouble ahead, I think they’re—’
‘Stop both engines!’
The telegraphs clanged. Ahead, Enqvist’s ships were under helm and starring – Nachimov and Aurora to port, Donskoi to starboard – and there was confusion in the left-hand column, the transports. The signal yeoman of the watch had been howled at by Egorov to hoist the black ball as warning to the Orel, and Zakharov was in the bridge, coming at a trot from his sea-cabin – in pyjama trousers only, perching himself on his high stool in the starboard for’ard corner and snatching up binoculars.
‘What’s it this time?’
‘One of the transports – don’t yet know which, sir.’ Michael looking astern to make sure the Orel was staying clear. As she was. Her merchant navy officers did seem to know their onions – at any rate hadn’t been caught napping yet.
‘Could be the Malay again, sir.’ He gave Zakharov a ‘sir’ occasionally – always when he was on watch with others in earshot – although more frequently of late he’d been addressing him as ‘skipper’, acknowledging the fact that he was this ship’s commanding officer, but not wanting to overdo it. Especially as in Russian naval usage a ‘sir’ to one’s captain involved not just one syllable but six.
‘It is the Malay.’ Zakharov glanced round at Egorov. ‘Don’t worry, Gavril Ivan’ich. Remember the tortoise and the hare.’
‘Signal to the Malay from Flag, sir: What is the matter?’
‘Same as last time, probably.’
‘Could be anything. Steering, or her engine – or her bottom’s fallen out—’
‘Reply from the Malay, sir: Cross-head pin of the air-pump broken. Regret this necessitates lengthy repair. Would be glad of attendance by engineer-constructor.’
‘Meaning that fellow Narumov.’
‘Further signal to the Malay from Flag, sir: Engineer-constructor will transfer to you immediately. If repair is to take more than an hour or two the Rus will take you in tow.’
‘Scared of the weather breaking, no doubt.’
‘Oh God, yes…’
Two reasons for praying that wouldn’t happen. One, the fact that many of these ships weren’t seaworthy, and two, the physical impossibility of coaling in the open sea if the wind did get up.
It took the Rus, whose crew were either new to the job or badly out of practice, almost two hours to pass the tow to the Malay. They got her moving then at about four and a half knots, and there were six hours of this slow crawl before the repair was completed. Tow cast off then, Narumov back in the flagship, and the great caravan lumbering on at nine and a half knots again. Shaping an eastward course by then, heading for the Gulf of Biafra, Cape Palmas abaft the beam to port.
In Ryazan, Zakharov kept them busy with internal exercises: gunnery drill, night alarms, steering breakdowns – switching at a moment’s notice to emergency rudder controls – battle and battle-damage simulations of all kinds. For some of them Michael tagged on to the doctor, Baranov, and his stretcher-bearing parties, familiarizing himself with the organization for getting wounded men to the sickbay, and so forth. He and Radzianko were steering clear of each other; Radzianko obviously humiliated that his ploy with the Prostnyekova girl’s story had failed in whatever its purpose might have been – blackmail of sorts, presumably – and Michael aware there might still be some threat in it: if the girl knew more than that, for instance. As it was, the story amounted virtually to nothing – partly because one had had the presence of mind not to react guiltily – but if it got to Zakharov it might start him thinking. Being no fool: and already in doubt of Prince Igor’s motive in sending this Englishman to sea with him.
Would it matter?
Yes, it would: for Tasha’s sake, if it even hinted at their affair. That was what mattered: very much less so the possibility of some constraint developing between Zakharov and oneself – on the lines for instance of that already existing vis-à-vis Radzianko. Which in fact looked like being worsened when on the night of the 23rd Michael’s starsight put them a dozen miles closer inshore than Radzianko’s dead-reckoning position, which had been based on his moon-run-sun observations of the previous morning – and Zakharov had chosen to accept Michael’s result rather than his navigator’s. Radzianko had not unnaturally been aggrieved. ‘I’m sure you’ll find we’re near enough exactly on the track I’ve laid off there. Of course, it’s your decision—’
‘Yes.’ Hard eyes on Radzianko – and as expressionless as always. ‘Two good reasons for it too. One, Mikhail Ivan’ich puts us twelve miles closer to danger and for that reason alone can’t be disregarded. Two, look at the particularly small dimensions of his cocked hat there. Doesn’t that tell you anything?’
‘Well – it might, sir—’
‘Easy enough to settle, anyway. I’ll take morning stars myself.’
And later, to Michael, ‘You don’t like him, do you?’
He shrugged: ‘Mutual, probably. Usually is, isn’t it?’ Getting his cigarettes out – Russian ones now, which he’d bought through Paymaster Lyalin. He offered Zakharov one. ‘Smoke?’
‘No – thank you. Listen – it’s of concern to me that he seems to be quite generally disliked. Can you put a finger on what’s wrong?’
‘Well – do you like him?’
‘As commanding officer I have to be impartial. As long as an officer behaves in an officer-like manner and does his job. Come on, what is it?’
‘I don’t know. Except one doesn’t trust him. Someone – I forget who - remarked that he’s sly; I’d agree with that. Also he’s addicted to gossip.’
‘About what?’
Flicking ash from his cigarette… ‘Anything. Any one. I never listen, but – there it is.’ Looking back at the sharply alert eyes. No facial expression, but eyes like probes. One wondered what was in the brain behind them: speculation that some of the gossip might be about himself and the Volodnyakov connection? Michael said, ‘As a foreigner and newcomer I’m very much on the sidelines. If you were to put the same questions to Murayev or Galikovsky—’
‘It’s because you’re an outsider that we can have this kind of discussion, Mikhail Ivan’ich.’
He was feeling a bit sorry for Radzianko, as it happened. Being generally disliked couldn’t improve things, exactly. He felt it didn’t help either when Zakharov’s morning stars gave a precise run-on position from Michael’s six hours earlier. Neither Zakharov nor Radzianko commented – at least, not in Michael’s hearing – but there it was on the chart, plain to see. They’d had a straight run during the night, no breakdowns that held them up at all, only the flagship at about two a.m. losing all her electric power. She kept going but went dark, causing the Alexander, her next astern, and the Kamchatka on her beam to spout frantic signals – effectively she’d disappeared, might have sunk. The failure lasted only a few minutes: long enough for Lieutenant Tselinyev as officer of the watch to send his messenger running to shake Zakharov: the squadron meanwhile thundering on through the blackness of the night – there was no moon – and Zakharov almost before he had his eyes open passing a light signal to the Orel that he expected to be stopping engines shortly, at the same time passing orders for calling away both the whaler and the gig, also to searchlight crews to stand by – his entirely reasonable notion being that there might be survivors in the water, even though the rest of the squadron would have ploughed through them by that time. In the event, the Suvarov’s lights came on suddenly and the news was passed swiftly through the fleet, Zakharov’s warning to the Orel being promptly cancelled. Michael and the others heard about this at breakfast, from Tselinyev; the general view of the wardroom officers was that their skipper might be the only one in the entire squadron who had his head screwed on.
‘Doesn’t look good, Mikhail Ivan’ich.’
Referring to the swell. Ahead, all the black monsters cavorting like drunken elephants, and astern the Orel’s fine white clipper bow soaring and plunging. This was November 25th, one day short of expected arrival south of the Gabon River, Michael had the afternoon watch, with Egorov as his number two again, and Zakharov had just come into the bridge from his sea-cabin where he’d been taking a post-prandial nap. Adding now, with his glasses focused on the old Donskoi’s gyrations, ‘Could have been much worse. If we’d run into this four or five days ago. For one thing we’d have had it on the beam, and for another we’re now lighter by five days’ steaming, all that weight shifted down. Are you using your cabin now?’
‘Not to sleep in. Sleeping in the wardroom – mattress on the deck. Hot enough in there but worse in the cabin with the scuttle shut. Do you think we might get a mail—’ He checked himself. ‘No – of course not, silly question. If we’re to have no contact with the shore—’
‘It’s possible, if some steamer had brought it. Not likely – the settlement doesn’t even have a telegraph. Have to wait until we make Great Fish Bay perhaps. Expecting to hear from home, are you? From England?’
‘Hoping…’
‘Big family there?’
‘Very small. My mother, elder brother and his wife. She’s the one who writes – and I’ve asked her to send me news-cuttings of anything about this squadron or the war in the East.’
‘That’s all the family you have, eh?’
‘I have a sister – older than me and married. Otherwise – yes.’
‘A sister is all I have, as it happens… If you do receive any such news cuttings, I’d like to see them.’
‘With pleasure, Nikolai Timofey’ich.’
‘Even if they’re hostile to us. You needn’t be shy of that. You’d have to translate them for me, of course.’
‘Let’s hope there’ll be some good news.’
A grunt. ‘My guess is there won’t be.’
‘You think Port Arthur’ll soon fall?’
He’d glanced round – made sure Egorov wasn’t hearing this. Shrugging. ‘If it does, a likely outcome is that the admiral will be in no hurry to get there. Since the only destination we could have then would be Vladivostok – and no use getting there in winter when it’s iced-up.’
‘So we’d mark time.’
‘If we had the news by then, perhaps in Madagascar.’
‘God help us. Mosquitoes the size of sparrows. D’you think we’d get through to Vladivostok anyway?’
‘Having waited for the ice to melt, fight our way past Togo, you mean? Or trick our way past him somehow. There’s a choice of approaches, of course. But – in battle, how would you rate our chances?’
‘With the squadron composed as it is – frankly, not very highly.’
‘There you are, then. But since you’re giving frank answers this morning, Mikhail Ivan’ich, here’s a different kind of question.’ Michael looked at him, waiting for it, lowering his glasses halfway and guessing – from that preamble, the lowered tone of voice and the quick glance round – at the sort of question it might be. Had guessed right, too – Zakharov asking him quietly, ‘Do you expect Natasha Igorovna – knowing her as you do – would you say she’ll reconcile herself to the prospect of becoming my wife?’
‘You think she’ll need to “reconcile” herself to it?’
‘You know damn well she will. At any rate, if we – if I – get out of this alive, she will!’
Glasses up again – for cover, as it were. And one was, after all, supposed to be on watch. He said diffidently, ‘I suppose having it sprung on her like that it would have come as a shock.’
‘Again, you know it. You were there – and you and she are very close – plainly were at that time too. What’s more – oh, that pantomime next morning, the excuse that she couldn’t be disturbed!’
‘You mentioned it. But as it happened, I was leaving too—’
‘And didn’t see her – say goodbye to her? Or hear from her afterwards? Haven’t heard from her since?’
You’d have thought from the penetrative quality of that stare he’d have been seeing or guessing right through to the truth. Which in fact he wasn’t anywhere near, it was still Michael’s ‘big brotherly’ opinion he was on about. Michael shaking his head: ‘I’d have thought that by this time – good Lord, it was two months ago we were at Injhavino – she’d have had ample time to – your word, Nikolai Timofey’ich – reconcile—’
‘No.’ Brusque shake of the head: and putting his glasses up. ‘You’re not being frank at all.’
By the 26th, approaching a distant haze of land – French Equatorial Africa – the swell had miraculously subsided. Prayer was reckoned to have had something to do with it, most likely the intervention of Saint Seraphim of Sarof, a saint canonized only quite recently and therefore fashionable, certainly much esteemed by Myakishev. Anyway – glassy surface, no wind at all, steamy heat reaching from the jungle to enfold them as they came nosing in. By six p.m. the squadron had anchored between three and three and a half miles offshore, in a slight declivity of the coastline that could hardly be called a bay, was to all intents and purposes open sea.
Not a collier in sight. And even through telescopes and binoculars, not a building visible against that greenish smear of coastline. Not even a mud hut. Michael remarked to Radzianko – when he’d finished in the chart-room – ‘The settlement’s right at the river mouth, isn’t it? Just inside it.’ ‘Settlement’ meaning Gabon: Libreville, which was the capital but itself not exactly a metropolis, was a few miles higher up the river. Michael engaging Radzianko in conversation now as a matter of policy – healing the breach, and not wanting to be included in the group who seemed rather to hound him. Having in any case – touch wood - as it were drawn his teeth over the Prostnyekova girl’s titbit of information: over which incidentally he’d seemed willing to meet him halfway: his first and only reference to her since that episode had been to murmur, ‘She really is a stunner, that little Nadia.’
‘Nadia?’
‘Nadyejhda Prostnyekova. The one I mentioned.’ A shrug of the heavy shoulders. ‘Perhaps should not have.’
Michael had stuck up for him in a wardroom dispute the day after the starsight business. Radzianko at first showing surprise, even suspicion, but then seemingly accepting the olive branch. Challenged later by Murayev, Michael had explained that he felt sorry for him in that he seemed to have no friends at all – except for Padre Myakishev – and that with months of this tortoise-like progress and God only knew what else ahead of them, things could only get worse if there was no positive effort to improve them – an effort which he as an outsider might be best placed to make. Murayev had agreed it might be as well: Radzianko seemed to have a skin like a rhinoceros’s but on the other hand he might be suffering inside it – in which case he’d be likely to get worse, not better. So – all right, he’d ease off a little too.
Because the water even three miles out was so shallow and could have even shallower patches in it, Rojhestvensky had had the battleships hoist out their boats to steam in ahead of the squadron taking soundings and marking out the anchorage with flagged buoys. Somehow as a result of this, the hospital-ship had anchored on Ryazan’s quarter instead of on her beam, was thus not as isolated from the rest of the squadron as she had been elsewhere. Radzianko flipped a hand towards her. They’d strolled on to the flag deck – abaft the bridge but at that same level – and had a clear view from here of that elegant white quarter-profile.
‘Rather less under mother’s wing this time. Oh, thanks…’ Lighting cigarettes: and glancing at the cruisers anchored on their other – starboard – side. The Donskoi at the line’s tail end was really not far at all from the Orel, and more or less abeam of her. ‘But from us here, Mikhail Ivan’ich –’ nodding towards her, perhaps restraining himself from putting his glasses on her – ‘it’s again quite easy swimming distance.’
‘If you were crazy enough to try it. Probably teeming with sharks.’
‘Perhaps worth risking, though? Especially if they only caught me on the way back?’
That amused him a lot. Chuckling – and putting his glasses up now. ‘On the way back, Mikhail Ivan’ich – after a really successful visit? Which I would have – Nadia’d welcome me, I’m sure of it!’
‘She would, eh?’
‘With open arms!’
‘Discuss it with her, did you?’
‘Oh, not – you know, in so many words, but—’
‘Excuse me, your honours.’ Travkov, the chief yeoman of signals. Pointing shoreward, northeastward: ‘Launch coming off…’
As it turned out, it was the governor, calling on the admiral in a barge full of flowers, baskets of fruit and a crate of champagne. Michael heard this from Sollogub and Narumov when he met them ashore next day – Sunday – permission having been given by Rojhestvensky for officers and men to land, at their captains’ discretion. The colliers would be arriving on Monday and coaling would start then: wouldn’t be much fun either, the Gabon river’s latitude being zero degrees ten minutes north.
Michael attended Myakishev’s morning service before going ashore. Radzianko landed with him, and michmen Egorov, Rimsky and Count Provatorov tagged along. They looked around Gabon itself, of which there was practically nothing, and walked for a few miles along the beach, once or twice venturing inland along jungle tracks where monkeys gibbered at them from the trees. But it was too hot and humid to walk for more than an hour or so, after which they turned back and in the settlement met Sollogub and Narumov and a whole crowd of others in what called itself a restaurant – they’d seen it earlier – but had nothing to offer except fish, fruit and lemonade. Sollogub asked Michael, when they’d got over their surprise, made introductions, shaken hands all round and gulped down some lemonade, ‘You haven’t yet made your number with the king, then?’
‘King?’
‘We paid him a visit!’
Narumov nodded, looking up from a wad of the paper on which he’d just finished off the sentence or paragraph he’d been busy on when their arrival had interrupted him. ‘I’m telling my wife about him. The king, that is. First one I’ve ever met, tell you the truth. We were there this morning – quite a few of us. But you see, there’s a steamer leaving for England tomorrow and they’ve agreed to take our mail, so I thought I’d –’ tapping his letter – ‘bring this with me and add a last page or two while I have the chance.’
‘You’ve been ashore some while, then?’
‘Landed at eight. You’d have still been snoring.’ Nodding to Radzianko: ‘My God, he snores. I shared a cabin with him, I should know… Yes, the fish is quite good, you could do a lot worse. And the fruit. Mind you, we’ve pineapples on board now – and bananas and mangoes – the governor brought them last evening. I was saying – landed at eight from the Rus – took us right into the river-mouth. A lot of our sailors landed too: their main interest seems to be the purchase of parrots and baby monkeys. The ships’ll be fairly crawling with them. Wait now, Mikhail Ivan’ich, I’ll read you what I’ve written. Don’t worry, nothing about the damned English in this one. Listen:
“Three nights ago a rat bit the first lieutenant on his foot, and last night gnawed off one of his corns. Must have liked the taste and come back for more! What do you think of that?”
‘But that’s just the end of what I’d already written. What trivia one comes down to, writing as I do nearly every day! Anyway—’
‘You said some steamer’s taking mail for England tomorrow?’
‘Yes. Convenient for you, I suppose. And ours will be trans-shipped in England – if they don’t steal it. But – yes, Mikhail Ivan’ich, there’ll be a boat collecting it from all round the squadron, I’m sure – a boat from whichever’s the duty battleship. I got this from Selyeznov, incidentally. So if you finish off your own tonight, you’ll be all right. I came prepared to finish mine here on shore because once I’m back on board they’ll all start screaming for me – this ship, that ship, one after the other, ever since we dropped our hook I’ve been on the go like a water-beetle. With the major problem that we can’t survey leaky hulls because we can’t send divers down, on account of the sharks. Anyway – listen to this:
‘“There are only a few hundred Europeans here. The rest are negroes, and amongst them are cannibals who in recent months have eaten two Europeans. On board the Alexander III they accidentally carried off a negro from Dakar, whom they have now landed, much against his will; he swears that the local people eat their dead, since other meat is so dear. Before they eat them they cut off the hands and feet and put them in a bog to swell, so that they become more palatable.”’
Radzianko broke in: ‘You’re writing this to your wife?’
‘Why, yes. It’ll amuse her. So should this next bit. Listen:
‘“I and the party of officers who came ashore with me in the tug this morning called on the king of this place. He received us in an English naval uniform complete with cocked hat. Some of my companions were photographed with him and his wives – one of them arm-in-arm with the queen-dowager, who never ceased to shout for money. She and other court ladies were drunk. It is two days since the king, who is seventy-two, and certainly looks no younger, succeeded his brother on the throne. Margarita, the eldest lady-in-waiting, staggers about stark naked; but as for that, the inhabitants in general do not trouble about completeness of costume. It is supposed to be a monarchy, under the protection of France, but in reality of course is a colony. Tomorrow there is to be some kind of coronation ceremony. The dead king is at present in a box under lock and key. One of our officers unwittingly sat on it, to the consternation of the new king and his prime minister – the latter also wearing cocked hat, with a necktie round his bare neck, and a sword belted on over a frock-coat, but without linen or trousers…”’
Glancing up again: ‘Look, this is the truth, I swear to you!’
Michael finished his letter to Tasha after supper in the wardroom, and wrote one to Jane with all he could remember of Narumov’s local-colour stuff in it. Jane would love it: he really wished it wasn’t so late and he had time to spin it out a bit. His longer effort to Tasha was somewhat stilted, he thought, but it was too late to make a fresh start; the shore excursion plus the stifling heat had him drooping with exhaustion. He stripped, dragged his mattress and a sheet up on deck, found a space on the port side of the after control position, and slept heavily enough to miss the excitement which enlivened Michman Dukhonin’s watch at some time around three a.m.
To start with a searchlight from the Suvarov, sweeping the anchorage in the course of some practice alarm which Rojhestvensky had ordered – as like as not warding off an attack by Japanese torpedo-boats – had picked up a skiff that was being rowed towards the Orel from the direction of the Dmitry Donskoi. Contact by boat between any of the ships during the dark hours was forbidden except with the express permission of the admiral, so the guard-boat, a steam-pinnace from the Borodino, was sent speeding to intercept the skiff, in which – Dukhonin told them at breakfast – there’d been two oarsmen, one person at the tiller and another in the bow; held in the searchlight beam they’d been only silhouettes, even with his telescope he hadn’t been able to make out any detail beyond the fact that having been illuminated they’d begun rowing frantically – the great silver beam still holding them, but obviously desperate to reach the hospital-ship before the pinnace got to them. In which, of course, they failed, the pinnace running in alongside and a sailor springing over with a line, the officer of the guard then arresting them and taking the skiff in tow back to the battleship anchorage. It had since emerged that the boat’s occupants had been Lieutenant Vaselago and michmen Varzar and Selitrenikov from the Donskoi, with a young volunteer-nurse whom they’d been smuggling back to the Orel.
Galikovsky had murmured, ‘Poor devils. What frightfully bad luck.’ Burmin fortunately didn’t hear him: he’d been listening with his eyes fairly bulging at Dukhonin: growling then, ‘My God! My God! What next!’ Radzianko and Michael glancing at each other, both probably speculating as to whether the girl might have been Nadyejhda Prostnyekova. No reason it should have been, of course; although she’d have been a likely starter, amongst a hundred of them, cooped up like hens in a superheated barn, there’d surely be a few others of ‘similar disposition’ (Radzianko’s way of putting it, later on). There were other areas of speculation too, around the breakfast table: how might those three have got her to the Donskoi in the first place, was one. In disguise? In the bottom of a boat with a tarpaulin over her? What about the Orel’s own gangway watch? Bribed, perhaps? For how long might they have had her on board? Might the whole wardroom have been in on it, or only those three? Or Lieutenant Vaselago alone, persuading the two michmen to act as his boat’s crew? Had anyone ever met this Vaselago?
Radzianko muttered afterwards, ‘Some actually do it, you see, put their ideas into action. While I just think about it. I’ll tell you, Mikhail Ivan’ich – when I started my morning bathes in Dakar, it was in the hope that an opportunity might crop up for a somewhat longer swim – I thought it might seem I’d only been having my customary dip. If I’d got over there the evening before, you see. In fact if that collier had only stayed alongside one more day—’
‘The odds are that a shark would have had you, over that distance.’
‘Well – as I believe I said—’
‘Worth it, you said, as long as it was on your way back. But it might not have been – uh?’
‘Well.’ A hand on Michael’s elbow, and lowering his voice. ‘We’re going to our deaths in any case. Jokes apart. So what the deuce – a shark, a ten-inch shell?’
Later in the forenoon, by which time all the ironclads were coaling, Rojhestvensky issued Order of the Day number 158, referring to ‘three dissolute officers’ and ‘an act of extreme depravity’. The three were in the flagship’s punishment cells – which were well below the waterline, airless and cramped to a degree describable as torture – and were to be returned to Russia for court-martial. Nothing was said about the girl. A sequel to this, though, was that a day or two later Michael found Radzianko at the rail outside the chartroom with his glasses yet again on the Orel. Glancing round, and pointing: ‘She’s rigged a boom. Two boats at it – see? Fact is, these merchantmen don’t usually, do they? They let boats cluster at the gangways in a way we wouldn’t tolerate. But that’d be how they did it – uh?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Those three with the girl. We were wondering how they’d have got her past the gangway watch. Well, watches, plural – at the Orel and like as not the Donskoi too. She’d have only to nip out along a boom and drop down a ladder: anyone could’ve shown her how. Cast off then, drift away a bit before you touched an oar. Dark night that was, too. Moonless period. Eh?’
‘You’ve a one-track mind, Viktor.’
‘On the contrary – enquiring mind, dear fellow!’