David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

They were in the cramped saloon of a small steamer. The room was nothing more than a rough wooden structure built onto the deck of the boat, but big enough to hold a table and a few chairs. Sofya had dropped into one, looking hungry and exhausted. Paul and Valentine were standing at one end, at the foot of a few steps that led up into the captain’s wheelhouse. His name was Vasily Malinovsky. The droshky driver had told them that Malinovsky used to run up and down the Volga, carrying sightseers and a little cargo but had lost his business when the Bolsheviks came.

The steamer was called the Lyena , a diminutive of Ilyena, the name of Malinovsky’s wife. It wasn’t a very large boat and Paul wasn’t sure if either it or its captain was river-worthy; Malinovsky was an unkempt and bleary-eyed shambles of a man. If the empty vodka bottles lying around the floor of the small saloon could be taken as evidence, the captain was awash with enough alcohol to float his Lyena . It was floating but that seemed about as much as the steamer was capable of, since on boarding they had had to step over what Paul took to be a miscellany of engine parts.

Malinovsky had greeted them suspiciously, running a grimy hand over the stubble of his chin, and Valentine had approached the subject of what it was they wanted obliquely. Paul knew Valentine was being cautious, sounding out the man, not wanting to tip his hand… but then, if they weren’t all in the same boat, so to speak, trying to avoid the Bolsheviks, what were they doing hidden under the trees up a side channel of a tributary of the river?

Tired of the prevarication he suddenly interrupted.

‘By then it will be too late.’ Valentine’s glared at him but Paul pressed on regardless. ‘We need to get into Kazan ahead of the Red Army.’

Malinovsky’s eyes darted around his wheelhouse as if he suspected a trap. ‘Ahead of the army? Why would you want to do that?’

‘To contact the Czechs,’ Paul said.

‘You’re not Czechs.’

Having got in the same boat, Paul decided to take the metaphor a step further and burn it. ‘We’re British,’ he said.

Valentine groaned.

Malinovsky’s bleary eyes opened wider. ‘You’re with Kappel?’

‘Who’s Kappel?’

‘The commander of the People’s Army of Komuch in Kazan.’

‘Komuch,’ Paul said. ‘Yes, we’re with Komuch.’

‘My wife’s in Kazan,’ Captain Malinovsky told them morosely as if it were pertinent to the conversation. ‘When the Red Army retreated some local militia commandeered my boat. They didn’t give me time to fetch her and my son.’

‘You’ll want to get back to them then,’ Paul said.

‘Why didn’t they keep this boat for their flotilla?’ Valentine demanded.

‘The engine,’ said Malinovsky. ‘They burnt out the piston rings pushing her too hard. I told them to slow down, Lyena’s an old lady, she needs rest now and then. She’s not used to hurrying. They panicked. I told them we’d burn out her rings if we kept the pace up but they told me to shut up or they’d shoot me.’

‘So the engine won’t work?’ Valentine said, when he could get a word in.

‘Seized up before we reached Sviyázhsk. I got her this far and was waiting for parts when Kappel and the Whites attacked. If they’d taken Sviyázhsk I could have got the parts and gone back to Kazan but the Latvian Riflemen pushed them back…’

‘Latvians?’

‘The Lettish Rifles,’ Malinovsky said. ‘They were with Vacietis, the Volga front commander. Trotsky arrested him when some of his men refused to fight. That’s when the devil started shooting them, every tenth man. After that the Latvians regrouped and stopped Kappel. What was that? Five days ago?’ He passed a hand across his mouth as if a drink might lubricate his memory. ‘I could have gone with Komuch but I didn’t want to leave my boat. The Reds would have stripped her for parts.’

‘She won’t go then?’ Valentine said.

‘I just said, didn’t I?’ Malinovsky complained. ‘I didn’t have the parts or I would have gone back to Kazan before the Reds regrouped.’

‘And if you could get the parts,’ Paul asked,’ how long would it take to fix her? Could you get her fixed before they retake Kazan?’

Malinovsky eyes turned shifty.

‘What’s the point?’ said Valentine. ‘Where are we going to get the parts from? We’ll have to try another way.’

‘Or is she already fixed?’ Paul said, suspecting Valentine wasn’t the only one prevaricating. ‘You’ve already got the parts or you wouldn’t be hiding up this channel.’

‘I’ve got the parts but if I fix her they’d take her off me,’ Malinovsky persisted. ‘Anyway, it’s too late now. You’d never get past the flotilla. They’ve got three destroyers with them now.’

‘Destroyers?’ Paul said in alarm.

‘From the Caspian Sea.’

‘They’re little more than torpedo-boats really,’ Valentine said as if he already knew about them. ‘They were part of the Baltic Fleet and have been upgraded to destroyer class. Admiral Cowan chased them off the Baltic so they were brought down here through the river system.’

‘But they’re fast ,’ insisted Malinovsky. ‘We couldn’t outrun them. Or their guns.’

‘What about your wife and son?’

‘I’m going in after the Red Army retakes the city.’

‘And what will you find after Trotsky’s army’s been through? What will they do to her?’

‘Pavel!’ cried Sofya from behind him in the saloon.

‘It’s true,’ wailed Malinovsky. ‘Lenin has told Trotsky to retake Kazan whatever the cost. They’ll bombard the city first, flatten it if necessary. Then there are all the Latvian pigs…’ A tear rolled from one of his eyes and coursed a crooked path through his stubble.

‘Not if you get in first,’ Paul said. ‘You can pick up your wife and son and escape down the Volga.’

‘We’d never get past the flotilla. If they caught us they’d steal her off me. How will I earn a living without my boat?’

Paul was about to say he wouldn’t need to. The Red Army would shoot him. But it was hardly the time to bring that up.

‘We’ll pay you,’ Paul offered. ‘What have you got to lose?’

Beside him Valentine seemed to have been stunned into silence by Paul’s sudden assertiveness. But, contrary to his own expectations, he had got this far. Kazan and the Czechs were only a few miles down the river and he was not inclined to let a rag-bag Red Army flotilla stop him from getting there.

‘I haven’t got any more rouble notes,’ he said to Valentine. ‘What have you got?’

‘Me, old man?’ Valentine said in English, sounding surprised. ‘I’m not the one with the money. Use the gold pieces C gave you.’

Malinovsky’s ears pricked up as if he might have learned an English word or two from British sightseers, ‘gold’ being one of them.

Paul turned back to Sofya. ‘The belt?’

‘What are you doing with it?’ Valentine demanded.

Sofya stood up, looked around the saloon and pointed to a low door beside the steps up to the wheelhouse.’

‘What’s down there?’

‘My cabin,’ Malinovsky said.

She opened it. Paul moved to help her.

‘I’ll do it myself this time,’ she said pointedly, climbing down the steps into the cabin.

Paul heard the chink of more bottles as she crossed the floor of the small cabin and a few moments later she came back up carrying the linen belt.

‘Here,’ she said handing it to Paul, smoothing down her dress, ‘I’m glad to be rid of the thing.’

Paul passed it to Valentine who passed it back before taking the Malinovsky’s arm and steering him aside to negotiate a price.