Derek Robinson - A Splendid Little War

“Force of habit, old chap.”

“It doesn’t help either side win the war, that’s what puzzles me. Jews are the only Russians with brains, and everyone kills them. Makes life difficult for Lloyd George, I can tell you. Whatever he does, he ends up backing a mob of butchers.”

“War is war, Charles. Omelettes and eggs, you know.”

“Try telling that to the Jews.”

Fitzroy was chatting to Johnson about cricket. “Stroke of luck,” Johnson said. “Hampshire are playing Middlesex at Lord’s today. Sort of thing I dreamt about in Siberia. Sunny day, Hampshire in fine form, that’s my idea of heaven.”

“Then we’d better finish up here and let you go on your way.” Fitzroy tapped a teaspoon against a coffee cup. “Gentlemen… Lieutenantcolonel Johnson has kindly agreed to answer your questions.”

They settled into their chairs.

“Haven’t you been a little unfair on Admiral Kolchak?” Sir Franklyn said. “He has had some success, hasn’t he?”

“Indeed. His armies advanced hundreds of miles early this year. Bolshevik opposition was weak. His staff even spoke of taking Moscow. Then some strong Red armies appeared and Kolchak’s men have been retreating ever since. His advance looked good on the map, but he didn’t administer his gains, he didn’t win over the population, because…”

“Because he’s a sailor,” Stattaford said cheerfully.

“It’s not like the Western Front. Battles may be hundreds of miles apart. Capturing a great slice of Siberia is meaningless unless the people support you. And—”

“They don’t like Kolchak,” Stattaford said.

“Will the Siberian people prefer the Bolsheviks?” Weatherby asked.

“The peasants prefer the Revolution to the Romanovs,” Johnson said. “Nine out of ten Russians are peasants.”

“You make it sound as if we’ve backed the wrong horse.”

“It’s their country. They must decide.”

“Meanwhile, your Hampshires are still there,” Stattaford said. “Why did you leave them?”

“Orders. I was recalled. I’m doing my utmost to get them out of there.”

“I hear you had an exciting trip,” Fitzroy said hopefully.

Johnson thought about that. “Challenging,” he said.

“The Trans-Siberian again?” James Weatherby asked.

“If I’d gone to Vladivostok I’d still be on the train now. I took the short route. Overland to Archangel, and then by ship.”

“How far was this short route?”

“From Ekaterinburg to Archangel? About a thousand miles.” Johnson unfolded a foolscap sheet of paper and spread it on the table. “Local maps aren’t very reliable, so I’ve drawn my own. The battalion had a dozen married men, all released on compassionate grounds, and they came with me. Archangel’s north-west of Ekaterinburg. Went by train from Ekaterinburg to Perm, two hundred miles. Steamboat up the River Kama, then we took this tributary of the Kama.” His fingers traced the route. “Too shallow for the steamboat. We transferred to rowboats.”

“Upstream?” Fitzroy said. “Against the current?”

Johnson nodded. “Rowed as far as we could. Then we walked to another river, the Pechora. Only eighty miles, but it meant hiking through forest, thick forest, and that presents its own problems. Reached the Pechora, very shallow, more rowboats. Eventually we found another river steamer. It took us four hundred miles, almost to the Barents Sea. Unfortunately ice blocked the river mouth. We had to tramp two hundred miles through yet more thick forest.” He glanced up. “There is no such thing as thin forest in Russia.” They smiled. The old stick had a sense of humour after all. “Another river. Rowboats again. Rowed to the sea, and a Royal Navy destroyer found us.”

“Well done!” Fitzroy said. He pounded the table with his fist, and the rest joined in, except General Stattaford.

“Strenuous,” he said. “But I wonder if there wasn’t a better way. More direct, less exhausting. You left the train at Perm. Perm is not the end of the line.” He took a pencil and traced a more westerly route. “The railway continues for six or seven hundred miles to this town, called Kotlas.” He drew a circle around it. “From Kotlas it’s riverboat all the way down the River Dvina to Archangel.” His pencil raced down the river and underscored Archangel. “Hop on a boat. That’s the sensible way to travel.”

Johnson was starting to feel weary. “The Bolsheviks hold Kotlas, general. Admiral Kolchak sent an army to capture it and link up with Archangel but the Red Army destroyed it. Beyond Perm, the Red Army owns everything. That’s why I took a different route.”

Stattaford was blithely untroubled. “Just testing your strategy,” he said. “Seems sound.”

Everyone shook Johnson’s hand, and Jonathan Fitzroy escorted him out of the building. “Quite fascinating,” he said. “We’re enormously grateful to you.”

“If you have the P.M.’s ear,” Johnson said, “please get my Hampshires out of that dreadful country.”

Fitzroy went back and met the rest of the party coming downstairs. “Tell Lloyd George to wash his hands of the whole scurvy crew,” Charles Delahaye said, without stopping.

“The odd thing is,” Sir Franklyn said, “they write such damned fine symphonies.” Then he too was gone.

The Camels and the Nines had been dismantled and loaded on to flat cars. The ponies and the Chevrolet went into boxcars; so did all the ground crews’ stores and toolkits, the fuel, bombs and ammunition, and the canvas hangars. Wrangel had released Count Borodin from his army duties; he joined the squadron and took Colonel Kenny’s coach. The colonel’s coffin travelled in the Marines’ quarters. Flight Lieutenant Susan Perry moved into Hackett’s old Pullman compartment. Hackett, of course, had the C.O.’s place.

After many warning blasts on all three locomotive whistles to get everybody aboard, Merlin Squadron trundled out of Beketofka. For the first mile it moved at a slow walking pace, while the ground crews made sure that none of the loads fell off. Then, with final blasts, the trains gradually worked up to fifteen miles an hour and stuck to it.

The C.O. called a meeting with his senior officers.

“I can run backwards faster than this,” Hackett said. “Can’t we speed it up?”

“The drivers say this is the most economical speed,” Borodin said. “The locomotives are low on fuel.”

“What’s wrong with the railways? Haven’t they got fuel dumps?” Tusker Oliphant asked.

“Not for a hundred miles.”

“If we went faster, we’d reach the dumps sooner,” Hackett said.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Tiger Wragge said. “The faster, the slower. In the long run.”

Hackett gave him a hard stare. “Bollocks,” he said.

“Well, I can’t compete with your intellectual firepower,” Wragge said. “And I hope you’re not turning into another galloping warhorse like our late lamented wing commander.”

“Oh, I say… that’s a bit below the belt,” Oliphant said. “Sniping at a chap who’s not here to defend himself.”

“Why isn’t he? Because he couldn’t wait. Dashed off on his own. Outnumbered. Dead. Good way to lead the squadron? Or have I overlooked something?” Wragge stared at Hackett, but Hackett just stared back.

The adjutant cleared his throat, with a sound like gravel being shovelled. “I’m not an airman,” he said. “I’m just a simple soldier, me. But could Griffin have been trying to divert the enemy? All our machines were not yet in the air. Might he have attacked to distract the Bolsheviks?” He raised his eyebrows, and then his hands. “Just a suggestion. A possibility.”

Hackett said: “If he’d waited two minutes, we could all have distracted them.”