Floating Madhouse Read online

  Out into the daylight then, between the after bridge and the signal deck, and turning aft. Suvarov’s collier lay secured on the port side, with a haze of smoke drifting from her small galley funnel and some of her German crew gathering on her stern to see what was going on. The sea was mill-pond flat, dark blue, glossy-looking under the rising sun. There was activity of a similar kind to this taking place on the other battleships as well – certainly on the Alexander, the nearest.

  Sollogub beckoned to him: ‘The man himself.’

  Rojhestvensky – towering above the officers and men surrounding him. Head and shoulders over them even when standing on the deck, but positively gigantic when he’d leapt up on to the stern capstan. He was getting a few cheers, but silencing them easily enough – nothing persistent about it, only what was expected of them. Rojhestvensky bellowing then: ‘Men of the Second Pacific Squadron! Fellow Russians! Comrades! I’ve called you together to hear a message received this morning from His Majesty the Emperor. His Majesty has been graciously pleased to send me the following telegram:

  ‘“In my thoughts I am with you and my beloved squadron with all my heart. I feel confident that the misunderstanding will soon be settled. The whole of Russia looks upon you in confidence and in resolute hope.”’

  Glaring round at the crowd of upturned faces…

  ‘The message is signed “Nikolai”. And I have replied, “The squadron is with your Imperial Majesty with all its heart”.’ Pause… ‘Is that not so, comrades? What the Emperor orders, we carry out – eh?’ Great arms spread: ‘Hurrah!’

  Cheers rolled away across the harbour, joining with those from the other ships, whose captains were reading out the same ‘Order of the Day’. Sollogub said, after Suvarov’s crew had been dismissed to carry on with their forenoon’s work, ‘Rather suggests no war – eh? Hope of the so-called misunderstanding being settled?’

  ‘Let’s hope and pray so.’

  Vasiliev, an engineer lieutenant – his shoulder-boards white with red rank-stripes instead of yellow with black ones – muttered, ‘Or it might suggest that His Imperial Majesty doesn’t know his royal arse from his elbow.’

  Sollogub turned on him quickly, scowling: ‘Look here—’

  ‘Please.’ Narumov intervened, standing up for his own kind: ‘He was joking. A crude way of expressing a thought which I must say had occurred to me – that whether or not it’s settled must depend more on the British, who see themselves as the aggrieved party, than on Tsar Nikolai – who may well feel confident, but—’

  ‘Exactly,’ Vasiliev agreed. ‘I’d add however that while obviously our own people will be doing all they can to avoid war, in my view that’s a pity.’

  ‘Why, what—’

  ‘Your Royal Navy, lieutenant, would scatter us to the four winds, as soon as we poked our noses outside there – eh? If we sailed without their honours’ permission to do so? Whereas if they decide to let us off that hook, we’re faced with dragging ourselves across a couple of oceans so that the Japanese can smash us up no less effectively. I for one would as soon have it done with here and now.’

  Very similar to sailor-servant Dombrovsky’s sentiments, Michael reflected – at least, as attributed to him by Narumov.

  * * *

  In the afternoon a message came from shore that each battleship was to be allowed to embark four hundred tons of coal from the Hamburg-Amerika ships. Cheers went up, and a start was made at once. Ignatzius politely but firmly refused Michael’s offer to take part: he was a passenger, a guest, it was out of the question – although the offer was very much appreciated.

  By eight o’clock next morning, after a whole night’s strenuous work, each ship had embarked eight hundred tons. Michael had written another letter to Tasha, and slept much better for it. There did seem to be a chance of war being averted. Selyeznov told him that at the request of the general naval staff Rojhestvensky had telegraphed a further, more elaborate justification of his defensive North Sea action, together with an expression of personal regret for the lives that had been lost. Meanwhile St Petersburg had agreed to British demands that compensation should be paid and an international commission set up to investigate the incident. Officers with first-hand knowledge of the action and what had led up to it were to be landed here at Vigo to return home overland and take part in it: one officer respectively from the Oryol, Borodino and Alexander III; and from the Suvarov – Selyeznov challenged Michael – ‘Guess who?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ He snorted. ‘Klado. It was the admiral’s own idea, and he’s fairly dancing with delight!’

  ‘Klado also dancing?’

  ‘Who knows – or cares. The admiral’s selected him, and that’s that. But as I told you, the bastard never got a whiff of powder, he took care not to. Remember the stories of rats and sinking ships?’

  * * *

  The division weighed anchor at first light on November 1st, and Suvarov led her consorts seaward – clearance having been received by telegram from St Petersburg the night before. The day before that – Sunday – Klado and the other ‘delegates’ had been sent off by train: the three others were said to have been hand-picked by their captains as those most easily dispensed with. Which meant, Michael thought privately, they’d be serious liabilities in any ship at all.

  He’d written again to Tasha; also to his sister-in-law, Jane, mainly to let her know that he was alive and well and that so far he’d been sending letters directly to Yalta, which however he could only do until he transferred to the Ryazan and/or the squadron left European waters.

  As I’m sure you will have been made well aware by the newspapers, there’s been a lot of fuss and bother caused by the Dogger Bank incident –- which one day I’ll tell you all about – but matters seem now to have calmed down, thank heavens. War with Russia is of course the last thing we’d want – Germany poses the threat we have to prepare for, and I’d guess this may be what’s saved us; but the popular outcry might well have forced us into it, which for me and T would have been extremely difficult. While I think of it, Jane dear, if you can spare the time and effort, would you include in your letters (I mean when forwarding T’s) any cuttings of news reports concerning this squadron and its doings? Or news of the war in the East, for that matter?

  He’d landed, to post these letters, with a group which had included Sollogub and Bogdanov, who’d brought Flagmansky along on a lead of plaited spunyarn. They’d only stayed ashore a couple of hours – seen the town, of which there was very little, stretched their own legs and the dog’s and drunk a few glasses of Spanish wine.

  This was a lovely early morning. Hazy blue sky, the sun burning its way up through layers of inland mist, a light southerly breeze barely ruffling the water. On the flagship’s bow to starboard the Spanish light cruiser Estramadura, which had lain at anchor off the town all the time they’d been here, was courteously escorting them out of territorial waters – in which they’d initially been told they could stay for twenty-four hours and had in fact remained five days. Land was falling back fast on either hand as the Ria Vigo broadened: they’d be back in the Atlantic soon, and turning south; two days’ steaming then – all going well – to Tangier. The thought of finding a letter from Tasha waiting there was exciting, although the fact that it would have had to have gone by way of England and Odessa in a comparatively short time seemed to make the chances slim. Although according to Selyeznov, Tangier, like Brest, had been an intended port of call all along, so Gunsberg might have been forwarding mail there. If he’d been shipping other supplies as well, for instance. Hope alternated with pessimism – or realism – according to one’s mood. Another concern was that unless his own first letter, sent ashore in Denmark, had reached Jane quickly and she’d sent it on to Yalta very promptly, Tasha couldn’t know that he wasn’t on board the Ryazan: where mail might therefore be awaiting him, in the personal care of N.T. Zakharov.

  But Jane would know by this time. Would have forwarded them
to him in Suvarov, surely. And Tasha would not have tried to cut corners – as he had himself, admittedly, but only because it had clearly been safe to do so.

  Impetuous, she might be. Idiotic, she was not.

  Narumov pointed with his head: ‘Flag signal going up.’

  For the turn to port, no doubt. It was an irritant that one couldn’t read the Russian flags – or semaphore, or lights. But there, on the starboard bow – a warship, a couple of miles beyond the Estramadura but on roughly the same bearing and coming south – this direction. He took his glasses back from Narumov: already guessing it would be the British cruiser – Lancaster – who’d slipped out of Vigo between sunset Sunday and dawn Monday – or one of the others who’d allegedly been anchored in that inlet… This one was the same class as Lancaster, all right. While astern of Suvarov, the Alexander had the equivalent of an answering pendant close-up, doubtless signifying ‘signal understood’; it would be the same with the Borodino and Oryol, he guessed. You’d see it now in any case: from Suvarov’s foreyard that hoist fluttering down, giving the order ‘execute’ – as it would in a real navy. Helm over, and a curve developing in the wake as the flagship’s rudder hauled her round. He put his glasses back on the British cruiser, who’d timed it well to witness the Russians’ departure – and would no doubt be wirelessing a report of their course and speed. Course a few degrees west of south, it would have to be to clear the Buelengas islands and Capes Cervoeiro and Roca, two hundred and fifty miles or so south; also to gain sea-room against the possibility of further breakdowns – by the Oryol, for instance, who might choose to do it next time in a westerly gale, with Spanish rocks to leeward.

  * * *

  The Lancaster, if that was what she was, seemed to have replaced the Spanish ship as their escort, but had taken station on the division’s starboard quarter. Then in the evening, approaching sundown, she moved in closer and increased speed, gradually overhauling, passing on the starboard side at a range of about fifteen hundred yards. In the Suvarov all hands were on deck and at points of vantage in the superstructure; there was a long swell from the west and the battleships were rolling ponderously. The coast of Spain had long since been lost to sight. The cruiser had cracked on another knot or two, and when she was about two miles ahead, in gathering dusk and with lights burning on all ships by this time, crossed the division’s bows from starboard to port and came back on an opposite course, as close on that side as she’d been on the other.

  Then she’d gone, disappearing astern. Comment in the wardroom was that it had been a crude display of hostility and contempt: another phrase used was ‘deliberate provocation’. Sollogub, who’d been noticeably silent, leaving the expression of indignation to others, murmured as he leant over to top up Michael’s glass, ‘They’re right, aren’t they? Sorry to say it, Mikhail Ivan’ich—’

  ‘Say what you like. But don’t forget what happened to those trawlermen.’

  He could imagine how they’d be feeling in that cruiser. British fishermen killed and their boats sunk – by this ugly, lumbering circus that was now getting away scot-free. The fleet would have been told to prepare for action: then the politicians had backed off. But Jackie Fisher would still want to know of every movement the potential enemy made, to be in a position to move swiftly and decisively if they cut loose again or if there was a politico-diplomatic change of mind.

  Down from his watch on the bridge, von Kursel announced, ‘We have five of them with us now. Five cruisers. Playing games with us, coming up close astern or up one side of us or the other, criss-crossing ahead…’

  ‘Showing lights?’

  ‘Heavens, yes. They’re not trying to be discreet about it!’

  ‘It’s intolerable!’

  Vladimirsky, glaring at Bogdanov, who shrugged. ‘What can we do about it – except get hot under the collar?’

  ‘Will they keep it up, d’you think?’

  Michael thought they probably would – at least as far as Tangier, which after all was only spitting-distance from Gibraltar, where you could bet a sizeable force would have been assembled and until a day or two ago would have been expecting action. He went to turn in early, spent several hours on and off thinking about Tasha, seemed to have only just fallen asleep when he was woken at about seven by Narumov, who was clattering around throwing on his clothes – and overalls – and muttering angrily to himself. The ship’s engines had stopped, Michael noticed. The roll was of course more pronounced now she’d lost steerage-way.

  ‘Have we broken down?’

  No – but the Oryol had, Narumov told him. Not her steering this time, some other machinery defect, and the engineer-constructor on board her had asked for Narumov to be sent over to advise him. All ships were lying stopped, and Suvarov was lowering a whaler. ‘I’m to be rowed across to her – would you believe it?’

  ‘Easier than swimming.’

  ‘Oh, very funny!’

  ‘If you put a steam-pinnace over you’d have to wait for it to raise steam, wouldn’t you? There’s a lot to be said for oars.’

  ‘In these conditions?’

  Meaning, with the ship rolling as she was. Michael told him, ‘Doesn’t feel like much. Only because we’ve stopped.’ He was on deck in time to see him shin down a dangling ship’s-side ladder, then be bounced across a hundred yards of heaving, blue-black sea and, alongside the Oryol’s towering black side, there receiving instructions from the boat’s coxswain in how to jump for the ladder as the boat rose to its highest – jump and grab hold and start climbing in the half-second’s pause before it plummeted again.

  He’d done it – was clambering up, then being lugged over the side. Michael, who had watched this from the spar-deck, went on up to the after bridge then and found Dr Nyedozorov and Lieutenant Reydkin there. Nyedozorov pointing: ‘A bit much, isn’t it?’

  The cruiser squadron was exercising around them. Here in the centre the funereal-black battleships and transports rolling like disabled whales, while manoeuvring around them at distances varying between about three and twelve thousand yards were five lean, grey ships. At this moment in line-astern, but making – now – a ninety-degree turn in succession, followed by a turn ‘together’ – simultaneous – that brought them into a perfect line-abreast, back on their previous course: and then splitting – two to port, two to starboard, the centre ship reversing her course and the two pairs sweeping in to reform on her in quarter-line port and starboard – an arrow formation. All at something like twenty-five knots, and executed very smartly indeed, not one of them even a yard out of station, and all of it to orders passed by flags.

  ‘It’s too much.’ Nyedozorov quizzing Michael. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Not entirely. They’re shadowing us – for reasons you and I can both guess at – and we’ve stopped, so what would you have them do?’

  Reydkin – lieutenant in charge of the starboard after 6-inch turret – muttered with glasses at his eyes, ‘I have to admit it’s – impressive…’

  Michael heard later in the day from Selyeznov that Rojhestvensky had also been watching the drill display and had asked him – Selyeznov – ‘Well, d’you admire it? You damn well should! That’s really something. They’re seamen, those! My God, if only I had such…’

  He’d cut himself short, and continued down some ladder. Selyeznov said he’d had tears in his eyes. And you could understand that he might well have had, was Sollogub’s opinion. His analysis of Rojhestvensky’s situation was that although he was inclined to be overbearing, even at times savage – well, hysterical – he was utterly devoted to the service of the Tsar and would never shirk any responsibility that was placed on him or offered to him. Here and now the responsibility he’d accepted was to get the Second Squadron out to the Pacific to relieve Port Arthur: so, while very much aware that his ships weren’t up to it, that he had untrained and potentially mutinous ships’ companies and some appallingly bad officers, this was what he intended to do.

  ‘Or die in the a
ttempt.’

  ‘He probably expects to.’

  ‘While praying for miracles.’

  ‘That, of course. Who doesn’t? Don’t you?’

  Narumov had evidently performed his miracle: by eight o’clock the Oryol was ready to proceed, and after re-embarking her constructor the Suvarov led off again. The five cruisers stayed with them all day and before sunset were joined by five others – from the south, presumably Gibraltar – the ten ships combining to form a closely encircling escort. They were still in close company at first light, but had redisposed themselves into two columns of five ships on each side. They looked magnificent, Michael thought: and in mid-forenoon he had the luck to be on the after flagdeck again to see them reverse course in succession and reform astern into a single compact formation which shaped a course eastward – for Gibraltar, obviously. This division’s estimated time of arrival at Tangier was three p.m.

  10

  Tangier, November 3rd.

  Zakharov shook Michael’s hand and more or less smiled – a twist of the lips, nothing more – at Michael’s congratulation on his promotion. At Injhavino he’d been clean-shaven, but since then had grown a beard, close-trimmed around the heavy jawline, a dark frame enclosing straight, thin lips, large nose and deep-sunk eyes. Michael had thought of him, at Injhavino and since, as dog-faced, but the truth was that there was more expression in Flagmansky’s furry visage than in N.T. Zakharov’s. All right, so a man couldn’t be blamed for the face he’d been born with, or the way the facial muscles worked or didn’t, but the blue eyes were sharp enough – and if the brain smiled, why didn’t they?

  Presumably the brain didn’t. Ergo, his true feelings were hostile. But why, if he didn’t at least suspect Michael’s involvement with Tasha? Well – easy answer – this was an Englishman he was not smiling at, was accepting as his guest only because he’d felt he had to oblige Prince Igor. Nothing to do with one’s relationship with Tasha – perhaps. Telling the Englishman guardedly out of that wooden face, ‘I regretted having to sail from Libau without you, Mikhail Ivan’ich. But if you’d left Paris a day or two earlier – eh?’