Floating Madhouse Read online

  Michael asked Murayev, ‘Sisters of Mercy?’

  ‘None. Odd, that.’

  ‘Disappointing for Radzianko.’

  ‘Indeed. But I tell you, in the cutter coming off from shore I saw him making notes.’ Murayev nodding, fingering his black moustache. ‘Notebook and pencil with him expressly for that purpose. Nelidov’s Christian name and patronymic and perhaps other bits and pieces he’d have got from the priest’s and the Oslyabya’s skipper’s eulogies. Might have dug up even better stuff from former brother officers.’

  ‘Justifying his enquiries how, though?’

  ‘Well – what about, “I think I may have run across him. Tall, good-looking fellow, wasn’t he?” Might get the answer “Certainly not! Miserable little runt…” Huh?’

  They’d laughed. Michael pointing out, ‘But you’ve no evidence whatsoever—’

  ‘Not a scrap. Instinct, that’s all.’

  Michael slept on deck from that Sunday night onwards – on the quarterdeck under the jutting barrels of the stern 6-inch, on his damp mattress and wearing pyjamas with a sheet over him for protection against mosquitoes. On both the Monday and Tuesday mornings he’d heard the splash of Radzianko flopping in for his early swim; the man was curiously insensitive to the shark danger, and Michael found himself waiting almost hopefully for sudden screams. But on Wednesday, after a late night with his friends in the Suvarov’s wardroom, almost without thinking about it he went in himself. Partly perhaps because Radzianko had been getting away with it, but mostly from an irresistible desire to cool off. Cool his head. It had been a very late night; he’d been given a lift back to the ship in the Suvarov’s guard-boat, a steam-pinnace, and the officer of the watch at Ryazan’s gangway-head had told him that the captain and Radzianko had returned from the Orel hours earlier.

  He’d felt better for the swim – for a while. In Suvarov they’d played cards after dinner – chemin de fer – Michael at first doing well but then losing a few roubles, and in the course of it drinking too much brandy.

  Radzianko came into breakfast with his black hair still gleaming wet from his own swim, and patted Michael approvingly on the shoulder as he sat down beside him. ‘I hear you’ve been following my good example, Mikhail Ivan’ich.’

  ‘Well – I stayed within a few strokes of the gangway – and I was only in for about two minutes. How was your dinner party?’

  ‘Excellent. And as it turned out, most interesting. Really, fascinating!’

  ‘Your alleged cousin on board then, is she?’ Galikovsky, with his mouth full and an expression of derision on his face. Radzianko told him, ‘Regrettably, she is not. But after I’d enquired for her – as you may recall, Nikolai Timofey’ich had said he’d like to meet her – they routed out this other young lady – Nadyejhda her name is, Nadyejhda Prostnyekova – who happens to be my cousin’s dearest friend! A sweetheart, absolutely, and –’ he was telling Michael this – ‘so interesting in what she told me – heavens, I could scarcely believe my ears!’

  ‘So let’s hear it!’ Burmin, glaring at him down the table. He rarely spoke at breakfast, and when addressed directly tended to respond only with a kind of angry stare. Radzianko favoured him with a smile of regret: it was rather a personal matter, he told the second-in-command, personal and private.

  ‘Why jabber about it, then?’

  ‘Ah – well – if I may point this out – Vladimir Aleksand’ich asked me a certain question, and the fact of having found my cousin’s friend there did seem quite relevant. That was all I set out to tell him – him and Mikhail Ivan’ich here, that is.’

  In other words, wasn’t talking to you, you swine. Which in the circumstances seemed fair enough. But Burmin had pushed his chair back and was already halfway to the door, hadn’t bothered to listen to any of it. Radzianko murmuring to Michael, ‘Rather ill-mannered, don’t you agree? But Mikhail Ivan’ich, I’ll tell you the rest of it – what the Prostnyekova girl told me – a bombshell, really – later, when we’re on our own.’

  ‘Not if it’s private and personal.’

  ‘Not to you. You’ll be spellbound!’

  ‘Well. Have it your own way, then.’ He wasn’t eating, only drinking coffee. Feeling a bit like Burmin might, he thought. Radzianko asking him, ‘Did you have a good evening in the flagship?’

  * * *

  The mail was landed at noon and Michael’s second letter to Tasha went in it. He’d also written to his mother, having been meaning to for weeks. He’d thought of addressing Tasha’s to Yalta and asking Narumov to post it with his own in Suvarov’s mail, but then remembered having mentioned Tasha to Sollogub, who might happen to see it, read her name on it; and it wouldn’t have been sensible to let Narumov think there was anything to be kept secret. Better to play safe, accept delay and make use of Jane. (Whom he’d told in his covering note that his cabin was full of coal – which would mystify her – and that it was high time he heard from her, and had not as yet, incidentally, received the promised admonitory letter from brother George.) Not that Nick Sollogub would have spread such a thing around; he’d know, that was all – and the only safety lay in nobody knowing anything at all. Gossip did fly. Inadvertently even – for instance, Nick S. tapping the letter which he might have been taking from Narumov to post with his own – ‘Why, isn’t that the girl the Ryazan’'s skipper’s—’

  Then a need for lies or other subterfuge – which might make matters worse, since one wasn’t at all good at it.

  As Radzianko on the other hand probably was. That oily grin… And what on earth that was about: which in any case one would take with a large pinch of salt. At sailing time – a bugle-call sent the hands to anchor-stations at two-thirty – he – Radzianko – was in the bridge’s port wing with his glasses up, looking across at the Orel yet again: hoping for a sight of the girl, no doubt – if she existed, if he hadn’t invented her as a smokescreen to his having invented the cousin in the first place. In fact couldn’t have, if she’d been presented to Zakharov. But Murayev was right, one did instinctively distrust him. As, Michael suspected, did Zakharov – who’d just arrived in the bridge with Burmin at his heels, Radzianko and michmen Count Provatorov and Pepelyaev saluting, Zakharov cursorily acknowledging the formality and telling Burmin he could start shortening-in the cable.

  ‘Shorten in!’ A bull-like bellow through the megaphone, then Vetrov’s echo from the foc’sl, where the electric capstan would now take the cable’s weight – and the ship’s too, hauling her up to lie directly above the anchor. There was no need to inform the Orel that they were weighing – they’d see it happening and hear the steady clanking of the cable coming in. They’d be hearing it on shore by now – a considerable racket from all over the wide anchorage –- battleships, cruisers, transports, all at it. To the port captain’s ears it would be music: he could telegraph Paris now that he’d finally driven the Russians out, and from the Quai d‘Orsay word to that effect might find its way to London.

  Michael was at the back of the bridge beside the chart-table, out of the way of those who had jobs to do. Thinking about the letter-writing problem – he hadn’t found writing these recent ones at all easy. One factor was not having heard from her for so long, and suspecting that her father wouldn’t leave her and her mother alone indefinitely. While at the same time one didn’t want to express one’s anxieties over and over, setting her nerves on edge, perhaps unnecessarily. There was also the possibility of letters having been intercepted: a dire but real possibility, knowing Prince Igor and his use of servants as spies. Another angle on that danger – which was particularly frightening because of that old man’s ruthlessness and the fact that when the chips were down they’d be entirely at his mercy – was that any blunder or carelessness of one’s own might put their necks on that block. Having risked writing direct to Yalta, for instance. Although if her mail was being monitored, why not Jane’s mail from Wiltshire too?

  But one had to be in touch somehow – take some risks. God knew, they�
�d taken plenty earlier on. At Injhavino first, then Paris: both times, as it had happened, on her initiative. Whereas now, in isolation and practically nothing to do but think – and with her far more at risk than he was himself, but powerless to help, no matter what was going on…

  So shut your mind to it. Since here and now there’s not a damn thing you can do…

  He’d had his eyes on the Orel, a handful of seamen at work on her foc’sl, but turned inboard now on hearing a yell from down for’ard of, ‘Cable’s up and down!’ and then Zakharov’s order, ‘Weigh.’ Start heaving in again, in other words, to break the anchor out of the sand. One other thing, though, which he found inhibiting in his letter-writing was what to say or not say about Zakharov. In the letter he’d started a day or two after leaving Tangier, he’d referred again to his having asked him whether it was true that he, Michael, in his ‘big brother’ role disapproved of Z as a husband for her on account of the difference in their ages, and that his non-committal answer had led to a coldness in Z’s manner and no further mention of the subject. He’d added:

  He’s a cold man altogether. No facial expression ever – his face could be made of wood, and when he speaks his lips don’t visibly move. On the other hand he’s friendly and hospitable, had even gone to the length of giving me a cabin to myself – in which I’m writing this to you now…

  But could one say to her, for instance, What’s more he’s a competent seaman and an excellent commanding officer and with neither of us mentioning you or your family or the damned ‘betrothal’ he and I seem to get on very well?

  How might she take that? Conclude that he was chumming-up to Public Enemy Number One, in some sense ratting on her?

  A howl from for’ard: ‘Anchor’s aweigh!’

  Had been broken out of the sand. Leaning over the bow, looking down from above the starboard hawse, they’d have seen through the clear water that it was about to happen, wouldn’t see now because the water would have been muddied by the disturbance, all they’d see would be a slight swing on the cable, telling the same story. Another call then: ‘Clear anchor!’ So all right, it was visible – the sand having settled quickly – and was not fouling any other ship’s mooring, or wreckage – or sea-bed cable, Anadyr-style. The telegraphs had clanged and you felt the vibration as her screws churned – one ahead and one astern, to turn her more or less on the spot. A small pendant had fluttered down from the yard – for anyone’s information, but most usefully for the Orel’s. As the ship turned, giving him a view across the harbour now, he saw that the battleships were on the move – and beyond them, Enqvist’s cruisers. The Donskoi anyway – that high, stubby profile and twin funnels…

  And here in Ryazan’s, bridge, Radzianko insinuating himself up beside the binnacle, close to Zakharov – making himself available to con the ship out, which was a navigating officer’s job if his skipper felt inclined to leave it to him – which in this instance he evidently did not, and must have told him so, in that quick turn of the head. Remembering the chaotic departure from Tangier, no doubt, keeping matters in his own hands until that circus had got itself sorted out. Burmin meanwhile passing the order by voicepipe and telephone for the ship’s company to fall out from anchor stations: relaxing to cruising stations therefore, probably in four watches.

  Telegraphs again – stopping engines. The hospital-ship had also turned, and was lying stopped on that quarter. Gleaming as white as ever, evidently having made a thorough job of their washing-down. Here around the Ryazan, on the other hand, just those brief spells of vibration from the engines had sent up a haze of coal-dust which then settled on every surface. Radzianko, coming aft, grimaced as he tried to dislodge some of it from the chart-table’s canvas hood by reaching in and slapping the inside of it.

  ‘Might blow clean when we get outside.’ Cocking an eyebrow at Michael then: ‘Like to hear what it was she told me?’

  ‘What who—’

  ‘The Prostnyekova girl.’ Jerking a thumb towards the Orel. ‘Last night. I was telling you—’

  ‘And I told you I wasn’t interested. Stuff to do with your cousin, you said. Did you introduce this other one to the skipper?’

  ‘As it happens, yes. But in any case…’

  They were on the move again, engines thrumming at low revs, sand-coloured water swirling astern, vibration stirring up the dirt again. Michael asked Radzianko, gesturing towards the Orel, ‘She stuffed full of coal too?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The girls’ cabins, all low down in the ship, and they – the girls – have been moved up into two of the wards – on cots, dormitory-fashion – which they don’t like at all!’

  ‘I’m surprised she still looks so white.’

  ‘Well, if you were to go on board, you’d see…’ Radzianko broke off, and changed the subject. ‘I’ll tell you this anyway. This young lady, my cousin’s close friend, by name Nadyejhda Prostnyekova – auburn hair, blue eyes, and – really quite a looker – I’d never met her, but I had heard of her from my cousin, as it so happens, and she knew of me, knew at once who I was. My cousin must have given me a favourable reference in that quarter!’

  ‘Nice for you, I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s an important point because it meant she could talk to me confidentially right away. In fact she was dying to pour it all out. His nibs being there as well – she was fairly stunned, you see!’

  ‘No, I don’t see at all.’

  ‘Coming straight to the point then, Mikhail Ivan’ich – she happens to know Natasha Volodnyakova rather well.’

  He didn’t think he’d shown any sharp reaction – despite a tightening of the gut and a sudden, powerful inclination to punch Radzianko in his smirking face. Glasses up though – unhurriedly – to study the movements of the battleships instead. Radzianko murmuring on, ‘Must know her very well, in fact. She drew me aside to ask me – this fellow with me – you know, there, talking to your admiral – is he not the officer of that same name to whom Natasha Volodnyakova is said to have become betrothed? Yes, I said, he is indeed, and she whispered to me that – oh, I think she said a year or more ago – this Natasha – they were in Petersburg – Natasha swore to her in the course of a chat about some mutual friend who was getting married or engaged that she’d never marry any Russian, for the reason that – great secret, it was supposed to be – there was an Englishman she was mad about and who’d promised he’d wait for her. I should have mentioned, she was only fifteen or so at that time, and he was an English naval officer – Royal Navy – huh? Away then on some distant posting. Well, Natasha didn’t divulge his name, but – heavens, d’you remember the talk we had when you’d just come aboard and I was showing you around?’

  ‘I remember you asked a lot of questions.’

  ‘Won’t you admit it all adds up, Nikolai Ivan’ich?’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Well, surely, my dear fellow—’

  ‘No, I’m not your dear fellow.’ Speaking quietly: lowering the glasses, turning to look at him and let him see his contempt. He’d got the hang of it too, knew how to handle it. Telling him as the smirk faded, ‘You may find amusement in what may have been a young girl’s dream – which you say was told to this friend of yours as a secret. Certainly none of your business, nor even of mine – but the skipper might see it as his – if you felt brave enough to talk to him about it.’

  15

  November 21st:

  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.