‘It is outrageous, Captain,’ Valentine agreed to Paul’s surprise, ‘how one country can impinge upon the trade of another. Particularly a neutral non-combatant.’
‘Finland was not neutral,’ Mrs Hogarth announced knowledgeably, despite the fact she had maintained earlier that Russian politics were no concern of hers.
‘Part of Russia, old chap,’ said Pinker quickly mopping his empty plate with a piece of bread before Turner took it away, demonstrating that a dicky chest was no bar to a healthy appetite.
‘Of course she was,’ Valentine said, as if the fact had slipped his mind. ‘How do things stand,’ he asked, addressing the two Russians rather than the captain, ‘now the Bolsheviks have signed the recent treaty accepting the present status quo? As an anti-imperialist, I suppose Marx would have no doubt welcomed Finnish independence.’
Solokov and Korbelov conferred briefly in their own language once again.
‘Finland presently occupied by Germany,’ Solokov observed.
‘Russia’s new ally,’ said Valentine.
‘Russia has no allies,’ Korbelov said. ‘As you may have noticed, The Times also reported that English and French detachments have landed on the Murman coast—’
‘According to Trotsky,’ said Valentine. ‘But perhaps the reports were unreliable. After all, they also said that the Bolsheviks have agreed to allow several hundred Germans into Moscow. Can that be true?’
‘To guard German embassy,’ said Solokov.
‘From whom? Not the British on the faraway Murman coast, surely?’
‘I think, Mr Darling, that you are being — what is your English word?’ Korbelov asked, ‘disernger…’
‘Disingenuous?’ Paul suggested, looking pointedly at Valentine. But Valentine, as if he had not heard, merely turned his attention to the bread and butter pudding that had just arrived.
‘Disingenuous,’ Korbelov finished.
Valentine smiled disarmingly at him, ‘If so, I am afraid it is through ignorance rather than intent. My grasp of Marxism is tenuous to say the least.’
‘An atheistic creed,’ the Reverend Pater announced unexpectedly, ‘born of envy and avarice.’
All faces turned towards him. He had not said a word since grace and even now was looking down at his pudding.
‘Our party regard God as a concept designed to keep the masses in subjugation,’ Korbelov countered mildly.
Pater lowered his spoon and glared at the Russian with contempt.
‘Is this your rationale for closing churches and destroying religious property?’ Pater shook his head. ‘I believe the Orthodox church is misguided in its liturgy theologically, but God’s house has many mansions. His compassion is infinite. But so is His vengeance. You will find, sir, that in their vainglorious attempt to build their Godless workers’ paradise your Bolshevik government will succeed only in constructing a hell on earth.’
Silence fell over the table while everyone waited for a Russian response. From what Paul could see, the party line appeared to favour unconcern. Solokov and Korbelov resumed eating as if damnation were a course they had neither ordered nor expected to see served up any time soon.
Pater, too, returned to his pudding as if he had said all that he intended to upon the subject.
Valentine seemed reluctant to let the matter drop.
‘But you aren’t Bolsheviks, are you,’ he said, ‘and perhaps not as Godless as the Reverend Pater fears? I do have to admit, though, that I’ve never been quite able to fathom the differences in ideology that you fellows seem to delight in arguing over. I mean, as Social-Revolutionaries—’
‘Democratic-Socialists,’ Korbelov reminded him.
‘Left Democratic-Socialists,’ Solokov amended.
‘As Left Democratic-Socialists,’ Valentine resumed, ‘you’re not Social-Democrats, who — as I understand it — are divided into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. That leaves the Right Social-Revolutionaries, not to mention the Kadets and the Trudovniks, and the Populists… And I believe you’re not even all Marxists.’
Korbelov waved his spoon playfully at Valentine as if threatening to crack his skull like the shell of a boiled egg.
‘I think you know more about us than you want us to believe, Mr Darling.’
‘Ah well, even in my position one can’t help picking up stray titbits now and again, Korbelov. But seriously, are you really going to tow Lenin’s line once you get back to Russia?’
Korbelov gave it a moment’s thought as if considering just how serious Valentine’s question was.
‘With certain reservations,’ he said, ‘we concur with the theories of Marx even if we do not accept the interpretation placed upon them by Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders. We did support the October coup against the bourgeois Kerensky’s Provisional Government although we do not recognise the Bolshevik assumption of power.’
Solokov took over, smiling pleasantly at Valentine.
‘We will assess political situation as we find. You understand our difficulty to keep abreast of events exiled as we are in London since outbreak of war. When tsar abdicates we make strenuous efforts to go home but British government refuse same assistance German government give Lenin.’
‘Wasn’t there some talk that Lenin was in fact a German agent?’ Valentine asked. ‘Considering the ease with which he found his way back.’
Korbelov dismissed the idea with a flick of the hand.
‘False accusations based on forged documents. More of Kerensky’s bourgeois propaganda.’
The ship chose that moment to slide alarmingly into a trough, propelling the dishes on the table towards Paul’s side. He grabbed as many as he could to stop them falling into his lap. The rest crashed to the floor. The faces around the table visibly whitened. Even Valentine adopted an attitude of grim immobility. Mrs Hogarth gripped the edge of the table as if she expected to find it on top of her at any moment. Ragna Andresen, by contrast, had taken the sudden lurch from the perpendicular in her stride and was looking through the window of the dining room at the mountain of water climbing on the starboard side of the ship with an expression of studied nonchalance. For a second or two all motion ceased. The steamer held her list as if caught in two minds: whether to right herself or continue to roll over. Then she slowly began the long roll back towards equilibrium. They began to breath again. Paul glanced at the first officer who looked unperturbed, having firmly gathered his dish in his left hand and was using his right to finish his pudding.
‘Maybe we will have a gale,’ Captain Nordvik observed phlegmatically. He nodded at the first officer who stood and made his excuses in halting English before leaving.
‘Care must be taken on deck,’ Nordvik told them. ‘Even in summer the water is cold and a man overboard will not survive long. Even if he is fortunate enough to be found.’
It seemed to Paul that there was not a lot of fortune in being found if that was the case. He felt compelled to offer a remark to that effect until he had a sudden vision of his father floating in the waters of Tsushima.
In the excitement of the moment the dispute concerning the German government allowing Lenin to cross their country to reach Russia seemed to have been forgotten. Turner having disposed of the broken crockery served coffee. Conversation began again, fragmented like the broken dishes. Pinker once again began pressing Mrs Hogarth about the geography of Schleswig-Holstein and Valentine asked the captain if they were still likely to reach Copenhagen on schedule. Nordvik shrugged economically in the Scandinavian way and told him it would depend upon how bad the weather might be. Pater attempted to engage Ragna Andresen in conversation over religious observance but she seemed as impervious to any form of observance as she had been to the Latin grace and answered him, where a shake of the head would not suffice, in monosyllables that Paul could hardly catch.