“Sir, I’m telling you what my captain is going to say. No fire hazard will be permitted aboard an airship. Umm… sir, are you flying with us?”
“Yes,” said Romeyko, “though I’m planning on going on the third lift.”
“Well, sir, all that space in the airship? It’s almost all hydrogen gas. Very flammable, sir. Also tiny little molecules that leak out of the gas bags continuously. Sir, do you know what our aircrews do if they take a hit from a tracer and catch fire? They don’t try to fight the fire; there’s no chance of that. They just cross themselves and jump to their deaths, because it’s better than burning alive. Not even any time to put on a parachute, assuming you’re optimistic enough to trust something with a forty percent or more failure rate. Just jump and get it over with.”
“I see,” said Romeyko, with a sudden vision of doing the same himself. “When I talk to Kostyshakov about the vodka, I’ll explain to him the problem with the carbide lights.”
“And matches, sir. And cigarette lighters… any smoking material, actually. Ummm… sir, besides the vodka, you haven’t accounted for drinking water. They’re not going to be very active, of course, tied into their hammocks but they’ll still need some.”
“Can we drink from your ballast tanks? They’re full of water, right?”
“Well… yes. It might not be very pleasant water. But the problem there is that, as you drink the ballast, and then piss over the side, the ship gets lighter and rises more.”
“Yeah,” Romeyko conceded. “Silly of me. I… hey, is there more than one ballast section?”
“Yes, sir, several.”
“Can we drink from one and piss in another?”
Range G6, Camp Budapest
It was dress rehearsal, the final rehearsal, the proof of concept, the Sine qua non of the whole enterprise. They’d been training in the day on the theory that the carbide lamps would provide almost as good light at daylight, but they knew this wasn’t quite true. Even with six men, with six working lamps set on the highest setting, it wasn’t quite equal to daylight still.
But it was decent, particularly with six of them flaring in a single room.
Pretty good, thought Daniil, standing on the lip of the great hole containing the two-story underground log building. Only the top floor of that was open to view. Control inside depended on the Fourth Company cadre.
Second platoon had already gone through, and done well. Then, after a couple of hours’ worth of setting up the building again, undoing the damage, and putting out some fires, it was First platoon’s turn.
Staggered up the ramp leading down to the ground level of the buildings, in a column of twos, waited, in darkness, the company cadre and the men of First Assault Platoon, Fourth Company (Grenadiers), plus their engineer, sniping, and medical attachments. The platoon was down to thirty men, including attachments, from the thirty-two they’d started with, as a result of one training fatality, Sotnikov, and one trooper, Sobchak, who simply lost self-confidence and asked to be moved to a position less taxing. Sobchak was a company runner now. There were also a couple of men with small injuries from training but, at this point, they’d rather die than miss the festivities.
If pretty good is enough.
“Annnndddd… GO!” ordered the First platoon leader, Lieutenant Collan, the atypically short but still highly Nordic Finn.
Instantly, the platoon sprang into action. The scene lit up as twenty-eight lights—everyone’s but the sniper team’s—on twenty-eight helmets flashed to life, the men rolling the strikers with middle fingers. Then the lead squad, under Sergeant Tokarev, launched themselves forward, Tokarev and Guardsman Korchagin, each with a substantial section of log on his back, taking security while the other four carried the ladder forward.
Boom! and the ladder was on the ground. Creak-squeak and it was extended to its full eighteen feet. Groans and grunts from the four bearers as pipes were set and then, with another thud, it was hoisted against the wall, the top end just below a window. Up the ladder scrambled first Tokarev and then Korchagin. Dropping his MP18 to hang by its sling, Tokarev lifted the log overhead and smashed it through the light wood window frame in a move that would have smashed glass had it been there. Then pulling a flash grenade from his belt, Tokarev armed it, counted off three seconds, and tossed it into the room beyond the window. He closed his eyes and dropped his head below the level of the window until he sensed the flash through his eyelids.
Up, up, Tokarev scrambled. Shouting, “Romanovs down!” in Russian and heavily Russian-accented English, he scanned the room for visible targets. One he saw he serviced in an instant, with a short burst from his machine pistol, then he leapt through the window.
There were two hay-stuffed assemblies of female clothing on the floor. “Civilians get to the corner! Keep low! Crawl to the corner!” Tokarev ordered, in Russian this time, and done rather pro forma. Through the window came Korchagin, Corporal Shabalin, Jacobi, the shotgun-armed, demolition pack carrying engineer, and then, one by one, Guardsmen Fedin, Lukin, and Blasov.
Blasov kicked open the door to the next room, while the others made ready. Two more flash grenades sailed through the door, exploding with muffled booms.
“Romanovs down!” rang out, even as the platoon leader, Lieutenant Collan, entered the room through the window, one runner in attendance. Following Collan, Second squad, under Sergeant Yumachev, began piling in, with the other engineer in tow.
Submachine gun fire rattled from further into the building.
“Shield your eyes,” was followed by the thunderous bang as Jacobi blasted a lock apart with his shotgun.
“Romanovs to the floor! Romanovs down!”
“That way!” ordered Collan, pointing with an outstretched arm in a direction perpendicular from the way First squad had gone.
“Follow meeeee!”
Boom-flash! “Romanovs down!” The MP18s resumed their chatter.
Sergeant Bogrov’s troops were erecting a second ladder, Kostyshakov saw. He noted, too, that the snipers had taken a position just at and behind the building’s corner. Preventing reinforcements, I suppose, that being all they can do on this range.
Between the flash grenades and the muzzle flashes, this place is like a movie theater with the projector rolling too slowly.
“Romanovs down! Get to the corner!” Boom!
Funny how it sounds like cloth ripping when three of the MP18s let go at once.
“Vasenkov! Bok! Guard that stairway down!”
“Sergeant Bogrov, Headquarters, assemble on me!”
That’s Collan. Fine boy. We need to find a way to keep Finland in the Empire, whatever it takes. They’re just too good to lose.
“Romanovs down!” Boom. Chatterchatterchatterchatter. “Follow meeee!” “Urrah!” “Down! Down! Down!”
From the initial entry point, Kostyshakov saw some of those bundles of clothing filled with hay being ejected. One of them fell on the sniper, Corporal Nomonkov.
They’ll climb down in real life, the way sacks of hay cannot. But the escort part the boys seem to have down pretty… well, yes, pretty damned good.