Daniil made a dismissive get-thee-forth gesture with his hand and fingers. “There isn’t a lot of time, Turgenev, and less for you than for us. So quit wasting what we have and get to work.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The young horse soldier turned intelligence officer let himself out of the crude wooden shack.
As with Panfil’s tent, a candle, too, burned in Kostyshakov’s lone hut. Like Panfil’s, lacking fat, the candle’s light was poor. The war’s made everything decrepit and decayed, he thought. I think, unless we’re both very lucky and fight very hard, that someday people will look at this war the way we see the war between the Spartans and the Athenians; the great calamity that ruined our civilization beyond redemption.
Still, so far, so good, Daniil also thought. We’ve got arms and equipment, ammunition, men, food… even horses and mules are supposedly coming in the morning. We’ve got an organization—that went better than expected, probably in good part because of Sergeant Major Blagov—and a plan of sorts for changing it to what we really need, when we really need it.
But I wish I had some better idea of how to train for this, some better idea of who to select for the Grenadier Company than, “He who does good.” We’ve got almost no facilities. The men are in rotten shape but they’re still going to have to build what we need.
Which is what, exactly? Well… we need a range for the machine guns and cannon. The same range will also do for the snipers, once we select them. Doesn’t need to be much, about a tenth of a verst by a verst and a half will do. Hmmm… maybe we can dig positions and run wire out for field telephones, then put men in strong trench positions to raise and lower targets, as we tell them to via the field phones. I wonder if Romeyko has phones and wire stashed away with his horde. If not, I wonder if he can get some.
Yes, if he can, that should be good for the Maxims, the Lewis guns, and the snipers. I think maybe we just put out a bunch of targets for the 37mm cannon, and have no men down range when we use those. So… okay, different days for automatic and cannon fire… different days for the snipers, too, I suppose.
Then we need a range for the grenades. We have enough to expend two or even three for every rifleman, convert a couple of hundred to flash powder, and still have enough explosive ones for the mission. Hmmm… maybe have each man throw one a few dozen times before they pull the ignition cord. Will they stand up to that much abuse? Better ask the Germans how they do it. Wooden mockups, maybe? Hmmm… wooden mockups with a lead core?
We’re going to need a good rifle range, call it six tenths of a verst by… oh… a tenth or a twentieth, maybe. But how do we set up targets and give feedback?
Daniil spared a glance at the rough lumber of his shack and thought, No way we’ll get enough finely cut lumber for the usual frames. Maybe we can use smaller targets, and have men hold them up on rough poles, bringing the poles down to mark the targets. T-poles, I think.
“Targets? Targets?” he wondered, aloud. “Can we get targets from the Germans?”
We’ll have to dig in the men down range a good eight or ten feet. Those wretched little shovels won’t do. Ask the Germans—I am growing so tired of that phrase—for real picks and shovels, a hundred or so, each.
Ah, but then finally, we’re going to need a place to train for and rehearse the actual mission which is a rescue. And that… I am not sure. Maybe the sergeant major will have some idea.
Camp Budapest
“Maybe we could dig a house—a complex building, or the spacing of one—down into the ground,” said Blagov, scratching at his half right ear, to Kostyshakov. “You know, open top so we can see and evaluate the men going through the drill. We could even close it off, sometimes, for them to practice it in the dark with just those cylindric li— Dear God! What are those?”
Blagov pointed at his first glimpse of the miserable collection of mule- and horseflesh shambling though the gate of the camp.
“Damn… just damn,” Daniil shook his head in despair.
There were only eight horses and two dozen mules, which was substantially less than Kostyshakov had asked for. Far worse than the numbers, though, was that these animals looked more than half-starved, with ribs showing more or less plainly, backbone sticking up like an irregular rail, hips outlined, and the withers very sloped.
“I think they call them ‘horses’ and ‘mules,’ Sergeant Major,” Daniil said. “Though I am not sure why.”
“How important are they to the mission?”
Kostyshakov thought for a bit. “Well, a half dozen or so of the horses are very important, and become so soon. There’s some time for the rest to heal up… if they can heal.”
“Kaledin,” was Blagov’s instant judgment. “He’s another Cossack, probably could ride before he could walk. I doubt we have a better candidate for getting them back in some kind of shape. If they can be brought back to some kind of shape.”
“Okay, so assign him to the quartermaster and—”
“He’s already assigned,” Blagov interrupted, “to the reconnaissance team heading into the interior to pin down and report on the royal family. And those have to leave within, as you said, sir, about a week.”
“Well, I’m supposed to meet with Turgenev at noon, Sergeant Major. Could you send someone to advise him to bring the entire detachment? Thank you.”
“Effective immediately, Lieutenant, Sergeant Kaledin is detailed to the quartermaster to try to get those horses and mules into shape.”
“Bu’… bu’… bu’?”
“No arguments. Kaledin, go now. Some of those animals look to be about to keel over. The sooner you start getting them in shape the more likely some of them will survive.”
“Are they that bad, sir?” Kaledin asked, dark eyes going sad.
“Words fail,” Kostyshakov said.
“I see, sir. Yes, sir, I’m on my way.”
After the sergeant had departed, Kostyshakov demanded, “What’s your plan, Turgenev?”
“Step one, sir,” the lieutenant said, “is that someone is going to have to give me a great deal of money, and probably a mix of it. If we each had a string of the best horses in the world, the distance is on the order of four thousand versts. That’s four months of travel…”
“You don’t have four months.”
“Yes, sir, I know. So we’re going to have to rely mainly on less secure, certainly less secret, but faster means. That means we walk to Kermen with everything we can carry and maybe grub a lift for the rest of the baggage from Taenzler. From there we take a train to as near to Burgos, that Black Sea port, as we can get. Now Burgos, what with the war, isn’t too bloody likely to have continuing ferry service to, say, Rostov-on-Don. There will probably be smugglers galore, though, who would risk it.”
Kostyshakov nodded, “They’re likely as not to be pirates, too. That means you go armed, but also with arms that can be hidden, knives and pistols, both. And that means practice.” He turned his attention to the five men remaining after Kaledin’s departure. “Any of you familiar with pistols?”
“Familiar, sir, but that’s all, all for any of us except the lieutenant,” answered the next senior man, Mokrenko.
“The men know their way around a lance or a carbine a lot better than they do a pistol,” added Turgenev.