“Right… add to your plan one day of pistol familiarization. Maybe two.”
“Yes, sir,” said Turgenev, continuing then with, “From Rostov-on-Don we try to take a riverboat if we can, or charter one, if we can’t, or buy decent horses if we can’t do either. The rail may be running, too, though I have my doubts. If none of those are possible, then there’s no way to complete our mission in time.”
Wordlessly, Daniil just nodded his understanding. One of those, he silently agreed, ought be available.
“I think we’ll be able to go mostly by river, though, and am planning on it. We follow the Don as far as possible to get as near as we can to Tsaritsyn. At that point, we likely must buy horses to get to the Volga. That’s the area where the Reds’ control is limited, which must mean intermittent rail connections, at best.
“That means, once again, we’ll need money, though we’ll probably have to sell the horses for anything we can get at Tsaritsyn.
“We can follow the Volga to Samara, and then take a train to Yekaterinburg and then onward to Tyumen. From there, once again, we must buy horses to get to Tobolsk. Yes, we could try to catch the river boat to Tobolsk, but it would be better to arrive as unseen as possible. For that matter,” the lieutenant paused to scratch his head, “even if we could go by river, we can’t count on that river not being totally frozen… so… horses.”
“The Germans tell me,” Daniil said, “that they believe the family is in Tobolsk. But I figure we can only be sure that the royal family will be in one of those two places, Yekaterinburg or Tobolsk. Timeline? And add a couple of days at Yekaterinburg to see if they’re there or coming there.”
Turgenev consulted his notebook, making a couple of quick corrections. “Here to Kermen, about one day. Kermen to Burgos, maybe two. Burgos to Rostov-on-Don… I’m a cynic and a skeptic; five, minimum. If we can get a steamboat up the Don, three days, plus three to buy new horses and ride to Tsaritsyn. If not, probably nineteen. Then five days by boat to Samara. Rail to Yekaterinburg, logic says one but cynicism tells me two. Then three days in Yekaterinburg. Then to Tyumen, call it one day. Buy horses and race to Tobolsk, maybe six.
“That’s thirty-one days to Tobolsk, if we’re lucky. Fifty, if we are not.
“As to how we’re to tell you where they are, I have no clue. I asked around to see if anyone knew anything about carrier pigeons. Turns out Lieutenant Antopov, in Second Company, used to race them. He says they’re good, the best of them, for maybe two thousand versts. This is twice that. We need something else. I asked the signal officer, Lieutenant Dragonov. No, sir, radio won’t work. Oh, we could, maybe, if we used a rail line to act as an antenna, send a message out. Maybe even receive one. But, in the first place, they’re too big to carry while, in the second place, if the Reds or the anarchists see us with a radio they’ll just stand us against a wall and shoot us.”
“I agree,” Daniil said. “What’s your monetary breakdown?”
“Six men for two months, at twenty rubles a day, seven thousand three hundred, call it. That’s not generous, by the way; we’ll not be staying in fine hotels nor eating in expensive restaurants.
“Train and boat passage… I think we’d be making no mistake if we budgeted two thousand per man. Horses? Two horses per man, plus saddlery, if we can get a boat to Komovka on the Don, but four per man if we cannot. Four per man from Tyumen to Tobolsk, plus saddlery. I confess, I have no idea whatsoever what a horse may cost back home now, in paper rubles, let alone forty-eight of them, plus the saddlery. I think we’ll be in the one thousand to fifteen hundred range if we can get gold rubles. That would be fifty to seventy-five thousand rubles, most of it in gold. But then there’ll be the tips and bribes. Some we’ll get back when we sell them and some of them, at least, should still be alive at the end of the mission for sale… unless the Bolsheviks notice them and confiscate them.”
“We’ll not count on the Bolsheviks’ appreciation for the sanctity of private property,” Daniil said. “I’ll ask the Germans for a round hundred thousand rubles. They’ll probably want receipts when this is all over, as well as receipts for what you got when you sold them. Thorough people, the Germans.”
“Yes… well, sir, I’ll try. But any receipts that tend to show how far we’ve travelled are also a death sentence if the Bolsheviks catch us, or even notice us enough for a search.”
“No receipts,” Kostyshakov said, instantly.
“But we’re still stuck with how to even let you know once we’ve found the tsar and his family.”
“Let’s go find Major Brinkmann.”
Brinkmann tapped his cane as if impatient. After several taps, he reluctantly said, “There… is a… way, but… come with me.”
A bare ten minutes later in his own quarters, he explained. “We maintain a small office in neutral Sweden, in Stockholm. It’s in the guise of a trading firm. Send them a telegram; they’ll forward it to us. Well… they will after they’re told that certain telegrams from Russia are to come to our office. But you’re going to need a code book, a set of prearranged terms, that are neither obvious nor suspicious. Best, I think, if it’s simple enough to be memorized, though that’s asking for a lot. And your signal to the Stockholm office… maybe a particular trading firm, yourselves. Furs?”
“Furs make sense,” Kostyshakov agreed. “So the Pan-Siberian Import-Export Company?”
“Works for me,” said Lieutenant Turgenev.
Horse Paddock, Camp Budapest
Never going to work, thought Kaledin, gazing upon the sorry spectacle of equines listlessly munching on thin, frozen grass. Some lacked even the energy for that, but just stood there, blankly.
The Cossack sergeant wasn’t alone; one of the cooks, Private Meisner, not needed by the German mess section, accompanied him. This was a private who was, at least, used to horses since mess trailers—Gulaschkanonen, in German—all used horses to get around.
These poor beasties, about half of them, already have two hooves in the grave… or the sausage factory, as the case may be. Triage? Look for the ones who have a chance and slaughter the rest to feed the troops? I don’t see a better way but… I love horses and have a soft spot for mules. I don’t have it in my heart to kill them until there’s no choice left.
I’ll do my best and let God decide for me.
Now, for step one, let’s look them over closely. I count… one, two, five, eleven, twenty….thirty-one? There were supposed to be thirty-two, eight horses and twenty-four mules… I count… seven horses only.
Kaledin walked to his right, around the clump of equines and forest of legs. He was less than a quarter of the way around it when he spotted the bay, lying on one side. He didn’t want to spook the animals by running, but picked up his pace until he was close enough to see that the supine horse wasn’t even breathing.
The sergeant stopped and crossed himself, orthodox fashion, up, down, then right to left. Then he walked over to the horse and took one knee, reaching out to stroke its now cold forehead.
“Poor thing,” he muttered, “poor abused thing.” Kaledin felt a tear forming and dashed it away. In truth, he liked horses a lot better than he liked most people.
I’ll have someone come for you in a bit, old friend. I am sorry, but I cannot guarantee you will not end up in a pot or as sausage. Yes, as a matter fact we are that hard up at the moment. Yes, I know it is also somewhat risky.