“I don’t trust you two; let’s be clear on that,” said Blagov. “Even so, I’m going to give you a chance to prove me and the commander wrong.”
A single sharp whistle from the sergeant major brought the three camp guards at a run. “Lift the cage off them,” Blagov said.
“You’re not making a mistake, Sergeant Major,” said Kowalski.
Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t do to leave two people living under a cloud, but sharing a common language and culture, together.
“Either of you speak any German?” asked Blagov.
Only Chmura raised a hand. “Mine’s fair, Sergeant Major. Never as good as my Russian, though.”
Why didn’t I already know this? Blagov asked himself. If the commander needs to know something about the men of the battalion it is my duty to have the answer right there.
That was a case of the sergeant major being too hard on himself; this unit had just come into being, so of course he didn’t know every man.
“Go report to the mess. Look for Junior Sergeant Ilyin. You, Kowalski, come with me.”
Without another word, Blagov set off briskly for the front gate, on his way to the range area. He suddenly stopped. Shit, neither of them have drawn any uniforms or equipment.
“Halt!” Blagov barked. “Instead, come with me. We’ll set you up with the quartermasters before you go to work. And get those blankets you’ve been using.”
“Hoffmann says paper, with a little gold, not all gold,” Brinkmann informed Kostyshakov and Turgenev, north of the camp, not far from where the battalion dug and cut, making their known distance range. “Six thousand rubles in gold coin. I complained but, from the wording, I think he’s going to be inflexible on this, and probably doesn’t really have any choice.”
“How much paper, Major?” Turgenev asked.
“Now that’s interesting; he’s willing to go much higher on the paper to make up for the loss of gold. We might be able to double the request, or even more.”
“If serious inflation kicks off, where horses are concerned, we might not be able to carry enough paper. If it doesn’t, we might have too much.”
“Where did it come from?” Kostyshakov asked of Brinkmann.
“Probably captured pay chests. It’ll be good, honest paper, at least, not counterfeit.”
“Double it?” Kostyshakov asked Turgenev. “A mix of high, medium, and low value notes?”
“Do we have any choice?”
“No,” said both Kostyshakov and Brinkmann, simultaneously.
“Then I guess it will have to be.” The junior officer grew contemplative for a moment, then observed, “Maybe we’d be well advised to rob a bank.”
“Better to rob a Bulgarian bank,” said the German, “before you leave Burgos. You would not, after all, want the Russian police and the Reds to take special notice of your presence in Russia.”
“Maybe,” agreed Turgenev. “But make our getaway on what, those old nags your army sent us?”
Another horse had died in the night, quite despite the careful feeding and quite despite the blankets Kaledin and Meisner draped over them.
On the plus side, the food had given each of the equines something to crap out, which also gave Kaledin the chance to inspect the droppings for worms.
Nothing, which is good, but in a week or ten days, if we can put a little meat on their bones, I think a modest solution of turpentine in their water would be to the good, in case they’ve got a residual infection of the evil little bastards.
“Hey, Meisner?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Trot over to the quartermaster’s office and ask for some turpentine, a vedro of it. Tell them it isn’t immediate, but in a week would be good.”
Quartermaster’s Office, Camp Budapest
Frustrating, thought Captain Romeyko, purely frustrating. Hmmm… well maybe not all that pure, since there’s an element of humiliation to the matter, as well.
A whitewashed board was affixed to one wall on Romeyko’s small office. The board was divided into three sections with two hand-drawn charcoal lines. The left side was labeled, “ROUTINE,” and the other, “SPECIAL.” In between was lettered, “TRANSPORTATION.”
Under ROUTINE were such matters as “Daily ration draw,” and “Ammunition type and issue.” On the right, under SPECIAL, were written, “Machine Pistols,” “Pioneer tools,” “Horse blankets,” “Blacksmith,” “Money,” “Field telephones,” “wire,” and about two dozen other items that had, so far, proven beyond Romeyko’s ability to fix or acquire. A couple of items were crossed out, including “Saddlery,” “Radio,” and “Carrier Pigeon.” One big glaring need was, “Map of Rodina.” As it turned out, Brinkmann had to send to the General Staff office, in Berlin, to get a usable scale map of western Russia, up to and including Tobolsk. Even Ober Ost’s only went as far as the general line of the Volga.
Very few of the items on this list had an expected arrival date.
Somewhere, mused Romeyko, somewhere, possibly in Warsaw, there is a repository of captured maps where, if they looked, the Huns would find maps of Russia going all the way to Vladivostok. No doubt it is all well filed and documented, but we—in our miserable state—just don’t know who to ask.
In the middle column, conversely, there was almost nothing written, just the daily, “Wagons to draw rations for seven hundred”—okay, OKAY; so Taenzler is drawing some extra and I’m helping? So sue us!—“from the railhead.”
Even as he thought it, from outside came the creak of wagon wheels, leaving the camp on their way to the railhead.
Interlude
Tatiana: Mock battle
I followed the clanking sounds down the hall to discover Alexei and Kolya in mock battle. They had taken some branches from the wood pile and fashioned them into daggers and guns. They were well armed, with extra branches tucked into the belt of their coats and one in each hand.
I was so thrilled to see them happy and playing, to see Alexei up and about, that I didn’t tell them to take their noise and chaos back outside.
Kolya was Andrey Derevenko’s, the doctor’s, son. Boys being what they are, Alexei behaved for Derevenko, Nagorny, his sailor-guard, and Papa whereas he ignored Mama, Olga, and me.
Taller than Alexei, Kolya had been my brother’s playmate and best friend for years. He was as loyal a friend as Alexei could ask for.
Kolya thrust the bent stick in his right hand forward, aiming for Alexei’s belly. Alexei jumped out of reach just in time and hit the wall with his back. I winced, but they continued their back and forth, along with accompanying grunts and yelps.
Joy and Anastasia’s Cavalier, Jimmy, bounced happily around them, their silky hair still damp with melting snow.
Alexei got the upper hand and drove Kolya into the salon. Kolya staggered backward, lost his footing, and landed on his back. He rolled away just in time to avoid being poked with the sharp end of a branch but Alexei pointed the bent stick serving as a gun at him and made shooting sounds.
“You’re dead,” Alexei said triumphantly as the two spaniels swarmed Kolya and smothered him with kisses.
Kolya’s giggling only encouraged the dogs, as if they wanted more of that happy, tinkling sound.