Another year at Rugby and soon he was eighteen, just. The Royal Flying Corps was glad to have him and he was glad to be in France. Should have been killed but beginner’s luck, or the luck of the Irish, or some damn thing, saved him; and when all that careering a mile or two above the Trenches was over, he was glad to volunteer for Russia because it was a long way from the bad blood still being splashed about the Emerald Isle. Russia promised good fun, good pay, good grub.
He let his eyelids close and he watched tiny gold specks wander about a primrose sea.
Griffin sat beside him. “Don’t get up,” he said. “I’m ready for a gallop, but I’ve never been one for bareback. That’s for the Red Indians.”
“Awfully slippery. I fell off, going nowhere.”
“Saddles. Cossacks have saddles.”
“We could ask. Tell you what. My plenny, Gladys, speaks a little English. We could tell him what we want and send him over to their camp.”
Griffin scratched his jaw. “Give him six tins of bully beef. Should buy six saddles.” He stood up. “Gladys? You did say Gladys?”
“Oh… I called him Jeremy at first, but it upset him. Very rude word where he comes from. He likes Gladys better.”
Griffin walked away and then came back. “Don’t get too friendly with your plenny, Dextry. They’re all ex-Bolos. Not safe. They jumped once. Might jump again.”
Half an hour later, Gladys came back with a Cossack who was driving a farm cart loaded with six saddles and bridles. Griffin looked them over. “Been in the wars,” he said. “Only to be expected. Saddle up three ponies. You, me and Gladys.”
They rode north, into the steppe. The saddles were small but so were the ponies, and the riders soon taught their legs and backsides to adjust. New and very green shoots of grass were already showing through the silvery-grey dead growth left by winter, and small flowers made spatters of brightness. It was easy riding: the land was never entirely flat, but its gradients were gentle. “Good tank country,” Griffin said. Dextry agreed. After that there was nothing remarkable to comment on.
Once, they came upon a hare and sent it bounding off. Dextry gave chase; the hare ran in wide circles and made fools of them. Once, they scared some partridge, which took off so fast that they were a camouflaged blur against the grassland. Then there was quiet again. The steppe was peaceful. Nothing broke its solitude: not a hillock, not a river, not a tree. Just grassland to the horizon. Dextry wished he could see a tree. A dead tree would do. Just a stump. Then they saw smoke.
It was a cavalry camp. Small, only about a dozen men. “Must be on our side,” Griffin said. “The Reds wouldn’t dare show their faces so far south.” He was right. The plenny went ahead and talked to their leader, and he came back and gave Dextry a smile. “Yes, good,” he said brightly.
They were offered vodka, and took it. The plenny whispered to Dextry, who said: “Really? Oh, jolly good.” He proposed a toast. “Na Moskvu!” Griffin said the same. Roars of applause. Big smiles. Much hand-shaking. All friends.
After that, things fell a bit flat. No more vodka, and not a lot happening. Gladys the plenny seemed quite keen on leaving. He brought the officers’ ponies to them, which was a pretty broad hint. “Slow down, Gladys,” Dextry said. “No need to rush.”
“They had casualties,” Griffin said. “Over by the fire.”
They moved closer. The man on the ground was alive, but he was in a very bloody condition. Most of his face was damaged. Parts of his body were hurt; blood had soaked through his clothing and spread into the grass. His eyes were the only parts of him that were obviously alive. He watched the officers approach.
“Fresh wounds,” Griffin said. “We didn’t hear any fighting. My opinion, he’s been knocked about.”
The plenny took Dextry’s sleeve and whispered again.
“Commissar,” Dextry told the C.O. “Apparently he’s a commissar. Bolshevik politico attached to Red troops. I suppose these chaps captured him.”
“Is not your business.” A young cavalryman had come over and now he stood between them and the victim. “Please go.”
“Good English,” Griffin said. “That’s a lucky break.”
“I was at school in Petersburg. We all learnt English. Listen when I say, this man is our business which you cannot understand.”
“Can’t we?” Dextry said. “He’s a prisoner of war and you’re beating him to death.”
“For intelligence. To make him tell us secret intelligence. To help us defeat the Reds.”
“That’s not war, that’s savagery,” Griffin said. “You’re supposed to be fighting for decency and you’re acting like animals.”
“If the Red Army captures you,” the young cavalryman said, “they will do things to you far worse than we do to him.” He spoke so calmly that they had no answer. “All my family are dead. Father, mother, sisters, brothers, murdered when the Bolsheviks took power. Butchered. Thank you for your help, your guns, your money, but do not insult us by telling us how to fight our enemies. Russia is not a tennis court.”
Gladys the plenny was alongside with the ponies. They mounted and turned to go. “At least, shoot the poor bastard dead and finish him,” Griffin said, and dug in his heels. They cantered away. They heard no shots.
After ten minutes, Griffin said: “I don’t believe what that man said. He was lying. All that stuff about school in Petersburg. Too smooth by half.”
“It did rather run off the tongue.”
“There’s a lot of desperadoes about. Deserters, bandits, that sort. The fellow they caught was probably a horse thief.”
“Law of the jungle.”
“Not our funeral. Nothing happened back there.”
“Nothing at all,” Dextry said. “Less than nothing. And that’s an exaggeration.”
Count Borodin arrived alongside the Pullman trains in a Chevrolet ambulance hauled by two stolid oxen. His motorcycle was in the back. He honked the car horn and Lacey came out.
“We found this in Tsaritsyn,” Borodin said. “The Reds must have captured it in another battle. Slightly soiled.”
“It’s been full of blood,” Lacey said.
“Half-full. It had a lot of worse things in it yesterday, but we left it overnight and the dogs cleaned it out. Many wild dogs in the city. It’s a gift from General Wrangel. If your mechanics can make it go, it might be useful for your business trips.”
“Very thoughtful.” Lacey kicked a tyre. “Solid rubber.”
“Yes. No more annoying punctures. Go anywhere. Scoff at broken bottles, sharp nails, enemy bullets.”
“Scoff?” Lacey tugged an ear. “Scoff… Sometimes you sound far more English than the English. How is that?”
“Well, I had a triple-hyphen tutor. Mr Rosedale-Frost-Forrest-Hungerford. Not many Englishmen can claim that. He used to cry if I split an infinitive. Happy days, schooldays.”
“I was sent down a mine as soon as I could walk. I toiled at the coalface from the age of three. What fun! How we laughed!”
“Goodness,” Borodin said. “Was that a jibe? Do you envy me? Would you really rather be a bastard footnote to an imperial comic opera? Because that’s all I am.” He was amused.
“Envy. We English aren’t much good at envy.” That sounded feeble. The truth was that a small part of Lacey would very much like a share of Borodin’s gloss. He tried self-mockery. “We’re good at hypocrisy. I could give you lessons.”