Well, it was possible. Anyway, what next?
No point in steaming into Warsaw if it was stuffed with bad hats. No point in sitting here if it wasn’t.
Borodin offered to go on ahead, by pony, and find out more. Talk to a few peasants. “They’ll tell me,” he said. “They won’t tell you.”
Nobody could think of a better idea. “We’ll look at the battlefield first,” Brazier said. “Might find some clues.”
The Marines were counting the bodies and dragging them into lines. A few of the dead wore odd bits of uniform; most did not; many were barefoot. “Funny thing, sir,” a Marine corporal said. “No wounded. Not many rifles, either.”
“The survivors took all the rifles,” Borodin said. “And the boots. Both are scarce. And the wounded expected to be shot. Or worse. The lucky ones would have been carried away by their friends. The rest…” He waved a hand at the sweep of the steppe. “Crawled off to die in the grass.”
“Bloody hell,” the corporal said. “Sir.”
“Don’t go looking for them, corporal,” Brazier said. “They won’t thank you for it.”
Borodin walked along the line of bodies. He stooped and picked up a black flag. “Nestor Makhno’s badge,” he said. “He leads an Anarchist guerrilla force. They fight anyone and everyone. Makhno calls them his Green Guards.”
“Green Guards,” Hackett said. “With a black flag.”
Borodin shrugged. “They’re Anarchists. They do what they like. They like attacking trains.”
“They didn’t like our Lewis guns, sir,” the corporal said. “Made a big mistake there, they did.”
Count Borodin took some old and soiled pieces of clothing from the bodies: a sheepskin coat, canvas trousers, a felt cap. “Camouflage,” he said.
The squadron caught up on its sleep. The adjutant kept a few guards on top of the boxcars. Fifty yards from Kenny’s train, plennys dug a mass grave. They worked steadily, but they were silent and sombre. They were Russians burying fellow-Russians killed by foreigners. The bloodshed had been unavoidable. If the attackers had got into the trains, they might have slaughtered everyone. All the same, the plennys didn’t like it. Some of the drops that fell in the grave were sweat. A few were tears.
Hackett woke at midday, dressed and walked alongside the trains, looking for damage. He found some bullet holes and Flight Lieutenant Susan Perry. She was changing the dressings on a couple of ground crew, cut by fragments of glass from broken windows. She tied the knot on the final bandage. “Does that hurt?” she asked.
“Agony, ma’am.”
“That’s odd, I didn’t feel a thing.” He laughed, and she dismissed him with a nod and a smile. “I need some exercise,” she told Hackett. “Will you come with me? I don’t want to get massacred by some smelly bandit.”
“Of course. I’ll get my gun.”
“No need. I have the colonel’s revolver in my bag. You hold the rotter and I’ll shoot him in the head.”
They strolled towards the steppe. “You seem very… um… refreshed,” he said. What he meant was delightful, but he was the C.O. and duty came first.
“It goes with the job. A nurse can be dead on her feet, but if she yawns, matron will kill her. Lesson one.”
“I see, I see.” Hearing her voice — after weeks of male gruffness — gave him amazing pleasure. It had a light and easy lilt that was a reward in itself. Never mind the words. Just enjoy the voice. “Yes, I do see.”
“We’re walking in step,” she said. “D’you mind awfully if we don’t? Your legs are longer than mine.”
“Yes, of course, of course.” Why must he say everything twice? It made him sound stupid. He broke step, and to make sure that they stayed out of step he watched her feet. She had legs like a dancer’s. What he could see of them. But she was so slim that he could easily imagine… He sniffed hard and filled his lungs. A rabbit hole gave him an excuse to sidestep away from her. They walked at a safe distance. “Uncle tells me you embalmed Colonel Kenny superbly well,” he said.
“Does he? I’m pleased he’s pleased.”
A touch of tartness in the words surprised him. “Well, it got us out of a serious hole.”
She stopped and picked a small yellow flower and tucked it into a buttonhole in his tunic. “Kenny looked quite satisfied with the results.”
“Thank you,” he said, for the flower; and then: “I don’t know what you mean.”
“There’s nothing noble about a dead man’s face. Quite the reverse. I gave his features a human look. Not a smile. Just the kind of expression that a colonel with a V.C. should have. Oh dear. Now I’ve shocked you.”
“Not a bit.” They walked on. Not entirely true: what had shocked him was the sight of the wedding ring on her finger as she fixed the flower. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? He felt cheated, and hated the feeling, it was a sign of weakness, unworthy of a C.O. “After France, nothing shocks me,” he said. “All that blood and guts.”
“It may be blood and guts to you, but it’s bread and butter to me,” she said. “Old medical joke. Very old.”
He laughed, and enjoyed a great relief of tension, so he took another risk and said: “How does your husband feel about all this?” He waved at the steppe. “An Englishwoman in the wilds of Russia.”
“Nothing. He…” She stopped, and faced him. “Look: if you must walk such a long way away, we shall have to communicate by postcard.” He took a cautious pace towards her. She shook her head. “Dear Sir,” she said. “Ref yours of the tenth inst…” He took a larger step. “Better,” she said. “Short story. We met at Cambridge. His name was Tristram. Not his fault, blame his dotty parents. Fell in love. Not our fault, blame the biology. Tristram was very dashing. As soon as he could, he dashed off fast to join the war before it stopped. Queen Victoria’s Rifles, second lieutenant. Dashed over to France, dashed over the top at Festubert in 1915. Pointless battle that nobody remembers. End of story. Not his fault, blame… I don’t know who. But I hope you’re not all dash.”
“I ran away from home when I was fifteen,” he said. “Does that count?”
They turned to walk back to the trains, and she took his arm. “Hullo!” he said. He glanced ahead and saw distant figures watching them. “What will the neighbours think?”
“They’ll think what we both thought as soon as we saw each other on Kenny’s train,” she said. “Yum-yum, we thought. That’s for me.”
“Oh,” Hackett said. “Yes. I suppose that’s true.”
She squeezed his arm. “Men can be so slow,” she said. “It’s a wonder the race has survived.”
Prod Pedlow had borrowed a Bible. He sat in the shade of the train with Drunken Duncan, and tried to look up the part that Borodin had mentioned during tea on the way back from the village of the Skoptsi. “Whose gospel was it?” he asked. “I’ve forgotten.”
“Matthew. I remember because I’ve got a cousin called Matthew. Brilliant opening bat. He hit the ball so hard it made holes in the boundary fence. Bound to play for England one day, everyone said so. But…” Duncan shrugged.
“But what?”
“Fell in love. French ambassador found him in bed with his wife, said the embassy was French territory and under French law he could kill him, it was justifiable homicide. Very nasty. Last I heard, Matthew was an assistant bank manager in Cape Town. Tragic.”