Oliphant met him. “Alright?” he said.
“Perfectly.”
“We thought you might have gone off and done a Griffin.”
“Not me. Anyway, I couldn’t find anyone to fight.”
“Bloody Bolos. Let you down every time. I heard the news.”
“It’s a stupid war, Tusker. H.Q. doesn’t know whether it’s fighting or farting. Well, to hell with Taganrog. To hell with London. And to hell with Moscow. Tonight we’ll throw the biggest party this unlucky squadron has ever had.”
“First sensible order you’ve given,” Oliphant said.
NICHEVO
Three days later, the Red Army launched a surprise assault, with fresh troops, and crossed the river at a rush.
By midday the squadron’s trains were rolling south while the aircraft flew on ahead of them. The pilots were waiting, on the beautiful green field as big as Lord’s cricket ground, when the trains pulled into the rusty spur line. It was dusk. Travel had been painfully slow. The tracks were crowded with trains — troop trains, hospital trains, refugee trains — all going south. That was to be the story of Merlin Squadron for the next month.
Lacey strung his aerials and failed to make contact with Denikin’s staff but a signal from Mission H.Q. referred to “a temporary reverse”. He tried again next day and told the C.O. that reportedly the White armies were making a strategic withdrawal to strong defensive positions. “The Red Army claims to have captured Orel,” he said.
Borodin walked to the main line and talked to some staff officers whose train was waiting for signals to change. He came back to The Dregs. “They say that the Reds are fighting like dervishes, not that they know what a dervish fights like. What really depressed them was the new Red uniform. All their troops have it. Even boots. And good food too. Some of Denikin’s units mutinied so they could join the Reds and eat.”
“But we had them beaten,” Jessop said. “What happened?”
“Russia is a big country. And now their supply lines are very short while ours are very long.”
“Uncle,” Wragge said. “Kindly ask the plennys to dig up that memorial to Hopton and Blythe. We’re not leaving it here.”
He waited. On the third day the traffic on the main line thinned to a trickle, which was a bad sign. The squadron trains moved south again, sluggishly, passing the capsized ruin of the Bolo armoured train. Smoke was still drifting over Kursk, but there was little left to burn. The machines had already landed at the field where the dead horses had been piled into the shell crater.
The squadron ran out of tinned fruit, oatmeal, butter and dried peas.
During the night, all the plennys except Chef deserted.
Sounds of battle could be heard, probably in Kursk. No orders from Denikin’s staff reached the squadron. Wragge decided to get out before he was overrun. The aircraft flew south, to the racetrack. General Gregorioff and his gout had left. The squadron trains did not arrive for three days. The pilots and observers lived on roast rabbit (shot with Service revolvers), mushrooms, wild strawberries, and a fat pheasant which had been too slow to avoid Jessop’s Camel as he landed. They slept badly: the nights were cold.
The squadron ran out of eggs, onions, marmalade, Gentleman’s Relish, tinned green beans, and pepper.
Lacey led a group into Belgorod and managed to buy twelve cabbages and two dead sheep. It was not easy: inflation was raging, the value of the rouble had slumped. There was no enthusiasm for Denikin’s currency. “He prints it like a newspaper,” Borodin explained. “Fresh every day.”
The C.O. decided to dismantle the aircraft and stow them on the flatbed trucks. While this was being done, the adjutant discovered that the driver and stoker of Oliphant’s train had gone. Decamped. Left for good. Worse still, there was little coal in their tender. “We don’t need two trains,” Wragge said. “Shift everything onto ours. Including the coal.” News arrived: Denikin had lost Kursk.
It took a slow, depressing week to get near Kharkov. Refugee trains often broke down. It was dangerous to stop because refugees mobbed the squadron train, forcing it to travel with locked doors and drawn blinds. There were fewer troop trains, perhaps because the countryside was thick with deserters. Often at night they tried to break in. The adjutant posted riflemen on the roof.
The sheep Lacey bought made mutton stew. Kid, the squadron mascot, disappeared at the same time. Nobody commented.
Kharkov was full of tired soldiers and rumours. The Red Army was carving up Denikin’s flanks, it was said. Tsaritsyn might fall, or had fallen, anyway it was finished. So was Voronezh. And the Ukraine, well, if the Reds don’t get there first the Poles will have it. Heard about Admiral Kolchak? As good as dead. He’s made Denikin the Supreme Ruler. What a joke.
The C.O. stocked the locomotive with coal and water, taken at the point of a gun, and moved south.
Kharkov fell.
A hundred men take a lot of feeding. The Cossack ponies were slaughtered. The squadron ate the last of the black bread.
Summer ends quickly in Russia, and autumn is brief. Greatcoats were being worn when the squadron train rolled into Taganrog. Lacey went to see Henry at the Hotel Olymp and found he had checked out a week ago. The C.O. and the adjutant went to Mission H.Q. A sergeant was in the garden, burning files. He was in his shirt sleeves: there were many files and they generated great heat. “Everybody’s gone to Rostov,” he said. “Me too, as soon as I get through this heap of shit.”
H.Q. had left two sacks of potatoes in its kitchens. Wragge and Brazier carried them back to the train. All Ranks were on a diet of bully beef and biscuit. The stationmaster at Rostov told Borodin that the Red Army would soon take the city and that British Mission H.Q. had gone to Ekaterinodar, where Denikin was rumoured to be making a last stand. The stationmaster’s advice was to make for Novorossisk.
Lloyd George was sitting in an armchair next to a window when Jonathan Fitzroy tapped on the door and came in. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said.
“Take a seat, Jonathan. I don’t want you to collapse with shock.”
I’m not going to get the sack, Fitzroy thought. He’d keep me standing for that.
The P.M. was polishing his spectacles with the end of his silk tie. “I wonder if too much reading weakens the eyes,” he said. “Perhaps it actually strengthens them. That would be good. But it hasn’t worked for me… The Services send me monthly bulletins about how things are going in Russia. Their last reports coincided happily with the leaps and bounds made by Denikin’s advance. The soldiers, of course, put that down to their training of his armies. No doubt the War Office is now thinking up excuses for his headlong retreat. The weather is probably to blame. In France the generals always blamed the weather when the war didn’t go quite right. The Navy reported that it was still master of the Baltic, where the hulks of Soviet warships continue to rust. And the Royal Air Force… Well, I have their bulletin here. Read it for yourself.”
Fitzroy undid the ribbon on the folder and flicked through the pages. “Blessedly brief,” he said.
“Well, they haven’t many aeroplanes.”
Fitzroy began reading. Lloyd George turned and looked at the typically grey London weather. Wintry, very wintry. He got up and went to his desk and checked his diary. No surprises there. Fitzroy turned a page. Lloyd George read three letters and signed them. Fitzroy turned another page. Lloyd George picked up the telephone and asked for some tea, if you please, thank you. Fitzroy said, “Oh, damn.”