“Of course,” Staverton said, by now anxious for Mulvaney to get off the line.
“I’d like to add for the record, sir,” Mulvaney continued, “that he has proved himself not only to be a very able intelligence officer, but also a decisive man of action. The way he acquitted himself over the booby-trap incident has placed him high in our admiration.”
Staverton had also felt a surge of pride when he was told about Fleming’s courage at Rostock. “Your opinion will be recorded, Paddy.”
He thanked Mulvaney and put the telephone back onto its cradle.
The long range rocket fighter, wonder weapon of Hitler’s Alpine Redoubt. A few days ago it was all he could think of. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. Funny how it just wasn’t important any more.
And then he had an idea.
He picked up the phone and asked to be put back through to Mulvaney at the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
The GAZ which Krilov had commandeered at the airfield jolted its way over the pot-holes that pitted the streets on the outskirts of Ostrava. Its gears crunched uncomfortably, because the driver had never taken anyone more senior than a colonel, much less a marshal, and he was having difficulty controlling his nerves. The private weaved his way precariously through the thousands of Red Army troops, many of whom sang the folk songs they had known since childhood, as they marched through the night towards the front.
The sight of these men swarming towards the final battle, the condensation of their breath illuminated in the glow of the headlights, was magical to Krilov. The last time he had seen action, the fascists had been pouring through the rubbled remains of the Moscow suburbs. Now the tables were turned, the atmosphere of impending victory all around them was intoxicating.
At last they reached the sprawling marshalling yards where the machinery and munitions that had been forged and assembled in factories deep behind the Ural Mountains arrived by train on its way to the fighting. Krilov had never seen anything like it. Despite the black-out imposed on the town, clouds of steam produced by the trains that pulled in and out of Ostrava every minute glowed a deep orange, illuminated by the raging coal fires that powered the heavy locomotives.
At each of the checkpoints that took them deeper and deeper into the marshalling yards Krilov did the talking. One glance from the guards into the interior of the GAZ, the instantaneous recognition of the marshal’s stars on Shaposhnikov’s shoulders, was enough to see that they were swiftly waved through to siding 94. Krilov stared in awe at the still hissing locomotive and its drab olive-coloured wagons, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other munition trucks lined up in the military railway yard, but for one thing. The moment the jeep drew near, the elite VKhV troops which surrounded the train bristled, guns pointed menacingly at the GAZ, the source of the intrusion.
Krilov spoke once to the driver, words which were lost to Shaposhnikov over the venting water vapour from the boiler of the train, but the look on the petrified private’s face told him that Krilov had cautioned him to say nothing about what he had seen that night. Krilov told the driver to wait, then the two of them stepped from the back of the GAZ.
The major in charge of the VKhV company snapped to attention the moment he recognized the two men. He had only met them once before; the day they had come to him with top secret orders for a mission of vital importance to the State.
“Identify yourself,” Krilov barked.
“Major Donitriy Vasilevich Ryakhov, Military Chemical Forces.”
Krilov cast a sidelong glance at Shaposhnikov. The Marshal smiled coldly back at him.
“What is your strength, Ryakhov?” Krilov continued.
“One chemical defence company of fifty men, Comrade Colonel.”
“Is the consignment intact and, as important, does anyone know it is here?”
Ryakhov looked affronted. “All containers are present and accounted for. No one has questioned us or examined the wagons. Even if they had, Comrade Colonel, my men knew what to say.”
Krilov cocked an eyebrow at the VKhV major. Ryakhov felt compelled to continue. “Sanitation equipment for the front,” Ryakhov blurted, beginning to feel hot and sticky beneath his uniform. “My men are taking cleansing facilities and delousing fluid to Branodz, regional Stavka HQ, just like the papers say.”
“Any trouble with your travel documents, your new aliases?”
“None, Comrade Colonel.”
Krilov drew closer. “You have never questioned your orders, have you, Ryakhov?” The major shook his head violently. “If not you, then perhaps your men have seen fit to discuss what is going on here.”
Ryakhov felt the sweat dribbling down his back.
“Comrade Colonel, neither myself nor my men have breathed a word about this to anyone, of that I can swear. They all appreciate, like I do, that if word of the impending fascist chemical attack reaches our troops on the front line, it would have a disastrous effect on morale.”
Krilov patted Ryakhov on the shoulder. “Good. It is important for your men to realize that this shipment is nothing more than a sensible precaution, a deterrence to any aggression on the part of the enemy to resort to chemical attack.”
The sweat began to freeze on the major’s back.
Shaposhnikov stepped forward from the shadows. “Have you ever seen the effects of a chemical bombardment, Comrade Major?” He asked flatly.
“Of course,” Ryakhov stammered. “We have practised extensively against live subjects.”
“Live subjects, really? Criminals, or racial subhumans, I suppose.”
Ryakhov hid his disgust. “No, farm animals. Sheep, goats and pigs, Comrade Marshal.”
“Then you know nothing,” Shaposhnikov said. “In 1916, I lived through a Prussian chemical artillery bombardment that lasted the best part of an hour. I never found out what type of gas it was, I just knew it killed you rather quickly. In my trench we only had five masks per platoon and I was one of the lucky ones. I watched the man next to me cough his guts out, until after two minutes he begged me to put a bullet through his head, so I obliged. Do you know what kind of gas could do that?”
“It was probably phosgene, or one of the other lung irritants,” Ryakhov whispered, not sure where all this was leading.
Shaposhnikov grunted. “What have you got in there?” He asked, pointing to the long line of wagons stretching out behind the locomotive.
“Hydrogen cyanide, Comrade Marshal. It attacks the bloodstream.”
“Tell me what it did to your goats and pigs?” Shaposhnikov asked, with a sneer.
“Severe vomiting within seconds, incapacitation within minutes and, shortly afterwards, death from internal bleeding.”
The Marshal of the Soviet Union seemed unmoved.
“What would happen if it were used against the enemy, with surprise on our side?”
“It would carry on the wind killing everyone in its path. It has a persistency of about an hour, that is to say, it would be safe for us to advance any time after that. I don’t think we would find many people alive. Ten per cent, at the most.”
“How far does it carry?”
“It depends on the wind strength, Comrade Marshal. If the bombardment were very heavy, it could perhaps reach one hundred and fifty kilometres behind enemy lines.”
Shaposhnikov looked down the line of wagons, then turned to Ryakhov. “Good. Very good, Ryakhov. I just wanted to know.” He nodded to Krilov, then stepped back into the shadows.
“Get this stuff loaded up into the trucks and be on your way to Branodz, Ryakhov,” Krilov said. “I want it stored in the most secure area of the stavka; Colonel Krilov will show you where. There are some outbuildings there away from prying eyes. As you say, we don’t want our valiant comrades on the front line to see it. Not good for morale at all.”