“Who are you counting on,” said the Admiral sarcastically, “God?”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” sighed the Commander, “we have no one else to count upon.”
And the Admiral felt shamed.
But the men, it seems, did not return. They ran as fast as their legs would carry them over to the Bolshevik lines, and the Bolsheviks, thinking that they were being attacked by overwhelming numbers, fled in disorder.…
The Admiral was gloomy. The wind cut us in the face in our rapid drive. Slowly and gradually afternoon evolved into evening.
“That Peking and Tientsin News,” I broke the silence, “seems to be somewhat pro-Bolshevik.” “It’s always pro-Something,” the Admiral grunted.
He looked out of the window of the car on the vast snow-covered plains stretching all around us and brooded darkly.
“Some people,” said he, “think snow beautiful. I think it idiotic.”
Although technically the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family on our train was but a temporary measure, yet it was recognized by all, through that deeper human instinct that defies illusion, that there was an element of permanence about it that would give points to the oak tree. Of course, the Admiral could always have cleared his train of the family by subjecting them to a prolonged machine-gun fire; but, as with soldiers, diplomats and politicians, the personal morality of sailors is much above their national morality. Need I say that they remained? The motive of their journey was that Nikolai Vasilievich was perpetually compelled to see some General in some town along the line about his gold-mines, for his gathering suspicions concerning the integrity of the punitive expedition had now been amply justified. And then, as time went on, the motive, as motives do, dissolved into a habit. But the relations between the Zina-Uncle Kostia wing and that of Fanny Ivanovna and the three sisters, and similarly, the relations between Fanny Ivanovna and Magda Nikolaevna, were far from satisfactory. At wayside stations and impromptu halts in fields and glades and valleys, when we all left the train and hastened to take exercise, there had been awkward situations; and when the three sisters had occasion to pass Zina or any of her little sisters they never failed to put out their tongues at them — presumably as a sign of disapproval of Nikolai Vasilievich’s approval of them.
We parted with them as we got back to Vladivostok; but they continued coming to our parties; and the rumour spread that Fanny Ivanovna was, as they say, bien vue at the Admiral’s “Court.” Only once, the very haughty wife of an insignificant officer, newly landed at the port, sounded the alarm: “A Problem has arisen in Society! Can we receive a German, or can we not?” But the problem, like so many problems, died its death without solution.
VII
IT WAS THE DAY AFTER GENERAL GAIDA’S unsuccessful rising. “They’ve gone out for a walk with those three American naval officers,” Fanny Ivanovna told me when I called. “Just the two of us, as usual,” she added somewhat bitterly. Kniaz, seated in the corner, audibly confirmed her statement, as it were, by sucking sweets. There was an acute scent of eau-de-Cologne in the room.
“How charming!” I exclaimed, bending forward to examine a tiny little jumper that she was knitting.
“Oh, that’s for my godchild.”
“Who?”
“Oh, the little girl I christened. Madame Olenin’s little daughter. She’s just three weeks old to-day. A dear little thing.”
“Another niece for Uncle Kostia, what! They do turn them out in that family. Zina has more cousins than any girl alive!”
“Well,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “the little thing can’t help being her cousin. And Madame Olenin is really very nice. What does it matter after all if she’s her aunt? I respect her all the same, and she did so want me to be the godmother, and the little girl is called Fanny after me.”
The canary hopping to and fro punctuated the swift movement of her accustomed fingers.
“My dear Andrei Andreiech,” she burst out in answer to my question as to when Nikolai Vasilievich would be back, “there was a time when I knew all about his movements. But that time is over. I feel more and more as we live longer that my hold on him is weakening. And I feel with every day it’s getting weaker and weaker, and he is slipping away from me, and I am powerless to stop him. And soon I shall cease to bother altogether. He can stay there all night if he pleases.”
“I’ve seen Zina lately. She looks quite grown up.”
“Oh, what a headache I have!” She dipped her folded handkerchief into a bowl of eau-de-Cologne and pressed it to her forehead. “If I hadn’t Nina to console me — Oh, you have no idea what a tender, loving heart our Nina has.”
“Nina tender?”
“You don’t know her. Do you remember that day you arrived here, and I was so anxious to know where she had been? Well, she wouldn’t tell me then because … she thought it might upset her plan. Afterwards she told me. She had been to see her mother.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, it seems her mother wants to make it up with me — wants, in fact, that we should start a business together. Hats.”
“And won’t you?”
She thought for a time. “I don’t think I could,” she said at last, “after what she’s said about me.”
There was a pause of silence, which the canary, though, did nothing to observe. “But if I do, it will be solely for Nina’s sake. Poor child, she so wants to make our peace.”
“But doesn’t Sonia, as the eldest sister, ever take the lead?”
“Sonia?” She laughed. “Why, look at Sonia. We have a nickname for her—’Miss Moon.’ It suits her admirably. And Sonia is deceitful. Yesterday she lied to me. She said that they had been to see their mother, but as a matter of fact Nina told me afterwards that they had gone to a dance on the American cruiser with Mr. Ward and White and Holdcroft.”
“What, again!”
“Yes, I am very much against it,” she confided. “I was furious. I said to Nina: ‘Andrei Andreiech and your father had nearly lost their lives looking for you everywhere during the firing.’ But all she said was, ‘There was no need to.’ ”
“They had been on the American Flagship … on the American Flagship.…” My mind could not digest the news. Yesterday when the firing had begun, Nikolai Vasilievich rushed in, panic-stricken, and said that the three sisters had been lost in the upheaval. I had been sitting in the little office with Sir Hugo, who was writing to a Czech Colonel of his acquaintance to apologize for misspelling the Colonel’s name in a recent letter. This done, Sir Hugo looked through some old minutes of past meetings to see if there was any matter which had not been quite thoroughly thrashed out. He thought he was about to find such a matter, when a rifle report echoed sharply through the air, and was immediately followed by a multitude of others. We rose and looked out of the window. The projected coup had broken out.
There was a continuous rattle of machine-gun fire. The station building and the square before it were being attacked by Gaida’s men and defended by British-trained cadets from Russian Island School. A fearless cadet in British khaki lay on the bridge that traversed the rails, fully exposed to view, and rattled off his machine-gun; then he lay still. Several bodies were already lying on the square, some dead, others wriggling with pain.