‘You know Sebastopol, major?’
‘Oh, very well.’ He pointed away to our left. ‘All the planes have gone. That was the aerodrome. Not so much as a windsock. And the signal station’s abandoned.’ His hands returned to tease his moustache. ‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Yet tomorrow both Reds and Whites could be back, fighting in the streets, and the quaysides choked with refugees.’
‘Do you still hope to go ashore?’
‘No, no. It’s Yalta definitely now. Isn’t that silence awful? When you get that, you can be sure there’s a mound or two of corpses not far away.’ He gave his moustache a pat. ‘As if the place has been visited by the plague. It will be like this everywhere in a year or two. The whole of Russia wiped out.’
We listened to the light wind in the rigging, the flap of the bedraggled flags against their masts. Then the bell sounded for lunch.
At about one-thirty there was a noise off to port and several of us, including Mrs Cornelius, left the saloon to look. Coming away from the vast yellow quay was an old steam launch. She wheezed and spat like the boats I used to see in the summer taking Odessa’s holidaymakers for trips, or the river-steamers I once serviced for the Armenian in Kiev. Her funnel panted out unhealthy black smoke and her machinery sounded as if it was held together only by ancient layers of congealed oil. In her stern was a middle-aged Russian officer wearing a green greatcoat and an astrakhan shako, his face pinched with cold, while in her bow a French infantry captain had on his regimental cap but was otherwise completely wrapped in fox fur. A British naval rating, in regular uniform, at the boat’s little wheel displayed considerable skill in bringing her alongside. The officers reached up for the ropes our crewmen threw down. When the boat was secured they climbed up the waiting ladder to be greeted by our captain. I had gained the impression these might be the only three survivors of Sebastopol. Some of our hands shouted questions to the rating, but I could not understand his replies. At that moment the British battleship, now lying aft of us and to starboard, came to life. She was half-hidden by mist so the sharp sound of her bosun’s whistle was all the more startling; this was followed by one single, deep note from her horn. The mood of desolation lifted just a little. People began to call out to the Russian officer, asking after relatives, for news of the Civil War, wanting to know what had happened to the port, but he merely shrugged and continued on to the captain’s cabin.
A few minutes later the cook’s boy passed us with a tray of steaming food and took it in. ‘They ain’t ‘ad nuffin’ ter eat fer a week,’ he told Mrs Cornelius when on his return she seized him by the arm. ‘I don’t fink we’ll be ‘ere long, missus.’ She and I went to sit and drink vodka in the saloon while around us a small army of merchants and ex-Princes discussed the significance of Sebastopol’s silence. About an hour later I saw Mr Thompson. He paused long enough to tell me that the Whites were trying to hold off the Reds at Perekop. We had arrived a day too late or a day too early. The battleship, H.M.S. Marlborough, was supposed to offer covering fire to the Whites in attacking the town. But Sebastopol had been taken before she could reach the harbour. Then, at the rumour of a large Red force coming through, the Whites and the majority of civilians had left. Marlborough had no orders and was sitting it out until she heard what she should do. Meanwhile suspected cases of mumps on board meant that she was in quarantine. There were a few refugees still in the town. The officers had come aboard to see how many more we could accommodate. ‘We’ll keep our steam handy so we can leave at an hour’s notice. We’ll probably be taking on wounded.’
Through Jack Bragg’s glasses Mrs Cornelius and I again surveyed the town. Shops had plainly been looted of everything; on walls I saw familiar posters, both White and Bolshevik, and occasionally an old person would scuttle from one doorway into another. I saw two dogs engaged in sexual intercourse on the quay, as if they had realized that here was the largest audience they would ever have. Though several buildings showed signs of shelling they were not particularly badly damaged. I had witnessed many a town devastated by War, but none whose population had vanished so completely. It was very difficult to understand where everyone could have gone. Later three horse-drawn wagons, crude red crosses painted on their canvas awnings, stopped wearily at the quay and crippled men were helped into the old steam-launch which had to make several journeys, eventually bringing some thirty wounded soldiers aboard. In the meantime grey mist descended on the town. Another hour passed. Then a wealthy Russian family and their servants were brought out. They were taken to the last available private cabin. These tall, dignified people had their faces hidden in their collars but there was speculation they were members of the Royal Family. Neither Mr Thompson nor Jack Bragg could discover their identities and Captain Monier-Williams would not tell. They had their meals served in their quarters. By nightfall we were apparently ready to sail again. The Russian soldiers were all youths; those who could walk dined with the rest of the passengers and were treated as heroes. They had evidently not eaten decent food for months. They said they had been fighting with the British Military Mission. There was still a division of Black Watch somewhere between Sebastopol and Perekop. Marlborough, in spite of her quarantine, would have to evacuate them if they ever reached the harbour.
Mrs Cornelius as usual began chatting almost at once to the White soldiers, noticing whose wounds were not properly bandaged, who needed a letter written and so on. She also learned a great deal about the state of the forces. It became clear to her that the Whites were being badly beaten. Before we went to sleep that night she laughed, ‘I feel like Florence bleedin’ Nightingale!’
By the time I got up next morning we were already lifting our anchor and preparing to leave. Sebastopol at dawn was still lost in mist and all I could see was the main quay. As the sun rose, figures began to appear in ones and twos. They moved out of the mist like the spectres of the dead, wrapped in rags. Then came horses drawing wagons loaded with potatoes and other winter vegetables, for all the world as if their owners were about to set up a market. Creatures with hand-carts containing carrots and cabbages beckoned to the ship. I heard voices calling. It all seemed sinister to me, though they may well have been innocent peasants trying to sell us what they had. At any moment, however, I expected them to push aside the food and reveal machine-guns. We turned, heading for the gateway, and the figures became increasingly agitated, jumping and waving. The ship sounded her horn, as if in reply and then we were passing the still silent Marlborough, negotiating the buoys and moving out to sea.
On the next stage of our voyage, we never lost sight of a coast seemingly as deserted as Sebastopol. By that afternoon we had reached Yalta, the Queen of the Black Sea, looking impressive in the thin sunlight, just as she had in her heyday. She was superficially unspoiled: a fashionable holiday resort out of season, backed by spectacular, wooded, snow-covered hills. She seemed to consist chiefly of solidly-built hotels and had something of the appearance of a small, more compact St Petersburg. Because we were only a short distance off I could easily see people of all classes, horses, motor-cars, soldiers. Yalta had not been shelled and remained able to feed her population. The hotels along her front presented themselves like a committee of dowagers, primly magnificent, perfectly groomed. Any poverty, anything untoward, was hidden in the back-streets and ignored.