Chapter Eight
Bogdan Vraciu’s Barquentine Loredana
(“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough
to get himself into a jail.” —Samuel Johnson)
Camp Budapest
The strategic reconnaissance section, under Lieutenant Turgenev, would be leaving camp in the morning. The Germans had come up with the money, though, as Hoffmann had said, mostly in paper, rather than coin. It had been increased substantially because of that. The pistols were in hand, each man in the section having put about three hundred rounds downrange. They also had eight of the much shorter Model 1907 carbines, and every man had requalified on them. The M1907s, moreover, had been disassembled, had their forestocks cut down, and now reposed in two cases that, from appearances, couldn’t possibly contain rifles.
There was a portable telegraph set, with a small spool of wire, courtesy of the Germans. Indeed, it was a German set. The men wore civilian clothing, to include foot gear and hats. Uniforms were tucked into their bags.
There was a code set up. Indeed, the Germans, thorough as they tended to be, had had their Swedish Office send a message each to Tobolsk, Yekaterinburg, and Tyumen, addressed to Pan-Siberian Import Export, to, in the first place, prove the lines were still up, and, in the second, give the team a reason to send a telegram, or a series of them, to Sweden.
The Germans had even found them a thoroughly unprincipled Romanian smuggler, a nasty old pirate named Bogdan Vraciu. He plied the Euxine, bribing who he had to or robbing, condemning, and killing whom he could. For a high fee he’d agreed to bring them approximately to Rostov-on-Don.
The budget hadn’t gone up, even though there were now three extra men—Shukhov, a combat engineer, also called a “pioneer,” Timashuk, a medic, and Sarnof, the signaler, added to the roster. Private Sarnof wasn’t especially happy about the assignment. It would also be Sarnof’s job to encode any messages. In his bag was also the portable telegraph and the copy of Chernychevsky’s What is to be Done?, just as Timashuk carried an aid bag, and Shukhov a limited quantity of demolitions, less the blasting caps, which were split between Turgenev and Mokrenko.
“If we get caught doing this,” Sarnof insisted, “we’ll all be shot!”
“Could be worse,” answered Mokrenko; “they could hang us instead.”
For some inexplicable reason, this thought failed to calm Sarnof down in the slightest.
“We’re ready, sir,” Turgenev told Kostyshakov, later, in the canvas walled officers’ mess tent. “Materially, anyway, we’re ready, except, maybe, for a potential shortage in cash. We can probably fix that with a bank robbery, if we absolutely must. But there’s still a problem. What if others . . . well, I mean, of course there are going to be others; what if there’s already a plot afoot to rescue the royal family? What if there are twenty such plots, as there may be?”
Daniil, who actually hadn’t given that any thought yet, opined, “Probably more than twenty. We’re Russian; plotting is what we do. What are your thoughts?”
“Yes, sir, probably more than twenty,” Turgenev agreed. “However many, though, I think that, for the most part, we need to have as little to do with any of them as possible,” answered Turgenev. “There may be someone who has useful information, I suppose, but what if they’re really working for the Reds? I mean; the tsar has been deposed and under guard for almost a year, now, and no attempt at a rescue? That smells to me of someone trusted by someone else who is working for the other side and turning any rescuers over to the Bolsheviks.
“And—and here’s the real problem, for us, anyway; for the entire mission, I mean—what if there is someone, or many someones, who are only exciting Bolshevik paranoia and causing the Reds to be more on guard? To have them calling in reinforcements? To have them putting the royal family under tighter control, maybe with guards present to shoot them on the slightest fear of a rescue attempt? What then?
“And what about the smugglers who are to transport us across the sea?”
Daniil thought upon that, silently, for a several long moments, before answering, “You probably need to kill them. Or to get the Bolsheviks to do so. Yes, it would be sad, especially if their hearts are in the right place, but the safety of the royal family and the future of the empire are more important than a few incompetents, even with good hearts. And as for the pirates who are supposed to transport you back home . . . dead men tell no tales, if you suspect these might tell some.”
“Thank you, sir,” Turgenev said. “I . . . we . . . had already come to those conclusions. We disliked it so much we needed, really needed, someone to give us the moral absolution of telling us so.”
Daniil let his chin and eyes sink groundward. That, I suppose, is what I get the lavish pay for.
“Don’t spare any tears for the smuggler the Germans found for you. They wouldn’t use him if he were not both expendable and deserving of being expended. But how are you going to deal with him?”
“None of us can sail a boat,” Turgenev said. “We need them for that. Moreover, we probably ought not do anything to them unless we have reason to become suspicious. If we have any hint they mean us ill, we figure to wait until he’s a few hours out from Rostov-on-Don, kill him and his crew, dump the bodies, launch the lifeboat, set the boat on fire and row in.”
“Sounds plausible,” Daniil agreed. “The timing may not, however, work out so conveniently.”
Burgas, Bulgaria
“I’m sorry,” said Feldwebel Weber, indicating with his finger a sailing vessel moored to the group’s front. As always, Weber stood slightly stooped. He added, “But this was all we could come up with. Be on your guard. Do not trust any of the crew.”
Turgenev answered, “I understand. Needs must, and all. We’ll be all right. Thank you, Feldwebel.” Then he stomped up the gangway, more properly called the “brow,” to meet the captain.
The ship, the Loredana, was considerably bigger than any of the Russians had expected. Rocking gently at anchor, tied to the wharf by Burgas’s shipping district in the south of the city, she looked to Mokrenko to be about sixty arshini long, or maybe a trifle more. He knew the things sticking up from the deck were called “masts,” that the cross pieces on the masts were “yardarms,” and the white cloth hanging from them sails, but there his nautical knowledge ended.
There was nothing wrong with his arithmetic, though; he counted five sails tied to the yardarms, plus two small triangular ones running from the top of the foremost mast to the wooden pole—he would soon learn it was called a “bowsprit,” sticking out in front. There were also two large triangular sails behind each of the two rearward masts, as well as another being set between the first mast and the middle one.
While Turgenev spoke to the captain, Mokrenko watched the crew setting that between-the-masts sail, as well as the five on the yardarms. He noticed among them a small boy or, perhaps a girl or young woman, dark blond, peeking at the Russians from behind the rearmost mast. The confusion stemmed from the kid being in boy’s clothes. On closer observation, though, Mokrenko decided it must be a girl.
I’ve never in my life been on any boat bigger than a little rowboat. And never on the ocean. Lord, please help me, help all of us, not to get seasick. I wonder who the girl is; captain’s daughter, maybe?
There was a tone and tenor to the conversation between the lieutenant and the ship’s captain that made it more of an argument. Mokrenko picked up bits and pieces of the conversation. “. . . balance the ship . . . not going to be separated . . . want to founder in a storm . . . still not . . . move cargo . . . so move it . . . you pay . . . how much? Segarceanu!”
When Turgenev joined Mokrenko, waiting on the wooden wharf, he said, “I trust that bastard even less than I expected to. We’re going to stay two men to a cabin. Fifty percent alert. I’ll pull my watch the same as anyone else.”
“Suggestion, sir?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“We’d be better off with two armed men fully rested, awake, and alert, outside the cabins, watching all of them, than we would be with four, alone, struggling to stay awake against the darkness. And for meals we send two men together to bring them to us. One man eats; we wait an hour, to see if he gets sick, then the rest of us do.”
The lieutenant considered that, then agreed. Pointing with his chin at one of the crewmen, he said, “That’s apparently Segarceanu. He’s to show us to our cabins. Which are all to be together.”
“Put the rifles where, sir?” asked Mokrenko. The rifles were disassembled, with no bayonets since the M1907 couldn’t mount them, anyway. They sat on the wharf in two cases that looked to be, and ordinarily were, too small each to hold four or five rifles.
“Our cabin.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Loredana, the Russians were somewhat surprised to discover, had a powerful auxiliary engine down below. This served, using a small fraction of its available oomph, to move the ship out from the wharf and on its way to the channel that led to the sea.
“We don’t look like we have the power,” said the greasy, black-haired Captain Vraciu, standing on the bridge with Turgenev. There was a modicum of white mixed in with the black. “No one looks for a smuggler of this size unless they look like they can outrace the patrol vessels. We set the sails so most of the landlubbers don’t notice the engine, which we keep as quiet as possible.
“Fuel’s expensive, too, so we mostly use the sails anyway. But if I see another ship approaching, one I don’t know if I can take or bribe, then we call on the engines.”
Turgenev regarded the skipper. He stinks of old tobacco smoke, and not the good stuff, either. That, and he has liquor on his breath. That would tend to explain the bulbous veined nose and the perpetual five o’clock shadow, too lazy or drunk to shave. He should probably go to see a good dentist, especially given how many teeth are already missing. It would help, too, if he changed those baggy, dirty clothes. He also reeks faintly of shit.
“How many days to Rostov?” Turgenev asked.
“Unless you want to pay extra for the fuel . . . ?”
Being already likely short of cash, what with the addition of the medic, pioneer, and signaler, with no chance to get more, Turgenev said, “No.”
“Five days, then, if the winds stay with us.”
Turgenev read that as, Four days, then we shake you down for money, or it will take more than six, unless, of course, you’ve all gotten sick enough first that we can cut your throats and loot your baggage before then.
The first to succumb was Cossack Lavin. Three hours of travel and less than twenty miles out of port, he felt his gorge rising. A quick race to the rail and his five foot, eight inch frame shook as he projectile vomited into the sea.
Mokrenko and the signaler, Sarnof, each took a side to help Lavin below to his cabin. No sooner had they stood him up than the Cossack convulsed again, bending at the waist and painting Sarnof’s trousers with bile. The signaler got one whiff of the stench, dropped Lavin, and threw himself half over the rail, his chest and abdomen heaving with the effort of expelling everything he’d eaten for what seemed the last month.
Mokrenko instantly stopped breathing, only exhaling slowly through his nose, to try to keep the infectious stench at bay, as he led Lavin back to the rail.
Standing between the two, fingers clenched into the material of their collars, Mokrenko looked out over the nearly glass smooth sea, wondering, What the fuck happens if we hit bad weather?
At that moment the air, which had been almost still, relative to the ship, suddenly picked up a breeze, cold and wet, bearing down from the north. A few minor capillaries appeared on the water, harbingers full of malevolent promise.
“Oh, fuck!”
The beating of rain and waves, the wind ripping through the rigging, and the groaning of the wood of the ship, all combined to create a cacophony that made thinking hard and speech nearly impossible.
Mokrenko held off the heaves by sheer willpower. All the rest, though, succumbed to a greater or lesser degree. The least affected, other than Mokrenko, was Shukhov, the pioneer. For the most part he was all right, with “all right” being occasionally interrupted by a bout of vomiting.
It fell to Mokrenko to fetch the meals, since Shukhov couldn’t be counted on not to puke into the stew. Generally, he was able to load two double loaves of bread, or four pounds of hard tack, into a bag, carrying the stew in a clean bucket. Mostly the food went over the side, as the rest of the section was unable to eat even a bit.
It was when he was bringing food back to the cabins that one of the crewmen, a bearded, greasy sort in a short, black waxed jacket, pushed out a foot, tripping the Cossack and causing him to lose control of the bucket, spilling about half the stew.
There were seven crewmen present, not counting the cook. All laughed heartily. Also all had knives, including the cook. Not a time to fight, thought Mokrenko. Not at these odds. But there will be a reckoning.
“You’ll clean up your mess,” said black jacket.
“No,” answered Mokrenko, fingering his sword, “I won’t.”
The worst was Corporal Koslov, “Goat.” By the time Mokrenko got back with the food, Goat was begging all and sundry—loudly—to, “Please, for the love of God, please shoot me.”
Passing the half bucket’s worth of stew to Shukhov, Mokrenko proceeded to take away Koslov’s pistol, his shashka, his kindjal, and his rope belt.
“Why the belt, Sergeant,” Shukhov asked.
“Lest the corporal try to hang himself.”
“Oh.”
Shukhov and Mokrenko did their best to estimate the size of the crew against the day of having to get rid of them. The best they’d been able to come up with, so far, was sixteen, including the captain and the cook, but not the roughly twelve- to fourteen-year-old girl who never said a word and seemed to be there for the captain’s nocturnal entertainment.
The ship, meanwhile, adding insult to injury, was a continuous roller coaster, alternating deep, seemingly terminal dives into the troughs with shuddering efforts to rise onto the swells.
That cocksucker, Vraciu, is making it worse on purpose, thought Mokrenko, carrying a vomit-filled bucket up a madly swaying ladder, to dump the contents over the side. The puke was a disgusting mix of Turgenev’s and Koslov’s ejecta. Mokrenko couldn’t quite bring himself even to look into the mess.
If either I or Shukhov succumb, the other is going to collapse from sheer fatigue. Then the crew will pile on us within the hour. I’d seriously consider attacking the bastards now, just myself and the engineer, but we can’t man the ship. Don’t know how and the two of us aren’t enough even if we did. And Shukhov’s not well enough even if we knew how and were enough. Maybe when the storm’s over, we can, but in this gale we haven’t a chance.
Hmmm . . . how about taking a hostage? No, Vraciu doesn’t seem to care enough about any of his crew, not even that underage girl he likely buggers, for a threat to one or two of them to delay him in launching an attack for an instant. At least the way he slaps them around says they don’t matter to him.
Mokrenko tied the vomit-filled bucket off to a line and dumped it over the side to wash it out. As he was hauling it back aboard, he noticed one of the crew—Ah, yes, my friend, black jacket—head covered with the jacket against the cold squall—moving unsteadily forward on the wet and swaying deck.
The bucket came back aboard just as the crewman passed close by, lost in his own thoughts, troubles, and miseries. Mokrenko took a quick glance toward the bow. Nobody. He looked even more quickly up into the rigging. Nobody. Then he dropped the bucket to the deck, bent down while lunging forward, grabbed the crewman about the thighs, then lifted and carried him to the gunwales, before launching the sailor over the side.
No one heard the splash, but Mokrenko took a deep personal satisfaction in watching the man treading water, far behind. The Cossack watched with glee as a three-meter wave crashed down upon the helpless crewman, momentarily sending him under. He popped up, struggling frantically, a few moments later. The next large wave likewise washed over him. By the time he should have popped up from that, the ship was far enough away that the mist, rain, and spray blocked any clear view.
Just doing Your work, Lord.
He probably won’t drown, but the cold will kill him eventually. One down. Fifteen to go. Sixteen if we have to dispose of that little girl. That, I would much rather not have to do.
Barquentine Loredana, Black Sea, 28 Jan, 1918
The captain and crew were absolutely frantic, desperately searching for their missing crewman. Mokrenko was shocked, actually. Who would have imagined that that old pirate would care about any of his crew?
The mystery was cleared up when Vraciu, himself, came into the passenger area demanding to know, “Have any of you seen my son?”
Which would also tend to explain why the shit thought he could get away with tripping me.
“Why, no, Captain,” Mokrenko lied. He felt zero obligation to be honest with known enemies. “What did he look like?”
Vraciu shot Mokrenko a look of sheer menace. He’d heard about his son’s little game with the passenger and how the passenger refused to play his part in the game. Maybe we’ll hang you from the yardarm, the captain thought, before we toss your corpse overboard. If we don’t find my son, alive and well, we’ll hang you to unconsciousness a dozen times before we finally let you die.
Barquentine Loredana, Black Sea, 29 Jan, 1918
Sarnof was the first of the stricken to show a recovery. Despite the continuing storm, he was well enough, indeed, that he could have stood a guard shift.
Mokrenko decided against that, very quietly telling the signaler, “No, they think there’s just two of us able to fight. Be a big surprise to them to discover just that little bit too late that there’s another pistol and sword in play. Stay in your cabin, Sarnof. Be quiet except for making the odd moan and gagging sound. You might even try doing vomiting imitations; you’ve had enough practice for that, I believe.”
Now it was Shukhov’s turn on guard. He had his pistol hidden under his tunic, his kindjal likewise, and his sword, his shashka, in one hand, across his lap, with the point of the scabbard resting on the floor.
It was hard, oh, so hard, to stay awake. It wasn’t made any easier by the occasional waves of nausea that still swept over the young pioneer from time to time. Neither was it made any easier by the very limited moonlight that crept in through the few portholes.
Shukhov used the fingers of his left hand to hold one eye open for a bit, then switched to the other, then back to the first. Gradually, he became aware—or thought he did—of a small presence in the open area between the cabins.
Suddenly awake, the pioneer swept his sword from its scabbard, holding it pointed at where he thought the apparition stood.
“Quietly,” the apparition said, in surprisingly good, albeit very soft, Russian. “Be quiet or they’ll hear you.”
“The . . . the girl?” Shukhov asked. “How . . .”
“How do I speak Russian? I am Russian,” the girl replied. “I am Natalya, Natalya Vladimirovna Sorokina. The Bolsheviks murdered my parents, made use of me for a week or so, and then sold me to that swine of a captain for three cases of rakia. I’m sure you’ve figured out what the captain bought me for.”
Shukhov didn’t confirm that he could guess. Why add to the girl’s humiliation? Her accent says “very upper class.” It will be harder on her, then.
“They are coming tonight,” Natalya said. “Even now the captain is giving half the crew, the half that will be used, their orders.”
“What weapons?” Shukhov asked.
“Clubs, knives. The only pistol on board is the captain’s. He’d only ever entrust it to his son, who seems to have disappeared. If you are the one who killed him—if he was killed—you have my eternal thanks.”
“Not me,” the pioneer answered. “Someone else. When will they come?”
“Sometime after midnight. Now, I have to go. Be ready. And good luck.”
Since the captain and crew had already made free with her, Natalya was free to go to her miserable bunk and lie down. She sent a prayer to a God she had come to have some doubts about, to take care of her countrymen about to fight for their lives. Maybe He’s there and maybe He’ll listen. It was so easy to believe back when I was a . . . well . . . that doesn’t matter anymore.
The sense of being totally alone in the world, without even the presence of God to comfort her, was too much. As she did most nights, Natalya began to cry into the rough sack that served for a pillow. That actually helped, at least a little.
The terrible thing is there is nothing I can tell myself I should have done differently. I didn’t act like a whore. I didn’t talk like a whore. I was dressed normally, like a teenaged girl. I didn’t do anything, so why should this have befallen me? Why? Can you answer that for me, God, if you’re out there? WHY?
Of course I know the answer; my parents and I were in a nice carriage, with a nice couple of horses pulling it. That made us rich, made us “class enemies,” the exact term the Bolsheviks used before beating me, or lining up for their fun. Or both.
Of course, the worst part wasn’t even the violation, the being made to serve. It was making me pretend to enjoy it to avoid another beating. Funny how both the Bolsheviks and the ship’s crew fixed on that. A certain kind of man? Are they all like that? No, I know they’re not. My father was a good man. I think these countrymen taking passage on this ship are good men. At least none of them look at me like a slightly rotten piece of meat.
I think if they lose, I’m going to join them in the water. I can take at least that much satisfaction, depriving these swine of the use of me.
“After midnight,” Mokrenko observed, in the forwardmost, portside cabin, “means not a lot of time. Okay, here’s what we do. Shukhov and Sarnof, dig out four dynamo lights from our baggage. Then get a uniform . . . make it one of the . . .”
The sergeant stopped at sensing the unsteady presence of Lieutenant Turgenev standing in the door. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Sergeant, but add me to the roster of those who can fight. At least somewhat, I can. I think.”
“All right, sir,” Mokrenko said, gently. “Can I ask you then to take one of your uniforms, cut open your cabin’s mattresses, and use the stuffing to make us a dummy to sit out in the open area?”
“I can do this. It may smell a little of puke before I am done.”
“That, sir, would be perfect. Now, Shukhov; get everyone’s pistols but the lieutenant’s, plus four boxes of ammunition, then meet me at the foremast. When you get there, pass out the pistols, at least two to each of us. Sarnof, you get the dynamo lights and a piece of rope. Hmmm . . . on second thought, no, get pieces, two more than long enough for the width of this open area plus one about half that. And please bring something to secure the dummy.”
“And, for God’s sake, everybody, do so quietly.”
The ambush was laid out in accordance with the plan of the passenger area. This area was forward, in what might otherwise have been accommodation for the crew. In the middle was an open area, through which the foremast penetrated the top deck on its way down to the keel. It was flanked by six cabins, three to either side, plus a forward storage area kept under lock and key by the captain.
“Listen up,” Mokrenko said, when everyone had assembled by the foremost portside cabin. “Everyone have their shashka?”
“Yes,” answered each man in turn, just audibly, though Turgenev whispered, “I’ve got it. I’m leaning on it. But, while I can probably shoot, I have my doubts about using a sword very effectively at the moment.”
“Not a problem, sir,” Mokrenko said. “You shouldn’t even have to shoot. First off, everyone gets two pistols except the lieutenant, who gets one. Everyone gets one of the dynamo lights. Shukhov, tie the lieutenant’s dummy to the mast, facing the rear. Then you go over to the corner by the cabin we met in, also facing the rear of the ship. The ‘stern,’ they call it. If they attack before we’re ready, light up and open fire. The rest of us will dive low.”
“I understand, Sergeant,” Shukhov whispered back. “I’m putting my mess kit under the hat, so we get a louder sound if they try to brain it.”
“Good thought.”
Then Mokrenko, carrying both lengths of rope, led the lieutenant and Sarnof to the starboard side rearmost cabin. “Just wait here, sir. I’ll be back.”
From there, still carrying the rope, he crossed the deck to the opposite cabin. Opening the doorway—the “hatch,” the sailors would have called it, he went inside and felt around for the fixed bunkbeds against the hull. He tied a rope each to the ends of these, one at the head and one at the foot, with the one at the head a half an arshin higher than the one at the foot. He then played out the rope behind him, on the deck, as he crossed back to Turgenev and Sarnof.
At the other cabin, he passed the rope around the bunks, handing the free end of one each to Turgenev and Sarnof. He worked as deliberately and carefully as his increasing sense of dread allowed. I’ve never been in a fight on the water. What if it’s different from on land?
He thought it best to explain what he wanted and why.
“They’ve seen our swords,” Mokrenko said. “But they probably don’t have a clue about the pistols or the dynamo lights. If they had that clue, they probably wouldn’t even try to take us.
“When Shukhov and I hear them enter this area, we’re going to light them up and open fire. I think they’ll run away . . . but we don’t want them to run away. That’s why I want you two to haul on those ropes with everything you have as soon as we open fire. When they run, they trip, then Shukhov and I attack—and you, too, Sarnof, and chop them up good. No prisoners, no survivors.”
Seeing there wasn’t going to be any argument about that, not even from the lieutenant, who tended towards gentility, Mokrenko continued. “Once we’ve finished off this group, you two go up on the top deck and clear it of sailors. Any that want to surrender at that point can, but at the slightest sign of treachery or resistance, kill them. Meanwhile, Shukhov and I will clear this deck to the stern. Questions?”
“You don’t want us to shoot from here?” Turgenev asked.
“No, sir; our pistols are enough for this part. Shoot only if one of them comes in here.”
Mokrenko left those two and that cabin, working his way silently to the straw dummy—which did, indeed, reek of human vomit—then to Shukhov. He stiffened at the sound of rats scurrying across wood. Them? Or rats fleeing them?
“You awake?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Mokrenko passed one end of the short rope to Shukhov. “Okay, loop the end of this rope around your arm. I’ll do the same. If one of us is dumb enough to fall asleep, the other can wake him.”
“I understand, Sergeant. Good idea.”
“Also, you take the ones from the mast to the left. I’ll take the ones from the mast to the right. We light them up, empty both pistols, draw our shashka and charge.”
“I understand, Sergeant.”
Mokrenko went then to the corner opposite Shukhov’s. There he sat carefully, laid his shashka across his lap, took one pistol in his right hand, and waited.
The remaining five men of the expedition were all, in considerable misery, collected into the portside foremost cabin, with the medic, Timashuk, armed with the last pistol, to guard them.
Well, thought Mokrenko, if the ambush fails, it is unlikely, given Timashuk’s continuing nausea, that any will survive. At least they’ll be able to go down fighting.
Unseen by any of the others, two little beady eyes watched out from a small out of the way cubbyhole. The eyes belonged to the ship’s senior rat, thought of as Number One, keeping a wary watch out for the archnemesis of all maritime rats, the ship’s cat.
With rather better than human vision, the rat watched the strangers’ preparations with a keen interest, eager to see if any of them would prove detrimental to the continued health and prosperity of rat-kind.
The crew, when they came, did so with the quiet caution of rats scurrying softly across the wooden deck. Mokrenko had been shifting his eyes steadily, to try to keep his night vision going. It really wasn’t enough. It also didn’t help one stay awake all that well, when there was nothing for the eye to see.
He caught himself nodding off a half a dozen times. Twice he’d jerked himself awake so violently that the back of his head smacked against the bulkhead of the storage room.
Indeed, it was only when he heard a human whisper, slightly above the ratlike sound of dirty bare feet on the deck, that he came fully alert. He was about to pull on the rope leading to Shukhov when the pioneer began pulling on his own. He jerked it slightly anyway, to let Shukhov know he wasn’t alone and the fight was about to start.
Mokrenko’s right thumb reached for the safety, making doubly sure it was off. He left thumb went for the ring of the dynamo flashlight on his chest. His heart began to pound for the impending action. Please, God, don’t let that fuck up my aim.
Mokrenko heard, “Prostul doarme; bate în cap.” He spoke not a word of Romanian, but the meaning became clear as he heard the whoosh of something moving fast through air, followed by the sound of wood smashing into sheet metal.
Mokrenko pulled the ring furiously, creating both a whirring sound and the beginnings of a flash of light. It wasn’t much, on its own, but given the previous total darkness it was just enough to make out eight rather surprised thugs with clubs and knives, standing on the other side of the foremast, between the two rows of cabins.
Shukhov’s light joined Mokrenko’s in a tenth of a second. Between the two, there was enough to fire by. The M1911s barked, once, twice, a half dozen times each. Mokrenko couldn’t be certain of any given hit, but he saw two of the crew fall back like limp sacks overstuffed with shit.
He emptied the last two rounds, hitting, he thought, nothing, and then pulled the ring again. “Attack!” he shouted to Shukhov, drawing the full yard of his shashka as he leapt to his feet. Mokrenko realized he was shaking, not with fear but with rage. That smashed mess kit reinforced that they’d intended to kill him.
And now, you filth, I intend to kill you.
Mokrenko and Shukhov saw as many pirates go down to the twin tightened ropes running across the deck as had fallen to the pistols.
Two of the latter, felled by Shukhov, lay on the deck bleeding. Dead or not, Mokrenko wasn’t taking any chances. The shashka swept down, guided by hand and by the marginal light of the dynamo lights, slashing one crewman across the throat so deeply that the head lolled back, unsupported by muscles or tendons. A fountain of blood shot out across the deck. The other rolled on his back, putting up defensive hands and pleading, “Te rog nu mă ucide.”
Mokrenko lopped off one hand, raising a shriek, and, when the remaining hand went to staunch the flow of blood, pointed the shashka down and plunged it into an eye, then twisted it farther down into the brain.
He risked a glance to the side to see Shukhov fighting to get his sword free of the skull it was buried in.
He’s not going to be any goddamned help!
At that point, Mokrenko resheathed the sword and drew his spare pistol. With his left hand still working the dynamo light, he proceeded to empty the thing into the backs of the crew still trying to escape in the throng across the deck. With each round fired he muttered a Russian curse: “Bitch”—bang!—“asshole”—bang—“cunt”—bang—“swine”—bang . . . bang . . . bang . . . bang . . . bang.
He put the pistol back into his pocket, immediately regretting it as the muzzle was more than a little warm, then used the shashka to slash and stab. Shukhov joined him and likewise began to hack apart the crew to make sure.
“Never mind that,” Mokrenko ordered. “Your pistol, one of them, is still loaded? Good, stand guard. Lieutenant Turgenev? Sarnof? Come on out and get topside, please, sir. Shukhov cover me while I reload.”
While the lieutenant and Sarnof took over the top deck, seizing and pistol whipping into unconsciousness the one sailor they found up there, Mokrenko and Shukhov reloaded, then worked their way down the ship, kicking open doors. There was nothing, though; the crew, if they were anywhere, had retreated to the stern.
“Come out, you swine,” ordered Mokrenko, in Russian, standing by the galley’s main hatch. “Come out, Captain, but throw your pistol out, first, or we’ll cut you down where you stand.”
Captain Vraciu’s pistol was thrown to the deck almost instantly.
“Now get on deck.”
One by one, under the irregular light from the dynamo lights, the just under half of the crew still remaining came out of the galley, to be follow by the captain.
“Lieutenant!?” called Mokrenko.
“Here,” answered Turgenev, from the top deck.
“They’re coming up, sir, what’s left of them.”
“We’re ready. Send them up one at a time.”
“You first, Captain,” ordered Mokrenko.
“You cannot do this to—”
The captain never quite finished, as Shukhov smashed him across the face with the butt of his pistol, tearing open the captain’s cheek and breaking his nose. The captain fell with the force of the blow, but only stayed down for a moment before Shukhov’s well-placed boot took him in the midsection.
“Up, you crawling filth,” the pioneer ordered. “Crawl up that ladder!”
The girl, Natalya, stepped forward from the crowd. “Am I to go with them?” she asked.
“No, Natalya,” said Mokrenko. “You stay with us.” Something about the girl—Maybe her educated accent—struck him as out of place as a kept slave on a Romanian ship. He tested his theory by asking her, in his own very limited French, “Do you want to stay with us?”
“I do,” she answered in the same language, then thought, Oh, that was probably a mistake. No one’s supposed to know. Bad things happen to me when they know.
“I need to get something,” the girl said, disappearing briefly into the galley and emerging with a large cleaver.
At about that time the shaken, shocked, bleeding captain stuck his head above the hatchway. He found immediately a loop of rope was placed around his neck and pressure applied.
Oh, God, no; they’re going to hang me. Not that, please, not that.
In fact, the captain was, at least for the nonce, wrong. The rope around his neck, though he could have been hanged with it, and though it did run over a yardarm, was only to maintain tight control. As soon as his feet were on deck, the tension was released. Even so, he felt his hands being roughly pulled behind him, before being tightly tied with a piece of rope. At that point, Sarnof moved to the captain’s side, put out one leg, and pushed the captain forward, tripping him to fall face first onto the deck. Then Sarnof knelt on the captain’s back to remove the rope from his neck.
“Next!” shouted Turgenev.
The sun was up now, and the weather much abated, as, hands bound tightly behind them, the remaining crew and the captain knelt upon the deck. One could read in the eyes of each man a stark terror of what their future held.
The lieutenant, feeling much better now, took charge again. He spoke no Romanian, and hardly trusted the captain to translate to the crew.
“I’ve learned it well enough,” said little Natalya, still in defiance of what had been done to her. “You can learn a lot about a language, even on your knees or all fours. I can tell them what you want.”
“Good, child. Translate exactly what I say to them.”
“Yes, sir. I promise.”
“You are all pirates,” Turgenev began. “As such, we need no higher authority than ourselves to hang you all.”
Two of the crew, and Vraciu, himself, began to weep openly at that, Vraciu first, because he didn’t need to wait for the translation.
“You all were party to an attempt to commit a high crime on the high seas. Thus, you are all condemned.”
“We will, however, give the remainder of the crew one chance to possibly save their lives. This will be by faithfully serving us to bring us to our destination, as close as possible to Rostov-on-Don.
“One man, however, we will not trust. That is the captain. He will die.”
Immediately, Turgenev walked to the cringing Vraciu, and grabbed him by the hair. Using this, he dragged the captain to kneel beside the rope that had been used to control him earlier. Now snot ran down Vraciu’s face, to match the freely flowing tears.
“Untie the crew,” the lieutenant ordered. When this had been done he directed the crew, through Natalya, to get good grips on the running end of the rope.
“Noose the bastard, Natalya.”
Happily the girl ran to place the loop around Vraciu’s neck, and to tighten it just enough to ensure it would not slip off. After noosing him, she spat directly onto Vraciu’s snotty, dirty face.
“Lieutenant?” Natalya asked. “I’ve seen these people hang innocent men before. It’s too quick this way.”
“What do you suggest, young lady?” Turgenev asked.
“Untie his hands, so he can struggle with the rope. They did that, sometimes, too.”
Turgenev, apprised of the reason for the girl’s hatred of the captain, thought that fair. “Do it.”
Natalya used the cleaver. She chopped at the rope binding the captain’s wrists but not neatly. Before she was done, two of Vraciu’s fingers littered the deck, while a small pool of blood stained his trousers. Something else stained them, too, as the captain lost bladder control.
“His greatest crime was against you, Natalya. You can give the command to haul away to the remaining crew.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Natalya twisted the loop around the captain’s neck to where it would tighten on one side. She’d seen them do this before, too. It kept the rope from cutting off blood to the brain, thus ensuring a slow strangle and an entertaining dance before unconsciousness took over.
Then the girl walked to a spot just in front of where the line of the crew clutched the rope. There, she tied a loop into the rope. From there, she walked to a point about ten feet farther astern, near where some rigging ran down to the gunwales and where a half dozen belaying pins sat upright in their frame.
“When I give the order,” she told the crew, “walk, do not run, toward me. Stop just before running me over. Ready? NOW!”
Hesitatingly, the crew, still clutching the running end of the rope firmly, began to walk forward. Natalya paid them little mind. Instead, she watched as the rope first bit into the captain’s neck, raising him to his feet.
The captain’s bloodied hands, less those two fingers, grasped for the rope loop in an absolutely mindless panic. Before they could get a grip to try to keep Vraciu from strangling, the rope was taut everywhere but where it allowed blood still to flow. His fingers sought desperately to get between the strangling rope and his neck, even as his legs and feet began a mindless kicking dance for something to stand on, to relieve the murderous encircling pressure on his neck. Gurgling sounds came from the writhing form, a foot or so above the deck, as his lungs sought to draw in air through the tightly constricted airway. The captain continued rising as the crew continued their walk forward.
Soon enough, a matter of seconds, the crew were standing in front of Natalya, carefully keeping their eyes to the stern and away from the strangling, writhing, gurgling, dying thing at the other end of the rope.
At that point, Natalya took the loop and secured it to the ship with one of the belaying pins.
“Let him down gently,” she said. There would be no merciful neck-breaking drop for this particular child rapist. “Now turn around and watch what waits for you if you do not obey the orders of these Russians perfectly.”
Natalya then folded her arms and watched as the captain’s struggles grew weaker and weaker. First his legs stopped churning, though his feet twitched for a good deal longer. Then one hand fell away from the rope, followed shortly by the other. His eyes began to bulge as a blackened tongue protruded from a gaping mouth. The lungs still tried to work for a while, until a heaving chest told of cardiac arrest.
Finally, with shit running down his leg and piss dripping onto the deck, Vraciu gave up the ghost and died.
“And now, you swine,” said Mokrenko, “get below and start carrying up the bodies and dumping them over the side.”