Chapter Twenty
Brest-Litovsk, Bolshevik Negotiators Arrive
Range G6, Camp Budapest
Down in the multistory underground building, otherwise known as Range G6, the boys of Fourth Company practiced what soon acquired the name of “ladder drill.” This involved rapidly porting their self-created flexible ladders to a wall with an opening, setting them up without losing any fingers, and ascending them by squads, fast.
Every time, thought Daniil, that I think we’ve got a handle on the problem, something new comes up. And half of it that I should have thought of, myself, was, in fact, thought of by the rank and file.
Take this, for example; if the people we want to free are on the first floor of a building, then we cannot go in on the ground floor, or we’ll be, in the first place, late in securing them and, in the second, we’ll drive anyone we don’t kill in among them. So . . . what should have been obvious to me, and wasn’t, was obvious to a private who was paying attention.
Note to self: Mark Guardsman Repin down for promotion and more advanced schooling, both for realizing we needed ladders and coming up with a design.
The design in question was, essentially, three six-foot ladders, with one in the middle tied to one on each of its ends, and iron pipes of the right dimension to hold them together and upright, once assembled. It was probably obvious enough a solution, but had taken a certain amount of trimming to make the upper portions of the downward two sections shorter so that the pipe would slide over them. It had the disadvantage of having two places with uneven rungs, and no really good way to shorten it if the target window or porch or door was low.
They’d experimented with one other design, an eighteen-foot ladder that was composed of two ladders, joined at the top and with a hooked chain to keep them upright. That had proven to be prohibitively heavy for rapid emplacement or carrying any distance in a hurry.
Still, at two poods per ladder, these aren’t exactly light either. There’s a difference though, between heavy and impossible.
There were only four ladders built, though given the rough usage, I am pretty sure we ought to build another four. Yeah . . . another four.
Down below, one of the squads—Sergeant Bogrov’s, I think it is—seemed to have come up with an ideal drill for the ladders. This involved running forward to a wall, with four men, two on each side, carrying the ladders, and the other two watching out for threats. As soon at the top of the ladder reached the wall, Kostyshakov saw, all four let go. The back pair then bent, grabbed the section lying on top, and ran backwards with it. While that was going on the front pair pushed the iron cylinders into place. Then the four elevated the ladder and dropped it just under a window in the wall ahead of them. It took about eighteen seconds to erect one, from reaching the wall to the first man scrambling up, after a little practice.
“Sir?”
Kostyshakov turned to see one of the men from the intelligence office. Guardsman Bernadelli, if I recall correctly.
“Message, sir, from Strat Recon. There’s a good bit in it, but the really important things, says Sergeant Major Nenonen, is that they’ve found the royal family; all are in Tobolsk. That, and Strat Recon has acquired fifty good horses.”
Daniil suddenly felt his heart lift so far and so fast it threatened to emerge from his left shoulder. Everything we’ve done, so far, was just a waste of time without this. Thank you, God, and thank you, too, Lieutenant Turgenev.
“Wonderful!” he said to the messenger. “Best news I’ve had in months. Have the Germans been told?”
“No, sir. For different reason, Sergeant Major Nenonen says you ought to tell them. He also says you had better come to headquarters before you do.”
“I’ll be on my way. Tell Strat Recon that we’d like hidden space for five hundred men and as much food as can be reasonably obtained.”
“Yes, sir.”
Daniil started to read down the twelve items in the message. The number in line twelve was a shocker. I need to ask for more details about them. I’d be willing to take on two thousand rabble, but what if there’s more a chain of command than Turgenev thinks?
“The war’s over,” said Basanets, the ungainly-tall battalion executive officer, rarely seen but almost always operating behind the scenes. “As of yesterday, it’s over. Well, not in the west but the Reds signed a treaty with the Germans. They’ve given up . . . God, I don’t want to think about what they’ve—we’ve—given up to the Nemetsy.”
“It works out to a third of our population, half our industry, and almost ninety percent of our coal,” said Nenonen. “And I don’t know what to do. Finland is on its own; am I a Finn or a Russian soldier or what?”
“Did you agree to do this mission?” snapped Kostyshakov.
“Yes, sir. Of course, I did.”
“Did you just say ‘our’ to describe what’s been stolen from us?”
“Yes, sir, naturally.”
“Then you’re a Russian soldier, at least until we’ve accomplished our mission, and for as long after as you adhere to the Empire.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, I never meant I’d abandon the mission. It’s just . . .”
“I understand.”
“Do we tell the troops?” asked Basanets.
Kostyshakov went silent then, and stayed that way for some time, thinking. If we tell them how do we control them and keep them from taking revenge on the Germans here? No, people are not rational. And an army is just a mob with a sense of teamwork. And how do we accomplish our mission without the Germans. We’ve no chance of getting anywhere without that airship. And we’re not even quite ready to go even if we went now. I wonder . . .
“Who knows?” he asked Basanets.
“Within the hour the whole camp will.”
“I see. Assemble the battalion. I’ll speak to them in two hours’, no, three hours’ time. Are Major Brinkmann or Feldwebel Weber available?”
“Brinkmann’s already gone to consult with General Hoffmann, sir,” said Nenonen. “Weber’s here.”
“Send someone for him.”
“It’s simple greed and paranoia,” said Weber. “I wish I could put a better face on it than that, but I can’t. Before leaving to see Hoffmann, Major Brinkmann told me that Hoffmann was dead set against this scale of theft, but he’s already on thin ice with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, so couldn’t do much.”
“Is the mission still on?” asked Kostyshakov. “Will we have the zeppelin to take us where we’re going?”
“As far as I know, sir. Certainly, I’ve seen no changed orders.”
“Any suggestions on how I present this to my troops? We’ve all gotten along very well, so far, but this could turn your guards into real guards and my Imperial Guards into sullen mutineers.”
“I’d say . . . be fairly up front and honest, but maybe not fully honest. For example, it wasn’t the tsar who gave away all this, it was the Bolsheviks. That’s still more evidence that they’re enemies of Russia, isn’t it, sir?
“As for us, what choice did we have? Did Germany have a moral choice? Should we, in fact, have condemned tens of millions of Russian citizens, as Christian as we are, ourselves, to Bolshevik slavery, to atheism, to the dictatorship of the Reds?
“Did Germany have a practical choice, either? We’ve got millions of men, here, ourselves and the Austrians, all of them desperately needed in the west. How do we move them where needed without a thick buffer it would take the Reds—or the tsar, for that matter—months or years to reoccupy?
“And then there’s the future . . .”
“Break ranks,” Daniil called out in his loudest shout. “Break ranks, gather round, and take seats.”
“Anyone who hasn’t heard yet, raise your hands.” Perhaps fifty men, or a few less, hadn’t gotten the news.
“Okay, for your sakes, here it is: The Reds have effectively surrendered to Germany, ceding about a third of our population, half our industry, and a huge portion of our coal, maybe as much as nine tenths.”
Not unexpectedly, the battalion began a low grumbling, with the men casting angry glances the way of the German guards, though not, interestingly enough, at Taenzler.
“In the first place,” said Daniil, “who can blame them? You think we would not have sliced away a good chunk of German and Austria-Hungary if we’d won? Be serious, boys; it’s the way the game is played. We played; we lost; and now the Reds are paying up.”
The grumbling reduced but did not go away.
“Now savor that, for a moment,” said Daniil, “the Reds gave it away. Not the tsar, not the people, the Reds. You want to be angry at someone, don’t turn on the Germans who’ve been helping us these last several months; think about the Reds who are holding our true ruler and his family as prisoners.
“Moreover, what should the Germans have done? Left all those people, our countrymen in the past and in the future, to the none too tender mercies of the Reds? To the terrorists? To the atheists? To the people who shout ‘power to the people’ but only mean ‘power to the people who shout power to the people’? We should be happy that a third of our people have been kept out of the hands of the Bolshevik slave masters. For now, unless we succeed in our mission.
“Finally, I want you to think about the future. Specifically, I want you to think about how we get our patrimony back. The Germans aren’t actually taking much for themselves, you know. So, if we do our job, and Russia acquires a legitimate ruler again, there’s no particular reason not to expect our country to be made whole again, given a little time.
“Now, I have time for a few questions, but not many as we have to get back to training . . .”
Brest-Litovsk
“I have a question, sir,” said Major Brinkmann, during one of the walks that had become quite infrequent since the beginning of what Hoffmann thought of as The Budapest Project.
“No need, Major; yes, of course I intend that the Russians should still go and save their royal family.”
“Thank you, sir; I and they appreciate that, I am sure. But the question is really how do we do this legitimately, now that we’re at peace with the Bolsheviks. Sending enemy armed forces on our airships to liberate their prisoners, you know, is not exactly a friendly act.”
“Hmmm . . . good point, Brinkmann. Let’s see. In the first place, I have carte blanche from the kaiser to do what it necessary to free his cousins and the Hesse and by Rhine women. Mind, he tends to fold when confronted by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, so I can’t do any of that too openly. So . . . we have an airship . . .”
“An airship and two fighters, now, General.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about the two fighters. Where are they, by the way?”
“They’re at Jambol, with the airship. Once a crossing point over the lines is picked they’ll displace forward with their pilots and ground crew to act as escorts, to and from.”
“Ah, good. Now where was I?”
“ ‘We have an airship . . . ’ ”
Hoffmann was not merely the best staff officer of the war, he was great in a crisis, cool, calm, collected, and—above all—ruthless. “Ah, yes. We have an airship, but it’s at loose ends. So we’re going to report it as in serious need of maintenance after its flight to Africa, much more serious than originally thought—and didn’t you say they’re making substantial modifications to carry troops? Well, there you are. Then we’re going to form a corporation, I think, in Sofia. Consult a lawyer there.”
“A corporation?”
“Yes, an air transport corporation. Where there’s a will there’s a lawyer; find a competent one and let him figure it out. But let’s call it something like ‘Sofia-Moscow Air Transport.’ Then we lease the airship to the corporation. Of course, the corporation will pay for the lease with money we’ll give them from captured Russian pay chests, but let’s not worry about trivia, eh? I think maybe the airship ought to have a double-headed eagle painted on it, too, to let anyone who sees it know it isn’t German.”
“All well and good, sir, I mean, except for the fraud and lies parts. Oh, and the theft and conversion and . . .”
“Cease, Brinkmann, your naysaying. It’ll be fine. Now, as for the crew . . . arrange discharges into the reserves for the lot, then instant hiring, at much higher pay, by Sofia-Moscow Air Transport, Incorporated. Explain to them that they can go along with it, or they go into the camp that will soon enough be vacated by the Russians. I’m sure they’ll see reason. Oh, and tell them they’re back in the kaiser’s service as soon as their mission is complete.”
Brinkmann sighed, thinking, This is so much harder and so much more dangerous—to us, personally—than he seems to . . .
“And, yes, Brinkmann; I know the risks we’re taking. Would you rather have the Bolsheviks on Germany’s border, eventually, or to take a few risks now?”
Camp Budapest
Romeyko was ready to tear his hair out by the roots. After spending days, and nearly twenty-four hour days, at that, working with Weber and that aviator, Mueller, calculating how to get the battalion to western Siberia in five lifts, Kostyshakov had had the gall to come back and say, “Forget the animals, the fodder, and the wagons; they’ve all been taken care of for us.”
And then the inconsiderate bastard had had the effrontery, as he left the quartermaster’s office, to call over his shoulder, “Figure out, too, if we need to buy food there.”
Okay, then; let’s start by trying to work it as three lifts, with three days’ travel, loading, and unloading travel each way. That means the Fourth Company will be in flight or on the ground, needing to eat, for . . . mmm . . . three days out . . . six days until the next lift . . . six days until the last lift . . . then maybe one to get to the objective . . .
No, wait; assume we leave to cross the front—which Weber informs me has moved east a good deal—at night. Okay, that means we leave . . . mmm . . . after lunch on departure days. Two hours to load, since the animals and their fodder aren’t a factor anymore . . . so only one meal required in flight. Zweiback, cheese, and what passes for sausage. So only one pound, for dinner only, in flight, lift-off day. That saves two and a half pounds per man . . .
“Hey,” he said to one of the clerks, “get me that new German, Mueller. Tell him to hurry.”
“Yes, sir; you sent for me?”
“Ah, Herr Mueller, thank you for coming so quickly. There are some questions I cannot answer that I hope you can.” And he seems very young, but looks more than adequately intelligent.
“If I can, sir, and if it isn’t classified . . .”
“Well, only you can tell us what is and isn’t a secret. Here, look at the map.” Romeyko stretched their best large-scale map out over the chalkboards, brushing sticks of chalk away with one hand. “We’re going from here to—so it appears now—Tobolsk, Russia, or a spot a bit south of it. We don’t want to be seen crossing the lines, such as they are. So when are we going to have to take off, to make the crossing in the dark?”
“No matter what we do, sir,” said the German airship sailor, “if we’re leaving around the twenty-sixth of March, it’s not going to be all that dark?”
“No?”
“No, sir; it will be a nearly full moon up and it rises at about five-thirty, PM. The sun sets half an hour after that and rises just after moonset the next day. In that time frame, there is no time we can count on complete darkness. What we’ll do, though, is make sure that we never get between the moon and a major settlement. That should help.”
“Ah . . . so when would we have to take off to cross over near say . . .” —Romeyko’s hand searched the map—“this place, Yekaterinoslav, so that it’s as dark as it can be when we cross?”
“Let me think, sir . . . distance looks to be about eleven hundred kilometers.” Mueller turned his finger and thumb into a makeshift compass calipers and measured off the distance. “Yes, close enough to eleven hundred. We can travel at about one hundred and three kilometers per hour so . . . let’s call it eleven hours of flight to get to Yekaterinoslav. To cross lines at nineteen-thirty, well after the end of evening nautical twilight, we’ll need to leave at eight-thirty in the morning.”
Romeyko did some more scribbling on his chalk boards. “That should work,” he said. “We can feed an early breakfast and lunch, lunch out of Taenzler’s Gulaschkanone, right at the airship’s hangar.
“So let me see . . .” More chalky scribbling followed. “If we load for the first lift one hundred and thirty-seven men . . . at ninety of your kilograms each . . . and sixty-seven hundred kilograms of food . . . yes, that should work.”
“What about the horses and mules, sir?”
“Did no one tell you? No animals; our forward reconnaissance team has found us enough and more. We needn’t take wagons either.”
“Praise God,” muttered Mueller. “You can load more men or ammunition now.”
“Well, yes,” agreed the rat-faced Romeyko, “but then we’re on God’s work, no?”
Mueller only nodded, then said, “The skipper will be doing handstands of joy when he finds out he won’t have horses and mules shitting all over his airship.”
“Likely. Can’t blame him. Okay, now for lift two . . .” Scribble-scribble-scribble-erase-curse-throw-a-piece-of-chalk. Then pick up another and scribble some more. “Okay, lift two . . . one hundred and fifty-three men, mostly from Second Company, two infantry guns with limbers, one hundred and sixty-one kilograms, plus another two hundred and ninety-one in 37mm ammunition, plus forty-eight hundred kilograms of food. That sound sensible to you?”
Mueller couldn’t read Cyrillic, so had to go with Romeyko’s words. “We might need to put in some ladders to get men up to hammocks in higher spaces but I think that’s feasible, sir. Plenty of room for the guns and their limbers on the cargo deck.”
“Good so far. Now let’s think about third lift. It’s got to contain Third Company and most of what’s left of Headquarters and Support . . . one hundred and eighty-four men . . . two heavy machine guns with a ton of ammunition . . . just under two tons of food.” Romeyko shot an inquisitive glance at Mueller.
Said the German, “I don’t see a necessary problem, though sleeping space will have to be sorted out. I’m going to ask the skipper, when I see him in three days, if we can put in one hundred and eighty-four hammocks from the beginning, so we don’t have to screw around with reconfiguring while loading, in a no-doubt panic-stricken hurry.
“Ummm,” continued the German, slightly embarrassed, “sir, have you or any of your men flown before?”
“None of us, so far as I know,” said Romeyko, “and I certainly have not.”
“Then I’m going to ask the captain, too, if we can violate regulations and get everyone a little tipsy. I don’t even want to think about dealing with a hundred tough Russian Imperial Guards in a panic and running amok . . . in an airship.”
“Tell you what,” said the quartermaster. “You ask your skipper and I’ll talk my commander into it because, you are absolutely right, we do not want a panic.”
“So,” said Romeyko, “up to two and a half days in the air. Half a chetvert of vodka per man. There goes the food savings from feeding early breakfast and lunch. Oh, well.”
“One other thing, sir?”
“Yes, Herr Mueller.”
“I went up last night and watched your troops clearing one of the underground buildings you’ve set up. Those carbide lamps, sir? I asked one of your officers how they worked. Well, the skipper will not let them get aboard in anyone’s hands. That won’t be a negotiable point; they must all be collected and completely cleaned out of carbide. With the water chambers kept entirely separate from the carbide chambers.”
Romeyko groaned as he immediately saw the pain in the ass of that. “We’ve got a dozen different sizes and makes. If we don’t keep them together, it will be a pure bitch getting the right sections together again. We had one young idiot who set himself afire when he mismatched from two different types.”
“Sir, I’m telling you what my captain is going to say. No fire hazard will be permitted aboard an airship. Umm . . . sir, are you flying with us?”
“Yes,” said Romeyko, “though I’m planning on going on the third lift.”
“Well, sir, all that space in the airship? It’s almost all hydrogen gas. Very flammable, sir. Also tiny little molecules that leak out of the gas bags continuously. Sir, do you know what our aircrews do if they take a hit from a tracer and catch fire? They don’t try to fight the fire; there’s no chance of that. They just cross themselves and jump to their deaths, because it’s better than burning alive. Not even any time to put on a parachute, assuming you’re optimistic enough to trust something with a forty percent or more failure rate. Just jump and get it over with.”
“I see,” said Romeyko, with a sudden vision of doing the same himself. “When I talk to Kostyshakov about the vodka, I’ll explain to him the problem with the carbide lights.”
“And matches, sir. And cigarette lighters . . . any smoking material, actually. Ummm . . . sir, besides the vodka, you haven’t accounted for drinking water. They’re not going to be very active, of course, tied into their hammocks but they’ll still need some.”
“Can we drink from your ballast tanks? They’re full of water, right?”
“Well . . . yes. It might not be very pleasant water. But the problem there is that, as you drink the ballast, and then piss over the side, the ship gets lighter and rises more.”
“Yeah,” Romeyko conceded. “Silly of me. I . . . hey, is there more than one ballast section?”
“Yes, sir, several.”
“Can we drink from one and piss in another?”
Range G6, Camp Budapest
It was dress rehearsal, the final rehearsal, the proof of concept, the Sine qua non of the whole enterprise. They’d been training in the day on the theory that the carbide lamps would provide almost as good light at daylight, but they knew this wasn’t quite true. Even with six men, with six working lamps set on the highest setting, it wasn’t quite equal to daylight still.
But it was decent, particularly with six of them flaring in a single room.
Pretty good, thought Daniil, standing on the lip of the great hole containing the two-story underground log building. Only the top floor of that was open to view. Control inside depended on the Fourth Company cadre.
Second platoon had already gone through, and done well. Then, after a couple of hours’ worth of setting up the building again, undoing the damage, and putting out some fires, it was First platoon’s turn.
Staggered up the ramp leading down to the ground level of the buildings, in a column of twos, waited, in darkness, the company cadre and the men of First Assault Platoon, Fourth Company (Grenadiers), plus their engineer, sniping, and medical attachments. The platoon was down to thirty men, including attachments, from the thirty-two they’d started with, as a result of one training fatality, Sotnikov, and one trooper, Sobchak, who simply lost self-confidence and asked to be moved to a position less taxing. Sobchak was a company runner now. There were also a couple of men with small injuries from training but, at this point, they’d rather die than miss the festivities.
If pretty good is enough.
“Annnndddd . . . GO!” ordered the First platoon leader, Lieutenant Collan, the atypically short but still highly Nordic Finn.
Instantly, the platoon sprang into action. The scene lit up as twenty-eight lights—everyone’s but the sniper team’s—on twenty-eight helmets flashed to life, the men rolling the strikers with middle fingers. Then the lead squad, under Sergeant Tokarev, launched themselves forward, Tokarev and Guardsman Korchagin, each with a substantial section of log on his back, taking security while the other four carried the ladder forward.
Boom! and the ladder was on the ground. Creak-squeak and it was extended to its full eighteen feet. Groans and grunts from the four bearers as pipes were set and then, with another thud, it was hoisted against the wall, the top end just below a window. Up the ladder scrambled first Tokarev and then Korchagin. Dropping his MP18 to hang by its sling, Tokarev lifted the log overhead and smashed it through the light wood window frame in a move that would have smashed glass had it been there. Then pulling a flash grenade from his belt, Tokarev armed it, counted off three seconds, and tossed it into the room beyond the window. He closed his eyes and dropped his head below the level of the window until he sensed the flash through his eyelids.
Up, up, Tokarev scrambled. Shouting, “Romanovs down!” in Russian and heavily Russian-accented English, he scanned the room for visible targets. One he saw he serviced in an instant, with a short burst from his machine pistol, then he leapt through the window.
There were two hay-stuffed assemblies of female clothing on the floor. “Civilians get to the corner! Keep low! Crawl to the corner!” Tokarev ordered, in Russian this time, and done rather pro forma. Through the window came Korchagin, Corporal Shabalin, Jacobi, the shotgun-armed, demolition pack carrying engineer, and then, one by one, Guardsmen Fedin, Lukin, and Blasov.
Blasov kicked open the door to the next room, while the others made ready. Two more flash grenades sailed through the door, exploding with muffled booms.
“Romanovs down!” rang out, even as the platoon leader, Lieutenant Collan, entered the room through the window, one runner in attendance. Following Collan, Second squad, under Sergeant Yumachev, began piling in, with the other engineer in tow.
Submachine gun fire rattled from further into the building.
“Shield your eyes,” was followed by the thunderous bang as Jacobi blasted a lock apart with his shotgun.
“Romanovs to the floor! Romanovs down!”
“That way!” ordered Collan, pointing with an outstretched arm in a direction perpendicular from the way First squad had gone.
“Follow meeeee!”
Boom-flash! “Romanovs down!” The MP18s resumed their chatter.
Sergeant Bogrov’s troops were erecting a second ladder, Kostyshakov saw. He noted, too, that the snipers had taken a position just at and behind the building’s corner. Preventing reinforcements, I suppose, that being all they can do on this range.
Between the flash grenades and the muzzle flashes, this place is like a movie theater with the projector rolling too slowly.
“Romanovs down! Get to the corner!” Boom!
Funny how it sounds like cloth ripping when three of the MP18s let go at once.
“Vasenkov! Bok! Guard that stairway down!”
“Sergeant Bogrov, Headquarters, assemble on me!”
That’s Collan. Fine boy. We need to find a way to keep Finland in the Empire, whatever it takes. They’re just too good to lose.
“Romanovs down!” Boom. Chatterchatterchatterchatter. “Follow meeee!” “Urrah!” “Down! Down! Down!”
From the initial entry point, Kostyshakov saw some of those bundles of clothing filled with hay being ejected. One of them fell on the sniper, Corporal Nomonkov.
They’ll climb down in real life, the way sacks of hay cannot. But the escort part the boys seem to have down pretty . . . well, yes, pretty damned good.
“Romanovs down!”
* * *
Daniil stuck around for the after action review. He didn’t have a lot to say, himself, beyond, “Well done. After everything I’ve seen, yes, we can do this. Oh, yes, we fucking can.”
“Captain Cherimisov?”
“Sir.”
“Dismiss the men. Squad leaders on up, battalion mess for our movement orders.”
“Sir!”