Men of War (2013) (32 page)

Sea
conditions were calm, with only a light breeze and mild temperatures. The warm
summer days were cooling into autumn, but still comfortable. At times they
would see the distant shadowy forms of other boats on the sea, small steamships
towing what looked to be long lines of grayish metal oil tanks, gleaming in the
pale moonlight. These were actually oil cisterns that had been filled and
floated for just this purpose, linked together by long rusty chains and then
slowly towed north towards Astrakhan.

These
encounters would often force them to turn their motor off and stop for a time,
laying low in the black rubber inflatables until the distant traffic passed.
Sutherland coordinated their movement stealthily, sending hand signals to
Sergeant Terry and Corporal Severn following behind them. He navigated with a
compass and the moon, guiding them unerringly west. Haselden kept a sharp eye
with his field glasses, spotting out the next traffic well before it could pose
any problem. At one point they got a little too close to a steamship, and a
small trawler flicked out a searchlight, missing them by a close margin and
then moving on again.

They
made the crossing in a little over five hours and soon made out the dark flat
shoreline of Chechen Island in the distance. It was located off a headland on
the western coast, the province of wild flights of seabirds which hovered and
swooped over the brackish shore, gathering in thick clusters and whitening the
rock there with guano. They navigated well north of the island, switching off
their motors as they approached and taking to the paddles again.

Going
was slow at this point, as they had to quietly navigate shoals and shallows
near the coast, but they were soon ashore, dragging their boats up a thin beach
to an area of low scrub. Severn would do his best to conceal the boats and keep
a watch while the other three men began shouldering their packs and supplies
for the long trek west.

The
moon was finally down at a few minutes past four in the morning and Haselden
wanted to use those brief hours before sunrise to get his team inland. They
made their way along the wandering course of a small stream which eventually
led them to a road about two miles inland.

“This
is it,” Haselden hissed in the dark. “It should take us all the way in to
Kizlyar, so let’s get a move on. We’ve got an hour or two left before sunrise,
then we’ll lay low as the sun gets up, and get some rest. This road will only
take us so far, because if this place is being probed by the Germans there will
certainly be Russian troops there. This is going to be a bit dicey.”

That
was an understatement, Sutherland thought. How in the world
were
they supposed to find this man? He could be any one of a thousand men in this
town, and they certainly couldn’t wander about shaking hands and asking for a
Mister Orlov. All they had to go on were a couple of photos of the man and his
description. He may be in NKVD uniform, tall, well muscled. He might be with an
older woman. It was all very thin, and he realized it would come down to
patience, stealth, good field glasses, and a desperate search for a tall husky
man and a woman together that might be a giveaway. They had no idea that
Orlov’s grandmother was a young beauty of eighteen years.

If
the team were spotted it was likely they would be taken for slackers or
deserters at first sight, or worse, German scouts. He shook his head, thinking
this whole mission had not even the slightest chance of succeeding. Then he
chastised himself and thought: this is 30 Commando, Her Majesty’s very best,
and by God we’ll get the job done one way or another.

* * *

When
Orlov reached the coastal town of Makhachkala it seemed a desolate and empty
world compared to his grandmother’s farm in the lush lowland hills south of the
Caucasus. He had been many hard days on the road, hitching rides on passing
trucks when he could. He quickly learned that he had to remove his Ushanka cap
with insignia when he wanted a ride, or the driver would hasten on by,
unwilling to pick up a security man who might bring a lot of trouble in his
pockets.

Along
the way Orlov went through Baku, where he saw firsthand the hectic and hasty
dismantling of the oil rigs and drilling equipment. At one point a Commissar
noticed him, with a dark surmise that promised trouble, but Orlov was quick on
his feet, and simply began shouting orders to a group of nearby men who were
lugging equipment towards a truck.

“Come
on, you limp dicks! Put your backs into it! You there—get it up on your
shoulder!” His natural authority and assertive spirit helped him play the part
well, and the Commissar simply smiled, thinking Orlov was just another man from
another detachment flailing the rank and file along to get the heavy work done.

Orlov
thought Baku might be a place to look for Anya
Kanina
,
his grandmother, so he lingered there for a long day, snooping around to see
what he could learn, going to hotels and brothels and hostels and asking about
the woman. People stared at him with dull grey eyes, weary and wary of this big
man with an NKVD cap and jacket, and he learned very little.

He
was hoping she had not left too long ago, and had not already endured the
violation his grandfather spoke of at the hands of a man named Molla
.
Even
now his grandfather’s voice was whispering to him in his mind, like Svetlana
would talk to him through the earbuds.
“And Molla, he was a dark swarthy man
that one…The old Commissar Molla put his hands on your grandmother in a way no
man should, and did unspeakable things. Molla and
Burzan
.”

Unable
to find her, he decided the next best thing would be to try and track this
Molla down. If he was a Commissar, he would be better known, and so he took to
asking local work crews and labor detachments if they knew of the man,
eventually giving up and jumping a truck north to Makhachkala. It was there
that he had his first run in with trouble.

“You
there—what are you doing?”

Orlov
had just stepped off the truck and was wandering along the street, his eyes
watchful as he scanned the dull sided buildings and muddied streets. There were
many soldiers about, some marching in long lines along the roadway, others
gathered in small groups in the dingy streets looking tired and dispirited.
Orlov knew instinctively that the challenge had been directed at him, though he
tried to ignore it, walking slowly toward the nearest building.

“I
say you!”

Orlov
felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned, frowning to see a short stocky man
in a police officer’s uniform staring up at him. His insignia was of a
Lieutenant, which immediately worked to Orlov’s favor, as he had taken the rank
of an NKVD Captain, and the man saw this at once.

“Oh…
I’m sorry, Captain. I thought—”

“You
thought I was another drifter off the line, Lieutenant? Well if you must know
I’m looking for a place to take a good long piss. I’ve been on that damn truck
for hours.”

The
officer smiled. “The hotel, sir. Right there.” He pointed at the building Orlov
was sizing up himself. Then the Chief thought this man might be able to help
him.

“What’s
been going on here, Lieutenant?”

“The
war, sir. What else? I am Anatoly Ivanovich
Anokhin
,
military police. The division is setting up positions outside the city to
defend the port. You are with the Makhachkala Division, yes?” Orlov nodded,
saying nothing as the man went on. “Well they sent a battalion out yesterday to
the front. The Germans are swinging north toward Kizlyar. A lot of civilians
are still on that road. It could be very bad if the Germans get through.”

“I
see,” said Orlov. “Well we’ll stop the bastards then, won’t we.”

“Of
course, sir.” The officer forced a smile.

“Listen
Anokhin
, I’m going there myself, eh? I want to find a
man named Molla, and another man—
Burzan
. You’ve heard
these names?”

“Commissar
Molla? Yes, sir. He went that way—to Kizlyar. You are assigned to his unit?
Good luck to you then. He’s a hard man, that Molla. One of Beria’s men—he
always finds his henchmen down here. If I were you I would stay clear of him.
Molla came through here yesterday with three truckloads of women from the
villages. He says they’re going up to Astrakhan, but who knows what he really
means to do with them.”

Orlov’s
eyes narrowed. His bet that any local Commissar of note would be well known and
easily found had paid off. Three truckloads of women…. He didn’t like the sound
of that.

“Good
then,” he said. “Now I’ll take that piss.”

The
Lieutenant saluted and went about his duties, and Orlov shuffled into the
hotel, giving the desk clerk a sallow look and asking him for directions. Safe
in the men’s room, he took a moment to activate his Jacket Computer and ask
about the Makhachkala Division. He learned it was a special NKVD Rifle division
formed from the local border defense, railway security teams, and supply train
guards. It was attached here to the 58th Reserve Army and would remain in the
region for another two months until that November. Now his Captain’s getup was likely
to see him trundled off to some defensive post in short order, he thought.

He
considered what to do, and decided his best bet would be to say he had orders
for Commissar Molla. His brawn and natural assertive nature would back most
other men down if he was questioned, and his Captain’s rank came in handy as
well. All he had to do was steer clear of a nosey Colonel if he ran across one,
as his present rank would trump most other officers he might meet on the road.
His need to deliver these secure orders for Molla would surely get him on a
truck heading north, and he had to get there soon, because he knew where those
truckloads of women were going, and it wouldn’t be any place they would ever
care to remember.

A
lot of equipment was still moving north from Baku. The trains had been creaking
with the weight of old rusting pipe, weathered drills and derricks, tools,
shovels and anything else they could safely remove from the oil works. They
intended to use them to find new oil elsewhere, and vast work camps were being
set up, now collecting thousands to serve as raw labor in the new oil fields.
Commissar Molla would find his grandmother here, he knew, and then he would
take her and all the others in those trucks to God knows where. He had little
time to waste now, and so after a meal and some brief rest at the hotel, he
went out to look for another ride north to Kizlyar.

The
city was now a gathering point for fragments of broken army divisions that had
been shattered in the fighting and were slowly regrouping here, receiving
supplies from barges offloaded at the port. He saw shoulder patches of the
317th, the old Baku Division that had been destroyed at
Izyum
and reformed here, and also the 319th, a new Rifle Division forming here along
with the NKVD units.

He
sighed, realizing that no matter how hard he tried to escape from it, anywhere
he went in Russia now the war would soon find him, as it had found him here in
the muddied streets of Makhachkala. No matter. He had come a long way now, from
an aimless drunkard whoring his way along the Spanish coast, across seas and
around the high mountains to this desolate place—but he had a mission now—he
was no longer a lost and wandering soul, and that made all the difference.

Part IX

Letters
From The Dead

“Dead
letters! Does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and
misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitting
to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and
assorting them for the flames? Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale
clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, molders in the grave;
…he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more on errands of life…”

—
Hermann Melville, Bartleby The Scrivener

Chapter 25

Fedorov
found Karpov on the bridge, pulling him aside, his eyes serious with some
hidden energy and obvious concern. “Can we speak in the briefing room,
Captain?”

“Very
well, Fedorov,” said Karpov, half distracted by the scene being displayed on
the overhead HD video monitors. They were delivering two more helicopters
today, and he was watching a KA-40 maneuvering to land on the aft deck. He
turned to Rodenko. “Keep an eye on things for a moment, Lieutenant. I’ll be
with the First Officer in the briefing room.”

The
two men entered the room off the back of the citadel bridge, and Fedorov made a
deliberate point of shutting the door for privacy. The Captain saw that he had
a couple of thick volumes under his arm, with book markers jutting from them to
mark out places he had obviously been reading. Fedorov and his books again, he
thought, but he had learned to listen to his young
Starpom
by serving in
that same role for him in the Med, so he paid close attention. When Fedorov
went to his history books he had something on his mind, and it was most likely
important.

“What
now Fedorov?” he pointed at the heavy books as the younger man set them on the
briefing table.

“Something
very odd,” said Fedorov. “I was doing some reading about the war to see what we
might have changed. Look, here—this is my original volume of the
Chronology
Of The Naval War At Sea
. You remember, it’s the book I gave to Admiral
Volsky.”