Russian Hide-and-Seek

6

Alexander’s regiment, the 4th Guards, was quartered in what until shortly before the Pacification had been a large private school. This stood in an extensive walled park where several considerable bodies of water and patches of vestigial or immature woodland were to be seen. There was plenty of room for officers, men, animals, equipment and stores in the long, box-shaped main building and the various minor structures, some dating back a couple of centuries, some only a few years old, that surrounded it or lay at a distance down the classically straight drive and across the gentle slopes of grassland where the regiment’s horses grazed.

A dozen of them, the property of the regimental headquarters group, were so occupied near the lodge when Alexander rode in that morning; he recognised the Colonel’s elegant grey and the heavily-built sorrel belonging to the commander of the support squadron. Further up the drive, a line of horsemen in battle order was assembled at the start of the obstacle course and being bawled at by a red-faced sergeant: 11 Troop, the command of the most ambitious and unpopular subaltern in the regiment. An echoing fusillade came from the distant red-brick shed that contained the pistol range. Alexander passed close to a section of troopers in the charge of an under-corporal taking their ease, caps off, tunics unbuttoned, chatting, skylarking, sleeping, sudden beneficiaries of one of those mysterious delays that characterise life in all armies in all ages. The under-corporal caught sight of Alexander and struggled to his feet, putting on his cap and drawing his tunic together, managing some sort of salute; Alexander returned it as smartly as one on parade and called a pleasant good morning. Been at the doctor’s, have we? thought the under-corporal; lucky for us and lucky for your chaps too. He was not especially inquisitive or well-informed, just a soldier on garrison duty abroad in peace-time.

At the gravel-dashed front of the 1920s villa that housed his men, the troop office and the non-security stores, Alexander inquired of his sergeant whether there was anything to report. There was not; there never was. Then, having handed the mare over to his orderly, he went on foot to the main house, informed his squadron commander of his return to duty and asked if there were any special orders. There were none; there never were any. The rest of the morning passed inspecting the men’s quarters, visiting the horse-lines, completing forms for the commissary, drinking tea and gossiping with the sergeant and one of the corporals, and finally doing something that was out of the ordinary and yet routine, making the monthly check of the security stores. Accompanied by the sergeant, a burly Latvian called Ulmanis, he again went to the main house, picked up from the orderly room an authorisation signed and dated by the adjutant and made his way to the reinforced door to the basement lift. Here a sergeant of Field Security and a sentry were stationed side by side. The sentry covered the arrivals with his pistol while the Security sergeant examined first Alexander’s identity-card, then the authorisation. At his nod, the sentry lowered his firearm, Alexander and Ulmanis turned their backs and the Security man pressed a row of numbered buttons in a sequence that was changed daily. The door slid aside. In the armoury it took the two visitors twenty minutes to establish that everything in the racks appertaining to the troop concerned, 8 Troop, was as it should have been. It was; it always was. As soon as the inspection was completed, Alexander followed standing orders by returning the authorisation to its source.

At 1430 hours Sergeant Ulmanis paraded the troop and reported all present and correct to Alexander. They numbered just twenty: one officer, one sergeant, one artificer-sergeant, four corporals, four under-corporals and nine troopers, the ninth being Alexander’s orderly, who was told off to remain in the office. The orders to mount, to proceed to the right and to march were successively given and obeyed. In their rough dark-grey undress uniforms and dull-yellow cross-belts 8 Troop were not a showy sight, but a trained eye would have noted the relaxed carriage of the riders and the fit condition of their mounts. Such an eye, or its owner, might also have noted the unusual composition of the small force: apart from those of the headquarters group, every riding-horse had attached to it a pack-horse, in each case a Cleveland cross-thoroughbred put back to a Welsh cob, specially trained to carry a heavy load across rough ground. Their burdens today were not quite what they would have been in action, but they were of identical weight and distribution. Breast-girths and cruppers kept the packs in place even at full gallop.

The party moved at a walk out of the main gateway, along the road and down a series of lanes for some kilometres; an unfamiliar stretch of terrain was required for the intended exercise, one not used in the same way before. Eventually Alexander, in the lead, reached a high point, raised his hand to signal a halt and passed the word for sub-section leaders. The eight NCOs dismounted and came forward.

‘You see that church?’

‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Yes, your honour.’ They saw it.

‘Good. Remember, anybody caught using a road goes straight on register. Sub-sections to the right extend in open order and await my signal. Double time.’

Very soon afterwards eight pairs of guardsmen were strung out twenty-five metres apart along the top of a grassy slope. Alexander, at the extreme right of the line, blew a loud blast on his whistle and they were away downhill at the gallop, the pack-horses not trailing the riding-horses but, as they had been schooled to, moving up level on the left-hand side for an improved field of view. It might have been thought that a glance at the map would have justified a couple of minutes’ delay, and certainly it might have been hoped (at least by the senior officers concerned) that a glance and more than a glance would precede any such move in a real engagement, but excitable, highly-competitive young men, confident of their proficiency and eager to show it off, are not famous for looking at maps at the outset of a steeplechase. But, again, this steeplechase was still a useful activity, fostering that sine qua non for any sort of cavalryman, eye for ground, as well as the peculiar capacities required for piloting two horses at once.

The slope was gentle and became gentler, perfect for a vigorous gallop, but Alexander pulled back behind the two pairs on the right flank, Sub-Section A and Sub-Section B, recognisable by their chestnut horses as much as by their position. When a troop of this category was carrying out the present exercise, it fell to the troop officer to keep an eye on the performance of the sub-sections on this side, so far as he could, while the artificer-sergeant covered the centre and the troop sergeant the left. His real reason for staying in the rear, however, was not this. A single, unencumbered horse and a rider of his own adequate abilities and excellent sense of direction were bound to beat any pair to the objective, a victory that even he (as some might put it) would find hollow. So, denied what he would have really liked, a fair or less unfair overall race, he prepared as always to devise a series of small races in which he would try, successfully for the most part, to beat a selected pair to some minor landmark a couple of hundred metres ahead, then hang back again to handicap himself for the next round with a different pair. It was hard to distinguish this pattern of behaviour from that of a conscientious officer watching his men closely but without interference or fuss; none of Alexander’s men had ever managed to. In the same sort of way, his simple love of playing soldiers made him take those men out of camp whenever possible and meant that he was good at devising tests of skill, initiative and endurance – games, in fact. As a result, 8 Troop’s physical fitness, state of training and general morale were unsurpassed in the regiment, even by the showpiece 1 Troop; it would be strange if they had not valued their officer for those benefits. The army, with all its outlets for childish interests, its elevation of them into rules of behaviour, had been an excellent choice of career for Alexander Petrovsky.

The ground became level, then rose a to a crest. The whole troop was spread out on the further slope in brilliant sunshine, making towards a long plantation of poplars, the sub-sections on the left keeping a straight path with their pack-horses already dropping back into line behind the ridden horses for the passage through the wood, those on the right swinging out to round its corner. From the crest to that corner it was something over three hundred metres. Alexander pushed his blunts into Polly’s sides and made off at top speed on a transverse course towards a point to the right of the wood which, he estimated, would just allow him room to overtake the sub-sections moving that way. The going was ideal here, short turf, level surface, dry but not baked hard; he was soon coming up fast. As their paths converged, he saw the corporal of S-S A glance over his shoulder, grin at him, turn to his left and shout something to his partner, who grinned too and nodded vigorously. A bare ten metres short of the invisible winning-post Alexander considered he was in front by a head and slowed to a canter.

The wood was evidently thicker than had appeared from the top of the slope, and those who had elected to go through it instead of making the detour had lost ground; at any rate the field was now well scattered, from front to rear as well as laterally. Along the foot of the hill ran a road with thick hedges on both sides. As Alexander approached, he saw the four grey horses belonging to S-S D – the under-corporal’s rangy gelding was unmistakable – jump the nearer hedge beautifully, almost together, then be pulled to a halt before the much higher further one. Perhaps the NCO would defy the rules and move along the road in search of a gap or a part low enough to be safely jumped; no, without hesitation he and his mate drew their sabres, leaped to the ground and began slashing away at the obstacle. (They were called sabres out of piety; they were more like heavy knives, part of the men’s stock of tools and other devices designed to help them in a most important aspect of their function in combat, the speedy crossing of rough terrain.)

The two had made a sufficient gap and were remounted and through it and away before Alexander reached the spot. It was time to put on the pace again, but that would not be easy in the bushy stretch in front of him; there would be no more races for a spell. After a few minutes’ frustrating work he found his way clearing and soon reached the edge of a field of wheat. S-S D or another had been through it fifty metres or more to his left, but despite the consequent loss of time he followed in their track so as to limit the damage done to crops to what was strictly necessary. There were horsemen ahead of him now, two groups crossing a strip of pasture where cows drew together in alarm. He followed at a full gallop, came to a hedge as high as any he remembered having jumped, sat tight in the saddle, pressed his knees in and pushed his hands and heels down and landed awkwardly but safely in a vacant space with buildings on two sides, turned a corner through a gateway and found himself in a farmyard among rearing mules, fluttering chickens and swearing English; somebody snatched a child out of his path. Then he was through and in the open again.

The church was four hundred metres away at the top of a steep slope up which S-S A – as it proved to be – was struggling; no others were to be seen. This race was too easy:

Alexander dismounted at the foot of the steeple, complimented Polly on her speed and agility and was perched on a gravestone smoking a cigarette when the two men and their four horses came clattering into the churchyard. All showed signs of exertion, but of some complacency too, the men with broad smiles, the horses hardly blowing, shaking their heads about.

‘Best of a bad lot for once,’ said Alexander airily.

The corporal, a tall melancholy-looking lad by the name of Lyubimov, gave a chuckle; he had dismounted and run up his stirrups and was loosening his charges’ girths. ‘For once, your honour? This makes the third time out of four that Lomov and I have nearly strolled in ahead of you and that cart-horse of yours.’

‘Of course, we know that Polly has a great burden to bear,’ said little Lomov, accurately gauging his officer’s mood.

‘Fortunately for you I choose to ignore that, Lomov. As for you, Lyubimov, you may well be right with your statistics, which seem to be unimpressive in any case. Only three times out of four? Surely, as befits its seniority, Sub-Section A must come first every time. And where’s S-S B, which I remind you is part of your command, Corporal Lyubimov? Oh well, let’s ignore that too. And now, to stop you standing there with your palms itching and your tongues hanging out, let me recognise the only motive that has made you exert yourselves and your wretched hacks this afternoon and satisfy your greed.’ Alexander took out his wallet. ‘For you, Lyubimov, a munificent ?10,000’ – the two notes were accepted with a bow – and?5,000 for Lomov as befits his even lowlier station. And well done, the pair of you. Good work.’ It would have taken two much less elated soldiers than these to find anything wrong with the way some of the foregoing had been said.

Presently there were men and horses everywhere. Warsky, the artificer-sergeant, arrived last. He reported that he had seen S-S E using a road. The sub-section corporal contended that he had merely crossed one at an angle. At this trivial dissension all Alexander’s good-humour departed. He announced snappishly that he would decide the matter at troop office the following morning, warned Ulmanis to make ready to move off in ten minutes and strolled over to the church door. Here a bilingual notice told of hours of business; the present moment lay within them. He could not remember having been this way before and had no idea of the nature of the business conducted, meat- or vegetable-market, communal eating-rooms, laundry or, as was most common, administrative offices. No signboard was to be seen: the old English hostility to strangers, he thought to himself, still going after all these years. Out of curiosity he decided to take a quick peep inside; he might even be able to get a drink.

He pushed at the heavy door and immediately heard an organ quietly playing a scale, a voice raised in exhortatory style and the murmur of a sizeable assembly. It was not what he had expected. In the small vestibule inside there stood a table with four or five identical books on it. He glanced at one and read without comprehension the words The Book of Common Prayer. Advancing further into the building he saw that the organ, elevated above the inner doorway, was being tested or altered or was perhaps still under construction. The voice he had heard was finishing a short speech about the necessity of consulting its owner on certain points, and the assembly, now seen to be after all not large, was very active, though what it was doing was not at once clear to Alexander, nor did he come to understand those doings in more than outline in the short time he stayed. He had evidently entered during an imposed silence, or comparative silence, which abruptly ended in an uproar of hammering, sawing and the whining of old-fashioned drills as he moved into the middle of things. Everywhere there were metre-square copies of the same photograph; it showed a large interior, but he had still not identified this when the man who had spoken, a Russian, clearly a supervisor of some sort, noticed the uniform, it seemed with no great relish, and hurried over. His companion, white-haired, round-backed, clearly a pre-war, gave a sideways look and turned away.

‘Is there anything wrong, sir?’ asked the supervisor. He was about fifty, pale, wearing a grey overall.

‘Not as far as I know. What’s going on here?’

‘Going on, sir? Why, we’re beginning to put the things into place. You should have seen it when we started. Those stairs up to the pulpit – this would be easier in English, sir, if you-’

“Easy for you not same as… Alexander reflected belatedly that here was a person of no account, and started again, It might well be for you, but it certainly wouldn’t be for me. Now you haven’t told me the purpose of all this.’

The man gave a frown of exasperating puzzlement. ‘The purpose? We’re restoring the church, sir. That’s to say, we’re putting it back like it used to be, before it was an ironmongery. So that when-’

‘Yes yes, of course, but… what are those men there doing?’

‘They’re building the, the places for the choir to be, sir.’

‘Just so. And that basin there?’

‘That’s the font, sir.’ Just in time to save his front teeth, the supervisor went on, ‘For the holy water, sir.’

‘Good,’ said Alexander, sounding relieved that these important details had not been overlooked. ‘And this, I take it, is how it was originally.’

‘Correct, your honour. In 1983, as you see. It had been out of use for some years before then, but not yet deconsecrated.’

‘No.’ How strange it looked, as if it had been the product of a different civilisation, showing nothing at all that could be paralleled in the surviving theatres or other public halls of those times. Even those features with an identifiable function, like the rows of benches where the audience must have sat, seemed almost perversely odd in their design. Perhaps that design could be traced to the Eastern origins of Christianity, but if so all the other progeny of that stock, if any, must have died out. As this one had. Once, as a small boy, Alexander had been taken into a church in Sevastopol, and he thought he remembered now that he had experienced the very same sense of the alien, almost the inhuman. And yet there had been something about what had been here, and in innumerable other such places, that men had been ready to die for – long ago, as Mets had said. Whatever it had been, it must have changed remarkably over the years.

It seemed time to be off, but just then a bald-headed fellow in an apron came bustling up to the supervisor. He said in some agitation and with a strong English accent,

‘Sir, sir, there’s a crowd of soldiers outside. I think you’d better-’

‘It’s all right, my good man,’ said Alexander blandly. ‘They’re my chaps.’

At the door he found to his mild surprise that he had taken his cap off; he could not remember having done so. On his reappearance Ulmanis called to the men to tighten girths and be ready to march, and Warsky gently shooed away the small crowd of children who had gathered to sit in the saddles and to beg?10 pieces. Alexander announced a tactical exercise for the return journey, naming a map-reference as assembly-point; no prizes were offered for first arrival there. Within a minute the churchyard was empty and the sound of hooves had faded. Suddenly the note of a bell came from the steeple, was repeated three or four times and then ceased, and the children on their way home wondered what it was.