A Cossack Spring, page 10
The steppe and Hughesovka
April 1871
Isay saw Kirill’s bullet hit one of the men in John Hughes’s sleigh. He’d also seen Kirill fall to the ground. As a Cossack would rather die than be unhorsed, he presumed his companion was either dead or mortally wounded. He recalled Misha’s warning. If John Hughes wasn’t stopped, the Jews would take over Hughesovka. It had been Kirill’s job to kill John Hughes, his to kill the Jewish doctor. If Kirill hadn’t succeeded, that was Captain Razin’s problem. There was no way he was going to fail in the task his captain had entrusted to him. He turned his horse towards Hughesovka.
He stopped when he reached the sheds used to store building materials on the outskirts of town. They were locked, and from the noise emanating from the beer house most workers were already celebrating Christ Arisen. He knocked the lock from a door with the hilt of his sword, walked his horse inside, and tethered it to a hook on the wall. Buckets of water were ranged next to stacks of concrete bricks and bags of cement. He tasted the water to make sure it was clean before placing one of the buckets within reach of his horse.
A worker’s jacket lay on a stack of bricks. He pulled it on over his uniform. It hid his tunic but not the red stripes down his trousers. He slit open a bag of cement with his sword and rubbed the grey dust into his trousers. He left the shed and glanced around. Men armed with hunting rifles were patrolling in front of the hospital. He walked away from them, before circling around to the back of the building.
Kirill had told him that the Jewish doctor lived in a separate block behind the hospital and Kirill should know after spending time there as a patient. All he had to do was lie in wait. If he used his sword there’d be no noise.
No noise at all.
Hospital, Hughesovka
April 1871
‘I’ll leave you in Matron’s capable hands, Glyn,’ John flattened himself against the wall as two porters carried Kirill, thrashing and cursing, into the treatment room. ‘The sooner I return to the office, the sooner I can get more men out on patrol around the town. I’m worried about that second Cossack.’
‘That second Cossack will be halfway to Taganrog by now,’ Father Grigor prophesied.
‘I’ll post more men outside, Vlad. If you need more send to the office.’ John said.
‘Don’t concern yourself, sir. I’ll patrol the inside of the building myself and leave two men on duty in the hall and corridor, although I think Father Grigor is right. That Cossack is long gone.’
‘You’ll send word to the office on Glyn’s condition – and Kirill’s?’ John asked.
‘Of course, Mr Hughes.’ Sarah waited until John and Father Grigor left before turning to Glyn who was slumped, white faced on a chair in the corridor. ‘As Nathan’s in the treatment room, we’ll use the dressing station, Glyn.’
‘I’m fine, Sarah. Stop fussing and tend to your other patient.’
‘I can see how fine you are, Glyn,’ Sarah snapped, concern for him making her terse. ‘As for our other patient, Nathan is seeing to him, although after the idiot took a pot shot at you, I don’t think he deserves medical care.’
‘You’d leave him outside to freeze to death?’
‘It would have solved a number of problems if Richard had taken better aim.’
‘Given the distance, I’m amazed Richard hit him, and coming from you that’s vicious. You can’t really want the man dead?’
‘The beast shot you, I feel anything but magnanimous towards him.’
‘He has a bullet in him.’
‘Which is good. Now behave like an adult, go into the dressing station, and let me see to your wound.’
Glyn finally allowed her to lead him into the tiny room.
‘Sit.’ She pointed to an examination couch.
He jumped on the high seat, removed his coat, and looked ruefully at his dinner jacket. ‘Damned man … sorry for the language. But he’s ruined a perfectly good fur coat, evening suit, and shirt.’
‘I’ll ask Praskovia to take them to the tailor in the shtetl. If he can’t repair them he can use them as a pattern so you can replace them.’
‘I suppose the jacket and shirt were tight.’
She helped him take off his evening jacket and collar. Dried blood had glued his vest and shirt to his skin. She soaked the fabric and peeled it gently away before studying the wound, and probing it gently with her fingertips. ‘You’re right, no bones are broken.’ She filled a bowl with water and antiseptic. ‘This will sting.’
‘You mean it will be agonising.’
‘Didn’t Peter tell you all doctors and nurses love to inflict pain?’
‘I watched him kill the ants in our mother’s pantry with boiling water when he was four or five years old. He had a gleeful look on his face.’
‘Peter the ant murderer. That’s something he never told me.’
‘I wonder if all medical personnel have something of the sadist in them.’ He winced when she irrigated the wound and swabbed it with cotton wool and gauze.
‘First lesson new staff are given is how to ignore people who complain.’ She probed the area around the entry and exit holes to make sure there was no residue left inside. ‘There, all done apart from the bandaging. I’ll give you something for the pain. Then you go home, put your feet up, or better still go to bed. I’ll look in on you when I finish my shift.’
‘Forget the pills. I’ll ask Praskovia to bring me a brandy.’
‘One, maybe two, no more,’ she lectured. ‘You’ve had a shock.’
‘I’ve survived worse.’
‘No doubt. But if you’ve any sense you’ll stay out of rifle range in future.’
‘I’ll take an umbrella with me the next time it rains bullets.’
‘I’m serious, Glyn. A lot of people depend on you … need you … love you …’
‘Hey,’ he grabbed her hand. ‘I’m indestructible.’
She was about to say Peter thought he was too, when Nathan knocked and opened the door.
‘What’s the prognosis?’
‘A flesh wound, cleaned and bandaged, although he moaned a lot,’ Sarah answered.
‘My commiserations, Glyn. She can be brutal.’
‘Glyn knows how brutal I am. I was about to send him on his way.’
‘Good. I need you to help me operate on Kirill. The bullet’s lodged in a rib. It’s shattered the bone and there are splinters in his lung. Rivka and Ruth are preparing the theatre now. I’ve asked Rivka to assist. She needs more theatre practice.’
‘As soon as I’ve found someone to clear up here I’ll be with you.’
‘Ruth can do it when she’s finished in the theatre. Anna and Miriam are on the ward. I thought it best to send Yulia home.’
‘Will her brother live?’ Glyn asked.
‘There’s no clinical reason why Kirill shouldn’t survive the operation and live until he’s ninety. However I won’t answer for his chances if he persists in shooting innocent people.’
‘Hopefully Colonel Zonov will cure him of that tendency after we hand him back.’ Glyn jumped down from the examination couch. Faint, he grabbed the door handle.
‘I’ll get one of the porters to take you home.’
Weak, irritable, Glyn snapped, ‘For pity’s sake, Sarah, it’s across the road.’
‘A slippery, snow- and ice-covered road that’s busy with traffic.’
‘It’s useless to argue with her,’ Nathan advised.
‘So I see.’ Glyn put his coat on over the bandages and picked up the bundle Sarah had made of his bloodied clothes. ‘All right, Matron, call a porter, and thank you for putting me back together,’ he added by way of an apology for his outburst.
‘I’ll see you when I get home. Don’t forget …’
‘Rest,’ Glyn finished. ‘I will as soon as I’ve helped Mr Hughes dig the foundations for the church he’s building and finished erecting the furnaces and …’
‘You must be feeling better if you can tease me.’ She kissed his cheek.
Sarah watched the porter help Glyn to his front door, before checking the ward. She called in on Ruth who was cleaning the treatment room and reminded her to sterilize the dressing station. Finally she went into the office. Sonya had compiled the lists of supplies they needed and was putting on her coat ready to take them down to company headquarters.
‘One of the porters can do that,’ Sarah said.
‘I heard Lyudmila’s finished making her Easter bread. I thought I’d bring some back for the porters.’
‘Then take a porter with you.’
‘You think that Cossack is in Hughesovka?’
‘Take one with you, just in case,’ Sarah repeated.
Nathan called to Sarah.
‘Save me and Nathan some Easter bread, please, Ruth,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll need it after we’ve finished operating. Bone fragments in lungs are always tricky.’
Glyn Edwards’ house, Hughesovka
April 1871
Praskovia ran to meet Glyn as soon as he walked through the door. ‘Mrs Edwards sent a message to say you weren’t badly hurt but you’d need to rest, master. Your bed’s ready. Pyotr’s stoked the fire. Are you hungry, thirsty? Here, let me take that from you.’ She took his bundle of clothes and handed it to a maid.
‘I’m in need of rest from fussing females. I don’t know who’s worse, you or Sarah.’ Glyn opened the door to his room. As usual, a fire was burning in the hearth, the brandy decanter and glass set out.
‘Can I get you …’
‘Nothing, Praskovia,’ he said in a softer tone after she’d closed the door. ‘I really am all right. If I need you I’ll call you.’
‘Yes, master.’
He poured himself a brandy, took a cigar from the presentation box John had given him for Christmas, and sat down.
Even when the bullet hit home, all he’d thought about was Praskovia. Her correct, subservient, and distant manner, so appropriate in a servant, so infuriating in a lover and so different from the way she behaved when she visited him at night. He was obsessed, entranced, and bewitched to the point where he could think of nothing and no one else.
The back door that connected to the servants’ quarters opened and Praskovia stood, framed in the doorway.
‘Ask if you can get me anything and I’ll … I’ll …’ He couldn’t even shout at her lest one of the other servants overhear.
‘You’ll what, master?’
He wondered if it was his imagination or if she was laughing at him. ‘Given the way you behave towards me in the day I wonder if our nights are a dream.’
‘If they are, I dream them too, master.’
‘I’m not your bloody master.’
‘Not here in this room at night you’re not.’ She locked the door behind her.
‘What are you doing?’
‘The door was open; I thought you’d need …’
‘Something?’
‘Me.’
‘After the way you treat me. Curtseying, waiting on my every whim.’
‘I’m your housekeeper, Glyn.’
It was the first time she’d spoken his name and he loved the way she said it. ‘You’re my lover.’
‘In private.’
‘I’d prefer you to drop the housekeeper and settle for being my lover.’
‘You were the one who reminded me that you’re married and all you can offer me is the loss of my reputation unless we keep our relationship secret.’
‘I’m not sure I can keep it secret.’
‘If you don’t, I’d be in trouble. I don’t know what it’s like in your country but here people like to gossip and condemn the way their neighbours live.’
‘In my experience people think and behave the same the world over. Only languages are different. Our nights …’
‘Are wonderful.’
‘We agree on something.’ He returned her smile.
‘You know I check the back door to this room every evening before I go to bed. You might not know there is a door in the passage beyond my room. It also has a lock. I told my mother and the other servants I keep it secured except at meal times to safeguard the china and silver cupboards. No servant knows where I spend my nights, other than my mother, who guessed, but only because she saw the way I look at you.’
‘And every morning you leave my bed before the rest of household rises and spend your days serving me and curtsying …’
‘Because that way no one will suspect I’m anything more than your housekeeper.’ She curled up on the floor beside his chair and rested her head on his knee. ‘I’ve told the servants you’re sleeping and I’m working on the household accounts in my room and not to be disturbed.’
‘So we have an hour or two to ourselves.’ He stroked her hair. ‘You look tired.’
‘I couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about you and the others.’
‘The bed is over there.’
‘I hoped you’d say that.’
‘I’m not fit for much other than sleep.’
‘Neither am I, but it would be good to sleep together.’ She rose and held out her hand.
Hospital, Hughesovka
April 1871
Ruth finished cleaning the treatment room and dressing station and lifted out the enamel bin that held the soiled gauze and cotton wool. She called the porters and told them to empty it. After scrubbing her hands in the sink of the treatment room, she went to the ward. The patients had finished their midday meal. Miriam had cleared away the trays and Anna was settling them down for their afternoon naps.
‘Tea?’ Ruth asked.
‘Please,’ Anna replied.
‘I’ll bring it in so we can update the patient charts while we drink it.’ Ruth went into the kitchen, picked up the kettle from the stove, and realised from its weight there wasn’t enough water to make three cups of tea. She filled it at the pump over the sink before setting it on the stove.
She found a tin of Easter biscuits a grateful patient’s family had sent in and arranged a selection on a plate. She was setting out cups and saucers on a tray when she glanced through the window that overlooked the back of the building. Vlad was outside the staff quarters talking to the porters she’d asked to empty the bin. The reflection of a man was staring back at her. She realised he was standing behind her and whirled round. Before she could scream, the man pushed his hand into her mouth, lifted her off her feet and away from the window. He rammed her against a low cupboard.
‘I know you. You’re the Jew doctor’s sister. Time for some fun.’ He thrust his hand up her skirt.
‘Ruth’s slow with the tea,’ Miriam said to Anna.
‘Stove’s probably playing up. It went out twice yesterday. I’ll see if I can help.’ Anna left the ward and walked down the corridor. She looked through the glass window into the kitchen and saw a man, his back turned to her, pushing Ruth down over a cupboard.
Ruth’s eyes, enormous terrified, stared blindly over his shoulder.
Anna was instantly transported back to the court in Merthyr. She smelled the stench of stagnant water. Shuddered with the same fear that had paralysed her when Ianto and Mervyn Paskey had carried her down the steps into Jenny Swine’s kitchen. Tasted again the metallic tang of sheer terror when she’d found herself alone, isolated, and powerless in the face of the Paskeys’ brutal savagery. Relived the shame of being stripped, the humiliation of the indignities they heaped on her …
She’d been helpless then but she wasn’t now. And she wouldn’t allow anyone to do to Ruth what the Paskeys had done to her.
She ran into the office, wrenched open the top drawer of Sonya’s desk, took the gun and charged back to the corridor.
Anna remembered what Alexei had taught her. She faced the glass window.
“Balance – take aim – squeeze the trigger.”
She pointed the barrel at the centre of the man’s back and fired … once … twice … three times.
She kicked the kitchen door open after he’d crumpled to the floor and fired again. Four … five … six …
She could hear Alexei’s voice echoing in her head. “Most hand guns hold six bullets. These Smith & Wesson models hold seven. They’re the first firearm to use metal-cased cartridges. Your target won’t move again if you hit it.”
Seven …
The man on the floor stopped moving. She was aware of Ruth sobbing. Of Vlad and another porter running towards her. Of Sarah, bloody from the theatre, hugging her.
‘He was hurting Ruth. I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry. He was hurting Ruth …’
‘I know, darling. You were brave …’ Sarah’s tears, harsh, salt mingled with hers.
Anna lifted her face defiantly. ‘I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry.’
The Tsar’s Dragons series
by
Catrin Collier
For more information on Accent Press
titles, please visit
www.accentpress.co.uk
CATRIN COLLIER
A Cossack Spring
ISBN 9781783754342
Published by Accent Press 2014
Copyright © Catrin Collier 2014
The right of Catrin Collier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Catrin Collier, A Cossack Spring
