The Restless Sea, page 33
The Russian captain glares at them from the bridge, his lined face bunched deep inside his coat. ‘Don’t mind him,’ says Jarvis. ‘He’s a big old softie, really.’
‘Better go and make myself known,’ says Captain Underhill, and Charlie sees the Russian captain’s stern face break into a smile as he welcomes the captain in.
Jarvis and his signalman are the only British men on the icebreaker. The ship signals to the merchant ships to line up behind and continue on their way. They enter the White Sea, a carpet of ice that thickens as they draw nearer to the mouth of the River Dvina. High up in the crow’s nest a Russian lookout reads the ice as the ship’s reinforced bows crunch and smash a pathway. Occasionally the lookout yells down, and Jarvis translates for the signalman, who relays the message via his Aldis lamp to the ship behind. From there, the merchant ships shout through a megaphone to each other: ‘Stay in line! Station! Pass it on!’ As the ice grows still thicker, ice-breaking tugs come to assist, stopping the ice from immediately freezing again to pinch and buckle their hulls. The straggly line proceeds at a crawl of no more than two knots. Charlie is thankful that submarines cannot operate here under the ice.
‘Do you know anything about survivors from convoys getting back home?’ Charlie asks Jarvis.
‘Not really. You can imagine things are somewhat chaotic when people turn up here. It’s difficult enough when we’re expecting you.’
‘But there have been survivors?’ Charlie asks.
‘Plenty,’ says Jarvis. ‘Sometimes the Navy decks are crammed with men whose ships have gone down. They’ll risk sitting up on deck all the way if it means they’ll get home.’
‘What about you?’
The translator shrugs. ‘I’m getting fond of the place,’ he says.
The scene at Archangel is like nothing Charlie has seen before: the river is frozen so thick that people, horses, carts, and even lorries criss-cross it. In the half-light Charlie watches as a reindeer pulling a packed sledge overtakes them, scooting along past the icebreaker. Like everyone else, the passengers are wrapped up in thick coats with quilted baggy trousers tucked into felt boots, so that it is hard to differentiate between men and women until Charlie realises that the men wear a fur or astrakhan hat with pull-down earflaps, while the women wear headscarves.
‘It’ll be time to divert convoys to Murmansk soon,’ says Jarvis. ‘Unloading these ships is becoming impossible. The tanks and lorries are frozen. Can’t even get ’em started.’
‘Do they send anything back to Britain in return?’ Charlie asks.
‘The odd silver fox fur. The rest is just railway sleepers for ballast. They don’t really have anything to send. That’s why we’re here.’
Charlie covers his nose with his hand.
‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ says Jarvis. ‘Gets worse when it’s frozen like this; can’t dump everything into the water and forget about it.’
Charlie takes in the broken crates, rusted vehicles, and potato peelings strewn across the ice. There are even rats scampering about on it. He turns away as a woman crouches down to relieve herself, a yellow stain spreading slowly beneath her. Jarvis chuckles. ‘You get used to it,’ he says.
At the dock, there is a man fishing in a hole in the ice, among the effluent and rubbish that bobs on the oil slick inside it. A group of men shuffles towards the arriving ships. They are surrounded by armed guards. ‘Who are they?’ says Charlie.
‘Prisoners,’ says Jarvis.
‘But they haven’t got any hats,’ says Charlie, blowing on his cold hands.
‘Most of them haven’t got any shoes.’
‘Can’t we give them something?’
‘Best to ignore them. For their own sakes.’
‘Can’t we chuck them some bread at least?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Where do they come from?’
‘We’re not sure. They’re herded out whenever there’s a convoy to unload.’
It is dark when they head back to Polyarnoe. Behind them, the ice closes up around the delivered convoy, sealing it into the city of Archangel. Some of the ships will be stuck there for months. Charlie is relieved that he won’t be on one of them. As they motor back through the White Sea, there is nothing to see in the icy blackness around them, until a crown of light bursts from a tear in the sky and the surrounding ice becomes a ghostly carpet of luminous white. The Northern Lights. With a twinge he pictures Scotland, Olivia.
Charlie and Captain Underhill are transferred on shore by more Russians at Polyarnoe. The Russian crew and Jarvis and the signalman come too. Jarvis warns Charlie to accept any checks with as much good grace as he can muster. ‘The Russians are a suspicious lot, and we’re the only foreigners for miles.’ Charlie struggles to comply as his papers are pored over meticulously again and again.
The officers have been invited to dine with the commissar. Charlie asks Captain Underhill if he can go to the naval base first to check the records for the injured survivors who have been sent home. The translator relays the message to the Russian captain, who shakes his head gravely. ‘Sorry,’ says Jarvis. ‘Welcoming celebration first. You mustn’t snub the commissar.’
The Russian captain nods. For a moment, Charlie wonders if that is fear in his eyes, but then they are ushered on by their Russian guards, and the captain’s face returns to its expressionless stare.
Charlie finds himself in a large heated building with thick double-glazing. The tables are laid with caviar, fish, smoked salmon, meat, rice, and a seemingly endless supply of vodka. It is a far cry from the rotten fish and scraps of vegetables that he saw at Archangel. The commissar is a genial man who toasts the motherland, and then the British and Russians in their great war against the fascist aggressor. The Russian speeches go on and on, and the British men wouldn’t understand a word if it weren’t for the translators. A friendly British officer on Charlie’s table advises him to eat lots of butter to soak up the vodka. ‘It really helps,’ he says.
‘You must come and hear our male-voice choir,’ says the commissar, stuffing more food into his mouth. ‘They sing every weekend without fail, whether the bombs are falling or not.’ The men cheer. Their cheeks are rosy with vodka. They grin at the waitresses and the women who are dotted around among them, but the guards narrow their eyes and the women look away. It is impossible to relax.
Charlie thinks of the prisoners along the coast fishing among the filth. He thinks of the girls in London selling themselves to eat. He has had enough. Feigning tiredness as soon as is polite, he asks to be taken to the British naval base. After much muttering and a lot of assistance from Jarvis, they are both allowed to leave, escorted by a Russian guard. There is another bunch of prisoners clearing the snow from the streets, piling it up along the sides just as Charlie’s fellow sailors do on the flight deck. Except these men and women have cardboard on their feet instead of thick woollen socks and boots. As Charlie passes, he sees an old man lunge for a crust of mouldy bread that has been thrown out on to a pile of rubbish. The man almost gets away with it, but then a guard notices him chewing, his sunken cheeks working in and out. With a shout, the guard thwacks the old man on the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. The old man crumples to the ground. The other prisoners continue with their work; no one moves to help the lifeless figure. Charlie takes a step towards him, but his escort bars the way, motioning with his rifle for Charlie to keep on going. The guard’s face is impassive and he is unfailingly polite, but the message is simple. ‘Remember what I told you,’ says Jarvis.
Once they are in the safety of the officers’ mess, where it is warm and dry and there are no Russian guards, Charlie turns to Jarvis. ‘How can they hit a man for picking up some stale bread?’
‘Lucky he wasn’t shot.’
‘Can’t you do anything about it?’
Jarvis shakes his head. ‘This is Russia, my friend. Full of suspicion and contradiction.’
‘I don’t know how you cope. How do you let off steam?’
‘Surely you heard the commissar talking about his male-voice choir …’
‘I’m serious.’
An officer with a dark beard looks up from a paper. ‘If you’re talking about women, my friend, make sure you steer well clear. Any Soviet woman who fraternises with a foreigner has a tendency to disappear.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Soviets don’t like their people socialising with us.’
‘Even though we’re helping them?’
‘Doesn’t mean Stalin has to like us. Half the time, he’s complaining that our convoys aren’t arriving with what they’d promised.’
‘They can’t exactly help getting blown out of the water.’
‘Maybe he thinks we’re killing ourselves on purpose.’
‘Bloody ungrateful.’
‘They’re only following orders like the rest of us. Once you cut through the crap, you’ll find the Russians themselves are lovely people. Can’t fault ’em.’
‘What a situation to be in …’
Jarvis and the man with the dark beard nod. ‘So no women and no parties; what do you do?’ says Charlie.
‘The usual,’ says Jarvis. ‘Rowing races and football matches when we have enough men. The Russkies aren’t allowed to join us, of course, so we have to wait for you lot …’
‘That’s the only time we ever get any fun.’
‘Apart from the Luftwaffe dropping in most days.’
They all laugh. Then there is silence for a bit.
‘I hope it’s all worth it,’ says Charlie eventually.
‘It will be,’ says Jarvis. ‘It has to be.’
The officer with the beard checks through his list of returning survivors, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Oh.’ His finger stops. ‘Hang on. There’s some from the Aurora went back in September. Two lots. Look here.’
‘Names?’ says Charlie.
‘Rifter, Gerald; Pedersen, Johan; Mills, Carl.’
‘No Sullivan?’
‘Nope.’
‘Damn.’
‘Maybe your man got picked up in the water and taken another way?’
‘Is this a record of all the men who made it to Russia?’
‘As far as we know. But that doesn’t mean it’s definitive. People slip through the net. Some are dead. Some don’t want to be found …’
‘Best to seek out one of those chaps off the Aurora when you get home,’ says Jarvis. ‘They’ll be the ones most likely to know what happened to your friend.’
‘Home? God knows when that will be.’
‘That reminds me,’ says Jarvis. ‘You wouldn’t do us a favour? The Russians are asking to see all our mail now. We won’t let ’em have it, though.’ The translator holds up a handful of letters. He puts his fingers to his lips and then whispers: ‘We’re sending ’em back hidden inside everyone’s clothes.’
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Bugs,’ he says, pointing at the light.
Charlie opens his coat while the men stuff letters inside the pockets. Half an hour later he is shivering on the quayside while a sentry studies his papers again. Charlie’s heart is hammering and he is sure the man will spot the extra padding. But the guard looks him up and down one more time before stepping aside and indicating with a curt tilt of his head that Charlie can go on. He steps into the safety of the launch.
‘Come and visit us again,’ says Jarvis from the quayside.
‘I’ll try,’ says Charlie. He is sorry that he still has no answers for Olivia, but he is not remotely sorry to be leaving this godforsaken place behind.
CHAPTER 22
Jack
Anya takes Jack to a family whose wooden hut lies in the hills behind Polyarnoe. She follows an invisible track through the myriad paths in the snowy forest until they reach a shabby hut. Only a thin curl of blue smoke rising from the chimney marks its presence in the shadow of the pine trees. Anya knocks on the door and calls out. It is a simple dwelling, with one large room downstairs where the couple sleep and eat and live. Their mattress is partitioned behind a large patterned cloth. Upstairs is a bare attic, used to store food, and too cold to survive in.
An old man and woman are pushing themselves out of their chairs by the fire. They welcome Anya with warm voices, stroking her face and clasping her in a tight embrace. Jack watches with a pang. It has been a long time since anyone showed him such tenderness.
The couple turn to him, and Anya introduces them. ‘Dmitri and Elena,’ she says. Jack shakes their leathery hands, thick with calluses like his own, though their knuckles are swollen with arthritis. Their skin is patterned with deep lines. Most of their teeth are missing.
‘This is a good family. My husband’s family,’ says Anya. The old lady starts to remove Jack’s coat, indicating for him to sit. It is cosy in the hut, thanks to the fire flickering in the corner of the small room.
‘I am afraid you can’t sleep in here,’ says Anya. ‘It is too dangerous for them. But there is a room in the woodshed.’
Jack is encouraged to find access to the woodshed through the side of the hovel. The wood is stacked neatly against the wall. There is plenty of straw on the floor, and another cloth that separates his living quarters. There is a low table, and a washbowl. The small window is well fitted, and he cannot feel or hear the wind that sweeps through the forest on the other side. ‘They used to have a worker who lived here,’ says Anya. ‘In better times.’
Jack returns to the hut. Elena is busy stirring a cauldron over the fire. Dmitri pours steaming cups of tea from the samovar, the shiniest and most ornate piece of equipment in the whole shack. They sit and gaze into the flames. Jack feels the tension drain away, his limbs relax. He has a sudden vision of the fire at the bothy, and Olivia’s warm hand on his arm. He smiles as he allows himself to picture her. But it is only Elena, offering more tea. He cannot communicate in words, but he smiles and nods his head, which she seems to understand.
‘They are the reason I am here,’ says Anya. The light from the flames picks out the tears wavering in her eyes.
‘I am one of the lucky ones,’ she says. ‘I escaped from Leningrad. My husband joined up as soon as we knew the Germans were on their way. Thousands of men died – most of them as they were sent in against the advancing Germans. They didn’t stand a chance. Food became scarce. We mixed our flour with sawdust. My baby screamed … I have never been so hungry. My insides turned in. People died in the streets and we just stepped over them. We had no water, only snow to drink. No power. We were too weak to move the dead bodies. We burnt everything. We put whatever we could find in the stew pots: rats, shoes, belts, cats … Only when the rivers froze could supplies come in and some of us get out … All those people left behind … I cannot imagine what it must be like now. I have heard rumours of people eating people. They couldn’t evacuate any more when the river melted. I came by train in the end to Murmansk.’ She swallows. ‘I am the only one from my mother’s family that survived.’ The tears swell and drip over her lids and down her cheeks.
‘Do you know what happened to your husband?’
‘He is on the Eastern Front. I have no news of him.’
‘Your baby?’
She wipes her hand across her cheek to catch the tears as they fall. ‘My baby did not survive. She starved … There was no food …’ She cannot finish the sentence. She is trembling. ‘We became no more than animals.’
Dmitri fills their mugs with a steaming liquid that can hardly be described as soup. Elena strokes Anya’s hair, and as the firelight catches the tracks of their tears, Elena starts to sing a ballad. Her voice is as sweet and strong as that of a young woman. Jack cannot understand it, but the meaning is clear. He lets the sound wash over him.
After a while, Anya stands, brushing down her skirt. ‘I am sorry,’ she says. ‘We are not allowed to talk of these things, so when we do, we cannot stop. You must help them in return.’ She motions at the couple.
‘Of course,’ says Jack.
‘You can cut wood for them and help them grow food. They have had enough hardship. They are happy to assist you. They know without your convoys, the Fatherland would be lost and more of our families would starve.’
‘So why would they get in trouble?’
‘This is still Russia,’ she says. ‘It is a risk for all of us. It is a risk for me too.’
Days turn to weeks. Dmitri and Elena plunder their stores. There is salted fish and some sort of salted meat that is possibly reindeer or yak, and hopefully not dead German as the rumour among the British had it. There are pickled cabbages, and thin, mouldy carrots in sacks. There are still courgettes from the summer, some pickled, others puckered and withered up in the cold attic. There is still a small amount of rice. Jack does what he can to help, swinging the axe in the dusky pink evening light. The nights are getting longer, the world darker. At first, his body ached, but he has built himself back up. He enjoys feeling his muscles tense and tighten and the heat flush through his body so that he can chop wearing only his vest. He lugs the logs for the old couple, and hammers loose slats for them, digs the earth, repairs the roof. Sometimes he imagines Olivia is next to him, carrying a bucket of water or laughing in her easy manner. He is almost ready to return to her. His feet no longer hurt. No one comes to visit except for Anya. Occasionally a Russian soldier skis down from the hills, where Anya says there are British telegraphists listening out for the Germans and Finns. The borders of Norway and Lapland are so close. Most days, enemy planes pass over this uninhabited spot and drone on to Murmansk. In the distance, Jack can hear the boom of guns from the front – and the bombers heading out across other parts of Russia from Norway. Occasionally he spots an RAF plane aiming for the airfield at Vaenga. He prays that Carl has got home.
As the ice cracks and spreads across the White Sea, the temperature plummets further and there is no daylight, only the glow of twilight on snow. The old couple rarely leave the hut, stoking the embers of the fire to keep warm, chewing on bark to stave off the pangs that gripe in their stomachs. Food is very scarce. Dmitri shows Jack how to lay traps for rabbits, but he seldom catches one. When he does, he guts and skins it with Olivia’s knife. He remembers her teaching him to slice into the fish in Scotland. He tries to cut a hole in the ice of a lake up in the hills, but it is too thick. He would do anything for her rifle: sometimes he glimpses the deer moving like ghosts through the trees. As the blizzards come, the hunger gets worse, gnawing at his insides, and with it thoughts form like pictures in his mind. He tries to focus on Olivia and the bothy, the boat, the hills, but instead the ghosts of his past begin to inhabit the shadows in the woodshed. The branches tapping on the window at night are Stoog waiting in the alley. The embers of the fire are London burning. He can sense the streets, hear the drone of the bombers, the pavement pounding beneath his feet. He can smell the juicy lumps of meat and the sugary sweet fruit they used to steal. He remembers the tomatoes in the greenhouse with Olivia. Did he ever change? Is he the same boy who abandoned his mother? Who is there to prove he is an apprentice? Who will believe he might make an officer one day? Mart and Burts are gone. Andersson and Russell cannot bear witness. In the darkness of morning, his mother lies broken and alone on the floor.
