The Golden Sabre. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ it was a 1914 Chevrolet car which had had its rear seat and bodywork stripped away and a high-sided platform substituted. It had done more than its fair share of hard travelling and Cabell did not dare to guess how many more miles it had left in it before it fell apart from the battering it had taken in the past five years. It was a car that had been built for the soft dirt roads of America and not for the jungle tracks of Venezuela and the trackless rocky ground he had driven it over here in the Urals. The tyres, worn to condom thinness, had had forty punctures in the past three months; the brakes, when applied, were just a plunger pressed into a well of wishful thinking. He had intended taking it home more for sentimental reasons than because he thought it had many more years of usefulness left in it.

      But it was useful now. He knew that the next train for Ekaterinburg did not leave for another three days; by then General Bronevich might have decided that he was indeed a spy. He turned his mind against any thought of what might happen to him. Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time, always made sure that he did his magic in front of a friendly audience. He never attempted anything where the nearest applause was two thousand miles back in the stalls.

      As Cabell approached the Chevrolet a soldier rolled out from behind the shadow of the tailboard, stood up, lethargically brushed the dust from himself and asked Cabell where he thought he was going.

      ‘Can you drive?’ Cabell said.

      The soldier squinted and pondered, decided he understood the question and shook his head.

      ‘General Bronevich wants the truck round in the barracks yard. You better let me drive.’

      The soldier looked around for guidance, saw that he was alone, squinted and pondered again. Then he shook his head and raised his rifle threateningly. It was a Krenk, an ancient one that looked as if it might go off without its trigger being touched.

      Cabell smiled, feeling that his lips were splitting and his teeth falling out of their gums. ‘You can ride with me.’ He patted the front seat. ‘Right up there with the driver, Ivan. That should do wonders for your prestige with the girls around here.’

      The soldier squinted and pondered once more. Then he abruptly nodded and was up in the front seat so quickly it was almost a feat of instant levitation. Cabell went round to the front of the truck, swung the starting handle, got the engine to fire at the first couple of turns, got in behind the wheel and let in the gears. He drove slowly round the square till he came to the street that headed out to the main road to Ekaterinburg. The gasoline tank was half-full and there were eight four-gallon cans packed in boxes in the back of the truck. If the tyres held he could be in Ekaterinburg in just over two hours, three at the most. A British consul was stationed there and perhaps he could be persuaded to shelter an American till the latter could board the first train going east to Vladivostok. Cabell decided he would make the Consulate a present of the Chevrolet.

      As they reached the far side of the square Cabell, glancing across past the broken plinth that had once held a statue of the Tsar, saw General Bronevich come out of the barracks with Pemenov. There was a yell from the General and next moment a shot; a bullet hit the soldier in an arm and he dropped his rifle and screamed in pain. Cabell stepped on the accelerator.

      ‘Sorry, buddy,’ he said in English, ‘I think you’ll be safer on the ground.’

      There were no doors on the truck. Cabell reached across, gave a hard shove as he took the truck round a corner, and the soldier went tumbling out and hit the cobblestones with a thud that made Cabell flinch guiltily. But there was no time for conscience or sympathy. He put his foot down hard and the Chevrolet leapt away up the road towards Ekaterinburg.

      In the square General Bronevich was shouting Mongolian obscenities, than which there is nothing more obscene. An officer appeared out of the shadows and, hampered by his heavy riding boots, galloped across to the line of slumbering soldiers who, startled by the shot, were blinking themselves awake and looking for the enemy. The officer kicked them to their feet, yelling at them and himself, urged on by the yelling of General Bronevich. The soldiers, still only half-awake, stumbled towards the barracks stables and their horses.

      General Bronevich, no runner, waddled back into the barracks and through to the barracks yard; Pemenov, following him, looked more agile despite his tiny legs. The General’s driver, having taken both front wheels off the General’s car to repair the tyres, had lain down in the shade of the car and fallen asleep. He had taken off his boots and in his sleep, dreaming of his wife’s sister, was sensually wriggling his bare toes. General Bronevich, beside himself and everybody else with rage, shot off three of the driver’s toes and waddled back into the barracks and out into the square as half a dozen soldiers, mounted now, thundered out of the stables and took the road for Ekaterinburg.

      ‘Get my car fixed!’ General Bronevich bellowed to Pemenov. ‘I want that American’s head fitted to the radiator!’

      ‘Yes, General!’ Pemenov whirled and his short legs blurred as they carried him back into the barracks at surprising speed.

      Two miles up the road, the outskirts of the town already behind it, the Chevrolet was bowling along like the excellent car it had once been. Cabell, feeling better already as the wind drove in to cool him, began to think of home. In another month, six weeks at the outside, he would be driving down the road to Bloomington. His mother had died three years ago and since then his father had moved from Chicago to just outside Bloomington, where he had a small general store. If he was lucky he might even be home in time to take his father to see the White Sox play in the World Series. The Old Man’s last letter, picked up in Verkburg only this morning, had been dated June 1; but Jack Cabell had already been claiming then that this White Sox team was the greatest of all time, would be sure to make it to the World Series. Cabell had not seen a major league game since May 1912 and he was looking forward to seeing the men his father acclaimed, Eddie Collins, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Shineball Eddie Cicotte.

      He was dreaming of heroes of the past, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, thinking what a nice clean war baseball was compared to this civil war going on around him, when the off-side front tyre blew out. The car swerved violently and it was only with tremendous luck that he managed to keep it on the road. He had just got it under control and on a straight course again when the other front tyre blew out.

      [2]

      Eden Penfold dusted herself off after the truck, its horn blasting at her, had sped by. The horses had shied, but she had managed to steady them, though they were still trembling and nervous as she got them back into a steady trot. Beside her the children were brushing dust from themselves and Frederick was cursing in Russian.

      ‘Watch it!’ she snapped in English.

      ‘But I don’t know any English swear words—’ Frederick was twelve, a handsome, dark-haired boy with a slim frame, an innocent expression and an attitude towards life that suggested his education had begun some years before his actual birth. ‘You are always saying, Miss Eden, that one should never hide one’s true feelings—’

      ‘There’s a time and place for everything, even feelings.’ Ah dear God, if I could only express my true feelings. After six years she had begun to doubt that she had a true vocation as a governess. Sometimes she found herself thinking thoughts that were as revolutionary as those being trumpeted in Moscow right now; though hers were social and romantic rather than political. So far she had managed not to reveal any of her thoughts to her two charges.

      ‘You have a double standard,’ said Frederick. ‘One law for the rich like us and another one for you.’

      ‘How on earth can you stand him?’ Eden asked Olga.

      Olga, СКАЧАТЬ