The Romanov succession

The pale disc of the sun was vague in the grey November sky. In the distance beyond the woods he saw the Dakotas going over, vomiting jumpers toward the fifty-foot target circle. Alex watched the jumps as he ran.

The runway was 4,800 feet long and they were running three laps today. Going into the third lap ahead of Solov’s company of troops he felt the pull of the stiffened muscle of the bullet-pinked leg.

Breathing to run: let it all out, open the mouth wide, pull in as much as the lungs can hold-and hold it there for three strides; then expel it and do it again. It had taken him two weeks of running to get his wind back but now he had the rhythm and hardly noticed the weight of the combat pack on his shoulders.

It was more of a dogtrot than a run-you didn’t sprint for two and a half miles-but they were eating up the ground at a good clip and there weren’t any stragglers. Solov ran along at the rear of the column, keeping them bunched up, running the way he walked-with a pronounced roll, as if each leg almost collapsed before the other took his weight. Now and then he would yell at them; he began yelling in earnest when they got toward the end of the lap and the company put on a burst of effort and came tumbling off the tarmac onto the grass around Alex. A good many of them were hardly out of breath.

Solov gathered them in close-order formation and marched them across the runway to where their rifles were stacked in neat pyramids, muzzles skyward. They shouldered their arms and marched quick-time into the woods to the bayonet field and Alex charged with them, roaring in his chest, heaving the deadly spear into the dummies and yanking it out and rushing on to the next.

After bayonet drill the company sprawled on the grass and Alex went around talking to them individually. “How do you feel, soldier?”

“Very well, sir. Thank you.”

He went on. There was a young man-one of the very few who had joined the regiment since the Finland campaigns-sitting on the ground cleaning his bayonet. Alex stopped by him. “Keep your seat, Zurov. How do you like the training?”

“Sometimes it gets a little boring, sir. But I know we need it.” Zurov’s unformed face did not yet contain the lines that made a whole human being.

“You find the bayonet drill boring?”

“Oh not that, sir. It’s rather fun. Bayoneting straw dummies is only playing a harmless game, after all.”

Alex nodded and moved on to the next: “Everything all right, soldier?”

Solov came across the grass toward him, head and shoulders rolling. “They’re nearly ready, General.”

“Yes, I think they are.” Alex turned his shoulder to the others and went on in a lower voice. “You’ll have to wash Zurov out.”

“Zurov? He’s one of the brightest youngsters we’ve had in years.”

“He thinks of bayonet drill as a harmless game, Solov. Those who recognize that are the ones who have trouble facing the real thing-when the time comes to put his knife in a man he’ll hesitate.”

“Very well sir. I’ll have him assigned to orderly duties.”

“You’ve got eight minutes to move them to the hand-to-hand course. Better get them on their feet now.”

He walked away from the company in a mild gloom of depression. You had to thank God there were still men like Zurov-and when it came to the practice of war you had to give them the back of your hand.

Spaight came batting into the hangar office at half-past four. “Damn good. I only had six jumpers outside the target circle the last go.”

“That’s six too many, John.”

“It’s better than last week-and next week will be better than this one.”

“It’s going to have to be. We’re pulling out in twenty-one days.”

In the evening Alex watched Major Postsev and Prince Felix rehearse the men on Red Army regulations and behavior. One by one the men had to recite their false identities, the “friends” they had in the Seventeenth Red Army Division on the Finland border, the official reasons why they were traveling detached duty. It wasn’t only to get them in; it was a drill designed to get them out as well-if the operation went sour. It was the only way Alex knew to set it up: he wasn’t sending them in unless the back door remained open for them to escape if they had to. There would be tremendous risks for them but at least they had to be given the chance.

At half-past eleven when he left the hangar they were still at it. He walked out through the gate and along to the cottage and let himself in wearily. Corporal Cooper sat in the parlor drinking tea, watching the clock and the warm red tubes of the shortwave transceiver.

Alex went through to the back of the house. Sergei was in the kitchen-standing guard, stiffly zealous of Irina, unwilling to leave her alone in the house with Cooper. It amused Alex a little: she was capable of turning men like Cooper into quivering jelly if it suited her; she was in no danger from that quarter. But it wouldn’t do to belittle Sergei’s loyalty.