The Golden Sabre

‘One of them is a Bolshevik,’ said Frederick. ‘That fellow Vlasov. He spits in the dust every time I pass him.’

‘So should I if I were not a lady. That doesn’t make me a Bolshevik. But Freddie is right – there are some out there who are not to be trusted. Nikolai has told me of some of the talk that has been going on lately.’

Nikolai had come across from the stables and stood just behind the two children. He did not understand the conversation in English, but he looked as worried as the others. He kept glancing down the avenue, waiting for the Tartars to come thundering back and kill them all.

‘The car under that cover in the barn,’ said Cabell. ‘Does it go?’

‘It hasn’t been driven since Prince Gorshkov went off to the war last December,’ said Eden.

‘What sort is it?’

‘A Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost,’ said Frederick. ‘There are only nine Rolls-Royces in the whole of Russia and the Tsar had two of those. But Father’s is the fastest of them all.’

‘A Rolls-Royce, eh? Then that means I couldn’t borrow it or buy it?’

‘Exactly,’ said Eden firmly. ‘You will take the horse and leave tonight.’

Cabell smiled. He was not much taller than Eden, just medium height, and though he had wide shoulders there was not much beef on him. Had the managers been able to sweet-talk him back in the days of his youth he would now be a middleweight, maybe fighting the likes of Mike O’Dowd and Harry Greb; whomever he fought, the situation would be less dangerous than this. He had black hair and a black moustache and sun-darkened skin that accentuated the white exclamation of his smile. His movements were a physical illustration of his personality, quicksilver in a tube that occasionally spilled its cork. Eden liked what she saw.

‘I won’t embarrass or endanger you, Miss Penfold. I’ll be out of here tonight. In the meantime I better start covering up my truck some way, in case those soldiers come back.’

‘Afternoon tea will be at four. I’ll send one of the servants for you.’

Eden had recovered her poise. She was perhaps a little stiff and starched, but that, Cabell guessed, went with being a governess. Under her straw hat he could see blonde hair drawn back in a bun; the style was severe but it showed her long graceful neck. She had dark blue eyes with heavy lids that made it hard for her to turn a glance into a stern stare; she had a slightly indolent look about her that was deceiving, an odalisque who cracked a whip; had Croydon had harems she might never have left England. Her figure was the sort that promised much even under the high-necked shirt and long brown skirt she wore; it was an unspoken and, to her, unrealized invitation to carnal thoughts in men. Cabell, who could have carnal thoughts with the best of them, shrugged philosophically. This was no time for getting randy.

‘Come on, children, time for your music lesson.’

‘I think I shall stay with Mr Cabell,’ said Frederick; then backed off as Eden raised her handbag. ‘Don’t you dare do that again! When we have won the war I’ll see that you go to jail with all the other Bolsheviks—’

‘Inside!’ snapped Eden, and after a moment’s further rebellion Frederick followed his sister into the house. ‘Forgive him, Mr Cabell. He’s not really a bad child. He just thinks, with his father away, that he has to be master of the house.’

‘Where are their parents?’

‘Princess Gorshkov is down in Tiflis, in Georgia, and Prince Gorshkov is somewhere with General Denikin’s army. I have no idea when they will be back,’ she added worriedly. ‘Princess Gorshkov wants us to join them in Tiflis. But how does one get from here to there, a thousand miles away?’

‘A good question,’ said Cabell; but he had his own problems.

‘I’ll be ready for tea when you call me. And thanks again, Eden.’

No man had called her plain Eden since Lieutenant Dulenko had called her that and my darling five years ago; not even Prince Gorshkov departed from the formal Miss Eden when he addressed her. But Igor Dulenko was long since dead and the love she had felt for him had withered away. It was strange that a strange man, using her given name so casually, should have reminded her of Igor and what she had once felt for him. For a moment she felt unutterably sad and she turned away from Cabell and went into the house without a word.

Cabell looked after her curiously, then he went back to the barn with Nikolai and began to think of ways of hiding the Chevrolet.

[3]

Cabell had been in the barn half an hour, had, with the willing help of Nikolai, pushed the Chevrolet right to the back of the barn and hidden it from casual sight behind stacked bales of hay. He had taken off his shirt from under his overalls and his skin, covered in dust, was streaked with a dark wash of sweat. He leaned against the shrouded Rolls-Royce and took the pannikin of water Nikolai brought him.

‘How is the war going, Nikolai? Are the Whites or the Reds winning?’

‘I don’t know, sir. We hear nothing down here. We have enough to worry about with that General Bronevich and his savages. As soon as the weather gets cooler they’ll start riding out this far and then we’ll—’ He did not finish the sentence, but shuddered.

‘Have you worked for the Gorshkovs a long time?’

‘Only three years. I am a Cossack from a little village on the Don.’

‘Then you’d be a good man to defend Miss Penfold and the kids.’

‘I doubt it, sir. My father used to say a fart would knock me down. He was a very vulgar man, vulgar and violent. He had seven sons, I was the youngest, and he said his spunk had run out by the time he got to me. When he was drunk he used to wail that he was the only Cossack along the whole Don River who had a fairy at the bottom of his garden. That was where he used to make me sleep, in the woodshed.’

‘Well—’ said Cabell; but was left with nothing else to say.

‘Well—’

Then they heard the sound of a car coming up the avenue. Nikolai raced to the doorway. ‘It’s General Bronevich and his soldiers!’

Cabell grabbed his shirt, hat and rifle and scrambled up the ladder to the loft of the barn. He heard the car grind to a halt, its engine whistling for a moment, then wheezing into silence; then he heard the jingling of stirrups and the murmurs of men as they steadied their horses. He crept across the loft and peered out through a crack in the timber walls.

The car’s driver had jumped down and opened the door. General Bronevich got out, followed by Pemenov. The sergeant and the horsemen who had been here earlier had returned, but they had not dismounted and remained in the background as the General went up the steps of the house and banged loudly on the front door.

Inside the house the servants, ears alert as yet-undiscovered radar, had once again fled to the cellars. Eden waved the children back up the stairs in the main hall and went fearfully to the front door and opened it. General Bronevich almost fell back down the steps in surprise.

He had been expecting some servant, as dumpy as himself, to open the door. Instead here was this pretty girl with hair the colour of Siberian buckwheat honey, a bosom that reminded him of the lower foothills of the Yablonois, and a body perfume composed of rosewater, starch and fear. He turned to Pemenov on the steps below him and said, ‘Come back for me in an hour. I shall interrogate this girl myself.’

‘Will it be safe, General?’

‘For me or for her?’ Bronevich’s smile was as obscene as an open fly, except that it was golden.

‘Yes, General. What about the men?’

‘Tell them to wait down by the front gates. I do not wish to be disturbed in my interrogation. You may take the motor car. Go for a drive and run over some peasants.’ He laughed loudly this time; he was suddenly in both high good humour and high tumescence. The afternoon was going to be better than he had expected, he had already forgotten why he had come here. ‘Get lost, as they say back in Skovodorino.’

Pemenov smiled, saluted, went down the steps, gave an order to the horsemen, climbed into the car and was driven off, followed by the six mounted soldiers. Eden watched all this, puzzled and still fearful, holding on to the front door for support while her legs seemed to get thinner and more brittle, so that she felt if she moved they would snap like dry twigs beneath her. She swallowed, trying to moisten her dry throat, while the palms of her hands felt as if they were holding a pint of water each.

General Bronevich gave her his bullion smile: gold gleamed in his mouth like a newly-opened reef. ‘I am General Bronevich,’ he said in Russian. ‘I am here to service you.’

Oh my God, Eden thought, does he really mean what he’s just said? She swallowed again, forced some words out of her arid throat: ‘What can I do for you, General? Your men have already been here—’

‘I am coming in,’ said the General and pushed past her and kicked the door shut behind him. He looked up and saw Frederick and Olga leaning over the balustrade at the top of the stairs. He hated kids, especially the kids of these nambypamby Russian aristocrats. He bellowed ‘Back to your room! I don’t want to see you again! Go!’

At the top of the stairs Frederick drew himself up; but Eden got in first: ‘Freddie, Olga – do as the General tells you! Go on, go back to your rooms – at once!’ Then she added, her voice thinning with the fear that was taking her over completely: ‘Please.’

Frederick hesitated, then abruptly he grabbed his sister and the two of them disappeared from the top of the stairs. General Bronevich winked approvingly. ‘You know how to handle children – good, good. Sometimes I think they should all be strangled at birth. But then we shouldn’t be here enjoying each other, eh?’ The gold came out again, carats of good humour. ‘Well, let’s see where we’ll have our little interrogation. Are there any bedrooms downstairs?’

‘No, General.’Should I scream for help? ‘Let us go into the drawing-room.’

The General, disappointed that he might have to take second best in the way of a comfortable rape, followed Eden into the drawing-room and shut the double-doors behind him.

It was a long, high-ceilinged room with a parquet floor on which rugs were scattered. A big blue-patterned ceramic stove stood in one corner; there was also a marble-surrounded fireplace in which logs were already stacked as if winter might strike at any moment. The furniture, painted white with gold trim, was solid rather than elegant; but the white grand piano in one corner stood on graceful carved legs and apologized for the heaviness of some of the other furniture. When the Gorshkovs had fled St Petersburg they had brought no furniture, but they had come heavily laden with ornaments. The rugs on the floor were Bokhara’s best, brought from the house in St Petersburg; a Corot and a Watteau, bought by Princess Gorshkov on one of her visits to Paris, hung on the walls; several minor pieces by Fabergé decorated the mantelpiece. But Bronevich, a man with a crude eye, saw none of these better adornments.