The Romanov Rescue
- Автор: Кратман Том, Watson Justin
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Baen
- ISBN: 978-1-9821-2570-7
- Жанр: Альтернативная история
Электронная книга - «The Romanov Rescue». Краткое содержание книги:
As WWI comes to a close a German general, an escaped prisoner of war, and the crew of an airship converge to effect THE ROMANOV RESCUE. Can there be a world without communism?
Mankind’s history is bound up in the fabric of fate, a strong cloth, tough and closely woven.
It is the beginning of 1918, the last year of the greatest war in human history, to date. All the belligerents stagger on their feet. Starvation is an ever present reality, while disease waits in the wings. In Russia, no longer a belligerent but, instead, rapidly descending into civil war and chaos, a lone family—Father, Mother, four beautiful young girls, and a brave but sickly boy—await their own fate, shivering and hungry in the dark, hoping and praying for salvation.
Their relatives in England have turned their backs. The guards set over them do little but torment them. They look Heavenward, but God doesn’t answer. They know they’re a threat to the new regime, a threat that will, in time, be eliminated.
But even the strongest fabric has flaws. An escaped prisoner of war, caught, injured, and punished, but still highly capable, might be one. An airship, returned and at loose ends after a failed mission to Africa might be another. A German general, taking a wrong turn on his nightly walk and suddenly coming face to face with the reality of the monster rising in the east, would be a third.
Follow, then, as the general gives the orders, the prisoner of war raises the men from among his fellows, and the airship launches itself forward, to contest fate, to tear the fabric of time, and to effect The Romanov Rescue.
About the Carrera series:
“I’ve heard too much about what the prisons are like for a ‘political’ not to be. And since the Bolsheviks asserted their authority here in Tobolsk, not so long ago, I’ve felt the need to be careful. I mean, when it was just my dentist who was a Red, it wasn’t so bad. And she, at least, was a competent dentist.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see the inside of one and I have no political baggage whatsoever.” This last, of course, was not remotely true. “Could I offer you ladies lunch? And, for languages; do you and your friend speak French?”
“We do.”
“So do Natalya and I. Let French, then, be our language.”
There was another hotel near the town center. It, too, offered meals for a price in a warm dining room. Turgenev, Natalya, and their two new acquaintances went in there and waited for someone to bring menus.
Looking around, the lieutenant said, “Place like this, I’d expect them to just post the menu on a chalkboard.”
At the next table, a man, sitting alone, and already well on his way to drunkenness and slurring his words, said, “Why botha? The men… men… menu this time of ye… ar is always the sa… me. Rye-ey bre… ad and soup. Sometimes the soup is bif… sometimes… sterlet…. sometimes… well… sometimes you don’ really wanna know. To be fairrr, when they have sterlet, it’s actually pppretty ggggood.”
“Comrade,” said Turgenev, “I know it’s not my business, but isn’t it a little early in the day for this?”
“Whennnn… you haf los’ your jo… ob… that you hel’ for t’irty year… zzz… wha’ diff… er… ence… t’e time o’ day.”
“You have a point,” the lieutenant conceded. “Who did you work for.”
“T’e tsa… tsa… t’e tsar.”
There is a God, thought the lieutenant. Well… there is, but His hand may not be in this. Small town, after all, and what’s a recently fired servant to do but get drunk.
“I am Maxim Sergeyevich Turgenev,” the lieutenant introduced himself. “To whom do I have the honor of addressing myself?”
The drunk leaned over and reached out a hand, only to collapse to the floor unconscious.
“Been expecting this to happen,” said one of the waiters of the hotel. He called over a couple of men to pick the drunk up and toss him outside into the icy street.
Turgenev intervened. “Don’t you have rooms here?”
“He isn’t paying for a room. Out he goes.”
The lieutenant reached into a pocket and pulled out some gold ten-ruble coins. “How many days in a decent room—with a fire—will this buy him?”
“With meals?” asked the waiter.
“Yes.”
“Six days.”
Certain he was being cheated, still Turgenev said, “Then take these and take him up to a room. And what is the soup for today?”
“Sterlet, served with bread and butter. Despite what the drunk just said, there is a little more pattern to the menu than that. Fridays and Wednesdays are always fish, yes, often sterlet, but sometimes other fish. Mondays tend to beef, Tuesdays to pork. Thursdays will be chicken or some other kind of fowl. Saturdays and Sundays are not that predictable, so it’s best to ask.
“I can tell quality when I see it, too,” said the waiter. “Today being sterlet, well, you gut a sterlet, you also get caviar. Would you and your…”
“My sister,” Turgenev supplied, “and our friends.”
“Of course. Your sister. And friends. Well, would you and your sister and your ‘friends’ care for some caviar with thin sliced toasted bread and sour cream?”
“Sour cream? In Tobolsk? In the dead of winter?”
“We have a deal with a nunnery that runs a dairy not too far from here. So will you have it?”
Turgenev stole a glance at Natalya, who seemed about ready to drool at the prospect.
“Yes, please.”
“And the soup and bread?”
“Oh, by all means.”
“Thank you, Maxim Sergeyevich,” whispered Natalya across the table after the waiter had left. “Yes, thank you,” added Sophie, a sentiment echoed in English by Miss Mather.
In the course of the meal, which was, as the drunk had claimed, “pretty good,” Turgenev worked on extracting whatever information he could glean from Baroness Buxhoeveden.
“I was staying at the Kornilov House,” she admitted, “right up until the Reds demanded I move out. Fortunately, Miss Mather was able to accommodate me in her rental.”
Turgenev resisted the impulse to be polite and offer perhaps better accommodations. That she knows things I want to know does not necessarily mean she should be trusted with things I do know.
“As for the royal family; they’re cold, hungry, miserable, and frequently unwell. But they persevere; it’s an inspiration really.”
“How are they doing for money?” Turgenev asked.
“That situation is not good. They’ve had to let many of their personal retainers go;” she replied, “that drunk was apparently one of them, though I couldn’t put a name to his face.”
“I’m not sure he could, either,” muttered Turgenev, in Russian, rather than French, raising a titter from both the Russian-speaking females. Returning to French, he asked, “Is there a way to get money to them?”
“It’s been done,” Sophie answered. “I’ve been a conduit to pass things to the valet, Volkov. But I think a certain amount, whether of money or food, finds its way into someone’s pocket or larder before it gets to the family.”
“I confess,” said Turgenev, “that the idea of the ex-royal family living in want disturbs me. Is it possible, then, do you think, to have someone else carry money in?”
Sophie thought about that for a moment. “Well, there are people who work inside but have quarters outside. So maybe.”
“What is better to send, gold and silver coin or currency?”
“A ten ruble gold coin,” she answered, “is worth as much as a one hundred ruble note, for some purposes. But, then, the notes are lighter and easier to pass.”
“A mix, then, but I insist that what I send to the tsar gets to the tsar. Can you, Baroness Buxhoeveden, make arrangements for my sister, here, to bring money in. I’ll be happy to give a ten percent premium to whichever person still working inside gets her in and out.”
Sophie thought upon this, weighing the greed and corruption of both the Bolshevik guards and some of the tsar’s remaining staff. “Kirpichnikov,” she said. “He’s a cook cum pigkeeper. It’s very hard to tell where cooking ends and pigkeeping begins, too. But he’s said to be extremely loyal and can come and go without much difficulty. He could, I think, bring an assistant with him.”
“Perfect,” said Turgenev.
Governor’s House, Tobolsk
Since Natalya had been seen at the gate before, it seemed wise to disguise her a bit. This was done partly by lowering her standard of dress from the way the freed women had dressed her to something more approaching what would be expected of the local peasantry. The market had been most useful for this. Other changes included putting her hair up in twisted braids and adding a few smudges to her face. Perhaps most importantly, given that she’d be dealing with men, was that she now sported enormous breasts, monuments to both one of Sophie’s own bras and one or more of the imperial mints.
“It will have to do,” said Sophie, standing back and scrutinizing her handiwork.
There were, as usual, two guards on the gate. One held his rifle at port arms, more for show than for any other reason, while the other unlatched and pushed slightly open the broad wooden gate. Both had a hard time keeping their eyes off of Natalya’s false chest.