4
Officers’ call was at nine. He was in the hangar by seven-forty, ready to go over the mound of papers that abstracted the regiment’s status: its personnel, its supplies, its readiness.
Tolkachev came strutting out of the office. He didn’t offer a greeting; just stood at attention waiting.
“Let’s go back to your office.” The leg twinged angrily when he strode past the Cossack.
He waited for Tolkachev to follow him into the cubicle. “Shut the door please.” There were enlisted men elsewhere in the hangar; it wasn’t for their ears.
Tolkachev shut them in. Alex stayed on his feet. He felt brittle. “We haven’t got room here for personal antagonisms. Are you prepared to work under my command?”
“I will not resign voluntarily from the regiment.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Finally Tolkachev said, “I have been adjutant here for nearly two years, sir.”
“You’ve been used to having it your own way here. You’ve been the operations man-General Devenko wasn’t to be bothered with the details of running a unit. And in the last few weeks you’ve got accustomed to being in command-there was no one here but you. That’s got to change. Can you accept that?”
“I would be willing to take orders…”
“But not from me, is that it?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“I commend your candor, Tolkachev.”
“I must resign then?”
“No. You’re a first-rate combat soldier. I’ve got a job for you.”
“I see.”
Tolkachev didn’t see-not yet. Alex said, “I’ll want the company rosters now.”
Tolkachev got them from the files. Alex spread the papers on the desk and stood leaning over them on his hands. He studied names: put faces to them from memory and summoned recollections of their talents and excellences. Here and there he checked off a name with the blunt point of a pencil.
When he’d done he had checked fifty-eight names and he withdrew from the desk. “I need forty more than I’ve marked.”
“For what purpose?”
“Combat skills and good minds. Russians only-no Poles.”
Tolkachev bent over the rosters. Alex left him alone until he’d finished and then went over it, the names he knew and the names he didn’t know, and he erased four or five of Tolkachev’s marks. When Tolkachev stiffened he said, “I’ve got to use my own judgment.” He glanced up and surprised a look of white-hot hatred on Tolkachev’s flat face. “Give me half a dozen more. I want the very best of them.”
Tolkachev did the job again and when Alex was satisfied he put the rosters aside. “All right. Now you’re going to have to reorganize the regiment. You’ll have to shuffle the assignments. These men whose names are checked off-I want them assigned to a special training company. They’re to have a barracks to themselves. Their officers will live in that barracks with them and there’s to be absolute security maintained at all times on that building.”
“Yes sir.”
“You don’t understand what it’s all about-that’s the way it’s going to stay, Tolkachev. These hundred men are mine-them and the pilots. The rest of the regiment will remain yours to run. You’ll continue performing the Allied defense duties you’ve been performing. You’ll have to spread yourselves thinner to make up for the men I’ve drafted. Once the new company is formed up there’s to be no contact between its men and the rest of the troops in the regiment. We’ll have our own mess hall, our own recreation areas segregated from the others. You’ll have to rotate assignments in the regiment to keep a twenty-four-hour guard patrol on the training area, including the company barracks-I can’t waste these men’s time having them pull sentry duty. I’ll want two men on each entrance. No one will be allowed in or out of the trainees’ area without a pass signed by me or by General Spaight. No one-including yourself. Is this clear?”
“Yes sir. Absolute security. I understand.”
“The sentries will be armed with live ammunition. Anyone who tries to disobey their challenges is to be shot. Not to kill but shot where it’ll hurt. Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then pick good marksmen.”
Tolkachev said drily, “You have the best ones in the training company, sir.”
“Then teach the rest of them to shoot better,” Alex said gently. “All right-you’ve got a great deal to do. You’d better do it. Incidentally you’ll have to move your office-we’ll be needing the use of this hangar.”
“Yes sir. Just one thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“The British have suffered us here because we’ve performed useful services. We have freed British units to go to the fronts-we have been doing the work that their own people would have had to do otherwise.”
“I understand that. You’ll go right on doing those things.”
“No sir-not quite. The reason they gave us the use of this airfield is that we have been able to fly offshore patrols and rescue flights for them. If we stop, they will probably want their airfield back.”
“You’ll have to let me worry about that, Tolkachev.” But he could see the way the Cossack’s mind was working: Suppose he throws a spanner in it and we lose our base on account of him}
Alex said, “You’re just going to have to take your chances. I’m giving you more than you’d have given me. More than you probably deserve. If a soldier’s not prepared to take orders from his superior then he’s not much of a soldier.”
“Was that how it was with you and General Devenko then, sir?” Tolkachev hadn’t hesitated: it had been there in him, bottled up, waiting for the chance to come out.
“When your commander’s orders are clearly wrong you have the right to challenge them, Tolkachev. Not otherwise. Now get out of here and get to work.”
Tolkachev’s face had gone impassive again. He drew himself up. “When do you wish it finished, sir?”
“ When?”
Tolkachev gathered his dignity about him and wheeled out of the office.
The blackout curtains were open. Through the window he saw squads running the verges of the runway at double-time with heavy packs strapped to their shoulders. Sergeants barked the rhythm of the run and he recognized a captain and two lieutenants who ran along with them. Limping from the window back to the desk he wondered if the muscles of his thigh would knit in time for him to run like that before the mission took off.
Officers’ call; then regimental assembly: hard eyes full of challenge; uncertain eyes averted.
Then at two in the afternoon a De Havilland Beaver bounced lightly down the runway and decanted a passenger.
The group captain wore RAF wings and a DFC; he was short and wiry with freckled sharp features and a shock of heavy red hair. The light of merriment danced in the Scot’s eyes. His name was Walter MacAndrews.
Felix said, “We’re here by the good group captain’s sufferance.”
MacAndrews had a good firm handshake. “Heard a great deal about you from His Highness. I must say you look every inch of it.” He had to throw his head well back to look into Alex’s face.
On the way across the tarmac to the main hangar he explained, “We’ve got the responsibility for northern Scotland-air and coast watches. All the bloody patrol bases, includin’ this one. You might not believe it but I was a self-respecting Spitfire pilot once.”
Felix said. “He lost too many planes so they grounded him.” It was spoken with wicked mischief and from the way MacAndrews grinned it was evident they’d done a good bit of pub-crawling together.
MacAndrews said, “Well that’s a bit true, isn’t it, but I cost the Jerries three times as many aircraft as I cost His Majesty’s government and I thought we were square. Now I understand you’ve come to reorganize things here?”
“In a way.” Alex piloted them into the hangar office. “The regiment will be able to continue doing sentry chores and coast-watch flak tours. Railway guards, all the rest of it. But I’m going to have to pull our pilots out of
