savage grin decorating his face. The man was an animal, an animal who was good at killing SS. ‘Secure, Major,’ he said sotto voce.
‘Right, Gorski,’ Dabrowski snarled at the young Second Lieutenant, ‘get your men on board, half on each of the first two barges arranged along the port side. I want them ready to repel boarders. Things are going to get hot.’ He turned to Wysochi. ‘Sergeant, secure Miss Dashwood in the wheelhouse and then get two men into the boiler room and fire it up.’
‘It’s already fired up,’ commented Wysochi, pointing towards the wisps of smoke coming from the funnel. Dabrowski blushed, embarrassed by his ignorance.
‘Shall I cast off, Major?’ Gorski asked, barely able to keep the tremble of excitement out of his voice.
Trixie stiffened. The most important lesson she had learnt during her time on the Rhine was that on board a steam-barge there could be only one master. More than one person giving orders was a recipe for disaster.
‘I give orders on this barge, Major,’ she snapped. ‘Whilst on board you will do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. Do you understand?’
Dabrowski looked as though he had been slapped. ‘How dare…’
‘I dare because I am responsible for the management of these barges.’
‘I will not take orders from a woman.’
For Trixie it was an epiphany. That sneering comment from Dabrowski brought home to her that her future – her destiny – was now wholly her responsibility. Her fate was in her hands. The ForthRight had destroyed her old life so now she wasn’t obliged to follow its creeds and its social etiquette. To survive in this new, hostile world she would have to be her own woman: strong and independent. Her father had always said that intellectually she was the match of any man, now she had to prove that she had a will to match any man’s.
‘If my being a woman upsets you then I suggest that you stay ashore or find another to work these barges.’
The ultimatum had its effect: Dabrowski took a deep, deep breath and then gave a curt nod. ‘So be it. But believe me, Miss Dashwood, I will not forget this slight.’
Trixie brushed off his threat with a negligent wave of her hand. ‘It’s best if we let the barges drift out into midstream before we get under way, that way we’ll have more room to manoeuvre. Major, have your men free the mooring ropes and cast off the three barges, and you, Lieutenant, find an axe and have somebody cut the hawser tethering us to the second drifter.’ Orders given, she followed Dabrowski on board the steam-barge. Now there was no going back.
Despite this outward show of confidence, her inexperience nearly did for them. Although Dabrowski managed to free the hawsers tethering the barges to the dock, in her excitement Trixie had forgotten that there was always a security line connecting the steam-barge to an alarm bell. As the unshackled barges, caught by the pull of the tide, began to slide ponderously away from the dock, so the security line tightened until, when they had gone less than twenty feet the alarm bell began to toll. The response was immediate: lanterns were illuminated, orders were shouted, the sound of hobnailed boots echoed along the quay and then out of the snow-thick darkness raced a detachment of Checkya militia.
‘Fire, you useless fuckers,’ screamed Sergeant Wysochi. A tattered salvo of rifle fire crackled along the barge. It was difficult for Trixie from her position in the wheelhouse to see through the swirling snow how effective the fusillade was, but the screams suggested some of the shots had found their mark.
There was some desultory return fire from the Checkya and a bullet smacked into the side of the wheelhouse, making her flinch away as splinters flew. Instinctively she crouched down, trying to make herself as small a target as possible, then, cursing herself for being such a coward, she stood back up straight. This was no time for cowards. A soot-blackened face appeared around the door jamb. ‘Steam’s up, Miss,’ the boy yelled and gave her a thumbs-up. Immediately she hauled back on the drive lever. There was a bellow from behind as the engine powered up and the steam-barge began to shudder and shake as the pistons pounded. The deck beneath her feet trembled. She felt the jerk as the propeller of the steam-barge was engaged and then a shove in the back as the craft began to move under its own power. The noise in the wheelhouse was deafening, she could barely hear herself think.
‘You, soldier, get forward to the bow,’ she screamed at the top of her voice. She saw the look of incomprehension on his face. ‘Get to the front of the barge and shout when you see the Oberbaum Bridge. I can’t see a thing in this snow. You’ve got to help me aim for the central span.’ The boy disappeared into the snow.
Manoeuvring the heavy barges was a nightmare. Heaving and straining, Trixie had to use all her strength to manage the wheel as the barges, caught by the current, bucked and squirmed along the river. Her muscles ached from the struggle to keep them straight.
Two more bullets smacked into the wheelhouse, but Trixie was so intent on hauling on the wheel, sawing it desperately back and forth, trying to bring the drifters in line directly astern, that she hardly noticed. A wild-eyed Wysochi joined her. ‘Help me,’ she gasped. ‘I need to bring this barge around.’
It was only thanks to Wysochi’s enormous strength that they managed to wrestle the barges into line. It wasn’t a moment too soon. There was a shout from the bow. ‘I can see the bridge, maybe a hundred
…’
The sentence was terminated by the crack of a rifle and a splash as the man toppled over into the river. ‘Get forward, Sergeant!’ Trixie shouted. ‘I need you at the bow, directing me.’
Wysochi hesitated for a moment and then was gone. Without his strength to help her, controlling the barge was almost impossible. She could feel the wheel twisting and squirming ever more violently under her hands as the barges came closer and closer to the eddies that rippled so powerfully around the piers of the bridge. The stern of the steam-barge began to pull out of line, dragged by the drifters as they were caught in the current. Frantically Trixie signalled for more power, doing everything she could to compensate for the yawing of the drifters, terrified that the barges would run out of control, that they would meet the bridge beam-on, that the drifters would be trapped lengthways against the bridge by the ebb tide.
Lieutenant Gorski’s head appeared around the door.
‘What about the second drifter?’ she shouted over the pummelling of the steam engine as it struggled to provide the extra power she demanded. ‘Have you cut it loose yet?’
‘Major Dabrowski is still trying to cut the hawser. The Checkya are making it hot for him. He’s lost two men already.’
‘Get rid of the fucking thing,’ Trixie screamed, aghast that a girl of her breeding should swear in such a foul manner, then ducked down as a salvo of shots smashed into the barge. Whoever was in charge of the Checkya had obviously worked out that she was intent on taking the barges upstream and that to do so she would have to sail them under the Oberbaum Bridge. The steam-barge was now so close to the bridge that she could see the muzzle flashes from the rifles of the Checkya who had already positioned themselves on the bridge and were firing down on the barges.
‘Get under cover,’ she heard Wysochi yell at his men as he emptied his revolver at the bridge that was now looming over them through the darkness and the snow.
Two pillars of the bridge passed on either side of the steam-barge’s bow. Now the turbulence was stronger and it took all of Trixie’s strength and all the engine’s power to bully the steam-barge, banging and scraping, under the bridge. Then, like a cork popping out of a bottle, the steam-barge was in open water, but her elation was short- lived. Although, miraculously, the first drifter got under the bridge without fouling or capsizing the second drifter didn’t. It twisted, beam-on, jamming itself immovably along the length of the bridge, between the two central spans. Now, no matter how hard Trixie forced the propeller, no matter how urgently she sawed at the wheel, the trio of barges was stuck fast, anchored by the third, the soldiers on board sitting ducks for the shots raining down from the bridge above. The only option Dabrowski’s men had was to cower away under the bridge itself and in consequence the Checkya concentrated their fire on the steam-barge’s wheel-house. It was fortunate for Trixie that she had a steel roof over her head, otherwise she would have been killed for certain. As she struggled and strained, twisting the wheel this way and that, furiously trying to edge the barges free, breathing prayers to the Spirits that they would come to her aid, there was an incessant banging and slapping of bullets above her head.
Fate intervened. The commander of the Checkya on the bridge had the bright idea of throwing grenades down on the barges and their first target was the trapped drifter. As luck would have it, the third grenade blew the hawser that connected the two drifters apart. Freed of the trapped drifter, Trixie felt the steam-barge leap forward, powering away from the bridge, dragging the remaining drifter with it.
Then the second drifter exploded.
