Fall of Giants

“We’re in Russia!” Billy Williams said when the ship docked and he heard the voices of the longshoremen. “What are we doing in fucking Russia?”

“How can we be in Russia?” said Tommy Griffiths. “Russia’s in the east. We’ve been sailing west for weeks.”

“We’ve gone halfway round the world and come at it from the other side.”

Tommy was not convinced. He leaned over the rail, staring. “The people look a bit Chinesey,” he said.

“They’re speaking Russian, though. They sound like that pony driver, Peshkov, the one who cheated the Ponti brothers at cards, then scarpered.”

Tommy listened. “Aye, you’re right. Well, I never.”

“This must be Siberia,” Billy said. “No wonder it’s fucking cold.”

A few minutes later they learned they were in Vladivostok.

People took little notice of the Aberowen Pals marching through the town. There were already thousands of soldiers in uniform here. Most were Japanese but there were also Americans and Czechs and others. The town had a busy port, trams running along broad boulevards, modern hotels and theaters, and hundreds of shops. It was like Cardiff, Billy thought, but colder.

When they reached their barracks they met a battalion of elderly Londoners who had been shipped there from Hong Kong. It made sense, Billy thought, to send old codgers to this backwater. But the Pals, though depleted by casualties, had a core of hardened veterans. Who had pulled strings to have them withdrawn from France and sent to the other side of the globe?

He soon found out. After dinner the brigadier, a comfortable-looking man evidently close to retirement, told them they were to be addressed by Colonel the Earl Fitzherbert.

Captain Gwyn Evans, the owner of the department stores, brought a wooden crate that had once held cans of lard, and Fitz climbed up on it, not without difficulty on account of his bad leg. Billy watched without sympathy. He reserved his compassion for Stumpy Pugh and the many other crippled ex-miners who had been injured digging the earl’s coal. Fitz was smug, arrogant, and a merciless exploiter of ordinary men and women. It was a shame the Germans had not shot him in the heart rather than the leg.

“Our mission is fourfold,” Fitz began, raising his voice to address six hundred men. “First, we’re here to protect our property. On your way out of the docks, passing the railway sidings, you may have noticed a large supply dump guarded by troops. That ten-acre site contains six hundred thousand tons of munitions and other military equipment sent here by Britain and the United States when the Russians were our allies. Now that the Bolsheviks have made peace with Germany, we do not want bullets paid for by our people to fall into their hands.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Billy said loud enough for Tommy and the others around him to hear. “Instead of bringing us here, why didn’t they ship the stores home?”

Fitz glanced irritably in the direction of the noise, but continued. “Second, there are many Czech nationalists in this country, some prisoners of war and others who were working here prewar, who have formed themselves into the Czech Legion and are trying to take ship from Vladivostok to join our forces in France. They are being harassed by the Bolsheviks and our job is to help them get away. Local Cossack community leaders will help us in this effort.”

“Cossack community leaders?” Billy said. “Who is he trying to fool? They’re bloody bandits.”

Once again Fitz heard the dissident muttering. This time Captain Evans looked annoyed and walked down the mess hall to stand near Billy and his group.

“Here in Siberia there are eight hundred thousand Austrian and German prisoners of war who have been set free since the peace treaty. We must prevent them returning to the European battlefield. Finally, we suspect the Germans of eyeing up the oil fields of Baku, in the south of Russia. They must not be allowed to access that supply.”

Billy said: “I’ve got a feeling Baku is quite a long way from here.”

The brigadier said amiably: “Do any of you men have any questions?”

Fitz gave him a glare, but it was too late. Billy said: “I haven’t read nothing about this in the papers.”

Fitz replied: “Like many military missions, it is secret, and you will not be allowed to say where you are in your letters home.”

“Are we at war with Russia, sir?”

“No, we are not.” Fitz pointedly looked away from Billy. Perhaps he remembered how Billy had bested him at the peace talks meeting in the Calvary Gospel Hall. “Does anyone other than Sergeant Williams have a question?”

Billy persisted. “Are we trying to overthrow the Bolshevik government?”

There was an angry murmur from the troops, many of whom sympathized with the revolution.

“There is no Bolshevik government,” Fitz said with mounting exasperation. “The regime in Moscow has not been recognized by His Majesty the king.”

“Have our mission been authorized by Parliament?”