21
Lying flat on the low grass, Katyusha, Nonna, Tolstoj and Olga were watching, from above a hill overlooking the zone, the state of Sevastopol, a few miles' away and completely in the dark, except for the moonlight.
Although the northern side of the canal was still open and under Russian control, the settlement and the area around the harbour along the southern strait were completely surrounded, and the traces of the siege very visible both inside and outside the walls.
The siege front was divided in three sectors, with the British garrisoning the central zone and the French on their sides; this formed a picture of an almost uninterrupted line of trenches, redoubts and artillery posts deployed in a half-circle, a lone line at least three miles and a half long and wide up to one and a half, from the outlet to the sea to the West to the shores of the Chyornaya towards the East.
The only open point were the two gorges that started from the tip of the secondary canal and surrounded the highest hill, of those overlooking the city; but that was hardly an issue for the British positions around it, since from there they could fire at anything for miles, fact that had led them to acutely place them quite a lot of artillery, mortars and naval guns.
The walls of the city had already been leveled for the most part, but the Russian defenders had ably managed to do makeshift repairs, other than taking advantage of the peculiar conformation of the ground to organize a series of bottlenecks and forced passages that would have turned any attempt to storm them into a programmed suicide.
Luckily, both the Quarantine Bastion, perched on the cliff at the edge of the canal and the Malakov Fort, protecting the harbor, were still in Imperial hands, although the French lines were barely a few dozen yards away from the walls, and in all likelihood it was a matter of days before they would fall.
And on the sea, the situation was hardly better; one only had to turn his gaze less than a mile away from the shore to understand how the waters off the city were by then under complete control of the British fleet; on their side, the Russians hadn't had any better idea than that to deliberately scuttle a few of their best ships in the shallow waters at the edge of the harbour, to use them as static batteries.
To tell the truth, despite the fact that those ships had surely absorbed an incredible number of shells, likewise some forts guarding the canal looked in good order still, probably thanks to the relentless work of the carpenters and seamen commanded by Admiral Nachimov.
"Virginia wasn't joking when she talked about hell." Katyusha commented, for the occasion clad in a dark cloak.
"You shouldn't have come here, Katyusha." Olga said. "This could be very dangerous."
"The same goes for you." the little girl replied, before turning towards Tolstoj. "Then? Where is that mine of yours?"
"Right there." answered the young officer, pointing towards a few isolated cabins, clearly abandoned, huddled to the side of a low rocky ridge.
"Then let's move."
Quietly, almost crawling on the ground, the foursome descended from the hill and advanced among the fields. A couple of times they had to hide quickly to avoid a few British patrols, but in the end, with no unplanned snags, they managed to reach a large hole in the stone covered by debris, with a very apparent sign warning of the danger.
"Why didn't they even bother to watch this?" Nonna asked, while she helped Tolstoj opening a passage.
"The mine collapsed years ago, after it was flooded. It's possible they dug too close to the sea. But I heard from a friend that was posted here that the flooding involved only the final part of the tunnel."
It took almost an hour to open a gap in the debris, and even before the passage was completely cleared, from within came a nauseating smell, like unhealthy air, that almost caused poor Olga and her unfortunately untrained nose a good round of retching.
"What is this?" asked the Grand Duchess, covering her nose.
"When the tunnel flooded, part of the ceiling collapsed. So now the mine is connected to the sewer system of the city. We'll go through there."
"We'll have to walk though the sewers?!"
"What is the matter?" chuckled Katyusha. "Afraid you'll get your pretty little shoes dirty?"
"You know, I liked you better as you were before." replied Olga with the same sarcastic tone.
"You'll have to get used to that. Now let's go."
Therefore, equipped with torches, the foursome entered the tunnel, and despite all of her bravado even Katyusha had to call upon all of her strength to not hurl because of that hellish smell.
As predicted by Tolstoj the mine had been flooded in a few sections, but in the part closest to the exit, the water was not higher than twenty inches luckily, so they managed to proceed without too much trouble.
Between the risk to get lost in some lateral shaft and that of even a small noise threatening a definitive collapse of an already unstable structure, they took a few hours to get through those few hundred yards, at last reaching a small central cove above which, other than a big gap, they could make out the vaults of the ancient Roman-era structures, reduced to storing foul-smelling sewage.
"There it is." said Tolstoj, who now had nothing to do but throw rope with grappling hook that he had carried with him.
Luckily, even Olga and Katyusha knew how to climb a rope, and with a few jumps the four of them were finally inside the city.
Katyusha felt more than a little sadness in seeing the last remnant of the old Cherson insulted in such a way, but she tried her best to keep her disappointment to herself.
"Over here." said Tolstoj, pointing west.
The smell in there was, if any, even worse of what they had breathed in the mine, so all of them picked up the pace, anxious to get out in the open. Luckily, their hunger for fresh, clean air had not dulled Nonna's sixth sense, so that she first saw, as they got to a few dozen yards away from a huge arc closed off by a gate, an unmistakable flash.
"Get down!" she yelled, instinctively grabbing Katyusha and dragging her to the ground.
Fortunately Olga and Tolstoj were just as quick, and that meant that they were not shot up by a couple of bullets fired one after the other.
"Who goes there?" a voice yelled, as the shapes of two Russian marines with their rifles aimed at them could be made out.
"Usually 'who goes there' comes BEFORE the shot, you idiot!" roared Katyusha, flipping out.
Slowly, and without lowering their weapons, the two got closer.
"Who are you?" asked the higher-ranking one.
This time, Katyusha only had to show her face for the two poor saps to feel their blood turn to ice.
"I'm the one who will have the two of you dragged before the firing squad if you don't tell me at once where I can find my brother!"
Correctly believing that the offices of the Russian Black Sea Fleet or the other major buildings were too much of an inviting target for the enemy guns, Prince Aleksandr had placed his headquarters in the austere Chapel of Saint Vladimir, the same place where, according to legend, the first sovereign of the Kievan Rus' had received his baptism, becoming the forefather of the future Russian nation.
Although by night the bombardment slowed down almost to a stop, the Prince often struggled to get some sleep, agitated by the many responsibilities vested on him.
Even making the two halves of the city, separated by the secondary canal, work together was a challenging feat in those times, and that was but one of the many problems to face, in a situation that was getting more dramatic with each passing day.
Therefore, he spent his night awake, sitting in the tiny room converted in a small study, reading up papers, writing reports and writing letters to his family, at the feeble light of a few candles.
The announcement that messengers had come from beyond the frontline came to him totally unexpected, but that was nothing compared to the face he made when he saw before him, covered in dirty cloaks and with boots caked with unspeakable sludge, his two sisters in the flesh.
"Brother." said Katyusha with some joy, but with not nearly the enthusiasm of yore. "Happy to see that you are well, despite this hell of a situation."
"What in the world are the two of you doing here?"
"Ask your little sister here." replied Olga, pointing downwards. "Although I must say, in all honesty, that I'm not so sure that this... thing here is actually our sister Ekaterina."
"Why we are here is rather evident, I would say." Katyusha cut to the chase. "And I see that the situation is much worse than what I expected.
We have to hurry and get down to talking. Where are Nachimov and the other commanders?"
"Nachimov is in the harbour, aboard the Veliki Kniaz Konstantin, Totleben is at Malakoff. He's overseeing the maintenance of the fort. Kornilov died last week. A granade took away half his face."
"Great God, then who is in command of the Second Fleet?"
Incredibly, Alexsandr lowered his eyes; all of a sudden, and without a logic, standing there before Ekaterina had the same effect upon him as if it were his father.
"I see, it seems that here there's a lot of things to fix. Nonna!"
"General?"
"Go to the harbour, and kick that good-for-nothing Nachimov out of his bed. Tolstoj."
"Sir."
"You can move like a rat, so sneak down to Malakoff and get Totleben here. I want both of them reporting to me in two hours."
"Aye, sir!"
The two immediately got out of there, while Olga was allowed to go take a bath before fainting out of that smell on her, leaving Katyusha and her brother alone.
"I don't know what happened to you in these last three months and I don't care much to know, but I warn you, this is no game."
"Menshikov said the same thing." Katyusha coldly replied. "Before I holed him in the leg."
It was then that Aleksandr completely realized how truthful were Olga's words, seriously asking himself who was that little girl in a uniform that was standing before him; whoever she was, she had only the looks of the old Ekaterina, and little else.
"And now, if you allow me, I would like a report on the condition of our ground forces. Getting here costed more than I hoped for, therefore the units inside the city will be needed to organize a counterattack."
"I am afraid that this will be difficult." answered Aleksandr, deadly serious.
"And what do you mean with that?"
To make the answer to that question as clear as possible, Aleksandr himself took his sister on the lone building in the whole city to be dimly lit, an enormous shed built over the old Roman forum, a few yards under the ground level, and thus more protected from gunfire.
The Prince only had to move aside the curtains for Katyusha to see an infinite stretch of thin, pale and to various degrees moribund men, amid an uninterrupted choir of coughs, groans and cries for help.
And then, the smell; compared to that, the one in the sewers was like that of wildflowers in some open field.
Katyusha had never seen something like that, but nonetheless took barely a second to understand.
"Cholera."
"A month ago one of their mortars took out our main water tank. We tried to boil the water, but clearly that was not enough. To add to that, the bombardment uncovered the sewers and destroyed a few pumps for water drainage. There are small lakes and puddles of filthy water everywhere."
"And how many men did you lose already?"
"Three thousand. And more than twice as many have been invalidated, or in any case won't be in shape for a fight for a long time."
When he had called the situation serious, Katyusha had largely underestimated the real measure of such a definition.
It was not a serious situation: it was a disaster.
And it was up to her to whip up something.
In less than two hours, the whole brass of the defence forces of Sevastopol, those left at least, were reunited in the Prince's study for a general report.
Captain Totleben was still smelling like the turpentine with which he was fixing the guns of Malakoff before he had been called, Nachimov instead had the face of a man who, despite having been dragged from his bed, hadn't had a good night's sleep in forever.
"Gentlemen." Katyusha began with no qualms whatsoever. "Considering the circumstances, I am surprised I have found someone still alive around here. Looking at how the situation is playing out, it's a miracle the city hasn't already been turned into a heap of smoking rubble.
Now, first things first. From now on, I'm in command. And I suppose you don't have any objections about it."
No one made a peep: for some reason, everyone in there was convinced that the bit about Prince Menshikov wasn't a fairy tale.
"Very good. In this case, I'll cut to the chase. We have killed no less than seven thousand British and French at Balaklava, and even though that cost us almost as many men, the French commander is already in our hands. In another situation, I would have suggested to take advantage at once of this favorable moment to organize a combined attack from the inside and the outside of the city, but this has clearly become impossible.
We are too few, and too disorganized. It's possible that cholera is hurting them as much as we are, but I won't confide in that to turn the tide."
"Considering what has happened at Balaklava." observed Totleben. "I am surprised that they haven't begun to demobilize."
"Because they know they don't need to. We have suffered grievous losses as well, and they have entrenched themselves so well that they are well aware, as I am, that mounting a direct attack against their positions means suicide."
The little girl then turned her gaze on the maps of the city, in which the advancing Allied lines were indicated, albeit with some approximation.
"I hate to say this, but perhaps right now the best thing to do would be to stall for time. We'll isolate the healthy men from the sick even further, and we'll create sub-sections to make a selection according to the sickness' gravity. Those who have light symptoms will receive immediate care to allow them to recuperate quickly, while the most serious conditions will have long-term care.
What matters most is having the greatest available number of men in the short term. With that, hoping in the meantime that the enemy won't receive reinforcements, we'll be able to mount a coordinated attack."
At that, Nachimov and Totleben lowered their gazes, and then exchanged another worriedly.
"What is the matter?" Katyusha asked.
"Actually..." the admiral stammered. "We might have a problem."
"Wait." said Aleksandr. "We don't even know if those news are true."
"What are you talking about?"
"Six days ago some Greek insurgents managed to get into the city." explained Nachimov. "They told us of a small fleet of British and French steamers off Tserigo."
Katyusha was left speechless for a moment, but immediately after she tried to reassert her self-control to properly judge the matter.
"Do you believe they're bound here?" asked Totleben.
"No, I don't think so. If it's actually a 'small fleet', there would be no reason to deploy it here. For what London and Paris know, at the moment there are more than enough ships to keep up the siege." With that, Katyusha quickly got a map of the northern Black Sea, unrolling it before the council and pointing to the Kerch Strait. "In my opinion, they're bound for here."
"In the Sea of Azow?" said Aleksandr.
"It has some logic. Both Kerch and Taganrog are important supply bases for both Sevastopol and our forces in the Caucasus. If they fall, not only would our supply lines be cut, but the enemy would gain control of the whole eastern Crimea. Not to mention that, after that, my troops at Balaklava would be like rats before the trap-"
Gritting her teeth out of anger and sense of impotence, Katyusha once more felt that intolerable feeling of having no viable choice left.
"We have no choice." she hissed, disgruntled. "We have to break this siege, and we have to do it within the next five days."
"Why, within five days?" Nachimov asked.
"Because it's the time left before London and Paris know what has happened at Balaklava and send further reinforcements. Between that and the more than likely fall of the harbors in the Sea of Azow, we'd be better off burning down the city ourselves rather than give them the satisfaction of doing it themselves."
"So, then? What should we do?"
The answer was the most obvious thing one could conceive, but it was the kind of enterprise that nobody even dared to consider.
"The Allies came here aboard their ships. And on their ships they'll go home. We take them out of the picture, and they'll lay down arms, rather than be butchered in this hellhole."
At that statement, everyone present blanched.
"Do you mean engage the Allied fleet?"
"Unless you'd rather stay here waiting for this city to be razed, yes, this is the only thing that we can do."
"But that is impossible!" let out Aleksandr. "The enemy fleet is four times ours, and they have full control on every square inch of sea outside the harbour."
"His Imperial Highness is right, General." added Nachimov. "Not to mention, their mortars and guns deployed on the overlooking hills can target everything in the small canal and inside the harbor. We'd be smashed to pieces before we'd have the jetty."
"You have been on the sea for forty years, Nachimov." was Katyusha's curt reply. "You ought to know that there are no hopeless situations."
A cold draught entered through a crack in the wall, making the flames of the candle waver, and further chilling the bones and the spirits of everyone.
"Cursed be this fall." protested Totleben who, despite being accustomed at lingering in less than healthy climates, as a good descendant from a Prussian family wholeheartedly hated the rigid Russian climate.
That small gust of wind caused a completely different reaction in Katyusha, who, as if enlightened, turned her eyes towards the window; the sky was clear, and the moon, round and big, was peeking from behind the clouds, that were quickly making their way as shadows in the dark, spurred on by the strong high-altitude wind.
"I've got it!" she bellowed. "Do you have cold rooms in the city?"
"Cold storage rooms?" asked Aleksandr. "Yes, there are several."
"Good! Empty them!"
"For what reason?" asked a confused Totleben. "Right now the food in the depots is more than enough, and it has already been salted."
"I'm not talking about the food, you nincompoop! And now, listen carefully."
Even before dawn, strange movements began to take place within the city.
Any soldier still able to stand on his feet and not occupied in guarding some place was quietly dragged from his bed, with no fanfare at all, with the order to report to his commander as soon as possible.
In a little while, long chains of people were formed, busy going to and fro the three cold rooms of the city, in complete silence, entering with empty hands and getting out weighed out by large wooden crates covered in frost, often carried by two or more people, and in any case always with hands protected by some rags.
Others, more unfortunate, had been forced to cover their noses and mouths as much as possible and to wander into the several open-air sewers that had been inaugurated by enemy shells pretty much everywhere, pulling up with great effort gallons and gallons of putrid liquid that was then sealed off in casks and loaded into carts that then started towards the city's outskirts.
Even the common citizens, the few that were left, were invited to do their part, loading part of the crates taken from the cold rooms into the few small boats left to be brought aboard the ships already partially scuttled at the edge of the harbour, without making a peep and in the dark, to avoid being noticed.
As the city toiled, Katyusha once more went with her three companions to the same tunnel from which they had made their entrance.
"Now, is it all clear?"
"Crystal." replied her sister. "But are you sure you can pull it off?"
"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just remember to do as I said."
"You can count on us."
Nonna hesitated; it was clear that the thought of getting away from her protegé wasn't making her comfortable at all.
But it was hard to blame her, considering what was being prepared.
"Now go. Before the dawn you have to be back with our troops. Remember. Three days from now."
"Don't you worry."
The three took a few steps, but before they could get past the gate Katyusha called them again.
"Hey..." she said, almost blushing. "Be careful."
"You as well." replied Nonna, forcing a smile on her face. "General."