The two days that followed saw a return to normal.
By day, the ships and the Anglo-French positions rained hell down on Sevastopol, focusing on the forts at the mouth of the harbour and along the defensive perimeter of the city.
Despite them being technically within range of the British batteries posted on the hill, the local commanders were all more or less in agreement that shooting at the twenty-odd still serviceable Russian ships, far away and small target, would have been a waste of ammo. Therefore, from the beginning, they had kept their guns on the fortifications protecting the roadstead, well aware that any vessel foolish enough to try and sortie would be a sitting duck.
By night, almost always, the guns fell silent. But actually, it was by nighttime that the Russians were most active, and right under the noses of the British, who didn't have the slightest idea of what their enemies were doing.
The wooden crates taken from the cold rooms, emptied by then, were now all over the city, especially close to the wells and other water sources, and each defensive fort had received a large amount of putrid water, other than other casks coming from the very field hospitals, the latter only carefully handled by the few lucky ones who had already survived cholera.
Everything went along with surprising coordination, especially thanks to the industrious and hard-working nature of the Russian people and of its soldiers, who, before taking up the rifle, were more often than not hunters, nomads and, in this peculiar case, fishermen.
Katyusha herself oversaw everything, at times taking more risks than what a person of her rank and her position would usually dare to, as when she visited the sick to see who could be still of use somehow, or when she inspected the forts right in the middle of a bombardment to personally verify their range, their rate of fire and the reliability of the gunners.
Thus, two days passed.
Then, in the night between the second and the third one, something happened that took the enemy completely by surprise.
Two o'clock had just sounded, when one of the watchmen aboard HMS Britannia, the flagship standing by the entrance of the bay, noticed some strange movements at the mouth of the harbour.
"Ho!" he said to the foremast watchman, who had almost dozed off out of boredom. "What goes over there?"
He focused, and shortly he was able to clearly see the shape of a large ship, likely a man-of-war, that was slipping out of the southern channel, slowly and dismasted, towed by a few small boats.
"Warn the deck." the watchmen told his colleague.
Fate wished that, as the man shouted for the watch officer, busy warming his insides with some grog against the cold, close by on the quarterdeck stood none other than Admiral James Dundas, Commander in Chief of the British Fleet, who was, as usual, fighting off insomnia with that unusual activity.
"What is it?"
"Movements in the harbor, Sir!"
So, it was the Admiral himself who took hold of a spyglass and looked at the situation beyond the fortified canal that separated the roadstead from the open sea.
The ship was moving slowly, showing off her side, and while the absence of light did not allow for a good look, it seemed that no more than a few dozen people were aboard here, busy signaling to the boats or manning the wheel.
Nothing new to be honest.
"They are towing another ship to the blockade." was the Admiral's conclusion. "They want to scuttle her."
"Should we beat to quarters, Sir?" asked the watch officer.
Dundas briefly thought it over, turning the spyglass over in his hands.
"No. At this range it would be a mere waste of ammo."
"Shouldn't we warn Lord Raglan?"
"Ye gods, no. It's the first night he got a fitful sleep, with no nightmares, since he came back from Balaklava. I haven't the slightest inclination of waking him up for such a small thing."
On the other hand, both the officer and the watchmen had a strange feeling, like a sixth sense matured in years of experience that did not allow them to rest easy; however, they were in no position to discuss orders.
"Keep an eye on that, and if something else happens call me." And, said that, the Admiral went for his quarters, hoping to get some sleep at last.
Yevpatoria, to the north of Sevastopol, had been one of the first Crimean cities to fall in the hands of the Allies at the beginning of the campaign.
In the care of the Ottoman troops, it had quickly become the main supply point for the troops deployed in the siege, from which they received, way more than foodstuff, weapons and powder.
Each week, or in any case at each request, a supply train with adequate escort went through the fifty-five miles that separated the two cities, bringing to the frontline everything the Allies needed to keep tightening the noose around the Russian defenses.
Predictably, several Ottoman commanders were less than enthused by this porter-like task, but for the soldiers looking for easy pay and definitely not wishing to be killed it was one hell of a destination.
Of course, the supply route needed to be guarded, therefore several squadrons, ranging from two to ten scouts kept patrolling without pause the main road and the fields around it, ready to report even the slightest threat.
Osman and Mehmed were young and foolish.
Friends from childhood, they had signed up for the army, enticed like many others by the promise of profit, therefore their assignment to the scouting corps was the best thing they could hope for; no shooting, no life in the trenches.
The only thing they had to do was to keep their eyes and ears wide open, take a good look around, and run like hell at the first sign of danger.
Living the life, pretty much.
That night, they were patrolling near the hot springs of Lake Seki, before the war a destination of many pleasure trips of the nobles of the region, who all loved taking both mud and normal baths in that foul-smelling water.
Many would have found that sulfurous and gaseous smell intolerable, but for the two of them, grown near the white falls of Pamukkale, it was like the smell of home.
The night was calm, but very cold.
It was by then November, and from the north the bitter Arctic wind, preparing to unleash on the region cold storms, was coming more and more with each passing day.
In that situation, the presence of some hot springs just a few yards' away was too strong a temptation to be able to resist.
Trying their best to ignore the fame that General Omar Pasha carried, able to chill the blood of the most irreproachable soldier at the thought of being surprised not doing his duty to the fullest, the two young soldiers soon turned their horses towards one of the several hot water tanks close to the lakeshore, more than eager to wash away the pains and the filth of a soldier's life with a nice hot bath.
However, before they even reached it, something happened.
At first, it was a kind of unclear whistling carried by the wing; then a singsong, like a call. At last, full-on singing.
Not just any singing; it was a melodious voice, worthy of a supernatural being.
Confused, the two friends followed that strange chant as if hypnotized, as in their minds the fading memories of the last time they had had the pleasure of a woman's company began to surface.
Leaving the horses, they walked up a small ridge, as the hot and humid fumes all around covered everything, giving them the feeling of walking into a place out of the physical world, with that melodious voice spurring them on.
At first they saw a faint light, as the singing grew louder and louder.
Then, when they finally reached it, their eyes and their faces turned to stone.
At the light of a few candles, a very young woman laid there, covered up to her breasts by the hot spring's water, with the fumes rising all around to be her only, evanescent cover; with the rose-coloured lips barely open, she kept singing that hypnotic melody, all the while gently massaging her skin, neither fair nor dark, shining like marble under the cover of the crusts of thermal salts.
She was so beautiful that she did not look human, and for a brief moment the two youngsters thought that they had died in some way that they couldn't remember, and had already gone to the Jannah, standing before one of those Huri about whom they had heard so much.
Then, when the young woman, taking notice of the newcomers, smiled kindly towards them, Osman completely lost his mind and, ripping off just his boots and pants, and threw himself into the spring running towards her.
He would have wanted to touch her, to take her at once, but the thought of having something not quite human before him reined him in, leaving him immobile and star-struck even when the girl rose to her feet right there, showing off in its entirety her perfect body.
She came closer, almost touching his nose with hers, and then she let loose a small, almost amused laugh when both of them noticed the bulge that was getting bigger in Osman's underpants.
Heaven or not, the flesh remained flesh, and at least Osman knew he was quite assuredly not dead, despite his embarrassment.
They looked into each other's eyes for long, with Mehmed up there reduced to a powerless spectator.
Osman dithered, to the point of shivering like a baby when the girl came up to him, and freezing even when she languidly let her hand slip behind his neck, as if wishing to pull him to her. She smiled at him, a smile quickly returned, and the young soldier was so drunk upon such beauty that he lost himself completely in those unusually violet eyes, so irresistible, even when those eyes glazed with a homicidal light.
The only thing that Osman felt was something thin and hard piercing his neck, perhaps a large needle or a brooch ably hidden, because the strike was so precise that it neatly cut his spinal nerve.
Everything happened so quickly that Mehmed didn't even have the time to get it. Also because, even before his friend had slipped in the water to await his doom, unable to move and powerless, a shadow appeared behind him, and with no time to react the youngster found a thin steel wire going around his neck.
He tried to squirm with everything he had, but whoever had surprised him was undoubtedly stronger than him; the aggressor kept pulling with all of his strength even after Mehmed had stopped moving, letting go only when he was more than sure that he was dead.
"Miss Oldoini, are you alright?" asked Tolstoj, turning towards the spring, and then immediately turning on his heels, his face ablaze, and not because of the temperature.
"Men. You'll never change." she answered, not interested in the least to cover the feminine 'gifts' Nature had given her for her fellow adventurer's sake. "Muslim, orthodox, catholic, all the same. All of you reason only with your dick."
The girl then grabbed the hair of her victim, drawing his head out of the water and ascertaining his death.
"This idiot could have dropped the jacket as well. Now we'll have to wash it. As if we weren't running on a schedule."
So, while Virginia dried off and got dressed, Tolstoj washed Osman's encrusted clothes in a basin of clean water, managing with no small effort to clean them.
"In any case." he commented, hanging the clothes over the fumes to dry them. "I have to admit that you have some... talent for this kind of things, Miss Oldoini."
"Since I was little, my cousin Camillo kept saying that I could use my looks as a weapon." she replied, almost proudly. "I'm just acting on what he taught me."
"The Count of Cavour? You have quite the important relatives. Who knows, one day perhaps you may hook up... I mean, win over some high-level people. Maybe a prince, or perhaps even an emperor."
"We'll see." stated Virginia with a wink. "Now let's get a move on."
A few hours later, the Ottoman sentries guarding one of the access gates to the town of Yevpatoria saw a small cart with two comrades emerge from the dark.
"Bekle!" said the one in command.
The two immediately came to a stop, wholly surrendering themselves to the inspection; the soldier with the reins was tall and rather stout, with a massive moustache and a square chin; his companion, on the other hand, had much fairer traits, almost effeminate ones, and kept his eyes down, as if fearing that his excessive beauty could turn into a reason for mockery.
The sergeant commanding the guard post walked around the cart, glaring at the large burlap sack that made up its cargo.
"Bu ne?" he asked.
"General için bir hediye." replied the moustached soldier. "Onu terk edilmiş bir Rus kampından aldık."
With that, the sergeant opened the sack, revealing a multitude of smaller ones. Just opening one was enough to let an unmistakable smell pervade the area, prompting a few guards to show delighted smiles.
"Onu depoya getir." said the sergeant, quietly pocketing the small sack he had been holding. "Bırak geçsinler!"
"Teşekkürler çavuş."
The guard then lifted the bar, and the cart could proceed.
But, contrary to the instructions received, it did not go towards the stores, rather waiting to disappear from the sight of the guard post to suddenly turn right, stopping in a deserted square.
"This collar is stifling me." protested Virginia, unlatching the first button. "Were did you learn Turkish?"
"I... I have a lot of free time." Tolstoj replied, almost embarassed, taking on the sack from the cart. "C'mon, it's not far from here."
Cautiously, but trying not to cast suspicion on themselves by trying too hard,the two started off on the town's streets, on which only Ottoman soldiers could be seen; the governor had prudently decided to evacuate the city even before the enemy's arrival, and although that had meant surrendering it without a fight it had surely saved a lot of lives.
"Are you sure it's this way?"
"More than sure." replied Lev, steadily plodding on despite the huge and very heavy load he was carrying. "I was trained for a while there."
In a short while, the two reached a hut made of dried bricks near the main barracks, with no windows and covered by a few wooden planks; the Ottomans felt so safe that, except for a couple patrols around the area, nobody was guarding the door, therefore Virginia and Tolstoj had to just wait for the all clear to get inside with no issue.
There, in the dark, there was a huge mound of small, dark casks, piled up all together in a mess. There were at least a hundred of them-
Virginia opened one, revealing the content.
"There it is. Black powder."
Tolstoj at that was finally able to give a rest to his poor shoulders by dropping his cargo, and while Virginia opened the casks one by one, he began to pour inside them the content of the small sacks, careful to make as little noise as possible, and keeping an eye towards the door at all times.
"Seriously now, Miss Oldoini. Do you get this strategy at all?"
"In all honesty? No. But I learned to shut down my brain when that freaky little girl is involved."
That morning, the Russian army still standing by at Balaklava had at last received the order to move out to the north, and everything suggested that, in a short while, things would change a lot.
Other than the sappers and the artillery units, whose contribution had been strangely considered not necessary in the battle plan that was being prepared, in the small village, by thhen liberated from the Anglo-French forces, a small detachment of guards had remained to keep a look on the prisoners.
If the French, Canrobert first of all, had had a favourable treatment, with the General hosted in the captain's room of one of the captured British ships in the village's small harbor, and his men allowed to drink and congratulate themselves on still being alive down in the holds, prisoners but well fed, the British, relatively speaking, were faring much worse.
Because on that the General's line of thinking was, to say the least, unusual; if on one hand she appreciated bravery and determination in discharging one's own duty, on the other hand the foolish decision to keep fighting despite the apparent defeat, with the concrete risk of causing further loss of life just out of a desire to drag down as many enemies with them as possible, was a reprehensible behavior, if not outright a punishable one.
Because of that, the few survivors of the 93rd had been all locked up in a hut, divested of part of their uniforms and left with dirty blankets to keep warm in the cold Crimean nights.
All considered, Cardigan had almost come out on top of his men; at least he had a small room all to himself, and he had been allowed to keep his uniform; if it was indeed an award to be forced to wear trousers with a yellow stain in the crotch area.
His days were filled with nervous walks here and there, or forlornly sitting down with his back on the cold walls, like a condemned man waiting to be led to the gallows.
Evidently it was too much of a weight to tolerate, for a man like him.
That night, the two guards that kept an eye on the huts had taken a longer dinner than usual, therefore on their first round they immediately noticed something was off, passing by the Colonel's hut; usually they could hear Cardigan mumbling a few prayers, and therefore the silence immediately unnerved them.
One of the two put his face between the bars at the door, and what he could glimpse in the dark was an inert corpse dangling from the roof.
"Oh, shit! Open!"
Other than the dishonor of having such a high-ranking officers taking his own life under custody, the two were well aware of what they would face if the General had discovered that the prisoner had had all the time to kill himself because they hadn't done their duty.
Barging in, they found the Colonel with his face turned towards the door, hanging from the ripped off sleeves of his jacket tied to the lone shaft in the roof not rotten enough to hold his weight.
Their first instinct was to run to take him down in the hope of not being too late, and in their hurry they failed to notice that Cardigan's hands were unusually tied behind his back.
Tied... or so it seemed.
Despite not being a seaman, the Colonel knew how to make a knot sufficiently complex to cause the maximum tension in the rope without causing him to choke, with the proviso of having a sort of "lever" that allowed the noose to be loose enough.
Grabbing one of the soldiers with his legs to have a support, Cardigan snapped his neck with a swift blow, removing the noose from his neck immediately after.
The other guard, taken completely by surprise, tried to point his gun, but the Colonel by then had already jumped him, choking him with the rope he still had between his wrists.
Everything happened in the span of a few seconds, and Cardigan took a few more to be sure that nobody had heard anything. Then, taking hold of a pistol, ammunition and powder, he hurriedly went out, disappearing in the dark.
The situation at Sevastopol was unusually quiet, on the dawn of November the Fifth.
During the night, an Arctic disturbance had reached the hills around the city, dropping the first snowflakes and bringing a light but very cold wind, that, like the breath of a giant, came down on the bay and reached the open sea.
Hidden by the clouds that promised a renewed storm in a short while, the sun was struggling to show himself in the sky, proclaiming with its coming another day of fighting, the last in innumerable ones.
In the forts and in the trenches, as well as on the ships in the fleet, the Allies were preparing for the changing of the guard (or the watch), other than consuming a breakfast prepared out of what little the sutlers had managed to save from the frost, already threatening to compromise the more delicate foodstuffs.
But while the British and the French were calming down their guts with hardtack and lukewarm coffee, in the city the Russians were more active than ever.
Aboard the fleet flagship, the 120-gun Velikii Kniaz' Konstantin, Katyusha watched as around her the seamen prepared to set sail, among the utmost silence and in the absence of whistles, calls and noise that made the scene almost disquieting.
Within the city and in the forts the preparations were marching on as well; so, while at Malakoff and in the other fortifications the gunners were loading the mortars with large clay spheres fitted with fuzes, near the canal the infantrymen, together with some local civilians, were hurriedly preparing a long line of open casks, out of which some dark and thick steam was coming.
Lastly, near the obstruction, a few small boats, each carrying two or three soldiers, were laying in wait, well hidden behind the sunken wrecks, each provided with a long, hollow tubes held by one of the crew that dipped under the chilly water, right by the sunken ships.
The ship-of-the-line that had showed up in the middle of the roadsted a few nights' ago was still there, sunk almost perfectly upright, and on her deck as well work was being done, with a few soldiers hard at work scattering casks and piles of explosives all over the wreck.
The gunner that watched over the work checked one last time, verifying that each fuze had been correctly connected to a single primer.
At that point, and at his command, a single whistle echoed in the general silence, reaching an ear on a small boat, and from there eventually going from mouth to mouth until it reached Katyusha's ear, who checked her watch.
It was fifty-eight minutes and thirty-six seconds after five.
At her nod, the same whistle made the return journey to the gunner aboard the Khrabryi, who himself checked his watch.
And waited.
He waited until the hand pointed at fifty-nine minutes on the dot; then, the fuzes lit, he ran for the awaiting boat, who made a good show of getting the hell out of there.
Again, the whistle made his way to Katyusha, who had never taken her eyes from the watch.
The seconds came one after the other.
One after another.
Then, it was six o'clock.
"Now!"