1943 (Kirov Series Book 27) Page 6

  What had happened to all the days after that, returning to the ship, standing on the weather deck off the bridge and seeing the stain of blood there, Karpov’s blood…? Then Fedorov was at his side again, trusty Fedorov, and together the two of them led the ship and crew into June of 1940, but Kazan was nowhere to be found.

  There had been battles, the meeting with Tovey in the Faeroes when the Admiral first came aboard Kirov, and it was all playing out in a strange new world—a world only made possible by the interventions they had made with the ship in the past. Where was that other world, the world where this same British Admiral chased me through the North Atlantic, he thought? Where was the world we found when we sailed into the Med, and tangled with the Italians, Germans and British alike? Where was the world that sent that Japanese plane crashing down onto the battle bridge, and saw the ship hounded and pursued by the relentless efficiency of the Imperial Japanese Navy?

  That was all gone now, lost, for here they were in a time before any of that had ever happened—June of 1940. The seconds and minutes there would tick off, their sound growing ever louder, through one engagement after another, until that dreadful hour when they approached the time of their first arrival in the past, July of 1941.

  But they never reached that time.

  Something happened.

  It was as twisted as the misshapen warp in the deck, or the sad fate of Lenkov, who found half his body embedded in the galley deck, and the other half inside a Marine locker. It was as mysterious as that thing Fedorov had taken from Orlov, casting it away into Peake’s Deep to be forever lost and forgotten by the world.

  Then came the grey mist, the endless sea fog that not even the KA-40 could rise high enough to penetrate. Then came the aimless swell of the sea. In time, he knew, they were lost on that sea, for it lapped the shores of infinity itself, and for them, there would be no safe haven where they would ever drop anchor again.

  One by one the men went missing… One by one. Orlov was gone, and Tasarov, and Dobrynin. Then Fedorov vanished one day, a loss that some among the crew did not even notice. It was as if he had never even been there, never even existed, but Volsky remembered. He would not forget.

  Then it had happened to him. The feeling had been creeping up on him for many days. He remembered when he had called Rodenko to his cabin, to prepare him for what he knew was coming.

  “Mister Rodenko,” he whispered. “I must tell you that I have felt very odd of late.”

  “We all have, sir.”

  “No,” said Volsky with a wag of his thick finger. “It is more than this confusing madness that has been plaguing us. It is very strange… I feel… empty.”

  “Losing a man like Fedorov will do that to you sir. And we’ve lost so many other good men.”

  “Yes, but that is not what I mean. It is as though I was just not all here. I’m forgetful, listless, and very fatigued. The other day I was on my way to the bridge and found myself on the wrong deck.”

  “It’s just the whole situation, sir, this fog, the missing men, Lenkov’s legs.”

  “It’s more than that. Mister Rodenko, I must tell you that you should not be surprised if I am the man who fails to make his next assigned shift. I feel all thin and stretched… I feel like something is pulling at me, reaching for me, but I cannot see it or understand it. If I should suffer the same fate as our good Mister Fedorov, then realize that all this business will then be on your shoulders. Understand?”

  Who could comprehend what happened next? There he was, back on the ship, sitting in his chair on the bridge, that dull ache in his sea tooth, the one that would always plague him in the cold waters of the north. There he was, wondering what in hell had happened to the sea, and why the Orel failed to return their hails? There he was, his mind emptied of all that he now remembered, innocent, like a child; unknowing.

  Everything seemed as it once was—except Fedorov. Something was different about this young navigator, and the way he drew sparks with Karpov was most surprising. Yet what could be more astounding than the things Fedorov began to assert—that the ship was not where they thought it was, that time itself had slipped into their boiling wake, and that they now sailed in the cold uncertain waters of WWII. The impossibility of that was something the mind had to chip away at, with one test after another, until every scrap of evidence they had about the world they were then sailing in served only to vindicate what Fedorov was saying.

  I had lost the memory of everything that happened after that first arrival, he thought, but it is all back now, crowding into my weary head like a throng of theater goers jostling for too few seats. We went south that first time, through the Denmark Strait, but not that second time. No. The second time we turned for home, Murmansk, Severomorsk, and who could have believed I would discover that the Captain skulking on my bridge, worrisome, suspicious, conniving with Orlov, ever at odds with Fedorov, would be replaced by the sinister and devious figure of the man I met in Severomorsk—the Siberian.

  Two Karpovs! Two ships; two worlds….

  Then I went south on the submarine, not Kazan, but that antiquated old British boat. Yes… I went south, with that thing in my pocket to deliver to Admiral Tovey, Fedorov’s gift—the key. What was that all about? How did Fedorov come by that key, and what did it have to do with any of this madness and mayhem that had swept through their lives, and shaken the fate of the world to its knees?

  Then there came that awful moment, in the heat of red battle, the loud boom of the guns, the ear shattering crash on the bridge when that heavy 16-insh shell burst in through the wind screen, and yet did not explode. Men were lying senseless all around him, Tovey one of them, the blood streaming from his ear and neck.

  I was stunned and dazed, he thought, but at least had the presence of mind to get Tovey safely back to that aft compartment off the bridge. Then to the wheel, to the ship stricken, headless, careening through the wild sea. Then to the fire of battle, my hand tense on the wheel, legs straining as I threw my weight into it, turning, turning…. Then darkness came upon me, endless silence, the black of unknowing, my very self was torn asunder, lost, lost… until now…. Until this very moment when everything I once was, everything I lived out in both those worlds, now comes pouring back into my head again with its animated fury.

  “Sir?” said Gromyko. “Shall I call the ship’s physician?”

  He held up a hand, reassuring the Captain that he was alright. “All is well, Captain,” said Volsky, still struggling to place himself here in the mad rush of recollection. Other memories were there, beneath the torrent that now cascaded into his mind, memories of yet another life.

  He had been sitting at his desk in the Red Banner Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk, when in walked a most remarkable man—Director Kamenski. He sat himself down, a worn book under his arm, and a familiar light in his eyes that Volsky knew he had seen many times before.

  “I have a request to make of you,” he said. “It has to do with the submarine that only just returned to us—the one we lost in the Norwegian Sea.”

  “You mean Kazan?”

  “That is the one. Admiral…. I need to speak with you about that submarine, and a good deal more….”

  They talked, and for a very long time, the subject becoming darker and darker, more convoluted, more impossible to believe, like a story that was pulling him deeper and deeper into its web, until he felt himself to be one with it, just another character in the flow, through time, and tide, and long hours at sea.

  Those were the things I now remember, he knew. Kamenski asked me to come aboard and put out to sea with Gromyko, and here I am. Yet when I first stepped aboard this boat, nothing of the maelstrom of recollection that is now raging through my mind was even present. I was another self, from yet another life, and one much quieter and sleepier than these other two I now recall. I think I was to stay put in that life—none of this mucking about in time as Kamenski put it to me, but no, it seems I was fated to become a traveler. That is ho
w he explained it. I was meant to be a part of the longest story ever to be written… right here, right now. It continues at this very moment, in the thrum of the engines that I instinctively perceive whenever I go to sea, in the eyes of this man before me now, wondering, concerned, Gromyko.

  “Yes,” said Volsky. “I will join you. I think I need some air.”

  The Admiral shifted out of the bunk, feet heavily on the deck, and stood up on unsteady legs. “My sea legs aren’t what they used to be,” he said, gripping the side of the bed rail hard. Gromyko stepped forward to render assistance, still worried. He knew the other man was an old surface warrior, and they had been down under the ice a good long while. Some men never really could find their sea legs on a submarine, and it seemed that Admiral Volsky was one of them.

  “Here sir,” said Gromyko. “Let me give you a hand. Then we’ll both raise a toast to the new year—unless you don’t feel up to it.”

  “What?” said Volsky. “Captain, I was just dreaming, but I can still drink most any man I have ever met under the table. What year have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

  That was the question, for Kamenski told him that, while they would slip out to sea in the year 2021, Kazan would dive into unsounded depths when it reached the Kara Sea.

  “You will wake up to all of this soon,” Kamenski had told him. Here, this will help.” He handed him that weathered book, and Volsky remembered eyeing it with passing curiosity—the Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945. And there was something else. He blinked at it stupidly when Kamenski gave it to him, wondering what it was all about.

  “Keep that safe for me a little while, will you?” said the Director. “You can just tuck it away in your pocket if you will. Don’t worry about it. These things have a way of minding their own affairs.”

  What in the world did Kamenski mean by that?

  He had given me that book, and now I know exactly why. Volsky smiled, spying the volume on the night stand beside his cot. And he gave me something else, something I did tuck away in my pocket just as he advised, the key. I didn’t know what it was for when he handed it to me in my office, but by God, I certainly know now.

  The memory was there—right there in his weary old head, as if it had always been there, mixed in with everything else. He was speaking with Fedorov about it, the two of them wondering what it was all about…

  “This has been a most remarkable journey,” Volsky had said to his young ex-Navigator. “Yet what you say about these keys is very alarming. What are they for, Fedorov?”

  “I’ve spent some time piecing it all together, sir. Both Kamenski and I now agree that it all dates back to 1908, the Tunguska Event. That impact did more than level trees in Siberia and provide fodder for the fire of many stories and legends thereafter. It also fractured the fourth dimension, time. It seems that several fissures resulted, like cracks in that mirror, as I tried to explain it before. Some were discovered, and because of the obvious danger should anyone move through them to another time, they were well secured and guarded—put under lock and key.”

  “By who?” Volsky scratched his head.

  “This we do not really know, but we now believe it was done by the same people who made these keys—the same who sent those signals back through time to the ships of the Watch. You remember when Miss Fairchild told us about that?”

  “Yes… Then men from the future did all this?”

  “I know it sounds fantastic, sir, but considering the fact that we are men from the future meddling about here makes it easier to believe.”

  “How did these keys appear here, in the past? You say Director Kamenski has had one for decades?”

  “They must have been brought here,” said Fedorov, “possibly by using the very same time rifts they secured. I’m not sure how long the Watch knew about them, or how they came into their possession. Kamenski didn’t say how he came by his key, though he alluded that it was probably obtained by the KGB. Who knows when?”

  “The British have keys too?”

  “Miss Fairchild certainly has one. She used it to activate one of the rift sites, at Delphi.”

  “How many keys are there, Fedorov? Did you learn that?”

  “Fairchild says they knew of at least two others. One was in the possession of another member of the Watch, though she did not name that person, and she said nothing about any time rift associated with that key. The second was in the Selene Horse, aboard Rodney.”

  “What about Ilanskiy?” Volsky asked the obvious question. “Is there a key for that rift?”

  “The British knew nothing of that,” said Fedorov. “In fact, I may have been the one to first discover it. Even these men in the future did not know about it, which leads me to think that our mission, the ship, my actions, are deeply implicated in all of this. We’re a wild card in the deck, sir.”

  “But you say those stairs took you back to 1908, Fedorov. That means anyone could have used them. It’s a long way between 1908 and the 1940s where you stumbled upon it. We know Sergei Kirov used them, and Volkov. Look what resulted!”

  “True, sir. That’s very worrisome. All the other rift zones were well guarded, but not Ilanskiy. I think this is what unhinged the key makers plan—Ilanskiy.”

  “What plan do you speak of?”

  “I’m not sure, sir, but I’ve been thinking about all this for some time. If men in the future discovered these time rifts and secured them, then they were obviously trying to prevent this Grand Finality Miss Fairchild told us about. But they failed—at least that is what Fairchild believes. She tells me the voices went silent. The watch stopped receiving instructions, and their last message urged them to gather and secure all the keys to the rift zones, and one thing more. It was a warning.”

  “About this calamity you mention?”

  “In one sense, but it was much more specific. It was about us.”

  “About us? You mean the ship?”

  “Yes sir. That is why Tovey founded the Watch, to keep vigil for our next possible appearance.”

  “Yes, and understandably so,” said Volsky. “But this sounds a little more sinister, Fedorov. You say they were told to secure all these keys, but then they are warned about us? What do these men from the future think we are going to do?”

  “I don’t know….” Fedorov had a frustrated look on his face now. “When I first heard about these keys, these other rifts, I thought I could finally set down the burden I have been carrying, thinking all this was on my shoulders.”

  “On our shoulders, Fedorov, the ship and every man aboard. Do not be so greedy and try to take all the blame yourself.”

  “I have tried, sir, but learning about this warning leads me to suspect our part in this tale has not yet run its course. We’re going to do something. This is how I see things now. We’re going to do something that could make it impossible to prevent this calamity Fairchild talks about—this Grand Finality.”

  “And it has something to do with these keys?”

  “Apparently so, sir.… It’s as if the lines of fate are setting course for some distant rendezvous point, a nexus point, and I’m not sure what is supposed to happen there. We are living all this through moment by moment, and groping like blind men.”

  “You want certainty, Fedorov, but you know that is impossible. There is no way we could know this—know something we might do in the future.”

  “But there is, sir. We’ve seen the results of our actions. We can look ahead in time and know what we have done. These men from the future might also know. To them this would all be history, but they have gone silent. The only thing we have is that last warning. Beware a ship… beware Kirov…”

  Admiral Volsky frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  Volsky smiled grimly to himself, particularly after he now remembered that long conversation he had with Kamenski before he came aboard.

  “Captain, our little lightning rod has worked its wonders. Yes? What year have we gotten ourselves in
to this time?”

  “Why, 1943, sir. 1943.”

  Part III

  Gung Ho

  “If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.”

  ― Criss Jami, Killosophy

  Chapter 7

  Patch had no illusions about what was in front of him, but he was confident his division was ready. The unit had come in early in 1942 as part of “Poppy Force” dispatched to Australia. It was thought it might deploy to take New Caledonia, whereupon it would come to be called the Americal Division, but the Japanese reinforcement of that island by the Ichiki Detachment ended that plan. It was not thought the troops were then ready for an amphibious operation against veteran Japanese units. So months of training in Australia followed, before the division was tagged to go to the Fiji Group.

  By then the 1st USMC Division had already landed to stop the Japanese advance on Suva. Now Patch led his 23rd “Pacifica” Division in to help stabilize the situation in the south. They landed at Suva and deployed along the Queen’s Road until they ran into the Japanese 38th Division at the Singatoa River delta. There was some hard fighting there by the 164th RCT, but as the whole division had not come up yet, they could not move the Japanese.

  It wasn’t until the 1st Marine Division shattered the Sakaguchi Detachment in the north and began a concerted advance on Tavua that the situation in the south became more fluid. The Japanese detached a full regiment, then another, to backstop the defense of Tavua. In the south they held on stubbornly while they were awaiting the arrival of their 48th Division, but had to give up ground, falling back to Momi Bay, a small harbor on the west coast south of Nandi.