Chapter 11

June the 26th, 1906 was a clear, bright, late summer's day in the Baltic port of Libau. Nowadays, the port and town is called Liepaja in the Latvian language but in 1906, it was known by its German name, Libau.

Over a year ago the Tsar's Second Pacific Squadron had set out to meet the Japanese Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima on the other side of the World. Now, its shattered remnants began to retrace their route back to the Russian Naval base at Kronshtadt in the Neva estuary.

First came the only bona fide, surviving warship to make it back, the Cruiser Almaz. The Destroyers, Bravy and Grozny, had been left behind in Vladivostok. More Yacht than Cruiser, the Almaz's speed had enabled it to survive the fate of the rest of the squadron. The vessel knifed into the port trailing black smoke from its twin funnels. It stayed a day, time enough to coal, before scuttling back to its home port, not far away.

There was no ceremony on the pier, no crowd of well-wishers throwing flowers and blowing kisses to the crew. A few Mothers, wives and girlfriends stood anxiously waiting to see if their men were coming home. That was all, barring the odd Admiralty official checking some administrative detail, for the Tsar's Navy still consumed more paper than coal.

The next to arrive was the large Cruiser Rossiya. She'd survived an unequal battle with Kamimura's Japanese cruisers off Ulsan, Korea. That battle saw the demise of the gallant Vladivostok Cruiser Squadron, which had sent General Oyama's siege guns to the bottom of the Sea of Japan. The Bayan and Boyar had been sunk, while the Diana had taken refuge in French Indo-China. Her tall sides, serried portholes and four funnels made her look like a transatlantic liner. Her six 210mm Oblukhov guns, however had given a good account of themselves, as Kamimura later testified.

Again, she stayed only long enough to provision. She anchored in the bay as her 12,500 ton size would not fit a berth at Libau.

Some days later, the first of the chartered merchantmen began to arrive. The SS Ladoga arrived accompanied by the tug Kamchatka, itself a survivor of Tsushima. A passenger steamer, the Ladoga had made a relatively fast transit from the Kattegat straits. The rest followed in ones and twos until the SS Bazan, the oldest and slowest, finally steamed through the heads belching impressive quantities of oily smoke.

Senior Lieutenant Yvgeny Gorshin stood at the side rail of the Bazan, scanning the distant piers for a familiar face. There were only a few people, mostly waterside workers preparing the old ship's berthage. As the ship closed, he saw a number of women. Most of them, to his disappointment, appeared to be the Mothers of crewmen or the host of disgruntled naval sailors stumbling up from below decks. Yvgeny could not find his fiancee, Katka Talsii, among the small welcoming committee.

Captain Pikalevoi, recently promoted and rigged, as all the officers were, in his finest uniform, stood beside his crewmate and friend. Peter Szpetznar, another Grozny crewmate and newly promoted Ensign, stood on his other side.

"She won't be expecting you," suggested the Captain.

"No, no-one's got any mail through. She won't know you're on God's planet," agreed the 'Mad Pole, ' Szpetznar.

"I wired her from Vlady!" Yvgeny told them, "she should know!"

"A telegram to this cunt of a place?" Pikalevoi replied, "might as well have sent a pigeon!"

"They probably would've eaten the pigeon and thrown away the message," laughed the Pole, "bloody Latvians... can't stand them," he muttered.

"Hey, some of the ladies are cute! Isn't that right, Gorshin?" the Captain teased.

"Some... one!" Yvgeny replied.

"Come," the Captain said, patting Yvgeny on the back, "let's get off this barge and find a bar."

"No, I've got to find Katka," Yvgeny told Pikalevoi.

"Yeah, I'll stay put if you don't mind. I'm a responsible married man now, you know," Peter said.

"Oh, bullshit! What a boring pair of fucks! I'm going ashore to find a drink and a whore in that order!" With that, the Captain strode off purposely to await the gangway.

"I decided to leave the ship with the blessing of Pikalevoi," explained Admiral Gorshin to the Ensign, "Peter's new wife was waiting for him in St Petersburg, so he remained on board. I offloaded my gear and kit and left it with my old landlady. She was overjoyed at my return."

"I next sped around to Katka's uncle's house and there I heard the news I'd been dreading."

The peeling, rust brown door reverberated to Yvgeny's anxious knocking. The door was opened by a maid who stared at him as if he was some vagabond, rather than an officer in the Tsar's navy.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Excuse me, madam," Yvgeny said sweetly and with a quick nod, "I'm looking for my fiancee, Katka Talsii, I believe..."

"Katka?" she replied, quickly, "you have the wrong address." Yvgeny pushed against the door as she made to close it on him.

"I'm sorry, madam, perhaps you know of a Katka Talsii? Her Uncle..."

"Yes, of course!" she replied, irritated, "my employer's niece. But it must be a different Katka Talsii you're after. My employer's niece is engaged to be married to an aristocrat's son from Riga. Perhaps you've heard of him, Kasper Hochenlaufen, heir to the Duke of Ventspils, just North of..."

"Yes, yes!" Yvgeny cut her off. His head exploded at the news. Surely there must be some mistake? Or maybe this woman was lying to him for some unknown reason? Gathering himself, and still holding the door ajar to the annoyance of the maid, he asked, "may I see your employer?"

Yvgeny needed every ounce of control, of courage, to keep his voice steady.

"Whom should I say is calling?" she asked him, sniffing.

"Senior Lieutenant Yvgeny Gorshin, woman, and I'm not used to standing on the footpath." He thought that two could play her little game.

"You'd better come into the parlour," she told him with a particularly extravagant sniff. Yvgeny thought that he'd punched greater mortals than this maid for less impertinance.

Katka's Uncle burst into the parlour with his arms spread wide. He hugged Yvgeny like a lost son. Gorshin thought it great acting.

"Gorshin, my boy, we'd thought you'd drowned! How wonderful to see you!" He pumped Yvgeny's hand as if he expected Yvgeny to spout water.

"What's this news about Katka?" he asked him, urgently, "the maid..."

"I'm afraid you're too late, my boy." There was a hint of apology, almost of guilt in his voice. "She's engaged to a Duke's son, the Ventspils, have you heard of them?" Yvgeny thought he was going to hear a lot more of these people than he cared to.

"But that's not possible!" Yvgeny told the man, "she's engaged to me!"

"Now, now, you don't think that little Summer walk-in-the-park a year ago amounted to a promise to marry you, did you?"

"Yes I did!" Yvgeny told him angrily, "a promise is a promise... where is she?"

"Settle down! Don't raise your voice in this house. Forget her, go home or I'll throw you into the street."

Yvgeny appraised the man. Big, yes, but a comfortable life had grown a lot of flab. He could fell him without raising a sweat.

"Don't fuck with me!" Yvgeny snarled and grabbed him by the collar, "tell me where she is or I'll rip your head off and shove it up your arse!"

The man recoiled in shock. His demeanour changed as he realised he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

"See here," he babbled, "I'll call the police!"

"You'll have to pick your teeth off the pavement if you do!"

"Okay, okay," the man surrendered, "I'll write the address down. But it'll do you no good!"

"We'll see!" Yvgeny replied.

Clutching the paper the Uncle had given him, he sped from the house to find a hire-carriage.

"All I could find was a two-wheeled cart," the Admiral explained, "what a thing to come home to! I wanted to beat this effete Duke's son to a pulp. I was mad, quite mad! They would have thrown me in the brig if I was on-board ship," he chuckled.

It was late afternoon before he finally found the Talsii's farm. He'd got lost, had asked directions and got lost again. By the time he found the right farm he was in a murderous mood.

Yvgeny pulled the horse up outside the rambling, two-storied villa. It had a steep, thatched roof with carved gables of corn-sheave designs. It was the home of a prosperous, pastoral, Latvian farmer.

A young man stood on the front porch, a shotgun across his arms. He watched Yvgeny get down from the cart, straighten his dress sword and don his peaked officer's cap.

"You lost?" the young man said, a hint of menace in his voice.

"I hope not. Does Katka Talsii live here?" Yvgeny asked.

"Why does the Navy want her?" came the response.

Yvgeny had had enough of being dicked with by posturing civilians.

"Is she here?" he repeated, louder.

"What's the commotion?" came a woman's voice from inside. Katka's Mother then appeared at the doorway. She took one look at Yvgeny and spun on her heels. "Mateus!" she hollered.

"Gorshin!" bellowed Katka's Father as he appeared next. "What the Hell! We thought you were dead! Good God, boy, what are you doing here?"

Yvgeny detected something forced, something profoundly dishonest in the tone of his voice.

"I've come to see Katka, my betrothed," he told her Father.

"Your what?" he said, aghast, "that's a bit extreme, isn't it? What do you mean, 'betrothed'?"

"I mean," Yvgeny sucked in his breath to keep himself under control, "I mean we are to be married. She is to be my wife."

"Well I'm sorry if you've been led to believe that, Gorshin. But she's engaged to Kaspar Hochenlaufen the Duke..."

"Yes I heard all of that," Gorshin replied, "may I see her?"

"Now, boy, that wouldn't be in everyone's interest now, would it?"

Yvgeny hadn't sailed twice around the World, fought a Naval battle on behalf of his country, been through many trials and tribulations, only to be patronised by his prospective Father in Law.

"MAY... I... SEE... HER... NOW!" he yelled.

"HEY! DON'T YOU COME HERE AND..."

The youth swung his gun towards Yvgeny. Gorshin hadn't any weapon besides his dress sword. But he wasn't intimidated by firearms, not after his experiences.

"Put that gun down, daffodil, or you'll be chewing it between your gums!" he snarled at the young man. The youth hesitated. "The Japanese didn't get me, I don't think you'll get the chance," he continued.

Katka's Father nodded towards the young man. "Put it down, boy, no need for that." The Youth stood the gun by the side of the house and folded his arms. "Now look, boy..."

"Senior Lieutenant or Yvgeny will do just fine," he corrected.

"Okay, okay," Mateus Talsii held up his hands, placatingly. "Simmer down... Yvgeny. This is a difficult situation. You see, when Katka didn't hear from you she..."

"May I see her, sir?" Yvgeny asked, regaining his self-control.

"That won't be possible. She's..."

"Why?" Gorshin demanded.

"Well? She doesn't want..."

Just then there was a shuffling in the doorway. Bursting past her Mother's restraining arms, Katka stood, framed, shocked, her jaw hanging open.

"YVGENY!" she screamed, her face breaking out in an ecstatic smile. She brushed past her parents and ran to him, arms flung wide. Throwing them around his shoulders she buried her face in his chest. Yvgeny was staggered by the sudden assault and stepped back. "Why didn't you write?" she chided.

"I did, often, and I sent you a wire from Vladivostok and another from Shanghai. Didn't you get them?"

"No, I didn't," she replied, puzzled, "did you use the address I gave you?"

"Yes, of course!" he told her, "here, I have it in my breast pocket. It's never left my person since I sailed from Libau."

"I should have got it!" she said, checking the address Yvgeny showed her. "I know the mail's been funny, but I should have got the telegrams. We check at the office in town every week. Dad?" she turned to her Father, "have we received anything from Yvgeny at the Telegraph office?"

"No... nothing," he shrugged. Yvgeny knew instantly he was lying. He'd learnt to read people's eyes and Mateus Talsii's displayed deceit.

"Come," Yvgeny demanded, "let's go for a walk." He seized Katka's hand and strode off with her while her parents gaped, helplessly. Walking around the house, he found a suitable tree. Confronting her, he asked, "who's this Kaspar Hochenloafer?"

"Hochenlaufer," she corrected, "he's... a Duke's son."

"And?"

"And... I met him down in the market... he's very nice!"

"And?"

"And... he asked me to... marry him."

"And?"

"And... I said I'd think about it."

"And, have you?"

"Well? I'd get to live in a big house with lots of servants. I thought you were dead, Yvgeny, I'm sorry!"

"So have you agreed to marry this Hochenloafer?"

"Hochenlaufer! And, no I haven't said yes... and I haven't said no, either."

"So now I'm back, what's your decision?"

"Yvgeny... you don't need to ask, it's always been you, I swear! I haven't even let Kaspar kiss me. Not properly, anyway."

"I'm glad you've brought that up," Yvgeny said, before taking her in his arms and fusing his mouth to hers. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her parents arguing with each other and waving their arms in his direction.

"Katka didn't believe her parents would do such a thing," Gorshin told the Ensign, "but I knew straight away that my maggot of a Father in Law kept my letters and telegrams from her. Over time, she came to accept it also. They plainly wanted to throw this Hochenloafer at her. Not hard to see why, his family owned half of Northern Latvia."

"So you saw this aristocrat off?"

"Didn't need to... seven days later I stole her off her parents and we hopped a train back to Russia."

"You eloped?"

"Damn right we did. We'd still be getting the run around from her parents if we hadn't seized our chance."

"Did you reconcile with your in-laws?"

"Not really... they hated me for what I did. Even now I'm sure they're cursing me from beyond the grave. We'd see them at Christmas, sometimes. It was awkward, they'd deluge the kids with gifts, then leave. I liked that part best, their leaving."

The atmosphere at the Talsii's villa had not changed much when Yvgeny called next. Her parents would not leave them alone and scowled at them across the room. Katka whispered that she'd been lectured to about, 'throwing away her future'. She'd hid in her room when informed, 'she was not going to marry a sailor as long as we take breath.'

"Murder them, then," he whispered.

"Be serious!" she whispered back.

"Oh, I am, I am!"

"Stop whispering!" demanded her Father.

"This is impossible!" he told her, before leaving.

It was slightly over a week before Yvgeny could make it back out to the farm. He found Katka sullen and moody. Her parents were in town on business, she said, but her young cousin remained behind to 'look after her.'

The young man, the same youth who had threatened Yvgeny with the shotgun, padded after them not more than two metres away as the couple went for a walk.

"Kaspar came to see me," she told him.

"And?"

"Don't start that!" she chided, "I told him I can't see him anymore. He was upset... so was Papa. He told me I needed to give Kaspar another chance."

"I'm sorry, Katka, but I don't feel disappointed about that."

"It's all right," she replied, "but what are we to do? Papa will never agree to our marriage."

"No," he conceded.

"So why don't you leave our family alone?" came a voice behind them. Yvgeny bristled and Katka nudged him.

"Don't!" she mouthed.

"Why don't you grow some balls?" Yvgeny retorted.

"Yvgeny!" Katka warned.

"He's not so tough, Katka," said the youth, "after all, they were beaten by a few yellow men, haha!"

"Rolf!" cried Katka.

Yvgeny spun on his heels and confronted the boy.

"What the Hell is your problem, daffodil?"

The youth blanched white. Fear began to replace the cocky expression as he read the anger in Yvgeny's face. He stepped back a pace, collected himself, balled his fists, then regained the sneering attitude.

"You think you're so superior," the boy began.

"Oh, Rolf, shut up!" snapped Katka.

"You come here looking down your nose at us in your sissy uniform like some big hero..." He took another step back. "... but you're just a peasant. Uncle says you ran away from the Japs..."

"Is daffodil a favourite cousin of yours, Katka?" Yvgeny interrupted.

"No, he's a jerk like his Father, why?"

"So you don't mind if I slap his face around the other side of his head?"

"Yes, I do! You'll get me into trouble and I won't be allowed to see you again."

The youth took two steps back and raised his fists slightly. His face had lost all its confidence, however.