“And probably why that ship is coming into harbor,” Orlov muttered. “It must be HMS Cardiff. King George no doubt has no intention of leaving one of his mother’s great-granddaughters stranded here.”
Pyotr began bouncing up and down, attempting to get his head above the crowd and waving his cadet’s cap in one hand. “Cousin Olga,” he was singing out. “It’s me, Pyotr. Over here.”
It must have dawned on Pyotr and, alarmingly, on Orlov in the same instant that the deliverance of Olga could be a better answer for Pyotr’s future than casting his lot with the cadets and Orlov, because as Pyotr more frantically sought to get the attention of Olga’s footmen, Orlov was fighting to pull Pyotr’s arms down and propelling him forward with the wedge. Orlov’s efforts, however, were also propelling the two off to the side, causing them to break away from the wedge.
As the two stumbled into the crowd around them, Pyotr saw the slight figure of a young woman, dressed somewhat more elegantly than those around her, slipping toward the ground. He pushed toward her and reached down, catching her just in time with an arm around her slender waist and pulling her back upright. He knew well that if she’d gone under the feet of the mob, she’d have been trampled into an unrecognizable pulp of blood, bones, and ripped satin within moments. She gave him a radiant smile and murmured her thanks in the impeccable language of the Russian imperial court as he pulled her up from danger.
Pyotr realized two things instantly—that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that he was in love.
It was only an instant of contact, though. The arms of a tall, muscular man in the uniform of a Russian naval officer were lifting the young woman away from Pyotr, and with no more than a menacing look of challenged possession on his face, the officer was guiding the young woman in a close embrace away from Pyotr. In a single breath’s time, the two were lost in the crowd.
Pyotr, and Orlov who had held onto Pyotr as possessively as the naval officer had regained control of the mysterious young beauty, found themselves lost in the crowd too. In the short time it had taken for Pyotr to save the young woman, the cadet’s phalanx had moved on, leaving them stranded.
Orlov didn’t falter, though. He cried out, “This way,” and started shoving Pyotr toward one of the docked ships.
If anything, the crowd was more angry and aggressive the closer Pyotr and Orlov got to the two docked ships. But Orlov was strong and as cruel and brutal as anyone in the milling mass of refugees. He was brandishing a strong steel cane and was using it without mercy to clear a path. It wasn’t long before they were close to the ship Orlov had been striving toward and nearly at the edge of the wharf. Pyotr could see that, off to their left, the ferry now was loading up academy cadets who had managed to wedge their way to that position.
“The cadets are there,” Pyotr cried out. “Shouldn’t we be—?”
“We arranged for places on two of the ships,” Orlov answered, raising his voice over the din of the crowd. “There, just ahead, is the embarkation point. We will take this ship.”
Pyotr turned his head to take one more look at the ferry, covered now in the gray, with red trimmings, of the uniforms of his fellow cadets. He only had time to pick out the figures of Vasily and Mikhail on board the ferry before he heard the screams and saw the overloaded flat-bottomed boat flip and a cascade of gray and red slip off into the churning water of the turgid harbor.
“Mikhail and Vasily,” he cried. “The cadets are in the water. Neither can swim.”
But Orlov’s ears were unhearing. He had already muscled Pyotr up to the embarkation booth. He was gruffly calling out to the ship’s officer there—and receiving the attention that his obvious authority merited. “I have Count Pyotr Romanov, nephew to the tsar, here,” his voice rang out. “He’s of the Imperial Military Academy cadet contingent booked for passage on this ship. Make way for the count.”
* * * *
Pyotr almost blushed with embarrassment at the deference that the ship’s officers and sailors showed him when Orlov identified him as a Romanov. It had been the same out on the wharf when, despite the melee in progress, the way had been made for the grand duchess’s carriage. The carriage was piled high with suitcases and trunks, which, no doubt, would all make their way on the British man-of-war, even while the masses on the docks would be lucky to get their children on a ship, not to mention any belongings.
Secretly, he had increasingly understood the crux of the revolution against his family in the two years he’d been in exile with the Imperial Military Academy cadets. His father hadn’t been like this—or so Pyotr thought. His father had always treated his servants and those in the fields on their vast estates like his family. He had been as much a father figure to his serfs as Tsar Nicholas had been to all Russians. That’s what Pyotr had always believed. But there had never been any question that his father was the patriarch and that all of the servants and workers in the field were there to serve him and his family. Pyotr had come to realize that he had expected every privilege that had come his way. And that it had stunted both his intellectual and emotional growth.
He had become wiser and more aware and human in these last two years in exile and being treated like any other cadet—well, almost. He didn’t want to lie to himself about his special treatment, even in Kazan—and he had decided well before he arrived at the quay that, should he survive the revolution, he would change his name. He would take his mother’s patronymic of Apraksin and cease to be any part of a Romanov.
Orlov was not going to let that happen on the ship, though. The teacher dominated Pyotr to the extent that it seemed he had no special reverence for the Romanovs. But Pyotr was Orlov’s own ticket to safety and comfort. And thus, Pyotr realized that Orlov was going to stay attached to him as long as possible and to see that everyone who would be impressed knew that Pyotr was a Romanov.
The two were ushered immediately on board, and shortly afterward the gangplank was being raised—which was no easy task. Sensing that yet one more opportunity for fleeing Novorossiysk was evaporating, the multitudes on the docks became even more agitated and an ominous keening sound built to a crescendo. The ship’s sailors had to lower their bayoneted rifles and form a line to back up toward the gangplank. The rougher men in the crowd were moving to the front and closing in on the line of sailors. Mere boys had swum out and around to the end of the dock and were climbing onto it from behind the line of sailors, and the officers standing behind the lines stumbled to the side of the dock and struck the boys back into the water with the stocks of their rifles as their heads came up over the side.
The rabble was quite evidently preparing to rush the line of sailors when the first shot was fired, which was followed immediately by a volley of rifle fire that tore into the approaching refugees and sent several of them, bleeding, to the stone surface of the wharf. This gave the line of sailors only a few seconds of respite, but it was enough for most of them to turn and follow their officers up the gangplank and pull the plank up from the dock. Not all of them made it, though. Those sailors who were an instant too slow to move were overtaken by the angry mob and torn to pieces. Captured rifles were gathered up and raised toward the ship, but the sailors at the rails of the ship were quick to take aim and cut anyone down on the dock who pointed a rifle in the direction of the ship.