By the same author The Twentieth Day of January Pay Any Price The Seeds of Treason Show Me a Hero THE CROSSING TED ALLBEURY DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. Mineola, New York Copyright Copyright © 1987 the Estate of Ted Allbeury All rights reserved. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The author has asserted his moral right in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988 [UK]. Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by New English Library, Great Britain, in 1987. International Standard Book Number ISBN-13: 978-0-486-82038-5 ISBN-10: 0-486-82038-6 Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications 82038601 2017 www.doverpublications.com THE CROSSING Contents Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Part Two Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Part Three Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Part Four Chapter 37 About the Author Part One 1 The boy and the young man were the only people on board the ship. They stood leaning over the rails looking at the crowd around the man standing on the wooden box, waving his arms and shouting, but the sharp wind carried his words away. “What’s he saying, Boris?” “He’s from the Military Revolutionary Committee from the Petrograd Soviet. He’s telling them that the workers, the peasants, and the soldiers are in charge now in Russia. All peasants will be given land, the soldiers will be paid and the people will be fed and given jobs.” “Are they pleased about that?” The young man laughed. “They’ve heard it too many times, boy, from too many people. They don’t believe him. They say they want deeds not words.” The boy looked at the young man’s face, tanned and lined from wind and sun. He had strange eyes. Old, sad eyes that never blinked. “Somebody told me that hundreds of people have been killed, maybe thousands,” the boy said. The young man nodded. “And many more thousands will die before all this is over.” “Why do they kill working people if they want to give them freedom?” The young man spat over the side of the ship. “They don’t intend to give them freedom, Josef. This is just a struggle for power. Revolutionaries against revolutionaries. Old allies facing the final truth. Which pigs will have their snouts in the trough for the next hundred years. Bolsheviks or Mensheviks.” “Whose side are you on? Who do you want to win?” “I’m on the side of whoever wins, boy. And that will be the Bolsheviks. Nobody wants them to win but they will, because they know what they want and they’ll kill anyone who stands in their way.” “Who are these Bolsheviks?” “Who knows? Here in Petrograd it’s Trotsky, Stalin, Sverdlov, Dzerzhinski, Latsis and Peters.” “How do you know so much about them?” “I live here. This is my home town. I read the papers and listen to the talk in the bars.” “Will there be another revolution like they had before?” “A revolution, yes. But not like we’ve had before. This time it is power-hungry men at each other’s throats. The people will be safe until it’s over.” “When will it be decided who’s won?” “Tonight, at the meeting of the MRC. Tomorrow we shall have new Tsars, in the pay of the Germans this time.” It was October 25, 1917. Misha had been a worker in one of the iron-foundries. He was one of Zagorsky’s friends and the young man let him on board once or twice a week so that he could have a meal. There was neither bread nor vegetables any longer in the whole of Petrograd despite the promises of commissars from the revolutionary committees. Even on the ship there were only the standard tins of bully-beef and not enough of those to offer to anybody who wasn’t a member of the crew. The meal the three of them ate was boiled potatoes in a thin Oxo cube gravy. Misha ate it with obvious relish, Zagorsky ate it without noticing and young Josef was too busy talking to notice what he was eating. “Tell me what else they’re going to do, Misha.” “Every man will be free. No more serfs. No more peasants. Every farmer with his own land. No Cossacks to ride down the people. No policeman can arrest a worker without a reason. Laws that protect every citizen. “We shall share everything; food, housing, work, goods. Every man will care for his neighbour, and all will be equal. No Tsars. No more Rasputins. No priests. For us we work today for our children’s tomorrow. And our children’s children.” He waved his arms. “A workers’ paradise, young Josef.” The boy smiled. “You really think they will do all these things, Misha?” “I swear it, boy. On my heart and on my soul. It will take time to sort out the past but they are making the laws now.” He tapped the table with his spoon. “At this minute Lenin is planning Russia’s wonderful future. We are a great people. They have freed our greatness. It will happen.” Zagorsky grinned. “That’s what they said when the women came out in 1905 in Vyborg District, shouting for bread. Kerensky said it years ago. Mentov wrote it in Iskra six months ago.” “That’s the point, my friend. The Military Revolutionary Committee was split between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks promised but did nothing, the Bolsheviks are not afraid. They fought for us. They organised the revolution.” Zagorsky laughed. “All the pigs are fighting for power. We’ll see. You’d better get back to your place or they might give it to some deserving Bolshevik.” Misha rose easily to the taunt, beating his fist against his thin chest. “I am a Bolshevik, my friend.” The boy walked to the companionway with Misha and pulled aside the rough gate that kept unauthorised people off the boat. The Russian turned to the boy. “You care, don’t you, Josef? You understand our joy.” The boy smiled. “Yes, I understand, Misha. Zag just likes teasing you.” “He is no
