Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (10 page)

Not
to be upstaged by achievements in the burgeoning airline industry, the “Great
White Fleet,” a conglomeration of 16 American battleships and smaller escorts,
pulled into San Francisco Bay May 5th while circumnavigating the globe and
showing the world the US had a real blue water navy. Germany quickly responded
by ordering the construction of four new battleships. A part of the US fleet
smugly watched the explosion of an airship dirigible over San Francisco Bay on
May 23rd, sending sixteen passengers into the drink, who thankfully all
survived the mishap. And to prove that there was still a fast, viable
alternative to those damnable flying contraptions, the Lusitania crossed the
Atlantic and set a new speed record of 4 days, 15 hours to New York City.

The
untimely eruption of Mount Vesuvius on April 7, 1906 had devastated the city of
Naples and caused a postponement of the Olympic games scheduled for Rome that
year. London was selected for 1908, and the games were held in the “White City
Stadium” in Shepherds Bush, West London. Causing a bit of a row, US flag
bearer, Ralph Rose, refused to dip the flag to Edward VII when he passed in
review, and it was later said that “this flag dips for no earthly king.” The
chastened, upstart Americans, with all the bravado of their President Teddy
Roosevelt, relented and deigned to dip their flag at last before the whole of
the Royal family. To further rub their noses in it, the British ran away with
the games that year, winning 56 gold to only 23 for the 2nd place US team, and
taking 146 medals in all to the US 47. If the Americans believed in their imminent
sunrise, that same sun still never set on the far flung British Empire.

With
recreation in the wilderness in vogue, national parks were opening all over the
US that year, and another national pastime celebrated its groundbreaking for
the construction of Philadelphia's Shibe Park, future home of both A's &
Phillies. The song “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” would be copyrighted on May
2nd, and soon sung forever after at ballparks all across the nation. And on the
Field of Dreams, pitchers dominated the Boys of Summer, with Bill Burns working
a no-hitter on May 21st, with two outs in the 9th inning before it was finally
broken up by a hit. Another great pitcher was also denied that achievement a
week later on May 30th, but he would persist and finally nail down the no-no a
month later.

The
year was half gone by June 30, a
fine mid-summer day when the big right
hander Denton True “Cy” Young stood on the mound in New York, staring in at the
last man he would face that game. He had missed a chance at a perfect game by
walking the first man up in the game, but now he looked in to get the sign with
the odd thought that he would need just one final out to pitch the third no-hitter
of his amazing career. For a man his age, 41, that would be no small feat, and
he thought to himself that it would be only fitting to throw the batter just
what he expected, a fastball at the speed of a raging cyclone, the pitch that
had garnered him his nickname.

Even
at 41, Young was still an imposing pitcher, 6'-2” and 200 pounds, with experience
and guile to equal the strength he still had in that golden right arm. Young
was still building on a remarkable streak of winning seasons that would stand
the test of history for more than a century. After winning 27 games in 1891, he
would go on to win 20 games or more in all but three of his next 17 seasons,
and for those three when he won 19, 18 and then a measly 13 games. But to atone
for that he added four seasons where he piled up over 30 wins each year during
that incredible streak, winning all of 36 games in 1892!

After
two sub-par years, in 1905 and 1906, the sports writers had come to call Young
the “Old Man” of baseball. Yet when he turned 40 the following year, he went
right back to his winning ways with 21 wins and started the 1908 season with
457 wins behind him. He would win 21 more this year on his way to amassing an
insurmountable record of 511 career wins. Yet, to the soft spoken and amiable
Cy, this win was just like all the rest.

A
month earlier to the day, he had missed nabbing his third no hitter against
Washington when Jerry Freeman smacked a single off his slow pitch, a pitch
modern hurlers now called their “changeup.” Today, on June 30th, he was just a
tad tight when he first took the mound, and walked the leadoff hitter for the
New York Highlanders, Harry Niles. They picked off Niles trying to steal
second, and the next 25 men would be retired in order.

From
the sixth inning on the New York home town fans were firmly behind the 'Old
Man,' rooting against their own team as Young piled up the outs, aided by some
spectacular defensive plays by shortstop Heinie Wagner, and outfielders Denny
Sullivan and Gavvy Cravath, who had just made a leaping catch at the center
field fence to prevent a hit. Now there was just one last man standing. Young
was only one pitch away from his 468th win and third no-hitter, a record that
would stand until a young left hander named Sandy Koufax, “the left hand of
God,” would notch his fourth no-hitter on Sept 9, 1965.

Young
reached back, spun up that big right arm in a whirlwind windup, and let the
ball fly. As it thundered wildly toward the plate to secure his third
no-hitter, something much more ominous was also hurtling through the jet black
skies of northern Siberia, a world away, though no one present in the stadium
that day would know about it for years to come.

It
came out of the northeast, a little after 7:15 on the morning of June 30th
1908, cleaving away the fading night like a great sword of doom. Its piercing
blue light gleamed on the sapphire waters of the great Lake Baikal, lighting up
the skies with a searing smear of cobalt fire as it sped north. Those that saw
it that morning said it was as if a second sun had come that day, illuminating
the vast reaches of the heavily forested taiga with its blazing light. Then
came the immense explosion, high up in the sky above the Stony Tunguska River,
and from that moment on the world was never the same.

A
young Russian naval officer named Fedorov would witness the event in a chance
encounter with a man named Mironov at the Railway Inn at Ilanskiy, and a
reporter from the London Times named Thomas Byrne disappeared soon thereafter.
He had been sent to get the story of the Great Race, but would end up seeing
much more than he imagined.

Chapter 9

Captain
Rupert Archibald stood on the bridge
of the
Empress of China
holding the long eyepiece of his telescope to a
grey browed eye and peering at the distant silhouette of an approaching ship
with a vague disquiet. His ship was one of three built for the Canadian Pacific
Steamship Company, in an agreement that was part of the Canadian Pacific
Railway development that now spanned the north American continent. Once the
rail lines ended in Vancouver, a means of getting things across the Pacific,
particularly mail and passengers, resulted in three beautifully elegant ships,
the three Empresses of India, China and Japan.

Their
exotic names seemed to fire the imagination and put the thirst for adventure
that would compel a long sea voyage in the minds of potential passengers.
Empress
of China
could also bear the prefix RMS for “Royal Mail Ship” with an
agreement to carry mail to the far east outpost of Hong Kong for the Royal
Post. As such, it was no surprise that the officers and men who commanded these
ships were often born of the Royal Navy itself, sturdy and experienced reserve
officers from the nation that had conquered the known world with its superb
navy.

The
Empresses proved to be fast, reliable ships as well, with the
Empress of
Japan
currently holding the Blue Ribbon for speed in the Pacific, which she
won in 1897 and held for 20 years. Rated at a steady 16 knots, the ships could
easily spin up to 18 knots or better. The Captain had seen the world in his
day, serving aboard
Empress of India
as her Chief Officer before
becoming Captain of
Empress of China
in 1905. Something about the look
of this ship now bearing down on him was most unsettling. It had a tall
superstructure, rising in tiers like the battlements of a great fortress, its
aspect profoundly threatening even at this distance. It was certainly a
military ship in his estimation.

“Have
a look at this, Mister Robinson,” he handed off the telescope to his Chief Officer
of the boat, Commander Samuel Robinson, simply called the “Chief” in reference
to his post as first officer.

Robinson
took a long look, his brow furrowing with obvious concern. He had worked his
way up through the ranks of Junior Officers on
Empress of Japan
to reach
his present post, and was destined to have a long and storied career at sea.

“My
goodness…Look at that bow wave! This ship must be very fast. They look like
they might be making all of twenty knots.”

“And
note its size, Chief. It has the look of a battleship, does it not?”

“It
does, sir, but out here? Who would it be? The Great White Fleet sailed from San
Francisco several days ago, but they aren’t scheduled to arrive in Hawaii for
another week.”

“Let’s
get off a message on the Marconi wireless. Send our call sign and request
identification.”

“Right
away, sir.” Robinson saw to the matter, and soon returned no more the wiser.
“They say they have a dodgy chronometer, sir and request our date and time
readings for navigation.”

“No
identification?”

“We
received the call sign KIRV, but there’s nothing in the code book for it. In
fact, I checked schedules for outbound traffic.
Monteagle
is the only
other ship that should be approaching us from the southwest, but she just left Shanghai
on the eleventh, and there’s no way she could be this far out. Slow as
molasses.”

“Indeed,
Robinson. Well, this ship seems intent on making our acquaintance, but I can’t
imagine why. A doggy chronometer is one thing, but what would a warship be
doing out here alone like this?” Battleships of the day moved in grand
formations, whole fleets deployed, and it was most uncommon to see a solitary
vessel out like this.

“Can
you make out her colors, sir?”

“Not
at this range. In fact, I can’t seem to spy any markings or standards at all.
But my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Perhaps this is a Japanese ship. There
isn’t anything left of the Russian Pacific Fleet these days after that disaster
at Tsushima Strait in 1905.”

“And
another point, sir. She’s not making smoke. How can a ship work up that kind of
speed without darkening the skies in her wake. She should be smoking like a
wild locomotive, yet look, not a wisp.”

“Yes…”
the tone of Archibald’s voice left something hanging in the air between them,
something odd, indefinable and caddywumpus to the world they knew. The sudden
appearance of this ship was most confounding, and neither man could imagine
what it might be. Yet as time passed the ship loomed ever closer, their
disquiet increasing with the growing size of the vessel.

“My
God, Chief. Just look at her…
Look
at the damn thing. It’s massive! Why…
it looks to be twice our size.” At a little over 455 feet in length, the sleek
Empress
of China
was longer than most battleships of her day. She was sixty feet
longer than the
Kearsarge
,
Illinois
and
Maine
class
battleships of the US Great White Fleet, and the equal of the newer American
battleships in the
Virginia
and
Connecticut
classes.

Yet
the ship they were looking at now seemed much bigger.
Kirov
was all of
830 feet long, easily twice the size of any ship of that day, and at 32,000
tons full load there would be no ship to match or exceed her displacement for
another two decades when HMS
Rodney
and
Nelson
were commissioned
between the great wars. The US Navy would not have anything that big until the
North
Carolina
Class battleships and, though not as heavy,
Kirov
was still
a hundred feet longer than those ships. Only the
Iowa
class battleships recently
faced in battle would exceed the Russian battlecruiser in length, or the
massive RMS
Titanic
soon to be laid down in March of 1909 in the UK, and
that by only fifty feet.

“That
has to be the largest vessel I have ever laid eyes on!”

Now
they could clearly see a white flag with blue St. Andrew’s cross in a bold “X” of
the Russian Navy flying from atop the main mast.

“Either
my eyes have failed me as well, sir, or that’s a Russian naval ensign there.”

“Russian?
I know a few ships escaped from the Japanese and have been interred in places
like Manila and others, but something this big? It’s unheard of! Anything that
big at large in the Pacific would be well known by now. This is astounding!”

They
watched as the approaching vessel drew ever nearer. “Mister Robinson. I think
we’d best contact Dutch Harbor. Send that we’ve encounter a large warship, massive;
apparently Russian. Send these coordinates. They should still be able to
receive us. That ship looks to have business with us, and I’m feeling just a
wee bit wary of that at the moment.”