Escape to Constantinople

by Habu

24 Jan 2017 1054 readers Score 9.0 (26 votes) PDF Mobi ePub Txt


A cheer had gone up along the line of trucks as the convoy conveying the cadets of the Imperial Military Academy weaved down the tail end of the Caucasus Mountains spilling into the sea at the eastern edge of the Novorossiysk harbor. From the mountains, Novorossiysk looked welcoming, with its sparkling beaches and the sun glinting off the onion-shaped dome of the Russian Orthodox church dominating the town’s main square.

Even the view of the teaming mass of people on the town’s wharf was heartening until the trucks grew closer and it could be seen that this wasn’t the expected massing of the soldiers of General Kothak’s army that the cadets were to join up with, but a huge surge of refugees trying to get onto the ships in the harbor to take them on to the Crimea Peninsula, two hundred miles off in the distance to the east across the glassy-surfaced sea. The Crimea was one of the few bits of Russia that was still held by the White Army and represented freedom and security to the adherents of the tsar.

Kothak’s couriers had told the academy head that the cadets were to meet up with his army at the wharfs, but it was obvious before the convoy had even entered the town that a connection was improbable amid the chaos they could see down there in the harbor. The convoy stopped in the town square, and the cadets and faculty jumped out of the trucks to stretch their legs as a party of faculty members that included Grigory Orlov went on to the harbor to try to meet up with Kothak’s staff. They returned shortly with long faces, and Pyotr overheard them reporting to the academy head.

“Kothak has already shipped his forces on to the Crimea,” Orlov reported. “He says that the Bolshevik forces coalescing here are too strong for the White Army to hold Novorossiysk. He advised that the cadets should board the ships down there and join the White Army forces in Sevastopol.”

“Down there? Through that teeming crowd?” The cadet, Mikhail Shevemetev, standing beside Pyotr and Vasily within hearing distance of the faculty members had been the one who had blurted that out.

“We can cut our way through that mob,” Vasily boasted, looking almost ecstatic at the prospect.

Orlov drifted over to them, and speaking directly to Pyotr in a low tone, said, “Keep close to me. There are two ships down there that we’ve arranged to board. I want you on the same ship I take, near me.”

Vasily gave him a dirty look and made sure that Pyotr was at his side as they boarded the trucks again to descend to the harbor.

The crowd was too thick, panicked, and crazed eyed for the trucks to have any hope of managing to part a path to get to the docks without stalling out on a pile of bodies, so they stopped at the edge of the wharf square and the cadets climbed down, formed a close wedge, and plowed their way into the melee.

It wasn’t just people that impeded their progress. The refugees had brought far more of their precious possessions than they would ever be permitted to carry with them onto the ships. It was clear to all that the cargo on the ships would be elbow to elbow people, not possessions, even though over the heads of the crowd, Pyotr could see an ornate grand piano that was being manhandled up a gangplank--only to teeter briefly and then to fall into the choppy waters between the side of the ship and the quay.

As the cadets’ wedge parted the ways in its journey toward the two ships now at the quay--and a third standing just off the docks and using a flatboat to ferry passengers out to the ship, refugees began to attach themselves to the sides and the back of the wedge, using the cadets to draw nearer to their goal of freedom.

Women were fighting valiantly to keep their babies and young children above the thrashing legs and feet of others--not always successfully--and there was a wailing of grief and loss floating above the heads of the crowds. Pyotr watched in horror as one woman, having dropped her baby, went under the feet of the throng herself in search for it, both--possibly mercifully--to be trampled to death. He had no time to think on this, though, as another woman was pulling at a sleeve, crying out for his protection in exchange for a jeweled tiara she was holding out in her hand. A hand from the crowd, reached out and grabbed the tiara, though, and it and the woman disappeared from Pyotr’s vision as Vasily and Orlov pushed him along.

Pyotr wondered why there were only three ships in the harbor. He could see the masts of several others standing off the harbor. When he pointed these out to Orlov as they shuffled along, Orlov spat in derision. “Those are the ships of the Allies--the British, French, Italians, and Americans. They are sitting out there just to observe and report. If they support the imperials at all, it is only with their lips.”

“But there’s one moving toward us, into the harbor now,” Pyotr said. “A huge man-of-war.”

“The biggest would be the HMS Cardiff, the British flagship,” Orlov answered. “The next largest would be the Americans’ USS Galveston. I was told of them when I was here earlier hoping to meet up with Kothak’s couriers. I don’t know which that one would be.”

Pyotr’s attention returned to the wharf. He saw, over the top of the crowd, an elaborately carved carriage making better headway than they were from another direction in the square. Here the masses of people were making a path, in awe, for the progress of the carriage in a manner that they had shown no willingness to do for the academy’s trucks.

He realized he recognized the men in the box of the carriage--and that, therefore, he knew who was inside the carriage.

“It’s Olga,” he cried out in recognition.

“Who?” Vasily, who was in front of him in the wedge, with Orlov behind him and Mikhail off to the side somewhere.

“The Grand Duchess Olga. My father’s cousin, sister to the tsar. The people love her; that’s why they are making way for her carriage.”

“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.

As the ship pulled off from the dock, a few of the younger male refugees leaped out and caught the mooring lines that hung from the sides. Any who tried to climb to the ship’s rails were struck away and into the water by the butts of the sailor’s rifles. All who just hung there, in hope, eventually lost their grip and fell away into the waters of the harbor before the ship had gained the open sea.

The rest of the rabble on the docks, though, turned their fury on the one remaining ship lashed to the quay. The crew of this vessel wasn’t nearly as prepared for the sudden onslaught of panicked humanity, and the ship was quickly covered by maddened refugees who swarmed over it like a million ants. Pyotr was never to learn if the ship ever was able to put to sea with a load of passengers, or whether hope was lost for all by the total loss of any organization and control. Gunfire could be heard around the periphery of the wharfs; Pyotr could only hope that order was being restored.

Pyotr stood at the rails, in both disgust and shock, watching, as one by one, the young men hanging onto the mooring ropes hanging off the sides of the ship lost their grip and slid down the slimy side of the vessel and into the sea. He watched each one, in desperation, willing the young man to show that he could turn his face back to the wharf and swim the distance with strong, assured strokes. But each one whose progress he followed quickly foundered and sank from sight.

“It’s a horrible sight, isn’t it?” The voice was low, soft, and melodic--a stark contrast to the scene playing out before his eyes. Pyotr turned to see that the young woman he’d saved from being trampled on the wharf was standing beside him.

“I never thought to see anything like it, no,” Pyotr answered. He looked around to see if either Grigory Orlov or the ship’s officer who had been guiding the young woman were nearby, but he could see neither. He imagined the officer was busy helping to move the ship out to the sea. Orlov, he knew, was off trying to wrangle some sort of accommodation for them. Most of the refugees on board had to find just enough space to stretch out on the open deck or they had to disappear down into the smelly, dank hold. Pyotr assumed the deck would be where the fittest and most clever would stake their territory. He himself was prepared to bed down anywhere, just being grateful he was aboard this ship. He had yet to be able to mourn the loss of Mikhail and Vasily properly--intervening events hadn’t allowed for that. But he knew that in the dark of the night visions of them floundering in the water of the harbor just as the young men who had slipped from the ropes had done would invade his mind and challenge his emotions.

“I wish to thank you for preventing me from being trampled back there,” the young woman said. “I forever will be grateful.”

“I am glad I was where I could be of assistance to you,” Pyotr answered.

“I am Katya, from Kiev,” she said. “My father is Fydor Betskoy.”

“The novelist? Fydor Betskoy?”

“Yes,” Katya answered. “You know of him?”

“Yes--of his novels. I am Pyotr,” he continued. And then after a pause, “Pyotr Apraksin. I was a student in a school in a town outside St. Petersburg . . . where my parents taught.”

“But you are dressed as a cadet. A cadet of the Imperial Military Academy. And I saw you with the group of them in the harbor.”

“Yes. My parents had dreams for me. But I’m afraid that I’m not a very good cadet. I have more in common with your father, the novelist, I feel. And he is . . . ?”

“I have no idea,” Katya answered in a low voice. “As far as I know I am the only Betskoy alive now.”

Pyotr didn’t respond for several moments, but when Katya moved a hand to lay over his at the rails, she said, “and the same is with you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” He looked down at her hand on his, feeling an emotion more stirring and pleasant than the fear and distress that had been consuming him to this point. “I guess we are both adrift in the world then. But so far we both live.”

She was about to answer, when the voice of Grigory Orlov cut into the conversation. He appeared on the other side of Pyotr at the rail and spoke sharply to Pyotr without so much as a word or look of acknowledgment for the young woman.

“I have acquired a cabin for us. It is barely serviceable, but it must do. It will be just for a night, Count Pyotr. We will be in Sevastopol tomorrow, and I’m sure we can do much better then. Come with me. I want to show you where it is.”

Pyotr reddened and felt the surprise that Katya surely was exhibiting upon hearing Orlov call him count. He couldn’t look at her, though. He suddenly felt cheaper and less human as a count than he had, so briefly, as Pyotr Apraksin, from a small town outside of St. Petersburg, whose parents were simple teachers. He wondered which version of him she would take as the truth. Would she think he was pretending to be a count just to save himself and to get preferential treatment on the ship? He would be crushed if she thought that.

The cabin Orlov showed Pyotr to was tiny, able only barely to hold a bunk bed, with two bureaus across a narrow aisle from them. But it had a porthole, and Pyotr knew that, by being here, they were displacing two junior officers who would have to fight the refugees for a place to sleep.

“Shall I take the top?” he asked. They were standing pressed into the side of the bunks and barely clearing the bureau’s behind them. They were close together, forced to be, by the size of the cabin, and Orlov had an arm around Pyotr’s shoulders. The standing room in the cabin was practically nonexistent. Orlov reached over and pushed the door to the cabin shut.

“You will have the top later tonight. But for now the bottom will suffice for both of us.” He was still holding Pyotr close to him with one arm and was unbuttoning Pyotr’s gray cadet tunic with his other hand.

“Professor Orlov . . .”

“Would you start denying me now, Pyotr? My protection has not stopped in Kazan. You have gotten this far toward safety only because of me. You are totally unprepared for real life. You were useless in getting from the trucks and onto this ship.” Orlov was unbuckling the belt of Pyotr’s trousers and unbuttoning his fly. “Can you deny it? You need me. We are not safe yet. You are alive because of me. I own you, and I will have you when I want. True?”

“Yes, professor,” Pyotr answered obediently. He was breathing hard because Orlov was stroking his cock. The younger man felt the hot breath of the older on his neck, and he turned his face to Orlov and moaned as the professor took possession of his lips.

Five minutes later Pyotr was sitting on the bottom bunk and Orlov was leaning in toward him, with his fly open and his cock stroking inside Pyotr’s mouth.

Fifteen minutes later Pyotr was on the surface of the bunk on the small of his back, his fists gripping the bed above him, his heels dug in the frame of the bed overhead, and Orlov crouched over his torso and pumping his ass hard with his cock.

Four hours later, Orlov was sleeping soundly and snoring on the bottom bunk, and Pyotr remained awake on the top bunk, reviewing all of the events of the day and wondering if he was the lucky one, or if Mikhail and Vasily were the lucky ones--perhaps free now from whatever challenges and miseries lay ahead, leading perhaps to a painful death anyway. Perhaps drowning was a less horrendous way to go than whatever faced Pyotr. Perhaps he would be better off if he climbed down from this bunk, went up to the deck, and slipped over the side and into the arms of the welcoming sea.

He sat up on the edge of the bunk. His thoughts then went to the young woman he’d met today, Katya. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, he thought, her beauty undiminished by the horrors of the day and the danger she had experienced. In spite of all that, she had exuded confidence and hope when they had talked at the ship’s rail. Pyotr couldn’t see her giving up as he was contemplating doing. She was stronger than he was, he felt. And Orlov was right about him not being able to survive on his own. And thus Orlov was within his rights to dominate and take Pyotr at will--at least until Pyotr was willing and able to take responsibility for himself.

The mere presence of Katya was a reason for him to live.

Pyotr climbed down from the bunk as quietly as he could and stole out of the cabin. He didn’t turn toward the stairs leading up to the deck, though; he turned in the other direction, toward the one head at the end of the passageway, to relieve himself.

On the way back, he heard the sounds of moans coming from one of the cabins along the corridor. The cabin door was open just enough for him to be able to peep inside. The ship was in darkness, but the cabin had a porthole and the moon was full. Rays from the moon filtered into a cabin that was about twice the size of the one that Pyotr and Orlov were in. Instead of a bunk bed, there was a single bed. And there were a couple of chairs and furnishings that made the cabin so much more comfortable and lived-in than the cabin Pyotr had been assigned.

A senior officer’s cabin.

The presumed senior officer in question was naked and crouched over the side of his bed. Another figure was in his embrace between him and the bed and facing down. Pyotr recognized the once-elegant satin dress he’d seen Katya Betskoya wearing earlier in the day. The officer, obviously the one who had guided her to the ship, had an arm wrapped around her waist. Her dress and petticoats were bunched up at her waist in back as well, revealing smooth flanks and well-turned legs. The officer was fucking her from behind with rapid, deep thrusts in her ass.

Pyotr felt outrage and violation--even though the violation wasn’t his personally--well up in his gorge, and he barely was able to check his initial reaction to rush in and pull the man off Katya. It was so much worse to his sensitivities that the man was taking her in the ass.

But he stopped himself in time. These were rough times for survival. Katya was making her own choices in order to survive--just as Pyotr had done earlier that year when Grigory Orlov had made quite clear that his protection of Pyotr was contingent on Pyotr lying under him whenever Orlov beckoned. It was a decision and accommodation that had been validated twice already since they had come aboard when Orlov had taken him in the afternoon and then again that night.

And for all Pyotr knew she had requested taking the man this way to avoid complications.

Pyotr pulled away from the spectacle and quietly returned to his cabin, determined neither to ever mention this to Katya if he was so privileged as to see her again or to hold her decision for survival against her. And when he entered the cabin, he didn’t climb into the upper bunk but, rather, nudged Orlov over in the bottom bunk and stretched out beside his protector and mentor. Orlov grunted, half woke, and opened his arms for Pyotr to slip inside. Orlov slid his hand down Pyotr’s bare torso and fisted Pyotr’s cock. Pyotr turned his face to Orlov and they kissed. Sometime again in the night or the early morning Orlov would want Pyotr again--and Pyotr would accommodate him. Pyotr recognized that he had to make accommodations as well if he wanted to survive; if one as lovely as Katya was willing to sacrifice her dignity, he should be able to do no less.

Like Katya, Pyotr was now determined that he would live--just as long as he could.

Orlov’s need came quickly. While their lips were still locked, Orlov turned Pyotr on his side, placed a beefy, hairy leg over Pyotr’s smooth thigh, and pressed an already hard cock inside Pyotr’s channel.

Pyotr groaned, ending the kiss with a murmured, “Yes, please be good to me. Oh, yes, god yes. Like that.” He was determined to make his professor continue to want him enough to protect him--at least for now.

“So you want me now? Full surrender to me, is it?” Orlov whispered. And then he laughed when Pyotr showed his acquiescence by moving his buttocks against Orlov’s groin, taking over the rhythm of the fuck.

by Habu

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