A Nomad of the Time Streams - the Steel Tsar by Michael Moorcock

Author:Michael Moorcock [Moorcock, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781161470
Amazon: 178116147X
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2013-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

2. Back in Service

If someone had told me, before I ever entered the Temple of Teku Benga, that I should one day be glad to join the Russian Service, I should not only have laughed at them I should, if they had persisted, probably have punched them on the nose. In those days Russia was the greatest menace to our frontiers in India. There was often the threat of open war, for it was. Well-known that they had territorial ambitions in Afghanistan, if nowhere else. The fact that the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire had clashed over which parts of South-East Asia and China came under their control was probably fortunate for the British. The War might well have taken a different turn, with Japan and Britain as allies, if Russian ambitions had not, in this world, been diverted towards the crumbling remains of the Chinese Empire. A great deal of the reason for this, of course; was Kerensky himself.

The old President of Russia (and the chief power in the so-called Union of Slavic Republics -fundamentally the countries conquered by Imperial Russia before the socialist Revolution) was anxious to keep the friendship of Europe and America and this meant that he had become extremely cautious about offending us. Russia needed to import a great many manufactured goods even now, and she needed markets for her agricultural produce. Moreover she required as much foreign investment as she could get and was especially interested in attracting” British and American capital. She had taken huge steps forward since the successful - and almost bloodless - Revolution of 1905, which had occurred at a time when another war between Russia and Japan was brewing. Her brand of humanist socialism had produced almost universal literacy and her medical facilities were amongst the best in the world. She had produced a thriving and liberal middle class and it was very rare, these days, to encounter the kind of poverty for which Russia, when I was a boy, was famous. AH in all, even amongst the most conservative people, there was no doubt that Russia and her dominions were much improved for Kerensky and his socialists.

Whatever the historical reasons, there was nothing dishonorable in joining the Russians against our common enemy. When sub aquatic liner, took us, first to Vladivostok and then, by airship, to Khabarovsk, I wondered how long it would be before I could begin doing something again. The imprisonment alone had left me frustrated. When news came through that any British citizens with airship experience were needed for the aerial arm of the Russian Volunteer Fleet and that

Whitehall was actively encouraging us to join up, I put my name down immediately, and as did most of the chaps I was with. Those few of us, like myself, with military experience were given the choice of serving on armed merchantmen, flying in convoys, or on the escorting aerial frigates and cruisers themselves. I elected to join the frigates. I had no particular urge to

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