“I say—I thought we’d drowned those loafers.”

Only a second later, with a broken afterglow to his knuckles, and Hart sprawled on the ground, did Lee realize what he’d done.

As he was grappled with and subdued, he looked toward Banjo, hoping for some kind of understanding, or a thanks-to-you, in her eyes, but she just stared dully into the distance while the puppies remained next to her, and he was dragged away, into the stockade, where his education would begin.

19

The Attentive crossed the Arctic Circle at three in the afternoon, and shortly thereafter, Archangel Harbor came into sight. Long purple shadows stretched from the rusted buoys, which stuck at mad angles through the slush and ice. On deck, on the windward side, Ironside and Pishkoff fought with his uniform, clutching at his hat in the wind, tossing aside his riding crop, and finally pinning his medals back into their silk-lined ebony cabinet box.

“Returning to Russia,” Ironside said. “This must be quite exciting for you.”

“Hmm,” Pishkoff replied.

When Ironside let loose a low, quiet sigh, as he did now, it carried its own oceanic current, the melancholy of Poseidon. Though he was now dressed as a lieutenant, with the goal of confusing snipers, his disguise felt idiotic to him, a six-foot-six-inch peacock stuffed into a pigeon costume. His true rank was recently complicated. A major in the Gunners, a lieutenant colonel in the army by brevet, he had just two hours before been commissioned a temporary brigadier general. The men of the Attentive had wanted to celebrate, but it only made him nervous. General Ironside, in charge of a chronic situation.

So he removed signs of rank. He was a man in his enormous, unscrupulous-baby overcoat. He and Pishkoff strode around the deck until they faced land, which was as dismal as when the Olympia had approached, but darker, deserted, and even more exhausted-looking. Ironside reached his hand toward Pishkoff, who was already passing him the field glasses. The ship was slowing down in the harbor, meaning it was to dock soon. No Chaikovsky. No Slavo-British Legion. Something could be wrong.

Ironside looked through the binoculars as Pishkoff buckled and unbuckled the snaps of their leather bundling case in exactly the time signature of “The Blue Danube.” The very moment this sound became annoying, before Ironside could complain, Pishkoff ceased. He held out the case, cocked and ready.

“Right,” Ironside said, relinquishing the binoculars.

Pishkoff spent most of his life in a state of bemusement, aided by twelve daily glasses of wine. Now he let out a disappointed little moan. For he understood the tone behind “Right.” “You mean, ‘If there’s a problem, we let someone else handle it.’ No?”

“No.” Ironside removed his wedding ring and handed it to Pishkoff, who folded it into a handkerchief in his palm. “Please, if I don’t return, please tell my wife—”

“I’ll give her the note.”