Chapter 7
Victorina was dressed in her favourite flame colour, a severe short jacket with black military frogging over a black skirt with flame-coloured trim. Her hair was arranged severely under a black shako with a veil, adorned with scarlet and black feathers.
“Oh, a bonus; the nasty little schoolgirl, and still looking a frump,” cooed Victorina. “I must decide whether to have the pleasure of whipping you myself, or making Dmitry whip you. That would have its delicious side,” she added.
“Hostage; sacred,” said Sophie.
“Oh, I care nothing for such outmoded ideas,” said Victorina. “And you have stolen my bag! And doubtless made it go out of shape by putting things in it!”
“Well, what else are bags for?” said Sophie.
“As accessories, you little fool!” said Victorina. “You could never have carried off an imposture of me, never, you have no style!”
“Thank goodness for that, if it makes me into a raddled old harridan like you with no manners,” retorted Sophie.
Victorina grabbed the bag from her, and struck her across the face.
Sophie kicked her, hard, on the shin.
“You little bitch! You will pay! You will pay! You will beg for death!” cried Victorina. “Take them away! Lock her up, and put Dmitry in irons!”
Sophie was dragged off one way, and Dmitry the other. Sophie was thrust into what appeared to be a crewman’s cabin, and the door locked on the outside. There were two bunks in here, and a corner cabinet which proved to have a toilet stool and a sink. A rough locker contained someone’s clothing.
Sophie scrambled up to the upper bunk, and investigated the ceiling.
Panels laying on the framework lifted under her inquisitive and tentative push. Sophie pushed harder, and managed to shift one of the panels to one side. A draught of cold air hit her, as she gazed into the huge space occupied with gas bags and the odd gantry and stairs.
Quickly, she jumped down, and looked in the locker again, and pulled on a pair of men’s white cotton duck trousers under her skirt to help counteract the chill. A jacket went over her blouse, and Sophie bundled up other clothing and thrust it into a pillowcase to take with her, just in case. She went into the toilet to make herself comfortable, and filled an empty wine bottle she had found with water, hoping it was potable. A nailfile left in the cabin was a bonus, and she used it to help prise off a panel on the wall in the toilet.
It led through to the toilet of the cabin next door! She left that partly open; let them think that her way of escape.
Then she scrambled back up to the upper bunk, through into the space above it, and with some effort, replaced the panel. Hopefully it would be long enough before she was checked upon for the room to have heated up again, so they would not realise where she had gone.
Sophie started exploring to get her bearings, and see if she could find out where Dmitry was held. The crew quarters seemed to be in the after part of the construction inside the cigar-shaped zeppelin body; the gondola seemed taken up with the bridge and wheelhouse or whatever constituted the business end of driving a zeppelin. Victorina’s quarters, which had windows, appeared to be amidships; so presumably the brig was up at the front. Forrard, Sophie reminded herself.
The gas bags were not like a hot air balloon; there was no rip-panel. There must be vents for going down somewhere; and inside the outer framework, there appeared to be cables, presumably to control the vents.
That was worth knowing.
Sophie made a stealthy way forward, stopping to slide a light wooden panel to one side; and finding herself looking down on what appeared to be Victorina’s closet.
That might be worth knowing; there were some fur coats in there, which might prove invaluable. She left her bag of clothing to mark the spot for herself, and left the panel loose. Further aft she heard a grunt, and an unvoluntary cry wrung in Dmitry’s voice and she suppressed the urge to growl. Carefully, she eased away a panel far enough to peer down, and felt her head spin, and had to swallow hard not to vomit.
Victorina had stripped down for exercise, to her basque and the most indecent nether garments Sophie had ever seen – Magda had never shown her Victorina’s lingerie - and stockings, with high heeled ankle boots. She looked even more decadent than some of the shocking adventuresses, who wore skirts hardly longer than their knees for safely working amongst machinery. And she was whipping Dmitry, who was tied, naked, to a ring in the wall, using a many-tailed whip, made of some fine material, and plainly designed to cause more pain than deep damage. Dmitry’s back, buttocks and thighs were a mass of blood but not cut open as Sophie had heard that a naval flogging could cut open flesh and muscle.
Her viewpoint was behind Victorina. She changed position to see the other end of the cell; nobody else in there. Good. She resumed her original position, and eased the panel a little further, feeling in her pocket for her pistol and taking it off safety. The whip made a sharp crack, and there has seemed to be green baize on the other wall, doubtless for the sanity of the crew. Sophie had never aimed her pistol at a living target in her life; but then, she had no intention of leaving a live Victorina behind her, even if she and Dmitry died for it.
“You have seen what you are missing, Dima,” said Victorina. “How can you still prefer your scrawny English sparrow to me?”
“You’re getting fat, Victorina, and you are not soft, but putrid,” said Dmitry.
Victorina struck again, angrily, winning a cry from her victim.
Sophie bit off a sob, and concentrated.
She breathed in, held her breath to aim, and squeezed the trigger as she let her breath trickle out.
The sharp crack! sounded loud to Sophie, but no worse than the crack of the whip, and doubtless that was one reason no crewman was up here on duty. Victorina stood transfixed for a moment, and then fell forward, with awful slowness, her red chignon taking on a more scarlet hue. Sophie pushed the panel entirely aside, and dropped down.
“Dmitry! Mitka!” she cried, and her voice trembled.
“Victorina, you bitch! Leave Sophie alone!” cried Dmitry, in anguish, unable to see, and terrified that Sophie had been brought to torture him with her torment.
“Mitka! I just shot her!” said Sophie. “I came to rescue you, but I only have sewing scissors to cut your ropes!”
“Look over to the left, there are knives and things there; don’t look too much though, or you may be ill.”
The cell was a combined cell and torture chamber, and there was a rack of tools. Sophie shuddered, and picked a sharp knife. And on consideration, dropped two more into her pocket. She tried not to think about the stains on them, and went over to stand on tiptoes.
It was no good.
“Oh dear,” said Sophie. “I did not want to do this.”
She dragged Victorina’s body towards the bulkhead to which the ring was attached, and shuddered at the slithering noise it made on the floor. She stood on Victorina’s dead back for an extra few inches, to cut through Dmitry’s bonds, more concerned with releasing him than in respect for the dead. Trampling on a corpse went against everything Sophie had ever been taught, but Sophie was muttering to herself Captain Thorndyke’s maxim about the British inventing casuistry, and needs must where the devil drives.
“And there aren’t many people much closer to a devil than Victorina,” she said, as the ropes parted under her efforts. Dmitry collapsed to his knees, and as he put his hands down, fell to be supported on his forearms.
“Body has to come back to life,” he managed. “Oh, my love, my brave love!”
Sophie flung herself to her knees beside him, and put gentle arms around him, trying to avoid touching anywhere cut open by the whip, not an easy task.
“There’s a carboy of salt water,” said Dmitry, his voice a thread. “It will hurt like hell, but it will cleanse the wounds of any infection. My shirt is torn, anyway, use that to wash me off.”
Sophie did so, and Dmitry grit his teeth to avoid whimpering at the fire that shot through his back with the sting of the salt water.
“How did you escape?” he managed, his teeth chattering.
“Through the ceiling; it’s not nailed down for some reason,” said Sophie.
“The ship is already overweight for Victorina’s requirements,” said Dmitry. “A nail of itself is not heavy, but imagine how many pounds of nails it would take to fix every panel.”
“Goodness, I suppose so,” said Sophie. “Well, it is to our advantage. Only I am not sure how to get back into the roof, and get you up.”
“I might be able to leap, but I am not sure with this pain,” said Dmitry. “But you are forgetting something – how like Victorina you look. Her clothes are on a peg by the door. If you just call for the guard, and tell him that I have capitulated, and you plan to take me to your rooms, he will do as he is told.”
“We need to shut the panel, then, and I will have to put my clothes up in it,” said Sophie. “Will you be able to lift me?”
“Yes,” said Dmitry. “Let me put on my drawers and trousers.”
“I will keep on the sailor’s trousers under her skirt,” said Sophie. “Dear me, how very improper this is.”
“The hell with improper; we are, briefly, free,” said Dmitry. “And in her rooms we might get into the gas bag space and stay so for longer.”
“I have heard no engines; I do not think we have been travelling,” said Sophie. “So we are not far from our own lines. If we can let the air out of the gas bags, we can maybe climb out of one of Victorina’s windows, and escape.”
“And I can sabotage the compressed gas cylinder so they cannot be refilled,” said Dmitry.
“I am glad you thought of that; I did not,” said Sophie, ruefully. “Mitka! Would you despise me if I had some lingerie made like hers? It is very shocking but looks very liberating.”
“If I were not so beaten up, I would be embarrassed by my enthusiasm for thinking of you wearing such things, and taking them off you when we are married,” said Dmitry, flushing.
“Oh, Dmitry! That makes me feel all nice inside,” said Sophie. “But how are we to hide Victorina’s body?”
“The hook for her clothes is behind the door. If I declare I can walk – I will, if it kills me – he has no need to come in.”
“You will have to put her horrid lipstick on me; she keeps that in her bag, I know,” said Victorina. “I might pass as her without other makeup, but not without her garish red mouth.”
“Easy enough; and take out her hair pins to put up yours,” said Dmitry.
The transformation of Sophie into Victorina was swiftly accomplished, and between them they carried Victorina’s body across the room, and hung it by her basque to the clothes hook, like a bizarre costume.
Sophie shuddered. Only a short while ago, this was a vibrant young woman, whose life she had snuffed out.
Dmitry pushed her to the ground and pushed her head between her knees.
“You went green,” he said.
“I killed someone,” managed Sophie.
“You did, very opportunely,” said Dmitry, grimly. “She was about to have you sent for, so I could watch her whip you, and cut you, until I agreed to be her puppet and her toy. And if I still resisted, she would take her whip to more intimate parts until they could not continue my line being lacerated slowly to shreds, even if I survived that.”
“I… I am glad I killed her, but I am shocked how easy it is,” said Sophie.
“It can be, harna. But now you know that, you will not do it lightly; where Victorina delighted in how easy it was. She killed a servant in a fit of temper, when we were twelve or thirteen, and she was gleeful about it… and I think it excited her somehow. I avoided her after that. I have learned to hate her since. What is important is that you did not freeze when it was needed, and you did what had to be done, and I am so proud of you.”
“Thank you. I can be strong,” said Sophie, getting up again. “Put her pins in my hair for me, and draw on the lips.”
Dmitry did so, and Sophie rapped on the door. It was opened by a nervous sailor.
“My dear cousin has capitulated; I am taking him back to my rooms,” purred Sophie. “You may go about your duties.”
“Thank you, your highness,” said the sailor, making himself scarce, and surreptitiously crossing himself when his back was turned. It was a short corridor to Victorina’s rooms, which opened to the right.
“I wonder what is to the left,” muttered Sophie.
“Yaromar Zbignevosky’s room, and those of the officers,” said Dmitry. “First door here will be the maid’s room, which will communicate with the main bedroom.”
Sophie nodded, and walked into the next door as if she owned the room, which, had she been Victorina, she would have done. The maid was in there, sorting some things out.
“Get out,” said Sophie. “I do not want to be disturbed for at least two hours.”
“Yes, highness,” said the maid, dropping a brief curtsey and fleeing to her own domain.
Sophie locked the door to the maid’s room, removing the key, chewing on some paper on a pad by a telephone, and blocking the keyhole. Was there a flounce? Well, discouraging the girl was good. She did the same to the outer door and the door to Victorina’s sitting room. She changed her mind and went to lock the outer door to that as well, and retrieved her beaded bag. Victorina had not bothered to empty it.
Sophie locked the bedroom door as well, and managed to drag Victorina’s vanity over the door to the corridor, and a chest of drawers over the inner door. As the door to the maid’s room opened into that already cramped room, Sophie climbed up to cut down a cord to open and shut the curtains, and tied it to the maid’s door handle at one end, and the bed leg at the other.
Dmitry had collapsed onto the bed in a half swoon. Sophie went into the walk-in closet she had discovered from above. There were drawers in there, which included Victorina’s lingerie. Sophie helped herself to some of those she thought less silly, and found some pillow slips in another drawer. She chose linen under-slips rather than silk, and took some tie belts off coats.
She went in search of cold cream on the vanity, and, blushing, undid Dmitry’s tight trousers, pulling them down and off, as he had carried his boots, and pulled down his drawers. Dmitry came to, and started fighting.
“I need to put cream on your wounds, love,” said Sophie.
“Sophie! I thought for a moment you were Victorina,” said Dmitry.
“She’s dead,” said Sophie.
“So she is,” said Dmitry. He helped remove his drawers.
“I’ll be getting you loose sailor trousers; they’ll chafe less,” said Sophie.
Dmitry nodded, acquiescing.
Sophie investigated the ensuite, and found some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. She brought out a couple and a glass of water, and put the rest in her beaded bag, into which she put back her gun and ammunition. It had five shots left, she must remember she had used one. There was also a jar of the newly-invented Germolene, and Sophie collected that, too. She took the laudanum as well, just in case. Some Germolene went onto the worst cuts on Dmitry’s back and he gave an agonised cry.
There was a knocking on the door into the corridor.
“Victorina! Is he causing you any trouble?” it was Zbignevosky’s voice.
Dmitry grabbed her hand.
“Tell him you are strangling me to make me stand up for you,” he whispered. “It can make a man perform sexually.”
Sophie nodded.
“No trouble at all,” she cooed. “Between rubbing his back on my sheets, and a little silk scarf about his throat, he’s just where I want him.”
“I wish you would let me help you,” said Zbignevosky.
“I am sure you do,” said Sophie. “Go away, Jaromar, I’m busy.”
Dmitry shuddered. He managed a strangled yell turning into a gurgle.
“I could almost have believed you to be Victorina,” he murmured. “That should buy us at least an hour.”
