‘I did explain, Boris Vasil’ich—’
‘Point is, if we go south by some other route we can’t recover it. And in the present state of things – especially when you’re as useful a sharpshooter as you are – well, God almighty…’
They’d been through this before. He’d cached his Lee-Enfield in the forest, along with surplus canned food and other gear they couldn’t carry. The prime reason – which he’d explained at the time, in what had been quite a heated argument – was that the farther north they travelled the greater the chances were of being stopped and interrogated, that in such an event he was going to admit to his true identity and that he’d come to find some British nurses, and in this non-combatant role the possession of a rifle would be difficult to justify. Especially when it was the twin of Schelokov’s and he and Schelokov – who was now carrying identity papers he’d taken from one of the cavalrymen they’d killed – would be representing themselves as chance travelling companions.
Schelokov was now – according to his new papers – Ivan Leonidovich Krotov, born in the Ukraine in 1890. The date of birth might be a problem – if it was noticed – since with his grizzled beard and generally mature appearance he couldn’t possibly be twenty-nine. With luck, nobody would notice: with even better luck nobody would be looking at his papers anyway. But if he did have to account for himself, his story would be that he’d been recruited into a hussar regiment in 1914, deserted to the Red Army in 1918, had been taken prisoner near Kiev earlier this year by Petlyura’s Ukrainian nationalists, who’d forced him to join them, and got away from them a few weeks ago during a skirmish with White cavalry near Elisavetgrad. He’d been on his way to rejoin the Red Army on the Kharkov front, and had fallen in with this Englishman who was looking for some English nurses. As the Red Army wasn’t at war with England – so far as he, Krotov, knew – he’d seen no reason why they shouldn’t join forces for the journey.
It was a good story from Bob’s point of view, since it fitted in with his own intention of being himself.
Schelokov was grumbling on about the rifle. Reminding Bob that he hadn’t wanted to bring rifles in the first place… And if we hadn’t, where’d we have been now?’
Bob agreed, ‘You have a point, there.’
‘I have, haven’t I!’
‘On the other hand, here’s another. When we have the letuchka people with us, the last things we’ll want are battles. We can’t fight our way out, Boris Vasil’ich – only way we’ll manage it is to sneak out…’
* * *
Beginning to worry, now, about how much further… The high ground on their right blocked out the eastern sky but there was a hint of dawn’s beginnings in the darkness overhead. Maybe one felt it more than saw it, but it was there all right.
So there might be – what, another hour of darkness?
There’d been a lull in their exchanges, since the renewed argument about the rifle. But Schelokov now cleared his throat, turned to spit down-wind, and reopened communications.
‘Incidentally, Bob, where did you learn to shoot like that?’
‘Oh – I suppose at sea, mostly. What we’d call a dogwatch exercise. The dog-watches are in the early evening – after working hours. If you can imagine a ship steaming along quite fast, you have a man up for’ard chucking sackfuls of bottles and tins over the side, and you pot at them from the quarterdeck – that’s at the stern end – as they wash by. In any kind of sea they’re dancing around quite a bit, and you have to be damn quick.’
‘Personally, I should be damn sick.’
‘No, you’d get used to it. But what about you, anyway? You were shooting at least as straight as I was.’
‘I’m a soldier – I’m supposed to shoot straight. Well, it’s true, for sport we used to shoot quite a lot. Pig, wolf, bear… From horseback, often enough… Bob – d’you hear something?’
The howl of the wind, and it’s booming on the steep hillside. Mishka’s bellows-like breathing, and the regular thudding of her hooves…
‘Whoa. Whoa…’ Her head was dragged round to Schelokov as he pulled her up. Bob heard it too then, and his first thought – duration about one second – was of an avalanche, rock-slide. But it was coming from ahead: and it was hoofbeats, he realized – on this road… Not just a few horses, either, it was like a – well, muffled, but less so every moment – like a rolling of massed drums. The volume of it was mounting steadily – rapidly – drowning the wind, filling the dark valley. Cavalry – approaching, head-on…
Schelokov had Mishka half-round, hauling her to the roadside. He shouted, ‘Over the bank here – take her head on that side!’
With so much weight on her back, she did need help – took some controlling, too, beginning to go mad… Her hooves scrabbling and sliding while they hauled at her, pulling her up, exerting brute strength – having to, with not even seconds to spare – both assuring her insistently it was all right, old girl, all right, come on now, there’s the girl… Over – and down, in deep, soft snow, all three of them floundering thigh-deep in it – Mishka frightened and by this time very excited, plunging around and off-balance anyway under her load – visibility nil, no way of knowing what was even a yard ahead – a sheer drop to the icebound river, for instance – while what might have been a whole regiment of cavalry was thundering past on the road above them. It wasn’t only sound, the ground was shaking – sound and reverberation lessening two or three times for the space of a few seconds and then rising again – another lot – separate platoons or squadrons or whatever…
Schelokov shouted, ‘This’ll do, Bob! Whoa, girl…’ He’d clamped his hand over Mishka’s nose, pinching the nostrils shut so she couldn’t whinny. And you could see them now: against the sky, a slab of movement composed of men and horses not so much in silhouette as in contrast to the static darkness around and over it: a moving, jogging entity. Another gap – then more… God only knew how many: and the power, the sheer weight and mass: an earth-tremor that went on and on. Mishka fighting to get her head free, Schelokov cursing, having to watch out for her front hooves. It wasn’t easy to keep your footing even without that hazard. He wondered – semi- stunned by the continuing roar – a thousand of them? But – drawing away to the right again…
Either this was a bigger gap, or—
No follow-up. The tail-end of it – at last. No sight now, only sound, lessening and drawing right. And none at all coming from the left. After – what, five or six minutes…
Sound diminishing fast, southward. You could hear the wind again.
‘Bob – check the road’s clear? Then come back – if you would… It’ll take both of us to get this damned animal up there – eh?’
‘All right… What was it – a whole regiment?’
‘Probably. A number of squadrons, anyway… But look it’s going to be bloody daylight soon, so—’
* * *
It wasn’t daylight, even when they were back on the road and trudging north again, but dawn was a clear threat now. And the snow was falling less thickly. Or that could have been an illusion, an effect of the changing light. They were looking for the bridge by this time as a matter of real urgency: not only daylight’s approach but an obvious possibility of more cavalry following that first lot.
Meanwhile – one destination, one route to it. This one. They were both – all three – still winded, and Schelokov was limping.
‘Boris – how many squadrons in a regiment?’
‘Six. And a hundred and fifty swords, not counting officers, in each squadron. That was our system.’
‘Might have been a whole regiment, d’you think?’
‘Yes. Might well.’ He was peering ahead and to the left, probing the thinning, snow-flecked darkness. Adding after a few moments’ pause, ‘We knew we wouldn’t have long, didn’t we?’ Another pause. For a moment he thought he’d seen the bridge: but he hadn’t… ‘But – as they say, one swallow doesn’t make a summer.’ Muttering, then: ‘Can’t have already passe
d it. Can’t…’
‘Might be part of the great encircling movement everyone’s been expecting – Budyonny’s masterstroke, forty-eight hours late?’
‘Might. And if it is—’
‘There’ll be more coming.’
He’d flung an arm up: ‘There it is! There!’
The bridge was a hump in the semi-darkness off to the left. The road junction was closer – about fifty feet ahead where the bank curved away, following the branch-road towards the bridge. Once you had it in focus it became quite clear to see: but in rapidly improving light, of course… Not that from their point of view ‘improving’ was quite the word Schelokov telling Mishka, ‘Come on – not so far now, you – you thing, you!’
Because she’d trodden on his foot…
‘Two versts, you said.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then it will be light, before—’
‘If we come to woods before we get there, we can stop there and then.’
That cavalry force had come from or through Valki. You didn’t have to be any kind of tracker to see they hadn’t come over the bridge. Or any kind of genius to deduce that if there were more coming this was the road they’d be on.
On the other hand, just because one regiment had passed through… He looked past Mishka’s nodding, plodding head at Schelokov’s dark, limping profile. ‘Boris, if it’s at all possible I’d like at least a quick sight of the farm, before we hole up.’
‘But the priority must be to get off this road and into cover. Can’t have it both ways, unfortunately. At least—’ Pausing, evidently thinking about it… ‘It’s just possible we can. If my memory’s not playing tricks…’
He was gazing up at the hillside… It was farther back from the road than it had been. River bending left, Bob guessed, and the line of the road following its course. There was a bit of a curve to the left… But Schelokov was right, anyway: irrespective of more cavalry regiments on the move there’d be civilian traffic on this road soon. With daylight coming, and a village just up ahead: and civilians who’d remained in their villages or farms when the rest of the populace had fled south wouldn’t be anti-Bolshevik.
In other words, if they saw suspicious-looking strangers on the road they’d run and tell someone. The military, or local Red Guards, for instance.
‘Boris – I was going to ask you, back there – where does that other road lead, over the bridge?’
‘Bogodukhov. Where Letuchka chetiri was before they moved down here. If they moved, that is.’
‘Ah. Right…’ He did a double-take, then: ‘Are you saying they might not have left Bogodukhov?’
‘If they hadn’t started the move in time, it’s – conceivable. Reds were on the point of breaking through – were breaking through, here and there. If they’d been slow off the mark they could have been trapped up there.’
‘But – if that is the case—’
‘There’d be nothing you or I could do for them. But it’s only just one of several possibilities, Robert Aleksandr’ich, there’s no reason—’
‘No. I – realize… Here’s another question, though. Assuming they did come down, how would they have found this farm – the place we’re looking for now – when Markov’s letuchka wasn’t here to meet them?’
‘Either they’d have had a guide, or the location would have been detailed in their orders. Kharkov – Army headquarters – were administering and supplying both letuchki by that stage. Probably others too. Base hospitals were out of it. Markov was getting whatever orders he did get by despatch rider, same would have applied at Bogodhukov. What’s more, we left supplies here for them – whatever Markov didn’t have room for in his transport.’
‘Left some wounded, too?’
A grunt… ‘By no means willingly, I assure you.’
‘But no danger to them from wolves this time, he said.’
‘Because they were in the farm buildings.’
‘Ah. I see…’
‘See there?’
Woods – a thinnish growth of pines close to the road, about a hundred yards ahead, thickening into a dark mass as it climbed the hillside. Schelokov was jubilant… ‘Chudno! Perfect!’
Bob looked from the hillside to the sky, the growing light. He nodded. ‘Just when we need it.’
‘And where we need it. I couldn’t trust my memory, precisely. I was hoping, but—’
‘Close to the farm here, are we?’
‘I think very close. And from up there—’ a gesture towards the wooded hillside – ‘I won’t speak too soon, but I think it’s a godsend.’
* * *
Proof of it had to wait a while. First there was the traverse from the road to the trees – during which time if anything had come along this stretch of road they’d have been in full view – and then a climb through woodland which at some stages was so steep that they had to zigzag – to a comparatively level patch that seemed good enough for a camp site. Then the unloading of Mishka, and anchoring her to start with on a long tether in a more open area where she could move around and lick up snow if she was too thirsty to wait for her water, which was going to be a long time coming. Material had to be gathered for a fire first, and the fire then built up, and even then it was a lengthy process. Having had to leave non-essential gear behind they hadn’t burdened her with the largest cooking pot; snow had to be melted in the small one and poured into her canvas bucket until there was enough for her to get her snout into it. Meanwhile one pot-full was used for making tea.
Schelokov had made only a small fire, and selected the driest of the fallen timber, so as to keep smoke to a minimum. The north wind helped with this. It was a bitterly cold wind, but it carried the smoke away southward to lose itself amongst the trees.
Schelokov murmured, opening a tin. ‘You won’t believe me when I tell you what this is.’
‘There’s only one thing they put in cans that shape. And we’ve no bread to go with it, have we?’
‘Some crusts.’ A movement of the head: ‘Almost gave ’em to her. Thought better of it, luckily. We’ll have Boeuf Cowan again.’
‘Let’s have more tea meanwhile. I’ll do it… What other food have we got with us?’
‘Fish. Type unspecified, but it’s always sturgeon. And farsh.’ Farsh was a kind of sausage-meat. He added, ‘And more corned beef, of course.’
‘Of course.’
He’d moved Mishka in closer to them by this time, rubbed her down and given her half a sack of fodder. Leaving three days’ supply, if she could subsist on that kind of ration. Probably could not, he guessed. Certainly not if one was going to give her any work; in fact after the exertions of the past few nights she probably needed feeding up, not dieting… A lot would depend on how long it might be before they started south: and it could become even more of a problem if as Schelokov had suggested they went by some different route, not by way of the forest where they’d left the dvukolki with a few bales of fodder in it.
Might be safe enough to let her graze on the edge of the wood. Somewhere out of sight from the road. Alternatively, perhaps find some local supply of fodder.
At the farm, for instance.
Where Nadia might be – now? Within a mile or so of where one was sitting at this moment?
All right – first things first – But he’d been moving and working like an automaton, with his mind full of her. Images of how it would be, when they met. Whether she’d even recognize him. The prospect was almost frightening, as well as thrilling.
When they finished their meal, Schelokov produced a canvas pouch bulging with tobacco.
‘Makhorka, God help us. Better than nothing, though.’
Markhorka was a very strong and evil-smelling, shag-type tobacco.
‘From – one of those five?’
‘From the late Ivan Krotov, no less. Tell you what, though – you smoke your own, and I’ll use this. As long as yours lasts, that is.’
‘Well – if you don’t mind—’
‘I have a confession to make, Robert Aleksandr’ich… No, nothing to do with pinching this fellow’s tobacco. Much more – basic, than that… The fact is – I’ve only gradually allowed myself to recognize it – I really enjoyed that business yesterday. It was a pleasure – an actual pleasure… You disapprove: obviously it wouldn’t have been like that for you, eh?’
‘Not pleasure – no… But satisfaction, definitely. Killing them as the only alternative to having them eventually kill us?’
Schelokov shrugged. Stuffing his pipe… ‘Beyond that plain necessity – although you’re perfectly correct, of course – the point I’m making is that I found it truly – as I say, pleasurable.’
‘But you must have killed Bolsheviks before this?’
‘Certainly. But this was – personal, wasn’t it? Just the two of us. And they were hunting us, so we destroyed them. Nothing to do with soldiering, the field of battle and so forth. That’s like being part of a machine, there’s nothing – personal, about it… I’ll tell you – even if it shocks you, Robert Aleksandr’ich – the only fault I’d find with our action yesterday was that you got three and I only got two.’
‘Well – luck of the draw. And that third one’s horse would have got away if you hadn’t nailed it.’
‘Minimal satisfaction in that.’ He put the pipe in his mouth, leant to the fire for a burning stick. ‘Technical satisfaction, some personal regret. Whereas Bolsheviks—’ sucking, holding the glowing end of the stick on the bowl – ‘I truly hate.’ Puffing ‘Never realized it before. The extent—’ puff, puff… ‘– the utter loathing…’
His pipe was going. He tossed the stick into the fire. ‘Sorry. I’m boring you. Shocking you first, then boring you.’
‘Not in the least, Boris Vasil’ich. Neither. Not at all surprising, either.’
‘That I should ramble on about my – feelings?’
‘That you’d have such feelings.’
The grey eyes met his, through smoke. ‘Perhaps it’s not. But not to have realized it until now… Grows in one, I suppose, without one’s knowing it. And telling you my story… Never talked about it before, you see. Then an affair like yesterday’s – the personal involvement as distinct from straightforward military duty…’
Look to the Wolves Page 21
