Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  ‘Yes. I am!’ Big smile – ingenuous and infectious. ‘Like some tea?’

  ‘That would be very kind. But you’d better see to your hungry patients first?’

  He went inside. His undervest and the socks which he wore inside his seaboot stockings had been hanging above the stove, and they were now warm and dry. He pulled off his sweater and shirt, put on the vest and hung the shirt where it had been. Socks on, then: the oiled-wool stockings could have an airing now. First time they’d been off his feet in a week… But this was luxury, one had to make the most of it.

  Schelokov was half awake. He told him, ‘Tea coming in a minute.’

  ‘Uh? Tea, you say? Did you say—’

  ‘Yes, I did. Hang on.’ He’d heard the girl passing back the other way, humming to herself. ‘Avdotya!’

  ‘Hello…’

  ‘There are two of us in here, Avdotya. Thought I should mention it – in case you really meant it, about tea?’

  ‘I know.’ She nodded towards the tent. ‘Mamasha told me. Ibraim will bring it to you, though.’

  Back inside, he told Schelokov – he was sitting up now, stretching – ‘Mamasha’s orders. Did you hear? No young girl’s safe with us. With me anyway.’

  ‘She’d have nursing duties that keep her busy, I imagine… Are you all right, Bob? Did you sleep?’

  He nodded. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Gritting the teeth?’

  ‘You’re a good fellow, Boris Vasil’ich. Extremely kind. But – let’s forget my problems now?’

  ‘Excellent! Life goes on – uh?’

  On the surface, it had to.

  Ibraim brought them black tea and chunks of black bread. His family home had been on the Nogai Steppe, he told Schelokov in his broken Russian, but he hadn’t seen either it or them since 1916, had no idea whether any of them were still alive. He called both of them ‘Your Excellency’ – Vashe Prevoskhoditeltsvoli – but never cracked even a hint of a smile. Bob commented when he’d left them, ‘Face like a mask.’ Thinking, Hallow’een mask, at that… Schelokov had muttered with his mouth full of bread that Tartars invariably called you ‘Excellency’ right up to the moment they cut your throat.

  Irina came by, then, on her way to attend to the patients.

  ‘Did Ibraim bring you your breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, thank you very much.’ Schelokov was studying her with interest. In this light you could see that her eyes were green – and her hair light-brown, tied back behind her head. Her eyes were set deeper in her skull than Bob remembered. Or perhaps it was more that her cheekbones were more prominent. Short rations, he guessed: and tight nerves. You could almost see the quivering nerves. She could have been Schelokov’s own age – not young enough to be his daughter… He’d added, ‘Slept like logs, too. First night under cover for quite a while.’

  ‘You’ll keep the stove going, will you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Bob offered, ‘If you want any wood chopped—’

  ‘That’s Ibraim’s work.’ Cold green eyes: definitely feline… ‘Thank you, all the same.’

  ‘Nice little thing, your Avdotya.’

  ‘Meet with your approval, does she?’

  ‘I was wondering – you said she’s a local girl – what’ll happen to her when you leave?’

  ‘I’ve told her I’ll take her with me.’

  He exchanged a glance with Schelokov. Irina added, ‘In point of fact my predecessor, Anya Prokofyeva, made that promise. But in any case I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll go with you. So – in due course—’

  ‘Quite. But if her family’s in the village here—’

  ‘Only an aunt. Her father and brother were both killed fighting on our side, and her mother died of typhus. The aunt’s a widow and her two sons are away somewhere in the Red Army.’

  ‘My God…’

  ‘We Russians do have our problems, you see.’

  ‘I know it. Remember, I’m half Russian.’

  ‘Half British, too. When you’ve had enough of it, you’ll leave. Sail away, leave us with—’ a sweep of one hand – ‘this…’

  She did have a point – which had been put to him often enough before, in one form or another. But if he’d given her the standard answer – that he was a serving officer, had to do as he was told, she’d almost certainly have been ready with something like ‘Such as chasing after other men’s women’. He shrugged, therefore, kept his mouth shut – he hoped disappointing her – and she turned to Schelokov. ‘Avdotya will be going into the village now, Major, and I have my own work to do. We don’t usually have a midday meal, but if you’re going back to your camp when it’s dark this evening – is that your intention?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll give you a meal of some sort before you leave.’ On her way out, she paused, pointed out past the other shelter. ‘Beyond that stand of birches, there’s a stream. Ibraim keeps an axe there, to open a hole in the ice – it closes up again, of course. And anything else, ask him. He speaks very little Russian, but he understands.’

  * * *

  They’d both slept, off and on. There’d been a few flurries of snow outside, but the shelter’s low ceiling contained the stove’s warmth with soporific effect. Conversations came in spasms when they both happened to be awake. Hopes that Mishka would be all right, and that Maltsev, as a deserter from the Red Army, might keep himself to himself. And that Irina, come sundown, would refuse to make any commitment to leave with them.

  ‘She’ll manage on her own, in any case. Better than we could, probably. She’s not a wolf bitch for nothing.’

  ‘And we’ll start south tonight, eh – if she says no?’

  ‘I’m for it. Definitely.’

  ‘Risk using the road, d’you think?’

  ‘The alternative’s to go over the top – up through the wood and then head south along the crest. I’ve no idea what the terrain’s like up there.’

  ‘Might be less risk on the road going south – if all the traffic’s going that way…’

  ‘Sleep on it, shall we?’

  If she’d been here, the prospect of the return southward would have been – beyond description, unimaginably thrilling… But now, it was merely what he had to do – or attempt – for some reason that wasn’t entirely clear… You might say – Schelokov would have, if he’d asked him now – that it was natural, of course any sane and healthy person did his best to stay alive and free – etcetera. But this assumption – if you believed in any kind of after-life and had it as much in mind as he did now that the only people he cared for to any really profound degree were already dead – wasn’t exactly blinding in its logic.

  He’d heard women’s voices, at one stage, so Avdotya must have returned from the village. And another time when he’d been only dozing he’d heard men singing, a baritone solo with a deep-voiced chorus in support, a very old Russian song – Stenka Razin, a ballad about a river pirate of that name.

  Schelokov had woken too, had been smiling as he listened to it. He’d suggested, ‘We should join them.’

  ‘Later, perhaps.’

  ‘All right. Supper time. When we’re ready to move… I just woke from a dream, Bob – Mishka was being attacked by wolves.’

  ‘Christ. You don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t think – but it’s on the cards. Depending on the wolf population in this region. And their food supplies. We’ve left her longer than we meant to, haven’t we?’ He fingered the scarred side of his face. ‘Dreams are crazy things.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve been having some.’

  ‘Ah.’ The soldier’s head turned. ‘Just remember – it’s happened to others, they’ve stood it… Also, Bob, however terrible it is now—’

  ‘I know.’

  That was the answer to the other question, too.

  He’d fallen into a much deeper sleep, then, and Schelokov must have done the same. They had no warning, heard nothing of the troop’s approach – which had had to be across open ground, and it was st
ill late afternoon or early evening – didn’t know a thing about it until Irina was outside the shelter screaming ‘Get up, up! Robert Aleksandr’ich, Major, vstavayete – they’re here – Oh God, God!’

  Like regaining consciousness from coma. There was shouting – but who – where… Horses then – arriving at the gallop, slithering and crashing to a halt, and immediately – rather as if her screams had precipitated everything – a bedlam of noise all around, and Irina’s final screech silenced by a solid thwack – the flat of a sword, he learnt afterwards. Horses neighing, orders being shouted: he was on his knees with the Webley in his hand – he’d slept in his greatcoat, as always – jerking the action back to get a round into the breech, seeing Schelokov on his stocking’d feet – crouching, the roof was too low to stand – with his revolver aimed at the entrance but unable to fire because Irina was there in it, filling it as she fell inwards and backwards. He had a vision then of a rearing horse and its rider sliding down to land right in the entrance astride her now prone body. Schelokov had fired twice by then but the same sword sent his Nagant flying; Bob hadn’t got even one shot off because his gun hadn’t cocked as it should have, and by this time there were four of them inside the shelter, there’d have been no point. He’d surrendered, two rifles were covering him, Schelokov had his arms up too and a sword-point at his throat. One of them pulled the Webley out of Bob’s hand, and another – no rank insignia but he seemed to be in charge – yelled ‘Out – outside – von, poshli!’ One of them had been hit by one of Schelokov’s two shots, had his right hand clasping his left arm and was cursing. They were dragging Irina out by her feet, long heavy skirts riding up above her knees, and the one pulling her stopped where he’d got to, knelt down and began wrenching the skirt higher, having to lift her legs and bottom with each jerk as her thighs and long woollen knickers became exposed. Bob moved without thought, having the weight and power to thrust his guards aside: they’d grabbed him again but he’d aimed a kick at the kneeling man’s face. Futile – didn’t even have his boots on – but all of this had taken about twenty seconds, straight from deep sleep into shock and now blind reflex fury. His kick didn’t connect, that man had rocked back out of its range, and the two whom Bob had almost but not quite thrown off had got new purchases on his arms. At the same time, adding to the quality of nightmare, he saw Avdotya struggling in a cavalryman’s arms, heard her scream in her small childish voice ‘Mamasha! Oh, Mamasha! Oh please, Jesus—’ The man had forced both her arms behind her, his bearded face was nuzzling at her throat – might have been trying to tear her clothes open with his teeth – and a colleague was running to share the fun. Bob roaring, fighting like a madman to get free from the two clinging to his arms; while another horseman cut his way out through the side of the other shelter – slashing the tarpaulin open with his sword.

  Exploding out: ‘Seven of the bastards! Kill ’em, shall we?’

  ‘Yeah!’ It was the sergeant – or officer, whatever he was – behind Bob, now. He’d left Schelokov, whom he’d been questioning inside, and he had Maltsev with him. ‘Swords – don’t waste bullets!’ He flipped the Nagant around in his fist, brought it clubbing down on Bob’s skull.

  15

  The screaming could have been a sound-effect out of hell – as one imagined hell or dreamed of it. There had been a dream-like element to start with, but the screaming hadn’t stopped now that he was awake or half-awake – in some degree of consciousness. Conscious of the cold and pitch darkness, and the scream swelling into an even wilder abandonment to agony – with the overspill here of horror, the hair standing up on the back of his neck and down his spine and an image forming, its outline shaping and then detail hardening, as if it were created by that sound: a triangular, sharp-boned face suffused with blood – black with it. Green pinpoints for eyes, and her throat and the veins in it swollen to what might be bursting-point.

  Then – liquid… The distorted features, and the scream – glottal, bubbling through liquid as it drowned.

  ‘Christ…’

  His own voice, speaking into silence. Cold, hard-beaten clay under his face. Music then, starting up out of that same silence? Not close, nowhere close at all, but—

  Curtain down, orchestra striking up?

  A hand found his shoulder, closed on it, just as a fact stood out clearly in his stirring memory. Nadia, dead…

  ‘Back with us, are you…?’

  He’d whispered – thinking of Nadia, who’d gone virtually in a puff of smoke – ‘Thank God. Oh, thank God…’

  ‘For small mercies?’ A chuckle. ‘I wonder which ones they’d be.’ The voice was familiar but only just audible. Boris Schelokov’s, of course. ‘Welcome back anyway, Robert Aleksandr’ich.’

  ‘What in God’s name was that?’

  But he knew damn well what – or rather who – it had been. Not the little girl. Impossible to imagine any such sound issuing from – being forced out of – that small, childish throat…

  And it was no dream. Might have started in one but certainly wasn’t now. He’d have made it a dream if he could have. Right back to – oh, Sevastopol… No – to the other letuchka. At least he’d got those two out.

  His fingertips told him that the back of his head was a sticky mess.

  ‘Boris Vasil’ich – where are we?’

  ‘Stables.’ Schelokov’s hand squeezed his shoulder, then left it. ‘The tack-room at the end – remember? Only place they could shut us up. Door’s wedged – wedge in the latch – and there’s a guard on the other door.’

  The music was real, not some aberration as he’d suspected it might be. Incongruous, but there right from the moment the screaming had stopped, and louder now than it had been to start with. He was on his face with his fingers clawed into some sort of hard earth flooring. Clay, probably. A stink of piss but not – strangely – of horses, of horses themselves or of their excrement. Yesterday – last evening, if that was yesterday – the place had reeked of it. Well – not this place, especially. Only generally, and that other barn.

  That was an accordion, and there were men singing to whatever tune was being squeezed out of it.

  There’d been singing earlier, he remembered… Then remembered better: no connection – those had been Irina’s patients.

  ‘Seven of the bastards. Shall we kill ’em?’

  ‘Yeah! Swords – don’t waste bullets…’

  A revolutionary song, this one. Shoulder to shoulder, the people’s triumph. Svoboda, Raventsvo… The squeeze-box panted a suitably discordant background to it.

  ‘Are you there, Boris Vasil’ich?’

  ‘Well – unfortunately…’

  ‘How did we get here?’

  ‘You came on a horse – across its withers, like a corpse. Head dripping blood – for all I knew you were a corpse. Rather envied you – and not just because you were getting a ride… The two girls travelled the same way, except Avdotya had her hands tied. She wasn’t unconscious, as you and Irina were. She sobbed all the way. Screamed now and then. Well – hysterics. Made them laugh – would you believe it?’

  ‘Believe anything, of them… Did you come on foot, then?’

  ‘Ibraim and I came between the stirrups, as the saying goes.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Cavalry expression. When you put a prisoner between two riders, two horses, and he has to run between them. In my case, with no boots on. They used their whips too, the sods… You’ve no boots on either, in case you didn’t notice. How’s the head?’

  ‘Hurts. Where’s Ibraim now?’

  ‘Here – by the door. Mutters to himself now and then – gets too loud, I’ve had to quieten him a couple of times.’

  ‘What does it matter, if—’

  ‘As I said, there’s a sentry on the outer door. Changes every half-hour. So none of them has to miss the fun for too long, I suppose. I imagine they’ve got some vodka, helping things along. Sounds like it. They have a fire, too, earlier on it blazed, you could see
its light – up there… But – answering your question – I’d sooner not invite attention. Especially not have them know you’ve come round – might want to question you?’

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘Speaking of the damage to your head – they haven’t even left me a match that I could strike, to look at it. I’ve only made sure you were on your belly. It was a hell of a whack he gave you.’

  ‘From behind, I suppose.’ He remembered the young girl struggling in that creature’s arms, and that he’d been fighting to get to her. Then nothing more.

  ‘Rifle-butt, was it?’

  ‘Revolver. The shit of an NCO who’s in charge. As you say, from behind. He’d been shouting questions at me – a lot more since then, I can tell you, I’m black and blue – and another of ’em had an arm-lock on me, also that little turd Maltsev was between me and you. There were two of ’em holding you, but I think you were on the point of breaking free when he laid you out.’

  ‘So it was Maltsev brought them. As we guessed he might, I remember.’

  He was attempting movement, while digesting all this information. He knew enough about the damage to his head not to want to think about it. Nothing one could do about it – except hope for the best, leave it to mend itself – if it was going to – and meanwhile ignore it, try to – manage… Hands flat in the clay floor now, and drawing his knees up. Then levering himself up – slowly, cautiously. Thinking about Maltsev – that they had anticipated something of the sort, and done nothing – just, as it were, crossed their fingers, heads in the sand… For food, warmth, rest.

  ‘We should have cleared out, when we realized he’d be a danger to us.’

  Mother of God…

  Must have groaned, then. Schelokov asked, ‘Want help?’

  ‘No. Christ… No – thanks…’

  Resting… Noticing suddenly that up near the apex of the end wall was some kind of ventilation hole, with silvery light showing through it. Blinking: not trusting his eyes… But – a narrow slot, about half the width of the wall where it narrowed there.