Look to the Wolves

by Look to the Wolves (retail) (epub)

  On the way up there’d been no sound of wolves. Only their own and the horse’s panting breaths and stumbling progress as they zigzagged up between the trees and through undergrowth, having to go carefully and make detours around steeper parts and obstacles here and there. When they’d arrived here they’d made the climb in growing daylight, and coming down – thirty-three hours ago, roughly – had been in the dusk. One had been aware enough of the hazards, therefore, to have been looking out for them as well as for wolves. For whom Schelokov had prepared what he called wolf-scarers – balls of hay on short lengths of twine cut from the hay bales. It was an old-established peasant device, he’d explained, in common use for centuries by those travelling by sleigh or horse-and-cart between villages in wolf country. Except that they’d tend to use straw more often, and longer lengths of rope. When the wolves chased after them they’d light the bundle and throw it out to tow astern, and the packs would keep their distance.

  Approaching the level where they’d left Mishka, the horse had objected to further progress. Schelokov had had his work cut out to keep it moving. He had his own persuasive and coercive tricks, but even these failed after another thirty or forty yards.

  ‘This is a waste of time, Bob. We’ll tether him here and I’ll go on up. Stay with him, will you? Here – I’ll leave you one of these.’ One of the hay-balls. ‘Got matches?’

  ‘Yes. Somewhere…’

  ‘Have ’em ready. Look, better have two of these things. Leaves me four, that’s plenty. If you hear ’em getting close, light one and sling it at them. They don’t like being shot at, either. Don’t shoot when you can’t see, though.’

  ‘Can’t see a bloody thing.’

  ‘You will when you’ve lit one of those. See their eyes, the light reflected in them. Now I’m going up to get that rifle.’

  ‘And Mishka, if—’

  ‘Can’t you hear?’

  He did, then. Had probably had the sound in his ears for some minutes without realizing what it was. But it was in the sound of the wind, and he’d been breathing hard and the horse hadn’t been exactly quiet. He could hear it – them – clearly enough now, though. From some distance – fifty, a hundred yards, whatever – snarling and whining and the tearing and crunching of hide, flesh, bone… Imagination might have played some part on his interpretation of the amalgam of sounds, but it couldn’t have derived from much else.

  Schelokov muttering, ‘Stand still, you damn creature… Here, Bob, this tree here, I’m—’

  ‘All right.’ He’d groped for and found the taut reins, which Schelokov had succeeded in clove-hitching around a birch-trunk. The horse now jerking at it hard enough you’d think to break the leather, Schelokov growling, ‘Easy, easy… They aren’t after you, old fellow…’ To Bob then: ‘Weren’t so busy, they’d have heard us long ago. May have anyway. Wind’s in our favour, far as scent’s concerned… Got your pistol ready? Handier than—’

  ‘Yes – all right…’

  Should have wished him luck. Too late: he’d gone. Bob wanting rather badly to have this over with. Better still, not to be here at all. To wake up, confirm you’d been dreaming, that the only reality had been this sense of unreality. How could it be real, actually happening – to be stuck on a frozen hillside with two corpses and, close by, a pack of wolves tearing a horse apart? But start further back than that: wake up in Sevastopol, in the Kist Hotel, still waiting for news that didn’t come: Nadia still alive, all of them alive… ‘Steady, old fellow! Easy, now… We’re in the same boat, you and I…’ Probing the darkness. By the sound of it, some of them were fighting, up there. Nothing to see except the horse’s bulk – it was trying to rear, against the pull of the tether – and the black pillar of the tree itself, the darkness similarly but less distinctly streaked within a radius of a dozen feet or less. Watching mostly uphill, where Schelokov had vanished and where the sounds of wolves competing for meat – Mishka’s – were coming from… And a flare of light, up there – with an instant, complete cessation of all sound, then after a few seconds the start of low growling, and the volume of it rising while the flare became a nucleus of bright fire which soared then from left to right. And the crack of Schelokov’s rifle. No – his revolver, that had been. Second shot on the echo of the first, and the horse surprisingly still, after all that panic. You could imagine it was straining its ears and keeping still so as to hear better: he ran his hand up its sweat-damp neck and found the ears were pricked forward. The glow up there had begun to fade, but Schelokov was putting a match to another ball and again one saw its flight, the flickering effect of tree-trunks between here and there: a wolf’s high yelp, then a shout of ‘On my way down, Bob!’

  ‘Right…’

  With enough light from that thing to see by – but still concerned not to be mistaken for a wolf, and shot at. But whether they’d follow him down, or go back to their meal… Still a glow up there, that second hay-ball smouldering. Bob had the Webley in his right hand, the other with the ends of twine wound round it and patting the horse’s neck – muscles quivering under that sticky coat. ‘Bob?’ Schelokov came slithering down, stopped himself against the tree. ‘Couldn’t get the rifle. One of those sods damn near got me. Bob – old friend – cut them loose, those two… No – I’ll do it, you light a scarer, will you?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now, Christ’s sake—’

  Hadn’t thought there was any need. Fumbling with matches… Hearing the snarling then – a whole orchestra of it – and appreciating there was need. Not all that easy, though, to strike a match, shield it while it lit and keep it alight while getting it to the ball which was dangling on three feet of twine.

  Try it the other way about. Hay-ball up close to the left hand, and strike the lucifer close against it. Thumb through the trigger-guard of the Webley to leave the rest of that hand free. Crouching, for better shelter from the flame…

  It flared, the hay caught, he let the twine run out through his fingers as he straightened, his gut tightening at the sight of a score of pairs of yellow eyes blazing at him, a half-circle of them… Schelokov called ‘Throw it!’ – while the horse danced, whinnying, throwing its head up, jerking repeatedly at the tether, its eyes showing white with terror, and Schelokov just about off the ground, hanging on to its head to hold it down. Bob had lobbed his hay-ball at the vicious, glittering eyes, caught his first-ever sight of wolves as the burning missile flew sparking towards them and they retreated, scattering. He had his pistol up, fired at one particularly large animal which had only pirouetted then stood its ground – snarling, fangs bared, eyes like a devil’s… He’d missed, fired again, and Schelokov shouted, ‘Give me a hand here!’ A hand at getting the first of the two bodies down. This was his own greatcoat, which had Irina’s remains in it, bound like a parcel with more of that twine. ‘Here will do.’ Near the foot of the tree but clear of the lashing hooves. ‘Get the other down? It’s loose…’ Loose and slipping, slipping into his arms as the horse half-reared again. Schelokov must have realized he had no knife. And if he’d tried inexpertly to use his sword – in the dark, at that… He lowered Avdotya’s body in its wrapping of Schelokov’s greatcoat to the ground beside Irina. Schelokov had cut the twine on that first one, and now he did the same for Avdotya. ‘Better light another scarer.’ Because that one was fading, the snarling yellow-eyed shapes were all around them and edging in again. All it would take would be for that big one to give the others a lead. You wouldn’t last a minute – half a minute… ‘Light it and throw it down close to us here. Got two more, don’t worry.’ He’d been crouching but was on his feet now, half-erect, stooping to throw both coats open and expose their contents. The wolves wouldn’t gawp: one thing they were not was voyeurs. Bob struck a match, lit his second hay-ball, held it swinging by its tail of twine. But you could only do that for a few seconds without the twine burning through, or burning your arm off. He tossed it to land a few feet away, and Schelokov thrust another at him: ‘One more. I’ll un
tie this animal. When it’s alight, throw it at the nearest of ’em. I’ll need a hand with this bugger then. One hand each, spare ones for pistols – huh?’

  Retreating, finally… Controlling the horse between them: it was primarily a matter of not letting it bolt. That was hard work on its own. There was no need to shoot, since after they’d started down the wolves didn’t close in on them or follow. They had other scent, other interest, didn’t so much close in on that as rush in, as the light died and the forest up there darkened.

  * * *

  Riding south, with the high ground on their left still holding back the dawn, although it was leaking up into the clouds overhead and beginning to reveal the shape of the snow-covered land around them. This long, straight road, with the bank on their right and the ground beyond it sloping down into lingering darkness; there was a river down there, and it was over this bank they’d scrambled with poor old Mishka, taking cover of sorts while a squadron of Red cavalry had thundered by.

  At that time, he’d thought of Nadia as being alive. Had known she might not be, but had believed she would be, had still counted on finding her, bringing her south with them to safety, and eventually – although he was aware that as Nick Solovyev’s widow she wouldn’t be the same Nadia Egorova whom he’d known a year ago, and that she might still harbour such notions as she’d expressed in her letter, about not leaving Russia – eventually, to Britain. That was how he’d envisaged his own future as little as three days ago. But now, if there was any future at all – anything beyond this present preoccupation with trying to stay alive – presumably for some purpose…

  What purpose, though? In the light of recent events wasn’t it, to say the least, egotistic – after all that, and above all with Nadia dead – to have any concern at all for one’s own skin?

  Except you could argue that – egotistic or not – it was natural. The urge to survive being a matter of instinct, not reason. For instance his father – to whose memory he still tended to turn for guidance, when he felt the need of it – the old man would certainly have shrugged off any such doubts or self-questioning. As likely as not he’d have dismissed it all with a brief expletive and a favourite aphorism of his: It’s pluck that gets home.

  It derived, Bob remembered, from the turf, horseracing. And pluck, he might have added, didn’t ask where was home. It just bloody well got on with it. The old man being thoroughly entitled to his views on the subject, too, having been through a great deal of adversity himself, emerging from it with flying colours largely because he’d been just about stuffed with pluck – from birth onwards.

  He was thinking about his father and the gruff exterior under which he’d concealed a softer heart even than he’d credited his son with, when Schelokov reined back to ride beside him.

  ‘Been thinking, Bob. What we were saying earlier about where we left our dvukolki, Mishka’s fodder. If we were caught there, how could we have known about it unless we’d dumped it there ourselves?’

  ‘Right after having killed those scouts. So they might have a watch on it.’

  ‘Exactly. Also, it’s too close. We should get twice that distance before dark. And two other considerations – one, this first day’s important, we want the maximum distance behind us, and two, it’d mean a dog-leg, off our straight course towards Taganrog. Better to head southeast right from scratch, pass well to the north of Petrovka, I’d say. D’you agree?’

  ‘Yes. Anyway you’ve got the map.’

  ‘That doesn’t take us far.’

  ‘No. Of course…’

  The map had been in the inside pocket of the NCO’s greatcoat, and it only covered this immediate area, not even as far south as Petrovka. Its main interest was that it had the name, or rather number, of the detachment’s regiment stamped on it. They were planning to make use of this, for want of anything better, in their own cover story if they needed one.

  Bob added, ‘Horses may get hungry, though.’

  ‘Not if I can help it. We’ll be working ’em hard, they’ll need their rations. Have to find food for them wherever we are. Commandeer it, if we have to. We’re Red Army, after all.’

  ‘Christ…’

  ‘Well – in for a penny… How’s the head?’

  ‘This cap doesn’t suit it. But otherwise – a lot better than it might have been.’

  ‘You were very lucky. How about your boots?’

  ‘They’re all right.’ He’d pulled them off one of the dead cavalrymen – one with large feet. His own seaboots, which had been in the cartshed with their other things, wouldn’t have got even their toes into the stirrup irons. He added. ‘For riding, anyway.’

  ‘Good. Talking of riding, d’you think you could handle say three of the loose horses? Three each for you and me, leaving Ibraim with four. It’d look more natural – to a cavalryman’s eye, that is.’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  ‘Good. Chudno. You’d have made a good soldier, Robert Aleksandr’ich.’

  ‘Better sailor, though.’

  ‘Wishing you’d stayed where you belong – eh?’

  ‘The thought’s occurred – once or twice.’

  ‘Well – you’ll be back there, in due course. Spewing your heart out, wishing you were back here… Any papi-rosi left?’

  Russian cigarettes – a couple of inches of rank tobacco in a cardboard tube. There’d been several packets of them with the stores in the cartshed, and Bob had stuffed a few into his pocket. He gave Schelokov a pack now; cigarettes were easier than filling pipes, on horseback. Bending to light his own: with his beard down close behind the blanket-roll across his horse’s withers, cupping the flame in his palms… Then: ‘Our Tartar friend’s a trump, isn’t he?’

  ‘Thank God for him!’

  ‘When I was in the Caspian, they were hand-in-glove with the Turks. Only ambition to slit Armenian throats. And loot… But this fellow – he’s remarkable.’

  ‘I’d say he was devoted to Irina Solovyeva – she’d have been good to him, I suppose – and he’s transferred the loyalty to us. There’s also the fact he wants to get to his homeland.’

  ‘The Nogai Steppe, you said.’

  ‘Exactly. I told him if he stayed with you he’d get damn close to it. Tikhoretsk, I had in mind – from there he’d be in spitting distance of home, and it’s on your route to Novorossisk – eh?’

  ‘My route. Not yours?’

  ‘My dear fellow… I’ll see you on your way – please God – but what would draw me to Novorossisk?’

  ‘You’re saying you intend to stay in Russia.’

  ‘What else? Where else?’

  ‘You’re entitled to a passage out, and I’d make sure you got one. Seems to me, Boris Vasil’ich, the way things are going—’

  ‘The way they will go, if we all run away. I flatter myself I can still be of some service here.’

  ‘But – realistically, don’t you think—’

  ‘No. I don’t.’ He lifted his hands. ‘Get your snout up, you donkey!’ It was a chestnut he was riding, almost as big as Bob’s black giant. You could see shades of colour and other detail now, as the light grew. ‘Even if I did – agree with you that we’re beaten, that’s what you mean, isn’t it? – well, you’re not necessarily wrong, it’s certainly how it looks at this moment. But—’ he shrugged – ‘such things can change, you know, very quickly. It’s quite on the cards we might turn the tables – again, eh, as we’ve done before?’

  ‘D’you think Denikin will put the pieces together again?’

  ‘Yes. Or Kolchak will. Wrangel, perhaps. It’s important, of course, that your people continue to supply us.’

  ‘To be frank, I wouldn’t say it’s likely.’

  ‘Giving us up as a bad job, are they?’

  ‘There’s a lot of political argument in England. A War party that wants full involvement – to restore the Romanovs—’

  ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘Fellow called Winston Churchill wouldn’t agree with yo
u. But others say it’s none of our business and we shouldn’t be involved at all. The result’s been a botch-up – which gives strength to the elbow of the mind-our-own-business brigade. It’s a hopeless mess, they say, so pull out before it gets worse.’

  ‘Your Royal Navy too?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Except in the Baltic, where it seems we’ve been doing a good job.’

  ‘Doesn’t help us.’ He rose in his stirrups, looking down into the valley, where you could see a loop of the iced-up river now. ‘Anyway – this is a depressing conversation, Robert Aleksandr’ich. Personally, I prefer to believe there may be a miracle around the corner.’

  ‘Let’s pray for it.’

  ‘Do so. Please. But for now, listen. Any time from now on we’re likely to run into some of our beloved comrades. It’d be very surprising if we didn’t. So let’s have our stories straight and matching. We’re from the Twenty-third Regiment – hussars – of General Budyonny’s Fourth Cavalry Division. I’m comrade Sergeant Krotov, you’re comrade hussar – what is it—’

  ‘Galanshin.’

  ‘Galanshin. Right. Better sharpen my memory… But our Tartar friend gives no name except Ibraim, speaks better horse than Russian. No papers – deserted from the other side, they’d conscripted him against his will. I’m his sergeant, I vouch for him. And our story is we had to wait at the veterinary depot at Kursk to collect these nags and bring them on. We were told – three weeks ago, so we’re in the dark now – that our lot would be deployed towards Taganrog. That’s all we have to go on, we’re just doing our best to comply with orders.’

  ‘It’s good.’ Bob nodded. ‘Better make sure Ibraim’s got it in his head too?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll drop back now and have a talk with him.’

  ‘In horse?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fluent…’

  * * *

  All you’d need was confidence. If you didn’t doubt yourself, they wouldn’t. He remembered Nikolai Solovyev’s brilliant acting, on a railway platform policed by Red Guards, and his explanation that the secret was to be the character you were playing, think like him.