At the first sound made by the pack, the three had come to an abrupt halt. Fortunately they were within a few feet of a big birch tree, the lowest branch of which was within reach. Seizing Mary by the waist, Roger lifted her so that she could easily grasp the branch and swing herself up on to it. With a swift jump, he followed. Gobbet had unslung his musket. Aiming it at the leader of the pack, he fired. The beast leapt into the air, twisted and fell. Instantly the others were upon it, tearing it to pieces. To take his weight off the lowest branch, Roger had scrambled on to another, opposite it and a little higher up. With a blasphemous oath, the Sergeant clambered up between them, into the fork of the tree.
After tearing the dead wolf to shreds, the rest of the pack loped up to the base of the tree and milled round it. There seemed to be between fifteen and twenty of them. After a while they settled down on their haunches. Lifting their heads, so that their yellow eyes glistened in the faint moonlight, every few minutes one of them gave a bloodcurdling howl.
For a time the besieged travellers stared down in dismay, wondering how they could rid themselves of the menacing beasts. Then Gobbet muttered, ‘Only thing ter do is to ’ave ’em feed on one another till they can’t eat no more.’ Reloading his musket he shot another wolf. Within five minutes it had been devoured by its companions.
In the half-hour that followed, he shot three more and Roger shot three with his pistol. They, in turn, were torn limb from limb by the snarling pack, and their more succulent parts eaten; but there still remained nine of them and they showed no sign of going away. Giving vent to a spate of curses, Gobbet announced:
‘Ain’t got no more bullets. Wot fricking luck to ’ave run out. Their bellies must be near full by now. Bet another couple ’ull do the trick. Let that big grey brute ’ave it wiv yer pistol, Colonel.’
Roger had just reloaded, but he had only two bullets left, and he was loath to use them in case they were needed for some other emergency. Then he remembered that Mary was carrying his other pistol, so he called across to her, ‘How many bullets have you got, Hipé?’
‘I had eight,’ she replied quickly. ‘But they are in a little bag tied on to the pistol, and when you swung me up into the tree it fell out of my belt. I dropped the cooking pot with the honey, too.’
Turning to the Sergeant, Roger said, ‘When we get near Riga and break into a house to get clothes we’ll need both weapons, in case we are surprised and have to use them to get away, so I’m against firing the two bullets I’ve got just yet. We’ll wait for another hour or so, in the hope that the brutes will tire of sitting there and leave us to return to their lair and sleep off the big meal they’ve already had.’
The hour that followed seemed never-ending. Occasionally one of the wolves would whine and prowl round for a few minutes. But for most of the time they were silent and remained sitting on their haunches, staring upward with unwinking eyes. From time to time Gobbet muttered an impatient curse and shifted restlessly, then he committed a terrible act that he had evidently been contemplating for some while.
Suddenly his hand shot out. Seizing the collar of Mary’s fur coat, he gave it a swift, violent pull, designed to throw her backwards off her precarious perch, and snarled:
‘Boy’s no dam’ good to us. The brutes can ’ave ’im, an’ we’ll save ’is rations.’
With a scream, Mary overbalanced and slipped from the branch. But as she fell she managed to catch hold of it. Next second there was pandemonium. Howling, the wolves hurled themselves into a solid mass and began to snap at her feet.
Roger’s heart gave a lurch. He still had his loaded pistol in his hand. Yelling, ‘You bastard!’ he swung it round and fired straight into Gobbet’s face.
Had there only been one wolf it would, by then, have buried its fangs in the calf of one of Mary’s legs. But, as they leapt at her, they knocked one another aside. The moment Gobbet fell out of the tree, they swerved away from her and fought to get at the human flesh for which they had waited so long. Roger threw himself forward across the now empty fork of the tree and, with his free hand, seized Mary by the wrist. A moment later, sobbing and half-fainting, she was hauled back to safety.
He had hardly done so and clasped her in his arms before the wolves had ripped away the Sergeant’s clothes and were beginning to eat him. But their eagerness to gorge themselves had abated. They seemed satisfied to have secured a fair sample of the prey they had been determined to feed on. Almost with indifference they gnawed the flesh of Gobbet’s limbs, then, as though instinctively obeying a common impulse, wandered off.
It was not until Roger had recovered from seeing Mary in such dire peril and the effort needed to rescue her that he realised that another misfortune had befallen them. As he had thrown himself across the fork of the tree, the two panniers had slipped from his shoulders and fallen to the ground. Anxiously he peered down to see what had happened to them. But the moon was now down, and the light had become so dim that he could make out only the hump that was the remains of Gobbet’s corpse.
For quite a time, in case the wolves returned, he and Mary did not dare come down from the tree; but when it seemed safe they slithered to the ground. The panniers were there, but had been ripped to pieces, which were mingled with the Sergeant’s half-eaten limbs. To their great distress, there was little among the stores that could be salvaged. What remained of their sugar and tea had been spilt. The wolves had eaten most of the precious marzipan and chunks of honeycomb. Their last piece of horseflesh had been chewed and, as a final blow, their last bottle of brandy had smashed as it hit the ground.
Sadly depressed, they walked for an hour until they came upon a deserted charcoal-burner’s hut. Dawn was approaching. As they were by then famished, they lit a fire and cooked the mangled piece of horseflesh. Then they crawled into the sleeping bag which Roger had been carrying strapped to his back, and fell into a sleep of exhaustion.
They had been so tired after their ordeal with the wolves that it was not until the early twilight fell that they moved on again. The trek they made during that night was the worst they had ever endured. After their many days of travel they were desperately weary. It did not snow, but the cold was excruciating. They had had nothing left to cook before they set out, so they tried melting a candle and lapping up the fat, in the hope that it would warm them; but it was so greasy that it made them feel sick. They could not get it down, and their empty stomachs rumbled with hunger. Their faces were chapped, their feet bruised from stumbling on the uneven surface of the frozen river. Every time they stopped to rest, Mary was shaken with shivering fits and whimpered, ‘It’s so cold! Oh, it’s so cold.’
At first light they came to a bend in the river. Boulders protruding from the ice showed that when the water was unfrozen there was a cataract there. When it had frozen in the late autumn, ice floes had piled up on top of one another, making the going very difficult and dangerous. Dreading, as he had so often during the past week, that one of them might slip and break an ankle, Roger led Mary to the bank of the river. It was steep, but they scrambled up it and continued on their way. The bank gradually rose, until it became a hundred-foot-high cliff. It had begun to snow again so, when they reached the summit of the rise, they decided to halt. Roger had been hoping that they would come upon a wood in which he could gather sticks for a fire, but it was barren ground. They sucked half of the few chunks of honey that the wolves had left them; then, silent and utterly miserable, crawled into their sleeping bag.
After a while Mary fell asleep, but hunger pains prevented Roger from doing so. He had to face it that Riga still lay at least seventy miles away, and that without further supplies it would be impossible for them to reach it. That left three possible alternatives. He could break into a house; but, if he were caught, he was too weak to put up a fight or, if he shot anyone, run far without collapsing. So, to adopt that course would be to risk leaving Mary alone and starving. They could give themselves up. Mary would be saved and come to no harm. But for him it me
ant death, and a far from pleasant one. Russian resentment at what the French had done to their country was so great that, when they saw his uniform, the odds were that they would kill him out of hand. If some humane official did protect him and send him to a prisoner-of-war camp, the chances of his getting a message to the Czar—as he had realised all along—were infinitesimal, and it was as good as certain that he would suffer a lingering death from hardship. The third course was to throw in his hand and just lie down and die in the snow.
Had he been his normal, vigorous self he would never even have contemplated giving up and not making a last desperate endeavour to reach the coast. Had he been on his own he would still have elected to embark on that forlorn hope. But he had been sadly weakened by privation and he had Mary with him. The thought of seeing her fall by the wayside and die of starvation was unbearable, So he decided that he would save her if he could, and die himself.
About midday he eased himself out of the sleeping bag only temporarily disturbing her, stood up and looked about him. Although still freezing as hard as in Dante’s lowest depth of Hell, the weather was fine and the atmosphere extraordinarily clear. From the top of the high cliff he could see a town down on the river, about four miles way. It was, he felt sure, Plavinas. For the first time in days his features, made rugged by the cold, broke into a smile. Their being within easy distance of it perfectly suited his intention.
But next moment his face had become sober again, at the thought of how difficult it was going to be to persuade Mary to leave him. He had no doubt that she could manage the four miles to the town on her own, and she had nothing whatever with her that would connect her with the French; so, out of charity, she would be taken in and cared for. Besides, although he had many times contemplated lightening his burdens by throwing away his money belt, he had resisted the temptation. The gold in it was sufficient both to enable her to reach Riga by sleigh and from there secure a passage home. His problem was that he did not believe for one moment that she would agree to walk off, leaving him to die.
After a while, the solution came to him. He must leave her. To make her do so would necessitate his playing a horrid part, and it greatly distressed him to think that, to the end of her life, she would believe that he had not loved her enough to remain with her but had sent her off on her own in order that he might have a better chance of saving himself. But there seemed no alternative.
Kneeling down beside the now almost empty panniers, he looked through their few remaining stores. There were a few bits of mangled honeycomb, about a quarter of a pound of marzipan and half a bottle of the mule’s blood mixed with brandy. Taking off his money belt he put it with the stores.
When he had shaken Mary until she came out of her semi-coma, he said, ‘My love, I have come to a decision. This is the parting of the ways.’
‘What … what do you mean?’ she stammered.
‘That we are reduced to such extremities that I mean to leave you.’
Her one eye opened wide with fright and through her cracked lips she whispered, ‘Leave me! Oh, no, Roger, you can’t mean that.’
‘I do,’ he replied in a firm voice. ‘We are still over seventy miles from Riga. For us to attempt to reach it together would be hopeless. We’d both be dead within the next few days. But if we separate there is still a good chance that we may both survive.’
‘No, Roger!’ she burst out, her face becoming panic-stricken. ‘No! Please! Anything but that. I …’
‘Mary, you must be sensible.’ He cut her short sharply. ‘My life depends on this as well as yours. The town of Plavinas is down the river, only a few miles off. If I went into it wearing a French uniform, that would be the end of me. They would never believe that I am an Englishman. But there is no reason why they should harm you. I am going to give you half my money. That will easily enable you to get to Riga.’
‘But, Roger … Roger, what about you?’
‘There are plenty of villages along the river. I mean to break into a house each night and raid its larder. With luck, I’ll also be able to steal some clothes.’
‘Then I’ll come with you. How can you ask me to go into that town, where there are warmth and food, while I know you still to be nearly starving and out in this freezing cold?’
‘I am not asking you, Mary. I am telling you what you are going to do. To take you with me is out of the question. To be frank, you would be an embarrassment to me. I’d be worrying all the time that, if I were caught, you would be caught, too. I’ll not risk having you tried as a thief and sent to a Russian prison.’
‘But, darling, I just can’t bear the thought of leaving you. I love you. I love you terribly.’ Tears were running down Mary’s cheeks and her face was the picture of misery.
Roger could hardly bear the sight of her distress. He was greatly tempted to give up his plan, take her in his arms and tell her that they would remain together. But he knew that would be fatal for them both. Anxious now only to be finished with playing his distasteful role, he decided to end matters, and said almost brutally:
‘You say you love me. Very well then. Prove it by doing as I wish and give me a chance to save my life. I told you long ago that I was determined not to die in this damnable country.’
Choking on a sob, she remained silent for a moment, then said in a small voice, ‘I see now that I was being selfish. Instead I should have thanked you for having borne with me all these weeks. If you had sent me into a town much earlier, you would by now be in Riga.’
Her pitiful surrender distressed him beyond measure, but he dared not show his feelings. With an effort he raised a smile, and replied hurriedly, ‘That’s better, Mary. Now, we have no time to lose. You must be in Plavinas before the light falls. While you were dozing I divided our things. I’ve put enough food in my pockets to keep me going for a day or two. You must take the rest. And here’s my belt with half the money in it.’
With a word of thanks she took the belt, but added, ‘I’ll not need any food. You must keep it all.’
He shook his head. ‘No. You must eat these bits of honeycomb and marzipan while you are on your way, to give you the strength for your long walk. I want you to take the mule’s blood and brandy, too. There’s just a chance that you might not reach the town before dark, and there is no moon now, so you could lose your way and have to spend the night in the open. You won’t have the sleeping bag, but drinking this stuff will keep the life in you until morning.’
Submissively now, she agreed to do as he wished, stowed the things in her pockets and, a few minutes later, at his urging that she must make the most of the light, was ready to start. Tearfully, she looked at him and asked, ‘Are you not coming with me for part of the way?’
‘No,’ he replied hoarsely. ‘I did not sleep at all this morning, so I must get a good sleep this afternoon in order to be at my best for breaking into some farmhouse tonight.’
Now that the die was cast, he felt that he could afford to show his true feelings. Holding out his arms, he took her into them and said gently, ‘Mary, my darling. Please don’t think I am being altogether selfish about this. I do love you. For a long time now you have meant everything to me. But this is our only chance. Given a little luck, I’ll get through, then in a month or so we’ll be together again in England.’
She returned his kiss and murmured, ‘I can only pray for that.’ Then she suddenly broke away and added bitterly, ‘But you don’t love me as much as I love you, or you’d have let us die together.’
Turning her back, she stumbled away. He repressed his impulse to run after her; and, with an aching heart, watched her small figure until it was out of sight.
When she had disappeared down the slope, Roger did not get into the sleeping bag. Having resigned himself to death, he saw no point in prolonging his life, and the stomach cramps from which he was suffering, for a few additional hours. But, as he lay down in the snow, he instinctively drew one end of the bag over his head, to save his lips and nose from becoming frost
bitten.
Now that he was lying still, his hunger pains eased and he was able to think more coherently. As there was no likelihood in the foreseeable future of his having been able to marry Georgina, and it was now out of his power to marry Mary, he decided that he did not greatly mind dying.
After all, he had had a wonderful life. He had met the majority of the most famous men of his time, travelled far and wide and, for many years past, had had more money than he needed. He had also been blessesd more than most men in that many lovely women had found him very attractive. Amanda had been a sweet wife to him, and they had been happy until she had died in giving birth to Susan. Then there had been his dear Clarissa. What a tragedy that he had lost her when she was still so young. And Pauline. It was an intriguing thought that he might have married the sister of an Emperor. But Napoleon was really only a cardboard Emperor and, but for his remarkable achievements, Pauline would have remained only the little Corsican whore she was at heart. Yet nature had endowed her with the beauty of a fairytale Princess.
Other women drifted through his mind, not only ones he had loved, but his dear mother and young Susan. What a pity that his mother had not lived long enough to know Susan. She would have been so happy at having a charming grand-daughter. What a pity, too, that until he returned from abroad as a grown man, he had so hated his stern and uncompromising father. Admiral Sir Chris, as King George used to call him, was really a very likeable sort of man. What a tragedy it was that so often young people and their parents failed to appreciate one another’s good qualities, sometimes until it was too late.
He could take pride in the fact that both his father and himself had served their King well. Was the poor old madman still alive? But where would England be now without Billy Pitt? Frail and ill for a great part of the time, for over fourteen years, with indomitable courage he had fought to save Britain and all Europe from self-seeking demagogues and spoliation under irresponsible mob rule.
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware Page 40
