THE SILLY ASS
The hours Bob next lived through were a sort of waking dream. He had
moments when he knew well enough that he was being lifted by careful
hands into an ambulance which then began to glide on sledge runners over
the frozen plain. He felt blankets wrapped about him and, with the first
returning warmth, his leg began to stab him again with throbs of
anguish. But these half-lucid minutes were followed by long intervals of
dreaming that took him hundreds of miles away from the snowy plains, to
days that came back to him vaguely now as part of another life.
At last, after a very long time—days or weeks, he could not tell
which—he opened his eyes and looked around him with fairly untroubled
brain. He was in a room in a Russian house, for a porcelain stove
occupied a good part of it. Outside the low window he saw the
everlasting snow, some trees, their bare branches swaying in the keen
wind, and, in a moment, a soldier walking rapidly toward shelter.
Inside the room, at the foot of his cot, was a small hospital table,
with gauze, bandages and bottles upon it. The walls were newly
white-washed, two other cots lay beyond his, and a faint smell of
chloroform lingered on the air. He turned his heavy head and saw an
officer seated beside him.
“Well, Bob, how is it?” inquired the surgeon, taking the patient’s hand
in his.
Bob stared at him, moved his tongue with an uneasy feeling that he could
not speak, then murmured, still with painful effort, “You, Greyson? They
brought me here—all right—then. What day is it?”
“It’s Christmas Day. We brought you here night before last. You’re in
Nikolsk village, in our little hospital. Don’t you remember what
happened to you day before yesterday?”
“Yes,” Bob answered slowly. The whole tragic scene reappeared before his
mind in bits which he struggled to piece together. But all at once the
dull ache in his leg brought it vividly back. He started from his
pillows, a sudden dread darkening his eyes. “Greyson,” he stammered, “my
leg! You won’t—you haven’t——”
“We haven’t and we won’t,” said the surgeon, smiling as he pressed Bob’s
shoulders back against the pillows. “Your leg is going to be all right.
You’re a tough specimen, Bob—I’ll say that. Most people wouldn’t have
come out of it so well.”
“You’re telling me the truth?” Bob persisted, his muscles tense and
quivering.
“On my word of honor. The fracture is set and shows every sign of
healing. You have no fever.”
Bob lay silent, spent with peaceful gratitude. He began again reviewing
his accident, and when he reached the moment when the British tommy bent
over him he roused himself to ask:
“That British soldier who brought you word—do you know who he is? I want
to thank him. He gave me his coat, too. Is he all right?”
“Yes. He came here yesterday to ask for you. I tried to thank him
myself, but as soon as I began he cut me short by saying, 'Never mind
that, sir. It ain’t a medal of honor I’m lookin’ for. What I want is for
you to promise not to say nothing to my captain about that there night.
I was out as you might say without leave, when I happened to see that
air chap’s signal blazing.’”
Bob smiled faintly. “I’ll stand his guardhouse sentence for him, if he
gets one,” he said unsteadily. “Another few minutes and I couldn’t have
held out.” He shivered at thought of those hours of misery, drawing the
blankets closer around him. “You sent word to my squadron, of course,
Greyson—and to Father?”
“Yes, to both. Turner came over yesterday. He salvaged your airplane and
took your maps and sketches back to Headquarters. He said the colonel
received them with enthusiasm.”
Under the glow of this satisfaction Bob forgot his regrets, the loss of
his plane and his own helplessness. With vague thoughts of past
Christmases flitting through his mind he sank into what was this time
profound and restful sleep.
When he awoke again he was enough stronger to think clearly and without
gaps in his memory. It was almost dark in the room and, outside, the
snow-fields were glimmering in the twilight of early afternoon. The
stove sent out a pleasant heat that Bob was still near enough to his
escape from freezing to rejoice in. He thought now of the skirmish in
the clouds with the Fokker biplane, and of the German pilot whom he had
seen face to face. He began to long for news of the battle-front. He
wondered whether the Bolsheviki’s meagre air forces had been further
increased. At this point in his reflections the man in the cot beside
him sat up and looked at him, with deep, sad grey eyes, set in a thin,
fever-worn, unshaven face.
“Good-day,” he said, speaking English with a slight lisp and great
deliberation. “You are better, I hope?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Bob, studying him. The stranger’s melancholy eyes
and oddly vibrating voice so aroused his curiosity that almost
unconsciously he asked, “Who are you, please?”
The man hesitated a second before he answered, “I am a Russian
prisoner—brought wounded here.”
“I see,” said Bob and relapsed into silence.
His neighbor looked at him, his sad eyes gleaming as though with
thoughts he did not know how or feared to put into words. After a moment
he seemed to reach a decision for, pushing himself upright in bed with
his thin, trembling hands, he said with a sort of jerky eagerness, “I am
not a Bolshevik, _Gospodin_ (sir). I am not an enemy.”
“Uh?” Bob’s incredulity expressed itself in something like a grunt,
which he did not trouble to make more articulate. He had heard plenty of
German prisoners, seeking to please their captors, make the same sort of
protestations. At what he took to be cowardly fawning he lost interest
in his strange neighbor.
The Russian, however, visibly excited, darted glances almost beseeching
toward the American, who lay looking out of the little window in
unsympathetic silence. He started to address Bob again, frowned,
hesitated, then plunged into speech. He spoke fluently enough, except
for an occasional Russian word inserted where his English failed him.
“Perhaps you think, _Gospodin_ officer, that I take a liberty with you.
But, consider, I have watched a young man brought back from death to
life—for you were yesterday very close to death. I know the cold
snow-fields. I have lain there, too. It is not strange that I speak to
you—ask for your health?”
“Not a bit—of course not,” agreed Bob, suddenly pitying, in spite of
himself, this thin, pain-wracked sufferer who held himself up from his
pillows with an effort that sent tremors through his nervous,
overwrought frame. “Why don’t you lie down?” he asked. “You’re tiring
yourself for nothing.”
The Russian lay back panting, but almost at once he demanded,
breathlessly, “You will let me talk to you? Not now, perhaps, but
soon—to-morrow? I have watched your face while you lay there. You are
one of those Americans who thinks and acts——” He broke off, catching his
breath.
Bob thought, “I wonder if he’s crazy.” Aloud he answered soothingly,
“All right. Tell me anything you like. I can’t talk much yet, but I can
listen.”
Before the other had time to answer the room door opened and Major
Greyson, followed by the colonel in command at Archangel, came to Bob’s
bedside. Behind them an orderly brought a lamp, which he placed on the
table, for darkness had fallen over the snow-fields.
“Awake, are you, Captain Gordon? And feeling—how?” asked Colonel
Masefield, taking Bob’s hand as he sat down by the cot. “You don’t look
quite yourself, but Greyson here is encouraging.”
“I’m getting on all right, sir, and thank you for coming,” said Bob,
returning the handshake with one that was still feeble.
“I had a cable from your father, Bob,” put in the surgeon. “He asked for
any further news.”
“Didn’t make it any worse than you could help, did you?” asked Bob,
hating to send bad news on Christmas Day.
“I said your leg was broken and you were suffering from shock but were
not in danger,” replied Major Greyson, sitting down on a chair the
orderly brought forward.
“The Nieuport, Colonel—I’m sorry,” said Bob.
“You’ve brought us down twenty-eight German planes, Captain Gordon, and
this is the first of ours you’ve lost. I think we can overlook it,” said
Colonel Masefield. “Besides, that Nieuport was well sacrificed for the
sketches you got. They are just what we’ve wanted. Adding them to
Turner’s photographs we can launch our attack on the enemy’s new lines.”
“An attack—a big one?” Bob asked eagerly.
“Big for our little resources. We hope to push the Bolshies back a bit.
Of course our objective here is simply to keep them well east of
Archangel and away from the little port of Alexandrovsk—our one way
out.”
“I’ll miss it,” said Bob drearily, trying to move his broken leg, a
helpless weight in splints and plaster. “Did you find the note I
scribbled on one of my sketches, Colonel? That the Fokker which chased
me was piloted by Rittermann? I’d like to face him in a plane his size!”
“Yes, that was a bit of priceless information,” said the colonel
thoughtfully. “We’ve had our suspicions; though, to tell the truth, I
think there is only an occasional German pilot flying with the
Bolsheviki. The German government would hardly bargain with them now.
They have enough anarchy at home to fear.”
“By the way, Greyson,” exclaimed Bob. “Why did you put me in the room
with a Bolshevik?” Bob glanced at the empty cot beside him. The orderly
had wheeled the Russian away for a change of scene, which consisted in
another view of shimmering snow and faintly starlit sky.
“Well, as you may have noticed, Bob,” said Major Greyson, “we haven’t a
great deal of room here. That chap had to have the best of care. He was
as near death, two weeks ago, as anyone can be and live. We picked him
up after their last retreat. Besides, he’s not a Bolshevik. He’s quite a
decent fellow.”
“What, has he told you that stuff, too?” demanded Bob. “Colonel, I think
he’s a first-class liar. He hardly waited until I was awake to pour into
my ears that he was not a Bolshevik. He was fighting with them, wasn’t
he?”
“Yes, they forced him in,” said Major Greyson.
“They all say that. Why didn’t he refuse?”
“Oh, for several reasons.” The surgeon remarked Bob’s flushed face and
quick breath and evaded an argument. “I think we’ll go now, Colonel, if
you please,” he added. “My patient isn’t quite the man he was yet. He’s
talked enough.”
“Good luck, sir, with the attack,” said Bob as the colonel rose. “I wish
I could be there.”
“You made it possible,” said the colonel. “That’s something.”
More tired than he realized, Bob fell into a doze when he was left
alone, thinking vaguely of the coming engagement in which he could have
no share.
The attack, however, did not come off as the colonel hoped, for, by the
middle of Christmas night, the few stars were hidden by the clouds which
had spread over the heavens, the wind howled around the little village
of Nikolsk and snow began to fall heavily. Dawn broke, about half-past
eight, the feeblest, greyest glimmer of light over the snow-fields. From
the sky fell such myriads of snowflakes that it made Bob dizzy to watch
them. The wind drove them like white flocks in every direction, mostly,
it seemed, up against the window from which the orderly beat the drifts
every half hour. The icy wind penetrated the cracks and chilled the
room, in spite of the big porcelain stove’s unfailing heat.
Bob knew that to-day neither Allies nor enemy would think of an attack.
It was as much as life was worth to venture abroad in the increasing
storm. A stranger was almost certain to get lost on the snow-fields,
once the curtain of falling snow had cut him off from landmarks. The
never-lessening descent of the snowflakes fascinated his eyes. He lay
motionless, in his listless weakness, watching them, until his neighbor
the Russian roused him from his reverie with his eager, pleading voice.
“_Gospodin_ American, will you listen to me? I do not wish to be an
annoyance, but perhaps you will be glad to hear——”
Bob turned toward him, curious at this insistence. The Russian lay on
his pillows, looking spent and weary, his haggard face white above his
unshaven cheeks, but his eyes brighter than ever in the dull grey light
of the snow-storm.
“Where were you wounded?” Bob asked him.
The Russian pointed to his chest. “Here. But it is nearly well. Only it
hurts sometimes to breathe. Will you listen a moment, _Gospodin_
Captain?”
“Yes,” Bob nodded.
The Russian pulled himself to that edge of his cot which was nearest
Bob’s and began at once, “My name is Andrei Androvsky. I live in the
town of Nijny-Novgorod, which is, as your honor knows, east of Moscow.
There I left my wife and two young children.”
He paused, breathless again. Bob thought with a touch of impatience, for
that strained, eager voice was beginning to get on his nerves, “It’s the
story of his life he wants to tell me, then. What on earth for?”
Androvsky caught his breath and continued: “I left them in 1914 to enter
the Czar’s army and fight Germany.” Perhaps his clear, watchful eyes
guessed something of Bob’s thoughts, for he hurried on with fewer
details. “I fought under the Grand Duke and under Brusilov. I became an
officer. I fought with the Republican army after the Czar’s fall. My
papers would show you this, but the Bolsheviki kept them when they
forced me to serve.”
“Forced you?” Bob interrupted. “What do you mean?”
“They threatened me with death and——”
“But death at their hands or death fighting like a slave in a bad
cause—I think you made a poor choice,” said Bob pitilessly. He was
picturing himself forced to fight with the Germans against his own
countrymen.
The Russian’s eyes darkened with shame and sorrow. Bob’s heart suddenly
smote him for his hard words. But Androvsky answered unresentfully, his
thin voice shaking a little:
“Yes, if life were all, I would have given it. But the Bolsheviki were
going to take my house and little patrimony and turn my wife and
children out-of-doors in the bitter winter. My youngest child was six
months old. Could I see them starve and freeze to death?”
“I didn’t think of that,” Bob slowly admitted. “It was hard. What did
you do?”
“I joined the Bolsheviki, stifling my conscience, trying to think only
of my little ones safe and warm at home. I do not defend myself. I only
tell you what is true, so that you may take my word for something else.”
“Something else?” Bob echoed.
“So that knowing that I am friendly to the Allies,” Androvsky went on,
“you may believe me when I tell you that the Germans are helping the
Bolsheviki.”
Bob’s heart gave a quick throb and a vision of Rittermann’s face flashed
before him. But at the same time he studied his companion intently.
Androvsky’s tragic story was just what a clever rascal would make up to
win sympathy. He thought the Russian’s looks and voice better proof of
his sincerity than any argument. In spite of the wariness gained in two
years of hard experience Bob believed that the man meant to speak the
truth. About any real German alliance with the Bolsheviki, however, he
was frankly incredulous.
“I know there are some German flyers up here,” he told Androvsky. “But I
don’t think Germany would really combine with Trotsky to attack us. The
new Germany has too much anarchy to fight at home to ally itself with
the Soviets now.”
“You are right, _Gospodin_ Captain,” exclaimed the Russian, with a
return of his nervous excitement. “The German government is busy
suppressing outbreaks, even in Prussia itself. But the Germans who are
bitterly discontented, those inclined toward Bolshevism, or even
Royalists who see ruin ahead—are but too willing to join any power able
to delay the peace or to divide the Allies. These malcontents have
turned Bolsheviki for the chance of revenge. You say you have seen
German officers here. I have seen German officers organizing the
Bolshevik regiments and German ammunition feeding their guns.”
“Won’t the German government do anything?” asked Bob. “It must see that
only peace will save Germany now.”
“The new government is weak, and still fighting its own rebels. Besides,
its leaders are divided between dread of Bolshevism and a bitter
satisfaction at seeing the Allies threatened by its advance. Will you
tell your friends this, _Gospodin_ Captain?”
“Yes, let me think it over,” Bob said. “Don’t talk any more now. You’ll
have a relapse. I believe what you say, or that it seems the truth to
you.”
Androvsky nodded and closed his eyes. Bob fell once more to watching the
cascades of snowflakes hurled against the pane, thinking over the
Russian’s words. Bob did not want to and tried not to believe him,
because it meant bad news, uncertainty, the peace delayed. He felt at
that moment, with sudden gloom, as Lucy had felt the day she said to
Larry, “I thought the war was over. But here it seems to be tailing out
in all directions.”
Before he got very far in his troubled reflections the dull report of
two pistol shots fired in the snow-storm made him start up to listen.
In a minute another shot followed. It sounded about a hundred yards
distant, south of the village. Almost at the same moment half a dozen
dough-boys, wrapped to the ears in sheepskin jackets and woolen
mufflers, ploughed past the window with rifles in their hands.
“What can it be, Androvsky?” asked Bob, tingling with the helpless
longing to get up and see for himself. “Orderly! Greyson!” he called.
But the orderly, usually within easy call, did not answer, and Androvsky
could only shake his head, staring at the window. A few hurried
footsteps and a murmur of voices disturbed for a moment the hospital
silence which then settled down again.
After twenty minutes spent in vainly straining his ears, Bob at last
heard quick steps in the corridor. The door opened and the orderly
entered, carrying blankets and pillows which he laid down on the empty
cot beyond Androvsky’s.
“What is it, Miller? What’s happened?” cried Bob.
The orderly pulled the empty cot around in front of the window as he
answered in fragmentary haste, “Man to be brought here, sir. Pretty well
chilled through in the snow. Escaped from the Bolshies’ lines.”
He paused, hurrying to prepare the cot, for already slow steps sounded
outside and two soldiers entered, carrying a stretcher on which lay a
young man, bareheaded, all of his uniform but boots and breeches hidden
by his snow-covered sheepskin coat. His arms dangled at his sides, his
eyes were closed and his fair hair wet with snow.
“Lay him down gently,” directed Major Greyson, following the bearers to
the cot. “Now—easy—that’s it. Pull off his coat, Miller. Move the cot
further from the stove—beyond the window.”
Under the hands of surgeon and orderly the patient opened his eyes,
starting up on his cot, to be immediately pushed back again by Major
Greyson.
“Lie still. Don’t try to speak,” said the surgeon.
“Not——? Why, I have to,” declared the other, bobbing up again as soon as
Major Greyson’s hand was removed. “Look here, d-don’t you believe what
t-that fellow t-tells you,—the one I brought in—that he’s my s-servant.
I heard him g-get that off to one of your s-soldiers. He followed to
c-catch me. He’s a B-Bolshevik—my prisoner.”
The undaunted pluck in the young man’s voice struggled with the deadly
chill of exposure that made his teeth chatter and his tongue stammer
over the words. He cast one keen glance at the surgeon as he ended, then
lay obediently back on his pillows, closed his eyes and fainted.
“Here, Miller, get a hypodermic needle ready. Pull off his boots,
Johnson, and give his legs a gentle rubbing,” ordered Major Greyson, his
fingers on the unconscious man’s fluttering pulse. Half to himself, half
to Bob he grumbled, “Of all the rattle-pated idiots. Why must he talk
when he’s as weak as a cat? What’s one Bolshie prisoner more or less?”
“He spoke like an Englishman,” said Bob. “Who is he?”
“British officer,” said Major Greyson, pointing to the uniform blouse
lying across a chair. “I’ve sent word to their lines. I believe there
was only one officer held prisoner anyway, a chap who got caught in a
raid last week. Must be this man; he’d be the sort to plunge into a
trap.”
“Well, he plunged out again,” protested Bob. “He took advantage of this
storm to escape. Pretty smart of him.”
“Yes, if he comes around all right,” said the surgeon doubtfully.
“Why, he’s no worse than I was.”
“No, but as I said before, you are a tough specimen. This lad looks
rather frail, though it’s true that delicate-looking young Britishers
show lots of endurance. Bring more snow, Miller. His foot is about
frozen.”
The Britisher stirred, opened his eyes and almost at once, in a voice
that trembled with weakness, began to speak.
“Went off, did I? Send word to my regiment, ah—Major—won’t you?”
“Will you keep quiet?” demanded Major Greyson. “Give your heart a chance
to pick up.”
“Right-o. Got clean away anyhow—didn’t I? I was afraid for a bit I
wouldn’t pull it off. I——”
The surgeon discovered a white spot at the tip of his patient’s ear. He
clapped a handful of snow against it. The young officer gasped and for a
moment subsided.
“I’ll have to stuff his mouth with snow, next,” muttered Major Greyson.
“I wonder if he’s a bit delirious.”
Bob smiled, feeling a secret liking for the cocky young Britisher who
now, his cot pushed into the coldest corner of the room, lay squirming
under Major Greyson’s pitiless snow-rubbing.
“Frost-nipped, am I, what?” he gasped after a moment. “I say—got a bit
of snow down my throat that time, Major.”
“Captain, will you obey my orders and stop talking?” demanded the
surgeon with exasperated calm.
“Stop talking? Better for me, you mean? Somehow I think a gloomy silence
is really more——Oh, all right,—I’m dumb.”
Bob laughed outright this time. He turned to Androvsky who, head on
hand, lay watching the young Britisher, a gentle smile on his pale lips.
“Did you ever see him before, Androvsky? Was he taken while you were
with the Bolsheviki?”
“No, _Gospodin_ Captain. When I fell wounded no Britisher had been
taken.”
Bob looked intently at the Russian, remembering the conversation of an
hour ago. Androvsky met his gaze with patient, melancholy eyes. But
Bob’s leg had begun hurting too severely for him to ponder much over the
questions that puzzled him. When Major Greyson had given the Britisher a
quieting draught and left the room with his aides, Bob snuggled under
the blankets out of the chilly air and, with a glance at the steadily
falling snow outside the window, fell into a doze.
When he woke, by his wrist-watch it was four o’clock and night had
fallen. The orderly had just brought in the lamp and had covered the
Britisher with another blanket. Bob saw the young officer stir beneath
his covers and look toward the cots in front of him. In the lamplight
Bob could see that his lean face was very young, more boyish than his
own. His fair hair lay in thick locks on his forehead, from which, Bob
supposed, it was ordinarily brushed back, for now the Britisher raised a
feeble hand and smoothed up the scattered strands which fell over his
eyes.
“How do you feel, Captain?” asked Bob, nodding to him.
The Britisher gave a nervous start, then answered a trifle uncertainly,
“Why—er—not too well. I say, sir, this is Nikolsk village, isn’t it? The
American hospital? I expect my colonel knows I’m here?”
“Yes, but the storm is still raging. They could hardly come to you now,
and certainly could not transfer you.”
“Right. I’m not complaining. A bit dizzy yet. The old bean doesn’t work
fast. Do you—er—happen to know if there’s anything much wrong with me?
Rather like to be on to it, you know.”
Bob was glad to be able to answer, “No, I’m sure you’re quite all right.
You were overcome by the cold, and frost-bitten. But the surgeon seemed
satisfied before he left. Were you out long in the storm?”
“Long enough. I shiver yet to think of it,” said the Britisher, his
voice quickening with a return of his unquenchable energy. “It’s a bit
of a storm. I’m grateful to it, though. The snow fell so thick the
guards left my window. I broke out, hid, and ran for it. They chased me
and did some blind firing. One ran square into me. I grabbed him and
brought him in. Nothing much to that end of it. The tough part was the
half hour I crouched in the snow under my window, waiting for the camp
sentries to give up patrolling and make for shelter.”
“Where were you? Behind their lines?”
“In a sort of shack near the Bolshies’ barracks—right beyond their
trenches. But the bally trenches are not held to-day, except at
intervals. I stole over easily enough. By the way, may I know your
name?”
“Robert Gordon, Captain, U. S. Flying Corps. Did you find out much about
the Bolshevik force?” Bob was thinking again of Androvsky’s revelations.
“Robert Gordon, did you say?” asked the Britisher, ignoring the
question. “Are there others of that name in your corps?”
“No, not any other in the Flying Corps. Do you think the Germans are
supporting the Bolsheviki? Are there any German officers over there
now?” persisted Bob, following his own anxious thoughts.
“Didn’t see any. Don’t know, to tell the truth. I was busy wondering if
I’d starve to death before I could make a break for it. Horrid bounders,
Bolshies. But, I say, this is simply priceless! Haven’t you a cousin,
Henry Leslie?”
“Yes! Why?” Bob raised his head to see the Britisher’s face as he put
the question.
“As some original chap remarked, it’s a small world. To think we had to
come to Archangel to meet. Hope you’ll find me worth the trouble.”
The Britisher gave a chuckle from under the blankets pulled up about his
chin. Bob began to wonder if he could be delirious, as Major Greyson had
for a moment suspected. “Look here,” he demanded, “just what are you
talking about?”
“Talking about you,” responded the Britisher, his eyes twinkling. “Cold
in here, isn’t it?” He cautiously lowered the blanket to explain, “No
less important news than this, Captain Bob Gordon. Henry Leslie is my
cousin, too, and Arthur Leslie is my brother, and Janet is my sister——”
“You are Alan Leslie?” Bob almost managed to sit up in bed in his
excitement. “You’re Arthur’s little brother, the s——” He stopped,
growing suddenly red.
“That’s it, the 'silly ass’—identity complete,” finished Alan, quite
unruffled. “I’d give you a handshake, cousin, old thing, if it could be
done.”
“Alan Leslie!” Bob stared at him, his lips slowly parting in a smile
divided between surprise at the odd chances of war and a dozen
recollections of what he had heard of Alan in the past two years. He
remembered Arthur Leslie standing in a doorway in some French village
reading a letter in which Alan described his convalescence after a wound
received in a burst of reckless bravery. Arthur had shaken his head as
he muttered, “That silly ass Alan.”
“What happened to you, eh? Stopped a bullet?” asked Alan, studying Bob
with his bright, untroubled eyes.
“My leg’s broken. My airplane fell and threw me out. I’m all right, they
say. How long have you been up here, Alan?”
“Here? Let’s see. No, I’ve lost track. A week or two, I think, before
the Bolshies caught me, and a few hundred years after that. Horrid
brutes, Bolshies. Cold here, isn’t it? They might move me nearer the
stove, I think. Where are your people, Bob? Funny I don’t know any of
them and you’ve seen Arthur so often. Arthur’s the family pride, you
know. Not a bad chap, Arthur.”
Under the negligent tone in which Alan spoke Bob divined the glowing
admiration for his elder brother which had united the two in spite of
all Alan’s follies. Like a true Britisher, Alan praised his brother in
deprecating, ambiguous phrases. “Just as they praise England, or English
exploits, in a negative, unwilling sort of way,” Bob thought. “It’s only
if someone attacks them that they shed sparks.”
He began telling about his family and asking all the questions he had
time to put in about the Leslies. When the first curiosity was satisfied
on both sides Alan cast a doubtful glance toward Androvsky, who lay
dozing on his cot.
“What’s that doing in here?” he inquired, jerking his head in the
Russian’s direction. “Looks like one of my late captors.”
“He’s a Russian,” said Bob, speaking low, “but a Menshevik, forced in by
the Bolshies.”
“Told you that, did he? I fancy he’s having you a bit.”
“No. I’m convinced he’s straight.”
“He’s spoofing you. They’re a rum lot. I suppose he’d swear to anything
to get near this stove. By the way, so would I.”
“I’ll call the orderly to move you. You were frost-bitten so they didn’t
dare warm you up. Miller!” Bob shouted, for bells were unknown in
Nikolsk hospital.
“Good egg,” approved Alan, shivering under his blankets. He glanced
toward the window, beyond which thick flakes were still falling. “I hate
the sight of that snow. Polar bears, that’s what this place is fit for.
Wonder if they could be trained to fight the Bolshies. Here comes
someone, Bob.”
Major Greyson entered the room, casting an astonished glance at the
young Britisher.
“Who says the British are reserved and distant,” he thought, approaching
Alan’s cot. “Here’s this fellow calling Bob by his name after a couple
of hours’ acquaintance. Well, Captain, how is it?” he asked, taking
Alan’s cold hand in his. “We’ve sent word to your regiment. The wires
are down but I sent a Russian messenger. You’ll have to stay here for a
while and be patient.”
“No complaints, Major. I’m no end grateful to you,” said Alan, looking
up at him. “Would you be good enough to move me nearer to the stove, if
I’m quite thawed out?”
“What do you think, Greyson?” said Bob, as the surgeon and Miller moved
Alan’s cot a scant foot nearer to the stove. “This is Captain Alan
Leslie and my cousin.”
Major Greyson looked quickly at Bob, with so evident a search for signs
of feverish excitement that Bob could not help laughing.
“I’m not out of my head, Greyson,” he declared. “He is my cousin,
really.”
“Why, you told me you’d never seen him,” protested the surgeon.
“He hadn’t. This is our first meeting. Can’t call it auspicious, can
one, Major?” said Alan, basking in the faint warmth that reached him. He
gave another look toward Androvsky. “Rather a horrid lot of patients you
have here, Major, excepting Bob.”
Major Greyson smiled as he sat down by Alan’s cot. “You seem pretty
cheerful, Captain Leslie, but that foot of yours must be hurting quite a
bit.”
“Oh, rather. I suppose it can’t be helped,” said Alan coolly. “It’s
better than when I first woke.”
“We’ll see what can be done.” Major Greyson turned to the Russian who
was moving on his cot. “Androvsky, you awake? Miller will wheel you
about a little.”
“Thank you, _Gospodin_ Major,” said the Russian, sitting up.
Bob’s thoughts, turned once more to Androvsky, led him to inquire again
of Alan, when the Russian had gone out and Major Greyson was examining
the Britisher’s foot, “Didn’t you see any Germans in the Bolshevik
lines, Alan? Couldn’t you guess anything about what they’re up to?”
“I didn’t see any Germans—not in my guard-house. And I wasn’t invited
anywhere else. What’s it all about, Bob? I wasn’t a spy, I was a
prisoner. Awful beasts, Bol——”
“Oh, Alan!” Bob came so near saying “Don’t be a silly ass” that Arthur’s
nickname for his brother all at once explained itself.
Major Greyson interposed. “Bob, do you know that a frozen foot hurts
even more than a broken leg? Don’t expect too much thinking of him for a
day or two. Forget the Bolshies for a while. Let other people worry
about them until you’re on your legs again.”
Alan nodded approval. “Can’t see why he wants to think of them at all,
can you, Major? Yes, that does rather hurt when you touch it. Sorry I
jumped. I’ll be quiet now.”