At last, however, they saw signs of life. A train whistle told them
they were near a railroad and they passed a group of soldiers who were
firing two large hay stacks.
"The camp, thank God!" cried Ostap, and they all quickened their steps.
The place had been made by the war and for the war. There were no
peasants' cottages, no farm buildings. There were rows and rows of
wooden huts where troops in repose had passed their time; there was a
wooden church with the onion-shaped dome which pertains to Russian
temples; there were gardens in which the men had grown cabbages for
their soup and a few flowers, especially sunflowers, for they liked to
eat the seeds. There were tents and hospitals, magazines, guns and
aeroplanes. Above all, there was great confusion. Most of the troops
had left and ambulances, carts, trains, motor-lorries, anything upon
wheels the Russians could find, were being packed with the sick and
wounded.
Leaving the others at the upper end of the camp, Ostap and Ian set forth
to seek the commanding officer. It took them some time because nobody
knew anything about him, and nobody cared whether they were refugees in
distress or what they were. The whole mental force of the place was
concentrated upon getting away as many sick and wounded as possible
before the Prussians came in and seized them. After half an hour's
search, however, Ian found his man. He was standing by a large hospital
tent, ticking off entries from a notebook. Judging from his looks, he
had neither slept nor washed for some days. At any other time Ian would
have refrained from interrupting a man with that stamp of haggard
determination on his face. But his own plight was desperate. He told
his story as briefly as possible and asked for help to get his women to
Warsaw before the Russians left there.
When the man heard the word "help" he looked up in irate surprise.
"Do you know how many wounded I've got on my hands here?" he asked.
"I can't say----"
"Three thousand of ours--a thousand Germans. I've had four thousand to
get off since the night before last. The Grand Duke with his staff
leaves Warsaw this evening. You know what that means?"
Two men brought a stretcher from a tent. Its occupant's face was black;
he fought desperately for breath. The officer asked the bearers curt
questions, made notes, signed to them to pass on. Then he turned to
Ian.
"Gas. That man's regiment has lost three thousand by it, to my
knowledge. That gives you an idea of our work here. Help! How can I
help?"
"I'm sorry," said Ian quietly, but with that air of authority he had
learned in ruling Ruvno. "But I've a right to your help. My home has
been blown to bits because you left a signaler bricked up in my
church-tower. I know the Grand Duke will approve of anything you can do
for me. If you've German wounded you can surely let some of them wait
here for their friends and send my womenfolk to Warsaw in their places."
"I've no orders to help refugees," he returned sullenly.
"I'm a personal friend of the Grand Duke's."
"He has so many friends."
He was ticking off names from his list and asking the bearers questions
during this conversation, which took some time.
"My time is precious, too," argued Ian. "I'll bury my chaplain and come
back to you then. In the meantime you can perhaps think of some way to
help me."
The officer pointed to a motor-lorry which was passing them on its way
out of the camp. It was packed full of ghastly-looking men.
"There's your answer. How can I help with this Hell going on day and
night?" he exclaimed irritably.
"Give me two horses and a peasant's cart."
"There are none."
"Then a pass for a train ... room on the roof will do."
His face softened now. He thought he was to get rid of this importunate
civilian.
"A capital idea. But I can't give you the pass. It's not my job. The
officer who can is over there."
He pointed towards the station. "Go to him. Say I sent you. Nicolai
Petrovich Ketov is my name. Good luck!" and he hurried into the tent.
On his way to the station Ian met Ostap.
"The devil take this hole!" he cried by way of greeting. "Not a horse
to be found. Nor a cart. Nothing but bad temper and confusion." Then,
when he heard the other's experience:
"Ketov. Don't know the name ... a Little Russian, I expect. But you
can see all these officers are too busy to bother with us. I'll try
humbler folk. Never mind. Do you go bury your priest. Meanwhile, give
me your card, if you have one about you and write down the number of
your followers and your quest upon it. Have you any money? That is
always useful."
"Yes." Lately, he had been in the habit of carrying about all the ready
money he possessed in case of an emergency like this. But he did not
tell the Cossack he had enough to keep his little family for a few
weeks, till he could sell the family jewels. In silence he pulled out a
couple of hundred roubles, produced a card, and a note which he had had
from the Grand Duke a week before.
"I'll not take the money, because we don't pay for any conveyance we may
get till we're all in it. But I'll take that note. It may help us to
get the conveyance," said Ostap.
He went off, whistling, and Ian sought the others. He found they had
been more fortunate, for they had made friends with old Princess Orsov,
better known in Petrograd and Moscow as Vera Petrovna. And she had
heard of the Countess, first from hearsay; then, more fully, from the
Grand Duke, for she was a personal friend of the imperial family.
She listened in silence to the Countess' story, her bright, Tatar eyes
taking in every detail of that tired, well-bred face and the torn
clothes, never made for tramping over battlefields. She took a fancy to
the Polish woman at once, admired her courage and her determination.
When the tale was told she made the three women go into a little
pinewood hut which stood by the roadside, and managed to get them some
hot coffee in a remarkably short time, considering the confusion.
"You shall have a dinner when it is ready," she said, speaking the
purest French. "I'll help you to get off by hook or crook. But we are
hard pressed here to find room for your wounded. Wait a moment I'll go
and talk to my head nurse." And she hurried out, leaning on her stick.
"How clean this is!" sighed Vanda, looking round the cell-like place.
"I wonder if she'll give us some soap and water, as well as a dinner. I
seem to want it more than food."
"She'll give us everything," said Minnie cheerfully. "She is the good
fairy who always turns up, even in real life, when things look blackest.
No, Countess?"
The Countess did not hear. She was thinking of the life they had left
behind and wondered what the future held in store. And she thought of
her faithful old friend, the chaplain, now lying in peace after his long
journey and envied him, till she remembered that her boy wanted her and
this thought gave comfort.
In a few minutes the Princess came back.
"We're so packed that you couldn't put a bayonet between the men," she
said in her brisk way. "But I can take you three ladies on my hospital
train if you don't mind wearing white aprons and veils."
"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess. "If you will take these
two girls for me, it will be a great load off my mind."
"But you?"
"I'll do what my son does. I've known so many cases of families being
separated and not finding each other for months together. And I don't
think I could bear the anxiety of that."
Vera Petrovna laughed.
"That is when people have to tramp the roads by night," she argued.
"Your son can get on a troop train, by hook or by crook. On the roof,
or with the stoker. It's nothing for a man."
"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw," objected the
Countess. "And where should I find him with all the telegraphic
communication stopped?"
"I sha'n't leave you," said Vanda.
"Nor I," added Minnie.
The old Russian was rather puzzled at this. But Ian came to the rescue.
He looked on the matter in a far more practical light.
"It's the greatest piece of luck you could have," he said. "I can't
tell you, Princess, how grateful I am. I've not been able ever to get
anybody to listen to my request for a seat on the roof of a train, even.
But I can tramp it. And I'll do it all the better when I know you're
all safe."
"You can't help going to Warsaw," said the Princess. "You can arrange
that whoever gets there first waits for the rest of the party.
"I wonder what the chances of getting from Warsaw to Petrograd or even
Kiev are?" Ian asked her. This had been worrying him a good deal. He
did not want to be left in Warsaw, unable to realize his valuables.
The Princess blinked her narrow eyes at him and tapped her stick on the
floor. It was the same ebony stick whose knob was an enormous emerald
set in pearls which she used in peace days. It was her one vanity. But
in order to preserve the stones from scratches and dirt she had a lot of
little washleather caps made for the knob which were changed and washed
as soon as they showed the need for it. For many months now this
wonderful old woman, remnant of a type which the revolution has probably
swept away forever, whose friends of youth had passed away, who stood
alone in her memories, had been living between her hospital-train and
her Petrograd palace, turned into a hospital, too. With that
independence characteristic of her House she refused to have anything to
do with the Russian Red Cross, supplied her own train, nurses, surgeons
and requisities, her own engine-drivers, her own locomotives, and wood
from her own forests to heat the train and make it go. The food came
from her own estates, the civilian aid from her own circle of friends
and acquaintances. In fact, she supplied everything but the patients
and they never lacked, for Vera Petrovna's train and hospital soon won
for themselves renown for comfort and good nursing that the wounded
clamored to be taken there. Ian watched her as she stood, near his
mother's chair, evidently revolving some plan in her shrewd old head.
He, too, had heard of her, of her wealth and imperiousness, her kind
heart and open hand. He reflected, little bitterly, that her fortune
was safe, because her immense forests in Central Asia and her hunting
grounds in Siberia, wherein you could have put Ruvno and lost it, where
trappers caught sables and marten for the world's women, lay well beyond
the invaders' grasp. He could not foresee her terrible end, which she
met with fortitude; little guessed that her palace in Petrograd would be
broken into by Lenine's mob, looted and burnt; that her old body would
be thrown into the nearest canal after the life had been strangled out
of it. All he saw now was a very energetic and prosperous member of the
Russian aristocracy, a woman who could afford to laugh at the German
advance because her native land was intact.
"Count," she said, addressing him because she had all her life preferred
to deal with men.... "I have a proposal."
"Yes?"
"Will you allow me to take these ladies in my train to Petrograd? We go
straight through."
"Straight through? But the difference in the gauge of the rails?"
She gave him a wink.
"That's a Russian bureaucratic legend," she returned. "I have a
contrivance they put on the wheels, and all gauges are alike. The
Germans have it, too, you may be sure, all ready to run their trains
right up to Vilna. But to business. It's far better for you, Countess,
and you, young ladies, to come straight up to safety with me than to
risk being left in Warsaw. Who knows if you will get seats in a train or
motor-car now?"
"It's very kind of you," said Ian, glancing at his mother, "But----"
"No buts," retorted Vera Petrovna. "You're going to say we were
complete strangers a few minutes ago. That's true. But in times like
these one makes friends or enemies very fast. Oh, I've heard of all
you've done for wounded Russians at Ruvno," she went on, giving the
Countess one of her shrewd looks. "And it would be a great honor for me
to show you that we Russians are not like our government, that we wish
to be Poland's friend and help her brave sons and daughters, who have
borne the brunt of this awful war."
"Oh, how nice to hear you say that," exclaimed Vanda.
"I mean it. But let us arrange this. You, Count, can join your little
family at my house in Petrograd. If you've never been there, all you
have to do is to ask for the Orsov Palace. Every street-urchin knows
it. Now, I must leave you for a moment. So much to do! Do you wait
here till a bath and dinner are ready."
Then the others held a family council and persuaded the Countess to
accept Vera Petrovna's offer. Later on, if they decided to stop in
Petrograd they might find a furnished apartment, but it would be a great
thing, Ian argued, for him to know they were in safe hands till he
joined them. He gave his mother half his store of money and many
promises to use every means to join her as soon as he could. He meant
to stop in Warsaw and see what had become of the hardware factory which
had been making field-kitchens for the army. But he kept this to
himself, knowing his womenfolk would only worry about him the more, lest
he fell into the Germans' hands. They all had lively recollections of
that Prussian cavalryman who was so interested in the family emeralds,
and whom he told a lie to. The Countess still had scruples about
letting him go off alone.
"I shouldn't mind if I felt sure you wouldn't have to tramp all the way
to Russia," she said, as she reluctantly took the money.
"But I sha'n't tramp, even to Sohaczev," he said confidently. "I'm sure
to get on some kind of a train. And it will be like getting rid of a
millstone round my neck to know you're all going in safety and
comparative comfort." He lowered his voice. "Vera Petrovna's
friendship will be a most valuable thing for us in Petrograd. And she's
just as charming an old woman as everybody said she was."
There came a loud rap at the door.
"Bath!" exclaimed Vanda. "Come in!"
To their surprise, it was Major Healy, as large as ever and now very
sunburnt into the bargain. He looked at them for a moment, took in the
situation in his rather slow, very sympathetic way and said:
"Well, I'm glad to see you safe. I've been horribly worried about you
these days. I was going off to Ruvno." He glanced at Minnie, who
flushed, partly with pleasure at seeing him, partly with annoyance at
her unkempt appearance.
They told him their story. He listened gravely, putting in a nod or a
slow, heavy gesture now and again.
"I feared it," he remarked, when they had done. "When the Princess told
me Lipniki had been bombarded I knew what that must mean for Ruvno. I
was going to push on there this afternoon and get your news. As you're
here, I'm back to Warsaw. I've distributed all my relief. There's room
in my side-car for one. Which of you is coming?"
"Oh!" said the Countess, and looked at her boy.
"I've some peasant women," said he.
Healy laughed and shook his head.
"I can only take one, and a light one. I'm a heavy-weight and the road
is awful."
"They can draw lots," said Ian. "The others will have to shift with us
men."
He saw Healy was not over eager to take peasants, and determined he
should. They were still discussing it when Vera Petrovna sent word by a
nurse that the bathroom in the train was ready for them and that there
would be a hasty dinner in half an hour.
The women hurried out. Healy offered Ian a cigarette and lighted one
for himself. Then, in his pondering way, he began.
"Count, we've not seen each other as much as I'd like, but I believe
we're friends."
"We are," agreed Ian heartily. "And you've been a good friend to my
country, too."
"Well, I've only done my duty and not half as much as I'd like," said
the American giant, sitting on the camp bed, which creaked plaintively
under his weight. "But for the moment I want to talk to you about my
private affairs." He looked round the log hut and through the little
window to the hospital beyond. "It seems an unsuitable time and place
for me to worry you, when you've been torn up, root and stock. I
appreciate your troubles, but I've no choice but to worry you a moment
with my own affairs."
"By all means. We part soon, and you never know how long it'll be
before----"
"Exactly. You've hit the spot, Count, I may as well say, without any
more beating about the bush, that I'm interested in Miss Minnie Burton."
"Ah!"
"Deeply interested. I suppose she told you that we saw quite a little
of each other when she was in Warsaw during that December advance."
"Oh, yes," said Ian, putting politeness before veracity.
"My interest has grown, deepened, since then. She's a real fine girl,
is Miss Minnie Burton, and comes of a fine old stock. I want to marry
her." Here his honest eyes met his friend's and his honest, broad face
became redder than ever. "And I want to shoot her out of this danger in
my trailer."
"As to marrying her, I'm not her guardian," said Ian. "Her brother----"
"On the high seas. And can't give opinions, one way or the other right
here."
"I doubt if you'd find a parson to marry you just now," said Ian, who
had exaggerated ideas of American impatience.
"Good God! I wasn't thinking of marrying her this minute. Nor in this
Hell of a place. I guess there'll be time enough for the ceremony in
Petrograd. I'd like the wedding to be from Princess Orsov's palace."
"Oh, does she know of your--your----"
"No. But she will. And she's just as cordial to yours truly as she can
be. What I want is your countenance to my taking Miss Burton on my
side-car. There are a few points I want to fix up with her. I guess
we'll have plenty of time to talk on the way to Warsaw."
"But Warsaw isn't Petrograd," objected Ian. "I think she'll be far
safer in Vera Petrovna's train. I'm responsible for her, you know, till
you--till you get the family's consent to the match."
Healy laughed. The idea of family consent appeared to Ian to amuse him
greatly.
"She's of age. And family consent be darned if she's willing, which I'm
nearly sure she is. As to responsibility, I'd not like to have her get
into any unpleasantness with that brother of hers. But she needn't
worry. I'll get her safe to Petrograd as soon as the Princess could.
And sooner, maybe. I know how they shunt those trains into sidings.
We've got a fine touring car waiting in Warsaw and enough petrol to take
us to Vladivostock. In fact, I'd be glad to give you a seat in it if
you can get there in time for us to start fair of the Germans."
"Thanks very much."
"And then you'd do the chaperon, and that brother couldn't say anything.
Now, then, can I take her on my trailer?"
"Yes. If she likes to go. But you'd better arrange with the Princess
about taking a peasant woman in her place. I'm getting so many favors
from her as it is, I can't ask for any more."
"That I will."
Ian got up.
"I'll leave you to do it. I've some things to see about." And he
sought Ostap, to arrange with him about Father Constantine's funeral
immediately after a hasty meal.
He was glad that Healy and Minnie were going to marry. It relieved him
of any further responsibility and would certainly put an end to maternal
hints about the advisability of settling down with her as wife. He did
not want to settle down. He meant to go and fight as soon as he had put
his mother in some secure corner and provided her with enough money to
live upon.
They buried Father Constantine just as he died, in his dusty alpaca
soutane, his hands folded over die malachite Crucifix. They laid him in
the cemetery behind a group of tents which formed the camp hospital,
amongst Russian soldiers, digging his grave with a spade Ostap managed
to pick up somewhere. Several other hasty funerals were going on and
nobody paid the least attention to him. They could find no wood to make
a rough cross; but there was some ivy near and Vanda twisted that into
one, putting it over the newly-turned sods. They could not even write
his name--so left him, unrecorded, and in peace. They had not gone far
towards the station when a messenger met them to say that the
hospital-train was ready to start. Ostap ran up, too. He had good
news.
"It's nearly settled for you and your peasants," he said to Ian. "The
transport officer asks for you."
Ian hurried off, leaving the Countess and Vanda to go to the train under
Ostap's guidance and found the officer in question checking figures on a
bit of paper. He was as weary and worried as the first one had been.
But he seemed to want men.
"Five hundred unwounded Germans leave at once," he said hurriedly. "You
and your peasants take charge of some trucks. The first train to leave.
We are short."
"I accept with pleasure."
"Good. Go with your peasants; for you'll be wanted in a moment."
"My peasants are here. I'll just go and say good-bye to my womenfolk."
He ran up to the Orsov train which stood at one end of the primitive
station, ready to start. Ropes had been tied over the roof and down the
sides of the coaches; to these clung men with bandaged heads and feet.
The Princess met him.
"They are down here," she said. Then, seeing him look at the crowded
roof. "You are wondering how all these men are going to hold on till we
reach Petrograd. But you know what happens. We shall be shunted into
sidings for hours and then they can rest. Some will be back in their
regiments before a month. The bad cases are all inside."
She led the way through a crowd of soldiers, prisoners and
stretcher-bearers towards the head of her train. His mother and Vanda
stood there, with Minnie and the American. Ian noticed two of his
peasant women on the steps of a coach as they passed.
"Why, have you taken them, too?" he asked. "You're simply wonderful."
"A nurse is ill--typhoid, I fear. So a peasant goes to do her work.
Your mother tells me she has had some experience. The other goes in the
English girl's place." Her narrow eyes twinkled. "She's off with
Healy. These Americans make me laugh. They do things nobody in Russia
would do and with impunity, too."
"Yes. But he's a good fellow."
"Excellent. But you'll see he'll make me have the wedding in my house,
busy as I am."
"I shouldn't wonder," returned Ian.
He said his good-byes, with many injunctions to his dear ones not to
leave the Orsov palace till he fetched them. Vanda's soft eyes rested
on his and their look was an embrace.
"God bless you," he said, kissing her hand.
"And you," she returned in low tones. "Listen. There is a man here who
is in Joseph's regiment."
"Have you spoken to him?"
"No. But the Princess says he told her the name of his captain. He has
gone on to Warsaw. The regiment, he says, must be there by now. Will
you?----"
"Yes, I'll find out. And tell him you are safe."
Then he thanked the Princess who returned his hand-kiss in true Russian
fashion, with a salute on his forehead.
"God with you," she said in her native tongue. "It's more hearty in
Russian than in French." She knew the Polish dislike for the language
of the bureaucrats and government who had oppressed them for
generations. "Your little family is safe with me." Then in French: "I'm
your friend, Count, and sha'n't forget you."
A moment later he had helped her into the train, which left. He had to
hurry back to his own. Healy and Minnie had disappeared.
The Germans were packed into cattle-trucks without roofs or benches.
Over each truck were two sentry boxes, at either end, facing one
another. Each of the guards had a rifle, taken from the Germans. But
there was no ammunition. A weary-looking subaltern came up as they were
getting settled and told them to use bayonet and butt if their charges
gave any trouble.
Ian's peasants were distributed amongst the Russian sentries. He was
with Ostap opposite him, Germans packed like cattle in between. Martin
formed the subject of heated talk with the subaltern.
"He has no more strength than a cat," grumbled the Russian. "You can't
take him on this train."
"Very well," retorted Ian, furious. "If you send him off the train we
all go. I'll tramp to Warsaw, but I won't leave him."
"He's neither so old nor weak as he looks," put in Ostap. "I'll answer
for him to do his work here."
"You won't answer for prisoners getting loose," retorted the subaltern.
However, Martin was finally put with the engine-driver. He sat on the
floor by the wood-chest and slept for ten hours, without feeling or
hearing anything, though people came and went and he found somebody's
dog fast asleep on his chest when he awoke.
It seemed as though they would never start. Several times the word was
given, only to be rescinded. Many human odds and ends of a military camp
arrived, apparently from nowhere, and demanded to be allowed
standing-room amongst the prisoners. The weary subaltern protested and
swore but all applicants seemed to find places. Before they left two
empty trains came up from Warsaw to take wounded. Ian noticed they were
roped like the Orsov train. In a remarkably short time they were
packed, inside and out, with sick and wounded whom Nicolai Petrovitch
Ketov was striving to get off before the Germans came. He was an amiable
lawyer in private life, with a passion for music and a speculative mind.
Ian had the satisfaction of hearing later on that he left neither man,
woman nor child behind at the camp, that he saw everything was burnt
that the troops could not carry away and that he even made the grain
uneatable by pouring petrol over it.
The delay fretted Ian, for he was in a good deal of pain from his broken
ribs and feverish as well, suffering agonies of thirst. He had a hasty
visit from Minnie and Healy, who came up as near as they could to shout
him good-bye.
"We're off," said she. "I wish you were looking more comfortable."
"Oh, I'm all right. I forgot to get some water, that's all."
Healy went off and brought a bottle full. And he insisted on Ian's
taking a packet of cigarettes.
"I'll reach Warsaw before you," he urged. "So do take them all. I'll
keep the car there as long as I dare. Look me up at the American
Consulate. You know where it is?"
"No. But I can find out."
"Good. Mind, your seat will be kept till we start."
"When is that?"
"When the Grand Duke leaves. They say here he leaves to-night. But I
don't believe it. And I'm not going to forget Poland. When I've got
more stores I'm coming back again."
He watched them go off in a cloud of dust. They had luck with love, he
reflected. They would get on very well together. He knew Healy was
well off, and Minnie had a little fortune of her own. And they would
spend it wisely, helping those poorer than themselves. He had no hope
of marrying Vanda. Joseph was well and safe. He ought to have been
glad of it, he knew. But he hated his cousin bitterly, all the more
bitterly as ruin closed around him and years of exile filled his tired
vision. Very likely he would get killed before his rival.
Ostap was very cheerful. After telling the prisoners what they were to
expect if they tried any nonsense he shared his last cigarette with one
of them. Ian seemed to hear his voice all the time. It broke into his
sorrowful meditations and sometimes got mixed up with them, for the
fever made him rather muddle-headed.
"We haven't ammunition," Ostap said. "But we use the knife instead.
There were hundreds of you in that camp wounded with our bayonets. All
ours are wounded with shells and shrapnel because you are afraid to come
too close."
"We have enough ammunition to beat the world," put in a thick German
voice; it belonged to one who had been a clerk in Moscow.
"Perhaps," agreed Ostap. "But we have more men and don't care if we die
or not. That will beat the people who beat the world, in the end."
Thus the talk went on. Ian dozed on his perch, wondering at last who
was beating the world and where the ammunition came from. And just
before sunset they arrived at Sohaczev.