Here, a rough surprise awaited them. They were bundled off the train
without ceremony by a transport officer, whose temper was so bad that
the memory of Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was pleasant in comparison.
"Off with you!" he shouted. "We're not going to a party. This is war."
"But we were put in charge of this train by the transport officer at the
last camp," protested Ostap.
"The devil take the train. I've got wounded to send off."
"Then what are we to do?" asked Ian.
"Hang yourselves," was the polite reply and the officer turned on his
heel.
The fugitives, standing in an indignant little group on the platform,
hustled by the many passers-by, turned to Ostap. He was a soldier and
ought to help them out of their new predicament.
"What next?" asked Ian, voicing the thought of his followers.
"God knows." He looked round at the multitude of races who jostled and
cursed and shouted and implored. "If only I could see a Cossack I might
get some information. But all the tribes of the Empire seem to be here
except ours."
"Look! They're marching off our German prisoners," cried Dulski, the
Ruvno village blacksmith, a huge, good-natured man, whose three sons
were fighting, and whose wife had gone on Vera Petrovna's train. "They
must be going to Warsaw. If we follow them we can't go astray."
"On foot!" exclaimed Ostap. "Not if I know it. And you, Count!"
"I'd rather tramp than be left here, but I think we ought to try and get
a lift first. I know this town and may find a Jew who will sell us
something to go in." He turned to the peasants: "Don't any of you move
from the station till I tell you. Here's money to buy food." He handed
Dulski a twenty-rouble note and was off in search of a horse and cart.
First, however, they tried to get some information from the
station-master about possible trains to Warsaw. But they might as well
have talked to the moon, for all the answer they could get.
"Let us go outside," said Ian after wasting precious time in their vain
quest for information. "If there are any Jews with a horse and cart to
sell we shall find them there."
The precincts of the station were as crowded as the camp had been. But
they found, on talking to the loiterers, that most of the citizens had
decided to stay where they were. Ian noticed a prosperous horse-dealer
of the race of Israel, in a new alpaca _halat_ and a pair of very shiny
top-boots.
"There's our man," he said in relief. "If there's a bit of horseflesh
left in the place Hermann has got it to sell."
Hermann met their request with florid expressions of sympathy and
devotion. With tears in his eyes he swore he could not provide a lift.
"There's not a beast on four legs left within twenty versts or more," he
said regretfully. "What with the army and the refugees we're as bare as
that." And thrusting out the palm of one fat hand he pointed to it with
the other.
Ian turned to his companion.
"There's nothing for us but to tramp it," he said sadly.
The horse-dealer shot out his arms in unaffected horror. In eastern
Europe only the poor go on foot. Bad roads and good horses have
something to do with people's dislike for walking.
"Tramp to Warsaw!" he cried. "The Lord of Ruvno tramp those horrible
roads! Such a thing was never heard of. Peasants and the poorest Jews
do that ... but no gentleman!"
"The times have changed," remarked Ostap. "But if you are so shocked at
the thought of it do you help us to ride."
"Wait I will ask some of ours what is to be done."
He disappeared into a dirty-looking general shop which stood close at
hand. In a very short time he emerged, beaming all over his broad,
greasy face.
"My Lord Count," he cried, bursting with importance, "I have arranged
everything. There will be a train."
"The last is just leaving," said Ostap. "We were turned off it to make
room for the wounded."
"One is to arrive from Warsaw," persisted the Jew. "It will take the
rest of the wounded and such of the citizens as want to go."
"Who said so?"
"Our Rabbi."
"What does he know about it?"
"He had it from the transport officer."
Ostap, listening, looked at the Jew with mingled scorn, wonder and
admiration.
"You Jews are strange people," was his verdict. "Here have we been
trying to get information from the authorities for half an hour, one a
great gentleman in these parts, the other a Cossack officer anxious to
rejoin his troop, and nobody will give us a good word. Yet this Jew
horse-dealer here knows everything."
"He may be wrong," said Ian. "They often are."
"But I am right," said Hermann. "You'll see for yourself I am right if
you wait in the station. Meanwhile, I must go, for a messenger calls me
home." And off he went.
Ostap looked down the forlorn road which led from the station to the
town and pointed to a Red Cross flag flying from a distant building.
"There are wounded left. Our people will try to get them away. We may
not have to tramp after all. I'll go to that transport officer again."
"Don't. He'll only swear at you. Let us get on the train, if it comes,
without asking anybody's leave."
Ostap gave him a quick look of alarm; he had spoken in a listless tone
the Cossack heard from him for the first time since they met.
"You're ill?"
"Nothing. A pain in my side and the devil's own thirst."
"It's the broken ribs. Go to one of the hospital tents and get a
bandage put around you. It helps a lot."
"They've something else to do than see to a trifle like that. I'll go
and get a drink." And he rose from a trunk, abandoned by some hasty
traveler, which stood near the station steps.
"Good. Do you go get your drink at the station pump and await me.
There must be food in this town and I mean to have it."
Ian produced a banknote, but the other waved it aside.
"No. Let this be my meal. Besides, I don't count to spend money." And
he hurried down the forlorn road.
Ian went to the pump, slaked his thirst with its cool water, soused his
head and began to feel better. The long summer twilight still lingered
and, as he sat down on the bank, he saw a vaguely familiar figure come
towards him. It was a Cossack, grizzled, thin as a rake, hard as nails.
As the newcomer began to work the pump he recognized the bluff colonel
who had refused to have him as a volunteer at the beginning of the war.
He waited till the man had drunk and washed, baring himself to the
waist, showing strong muscles that stood out from his fair skin and a
large scar on his right arm. Then he said:
"Are you still refusing volunteers?"
The Cossack turned sharply.
"Who the devil are you?" was his greeting.
"Do you remember a Polish squire who asked for a commission at the
beginning of the war?"
"No," he grunted, drying himself as best he might with a bandana
handkerchief he pulled out of his wide trouser-leg. But it was a
hopeless business so he gave it up, walking about and waving his arms.
"You said I was too fat."
"You don't look it."
"And too old."
"Older, better men than you are strewing the fields to-night."
"Do you want volunteers now?"
At this the Cossack turned upon him, rage, mortification and sorrow
choking his voice, so that it came harsh and thick.
"Want!" he cried. "I want guns, gun-fodder, batteries, honesty. I want
to sweep out all those German-spawned traitors at Petrograd. I want to
clean out the ministries, put honest soldiers there instead of the breed
of thieves and liars. Want, indeed! Russia wants everything.
Everything! Where are my men? Where to God are the three thousand
Cossacks I led from the Don? There! There!" He thrust his bare,
muscular arms towards the west. "Carrion," he cried, with a
half-stifled sob. "Not killed in fair fight. Never a one of them. But
murdered; yes, murdered by a horde of thieves in Petrograd, who sent me
promises for guns, empty words for muskets, champagne for shrapnel! Oh,
think of it! The flower of the Don Troop, crying for the wherewithal to
fight, beating off the Germans with sticks we tore from the trees, with
never a musket, never a gas-mask, nothing but corruption and treachery,
bought with German gold. Oh, my heart bursts with the burden of it! All
my good Cossacks flung into the cannon's mouth, belching forth fire,
whilst we had nothing, nothing!"
He broke off, tore up and down, muttering like a wounded lion.
"And they died like dogs! For this!" His arms swept the desolate
landscape. "For rapine and retreat! For burning corn and ruined
farmsteads! To leave the Lakes of Masuria; to leave the Vistula, the
Dneiper, the Niemen and God knows what besides!"
He stopped, overcome with his emotion, strode back to the pump, let a
stream of water flow over his grizzled head, gave a gigantic sigh and
relapsed into silence. And thus they stayed together for some time. Ian
did not even try to comfort him; what solace could he offer when he knew
that those bitter words were all too true? The Cossack spoke first.
"A cigarette," he demanded.
Ian handed him the packet which Healy had brought up to the train. He
took a couple, threw back the rest, and asked for matches. It was now
almost dark and in the light of the little flame he scanned Ian's face.
"I remember you," he said when his cigarette was half smoked through.
"You talked of shooting quail on the wing and wanted to shoot me."
"Not quite. But I was sore because you wouldn't have me."
"It was all so different then. Eh, God! What a fool I was to believe
in that lying, thieving horde at Petrograd! Petrograd forsooth! They
might as well have kept it Petersburg, for all the Germans that are in
it still. Phew! I spit on these politicians!" And he did so.
"Russia is wide," said Ian.
"Wide and bungling! With a little order, a little honesty we should
have been in Berlin long ago. God! How they ran from the Lakes of
Masuria! How they scuttled like geese before our Cossack spears! And
then our supplies gave out, and none were forthcoming, Oh, the Empire is
a prey to a horde of thieves. Many defeats await us yet. By the way,
you spoke of your country house and your lady mother and your forests,
when in Warsaw. What of them?"
Briefly Ian told him.
"Ay. The same story everywhere. And I thought I'd be coming to you
with German booty," he remarked sadly. "It made my heart bleed to see
the fugitives. But you may be glad your womenfolk got safely away. And
what will you do now?"
"Fight. Won't you take me in your regiment?"
"Regiment!" the other echoed bitterly, beating his chest "I am the
regiment."
"Not all gone?"
"Killed, wounded, gassed, a few prisoners, and you have the lot."
"But you'll reconstruct?"
"Ay. That I will. If there's a Cossack left I'm game."
"Then let me be one of your new officers," pleaded Ian.
He was beginning to like this gruff, grizzled soldier. He did not want
to volunteer in France, for that would mean going a long way from Vanda,
and separating his mother from her. In his shy way he tried to convey
his eagerness to join the Russian army, and the Colonel's manner
softened.
"Eh, God. I think you'd make a good soldier. I can't say ay or nay.
The matter lies with my superiors."
"But you can recommend me," he urged.
"I can and will. I haven't a card. Have you a scrap of paper?"
Ian searched and produced a card and pencil, also his electric torch.
The Cossack wrote some lines and handed the card back.
"Now, headquarters will be in Rostov. It is a long journey. But do you
go there and say I sent you. It's written on the card. We shall meet
there within a fortnight, but I must go to that German cesspool first."
"So must I."
"Ah! Where will you lodge?"
"I don't know yet. But they'll tell you at the Orsov Palace."
"So you know Vera Petrovna? She is a powerful friend to have. You can
get a softer bed to lie on than campaigning with me if you ask her."
"I don't want to sit in some office. I want to fight. I hope to meet a
man named von Senborn face to face and give him back a little of what
he's done to me and my property."
"You're the right stuff. But how war's changed you! You were as plump
as one of your own quails a year aback. And sleek as a maid. If we
don't meet in Petrograd do you seek me out in Rostov. I have to get a
seat on this cattle-train. Many of my children are there."
He hurried into his clothes, rammed the cap well on to his head and went
off. They parted the best of friends. Scarcely had his tall, lithe
figure disappeared into the summer night when Ostap hurried on to the
platform. He had looted a deserted house and they ate heartily of ham,
bread, butter and cold veal. He brought a bottle of light Polish beer,
too; but Ian would not touch it, saying his head ached. Ostap was much
interested in hearing about his talk with the Cossack colonel and asked
to see the card. He read it eagerly and looked up, saying with respect
in his voice:
"But it is my Colonel, Irmal Platov, of the family that produced the
famous Cossack general. They say he will be head of the Pan-Cossack
League one day. Where did he go? It will cheer him to know that one
officer at least is alive and sound."
Ian pointed to the train, which was now getting up steam, and he was off
like a shot. Ian put back his card, reflected that it was a lucky
chance to have met this man, whom the Cossacks evidently respected
highly. He went back to the station building. It was high time to find
out definitely whether or no there would be another train before the
Russians left the place. Martin, he ascertained, was still fast asleep
on the floor of the engine which had brought them from the camp and
nobody disturbed him.
In the ticket-office he met the horse-dealer who was running hither and
thither in a great state of excitement, calling Ian's name at the top of
his voice.
"What are you yelling about?" he asked. "Has the train come?"
"Oh, thank God, you're here! I feared you had started."
"What is it?"
"One of your friends wants you. He is sick to death. Not a moment have
we to lose."
"Who?"
"I know not. But hurry!"
They made their way out of the disorderly, miserable town, which knew
all the vicissitudes of warfare, and into squalid suburbs, where only
Jews, and the poorest at that, could live. With many puzzling thoughts
Ian asked his guide whither they were going and who of his friends lived
in this unsavory quarter.
"I know nothing," answered he. "It is a friend. He wanted to send one
of our people to Ruvno. But the messenger knew you had left Ruvno. But
at the hospital none had the heart to tell him the truth. Just now I
happened to see this messenger and tell him my Lord Count was here. So
I sought you for a long while."
"Haven't you any idea who is this friend?"
"A gentleman. He sent out a hundred roubles to the messenger, I know."
He did not add that he was the messenger and the hundred roubles now lay
in his pocket-book. After a quarter of an hour's brisk walking he led
the way to a field. Ian could see the dim outline of a tent.
"A military hospital?" he asked.
"Yes." Hermann stopped. "Here I leave you. I fear the cholera." And
he was gone.
Cholera. Ian hesitated. Which of his friends was dying of that
loathsome pest? Roman? The thought tore his heart. Joseph? Oh, he
hoped not. He hastily prayed it might not be a man at all dear to him.
Yet he could think of nobody, friend or foe, whom he wished to watch
dying of cholera.
Troubled thus, he made his way up to the tent. No sentry guarded the
entry. That was unnecessary; all shunned the place. It was very quiet
after the bustle and babel of the station. He heard no voices. The
only sign of living man was a faint streak of light that came between
the canvas and the ground.
He held up the flap and went in.
It was a large tent and there were many beds in it Some stood vacant,
others held shrouded, still masses of contorted humanity. Others again,
most ghastly of all, were occupied by men of all ages and many races.
Two bearers were carrying out a burden through another entrance, at the
far end. He looked around in an agony of disgust and suspense. A nurse
and doctor were bending over one couch. He learned afterwards that the
medical staff had drawn lots to decide which of them should go with the
retreating army and which remain behind with those too ill to be moved
and enter captivity with them. It seemed to him that these two lingered
a long time. Then he heard the doctor say:
"He'll live. The worst is over."
Instantly Ian lost his shyness and hastened to them,
"Who is it?" he asked in French, true to the habit of a lifetime which
bade him address a Russian in the international language.
The nurse turned and made room for him at the bedside.
"Do you know him?"
A glance at the patient was enough.
"No," he answered.
The doctor hurried away. The woman, attending to the sick man, asked
Ian whom he sought.
"I don't know. A Jew brought me. Said a man here wanted somebody from
Ruvno. I am from Ruvno."
"Ah! I remember now. One moment." Swiftly she completed her task and
turned towards the north end of the tent. He followed her to a far
corner, till she stopped before a bed which held one of the shrouded
forms.
"Too late!" he cried.
She gave him a look of sympathy.
"He died a few minutes ago."
Unable to utter a word, he signed to her. Gently, she turned back the
sheet. He stepped forward; all hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him
like a cloak. Joseph was no more. He could marry Vanda.
This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he gazed at that familiar,
yet transformed face, a deep relief that Roman had not suffered that
death. Then came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards marrying
her this man had loved, and sharp pain that Destiny had taken him in
such a way. He wanted Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in
war-time, in the open, falling to God's good earth, whence they come,
mingling their life's blood with the fountain of all life. That livid,
emaciated face, with evil stains on the once healthy cheeks was a
reproach to modernity, a seal upon the Cossack's cry of "murdered!"
For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose and swelled in his
heart; scenes of boyhood sprang up again; memories of the chase, of the
life they once trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph himself.
And whilst he breathed a prayer for the dead which Father Constantine
had taught them all, he thanked God that he had resisted the call of
passion a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer moon, so
sure it lighted Joseph's body on the battlefield. Now, at least, he
could look on his remains without remorse for evil action.
The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.
"We must bury him," one of them said in the Russian of Moscow.
As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed with tears unshed.
"Is there a Catholic priest about?"
The men looked at one another.
"In the town perhaps--not here."
"I'll bring one."
"We cannot wait till you go so far. We have strict orders to bury each
poor victim at once. What will you? The infection is deadly and we are
working day and night."
"I'll be back before you close the coffin."
"Coffin! There are none left."
Ian passed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.
"I know the town. Wait for me." And he hurried out.
He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian burial. He felt he
must; it might atone for his fault of feeling that great load off his
heart now he knew Vanda would be his. Then he remembered the Cossack
colonel's card. He had promised to fight, had insisted on being drafted
into a hard-fighting regiment. But that was an hour ago. That was when
thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much mind if he got
killed. Now, he hated the idea of it. If he got killed soon he would be
no more married to her than Joseph had been. He rebelled. Why should
he go and get killed? Russia had plenty of men. He had lost enough in
the war already without losing the last chance of happiness. Russia had
turned him away once and he was not in duty bound to apply again.
Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a Cossack coat; could
volunteer for a mission abroad; for instance say to the Pope, who only
knew what the Germans and their friends told him...
As he stumbled over the road, choked with the debris of a retreating
army, he felt particularly fitted to tell the Pope what Poland was
enduring. He had an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father,
created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the Tenth. So he
could gain the Pope's ear far more easily than many other people. Rome,
he argued, had no more faithful children than the Poles, who have
suffered much persecution for their faith. And it was high time the
Holy Father knew the truth about the Germans. He, Ian, would tell him.
Yes; he could serve his country's cause, and the Allies' just as well in
Rome as in Colonel Platov's regiment. Rome would be a good place for
his mother to live in. If he joined the army she would have to stop in
Russia, to be near him. In Rome, they could all live quietly and
comfortable together--he, Vanda, his mother. After all, it was fair to
them to look after them; and his mother had only him now. And the
Allies had millions of men. Russia wanted guns, which he could not
make, and organization, which he could not give her.
He reached the house of a priest he knew and very few words sufficed to
tell him what had happened; then they hastened back together.
They buried Joseph in a field set apart as a cemetery in connection with
the cholera tent. Ian gave the priest money and instructions for a
Cross to be put over the grave. Then he sought the nurse. On hearing
who he was she took him to a clerk, who gave him the things they had
found in Joseph's pockets: a photograph of Vanda, a packet of her
letters, and some money. When it was all over and he had parted from
the priest he made his way back to the station. It was nearly ten
o'clock. He found that the horse-dealer was right after all. A train,
the last one, stood ready to start for Warsaw. The inside was packed
with wounded men, the roof with refugees, some of whom were wounded,
too. He heard Ostap's voice calling for him and shouted back that he
was coming.
"Be quick!" he shouted. "We're on the roof. Third coach from the
engine. It's all we can do to keep sitting room for you. Climb up, for
these Jews are great pushers."
"Where are my peasants?"
"Here, thank God!" said a voice.
"All?"
"All. Safe and sound. Get up, my Lord Count, for the train is starting
already."
Ian clambered up and squeezed himself in between the blacksmith and
Ostap, who indignantly asked where he had been hiding.
"We searched high and low. If not for this blacksmith, who sat as broad
as he could, we'd never have been able to keep your place." He did not
tell them where he had been. Heart and head were filled with new
emotions, and a new struggle. The idea of going to Rome fascinated him.
He found so much in its favor, so little to say against it. Only that
Cossack colonel would ever know he had drawn back. None shared his
plans. And the soldier would forget him.
He was no longer the man who urged Platov to take him at the beginning
of the war; then, he could not realize the love that had grown with each
month of strife and anxiety, till it now overwhelmed every other
feeling. Destiny led him to the tent wherein he found a promise of
happiness. And a loud voice within cried not to give it up.
It was an endless journey and very uncomfortable. They were perpetually
stopping to make way for other trains, filled with troops, whole and
wounded. From time to time some of the little party got down to stretch
their legs, one keeping the place for another with that ready
comradeship which war's vicissitudes breed between men of vastly
different race and caste. Jew elbowed Gentile; patrician drank with
outcast in their flight before the stupendous Hun. It seemed to Ian
that all the trains in Russia passed them; troops in open trucks, who
made an infernal noise with their _balalaikas_ and their voices. He
wondered sadly that they could abandon Poland to her fate with such
light hearts ... and then remembered that they were Russians, brave as
lions, but mentally children yet; so the direction in which they
traveled was no affair of theirs.
He thought of his ruined home and the many other ruined homes they
passed and wondered where their late owners were, that cool, starry
night. Some, he knew, lay quiet and still by the wayside, for he had
seen such in his flight. Some, like Father Constantine, had found rest
in a soldier's graveyard before friends left them, to seek a new life in
exile. And, as his memory dwelt on the last year, as he passed farm
after farm alight with the fires of destruction, the weakness born of
the sudden knowledge that Vanda was free left him. He knew he could not
go to Rome; knew he would not have a quiet hour if he chose the easier
road; that every devastated home, every orphan in his native land would
ring a terrible chorus of reproach into his soul. Roman's words of that
evening at the "_Oaza_," came back:
"There is no love without sacrifice."
How little he had known of love then; how much now! He wondered at the
craven Ian who had planned a safe journey to Rome whilst his native land
was bleeding. There was nothing for him but to fight. Oh, he would
marry Vanda, and perhaps live through the war. Then they would return
to a free Poland and a free Ruvno, to build and plant afresh for their
children, freed from bondage and all persecution. In the trenches, on
the battlefield, he would have that lodestar. Now, he knew not how he
ever could have imagined the war without himself in it.
These thoughts ran through his mind, accompanied by visions of burning
houses, huddled, hungry refugees, suffering, struggling humanity.
Through all was the joy of knowing Vanda would be his--and over all came
Ostap's voice as he held forth to others on the roof.
"Yes; we spit upon life. So we shall win, in the end. And our children
will be freed."
And the Cossack's words gave him comfort.