by James Hilton
All night long the hubbub proceeded, and soon after dawn something—but it was not clear exactly what—was decided upon. A few squads of men marched out of the town to the east; the rest, apparently, were to follow later. But shortly afterwards came a sharp outbreak of rifle-fire among the hills behind the town, and in less than an hour the original squads returned in a condition bordering on panic. The hills, they reported, were already in the hands of White outposts; Saratursk must be abandoned instantly. Whereupon soldiers, civilians, and refugees immediately gathered up as many of their personal possessions as they could and took part in a furious stampede to the west. The road was narrow—no more than a mere track—and military wagons jammed and collided into an immovable obstruction during the first quarter-mile. The wagons were full of ammunition and other military equipment, and after a vain attempt to disentangle the chaos the soldiers unloaded the stores and carried them forward on their backs. The sun rose blindingly on weary men staggering ahead with glazed and desperate eyes, straining the utmost nerve to put distance between themselves and a relentless enemy. Some of them, tired of scuffles in the roadway, took to the open fields and blundered on, with no guide to direction save the blaze of the sun on their backs. All through the morning came intermittent bursts of rifle-fire, each one rather nearer, it seemed; and there was a fresh outbreak of panic when a small child, fleeing with her parents, was struck and slightly injured by a spent bullet. Towards noon the rout was already becoming more than many could endure; refugees and even soldiers were collapsing by dozens along the roadside, throwing themselves face downwards in the dust and writhing convulsively. Some of them seemed to be dying, and there were rumours that White spies in Saratursk had put poison in the drinking-water from which many of the fugitives had filled their bottles.
A.J., hastening onwards, felt suddenly very ill himself. Severe internal pains gripped him, and at last he guessed that he was on the verge of collapse. He staggered and fell, tried to rise again, but could not; all the earth and the wide sky swam in circles before his eyes. He had to say: “I can’t go on any further. I’m ill.” And to himself he added that Fate, after all, was giving her the chance she had been wishing for; she could escape now, quite easily, and he had no power to stop her.
He knew that she was raising his head and staring into his eyes. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
“Nothing at all for me. But for yourself—well, you have only to go back into Saratursk and meet your friends.”
“They’ll find me here if I stay.”
“Yes, but in that case they’d find me, too, and I don’t fancy being taken prisoner. Besides, there’s bound to be firing along this road. Take the papers out of my coat—they’ll prove who you are.”
“And yourself?”
“I shall manage, I daresay, with luck.”
“You want me to leave you here?”
“I think you ought to take the chance that offers itself. If you stay, there’ll only be greater danger to both of us. So go now—and hurry. Don’t forget the papers.”
“You are letting me go, then?”
“Circumstances compel me, that’s all.”
“It—it is—good of you. I hope you manage yourself all right.”
“Most probably I shall if I’m not found with you. Take the papers.”
“Good-bye.”
“Yes, but the papers—the papers—in the lining of my coat.”
He felt her hands searching him; he heard her say something, but he could not gather what—he was fast sinking into unconsciousness. Ages seemed to pass; at intervals he opened his eyes and heard great commotion proceeding all around and over him. Successive waves of pain assaulted and left him gasping with weakness. It was dark when he finally awoke. Pain was ebbing by then, and his strength with it. Queer sounds still echoed in his ears—murmurs as of distant shouting, distant rifle-fire. The starlight shone a pale radiance over the earth; he saw that he was lying in a sort of gully and that, a few yards away, there was something that looked like another man. He called ‘Hello!’ but there was no answer. Perhaps the fellow was asleep. He was suddenly anxious to meet somebody, to speak a word to somebody. There had been a battle, he guessed, and it would be interesting to learn whether the Whites or the Reds had been victorious. It hardly seemed to matter very much, but, just out of curiosity, as it were, he would like to know. And Daly, his prisoner, had she by now been safely received and identified by her friends?…God, how thirsty he was—he would offer that man some money in return for a drink of anything but poisoned water. Slowly, and with greater difficulty than he had expected, he crawled along the gully towards the huddled figure. Then he perceived that the man was dead—killed by a smashing blow in the face. That, for all that he had seen so many dead bodies in his time, unnerved him a little; he stared round him a little vaguely, as if uncertain how to interpret the discovery. Then he rose unsteadily to his feet and began to stagger about. He climbed on to the roadway and up the sloping bank on to the pale stubble fields. He walked a little way—a few hundred yards—and then saw another dead man. Then another. A man with his head nearly blown off at close range. A man huddled in the final writhings of a bayonet-thrust through the stomach. A man covered with blood from a drained and severed artery. Most of the dead, from their uniforms, were Reds; a few only could have belonged to the other side. Sickly qualms overspread him as he wandered aimlessly among these huddled figures. Then he suddenly heard a cry. It seemed to come from a distance; he turned slightly and heard it again. “Brother!” it called. He walked towards it. “What is it?” he whispered, and the reply came: “Are you not wounded, brother?”—“No,” he answered, and the voice rejoined: “Neither am I. Come here.”
He approached a prostrate form that proved to be a Red soldier whose face was ghastly with congealed blood. Only, as the man explained with immediate cheerfulness, it was not his own blood. “Brother,” he said, “I am an old soldier and I know from experience what war is like. It is all very fine if you are winning easily, but it is unpleasant when you are being attacked by a much stronger enemy. The best thing to do at such a time, in my opinion, is to fall down and pretend to be dead. Then, if you are lucky, the enemy doesn’t bother about you. I have saved my life three times by this method—twice with the Germans and once again today. I suppose you too, brother, did the same?”
“No,” answered A.J. “I fell ill in the morning and that’s all I remember.”
“Ah, yes, it happened to so many of our poor fellows. Some White spy poisoned the water in Saratursk—a disgusting way of carrying on war, I call it. Not that I’m tremendously against the Whites—I believe they give their soldiers very good pay. For myself, I have a great mind to go into Saratursk to-morrow and join them. Do you feel like coming with me, brother?”
“No, thanks.”
“Mind you, I wouldn’t do it if the Reds were as generous. I really prefer the Reds, really. But a soldier’s job, after all, is to fight, and if he gets good food and pay, why should he bother what side he fights on? It isn’t for him to pick and choose. That’s how I feel about it. Would you like something to eat, brother?”
“I should indeed.”
“Then sit here with me. I have some bread and a sausage. I’m afraid I was rather scared at first when I woke up and saw you walking about. I thought you were a ghost—they say there are ghosts that haunt battlefields, you know. Yes, it was a sharp little fight, but our men stood no chance at all—every man on the other side had a rifle and ammunition. It was ridiculous to make a stand.”
“Where are the Whites now?”
“Still chasing our poor fellows, I expect. Whereas you and I, my friend, have had the sense to let them pass over us. We are all right. Two hours’ walk and we shall be in the woods, and an army corps wouldn’t find us there. Do you know this part of the country?”
“Not very well.”
“Then after our little meal I will take you along. Perhaps, after all, I need not be in any hu
rry to enlist with the Whites. A few days’ rest first of all, anyhow. We have three hours vet before dawn. If we hurry we shall reach the woods in good time.”
They ate quickly but with enjoyment, and then began the walk over the stubble fields. During the first mile or so they passed many dead bodies, but after that the signs of battle grew less evident. They avoided the road, along which White military wagons were still tearing westward in the rear of the pursuing army. A.J. wondered if there were not some danger of their being found and taken prisoner, but his companion, whose name was Oblimov, seemed quite confident of being able to reach the hills in safety. He had thrown away his soldier’s cap and the rest of his clothing was certainly so nondescript that it could convey little to any observer. “Besides,” he said, “if anyone questions us, we can say we are White refugees returning to our homes.”
They skirted Saratursk on the north side, working their way through orchards and private gardens, and passing within sight of several big houses in which lights were visible. In one of them the blinds had not been lowered, and they could sec that a party of some kind was in progress. White officers were drinking and shouting, and there carne also, tinkling over the night air, the sound of women’s laughter. A.J. wondered if his former prisoner were there, or in some other such house, celebrating her freedom and rescue. Oblimov said: “They will soon drink away their victory.” It certainly looked as if many of the White officers had preferred Saratursk to the continued pursuit of the enemy.
They reached the lower slopes of the hills just as the first tint of dawn appeared, and by the time the sun rose they were high amongst the woods. A.J. was by now beginning to feel very comfortable amongst the pine trees; he liked their clean, sharp tang and the rustle of fir-cones under his feet. He was tired, however, after the climb, and also, beyond his relief, rather depressed. The world seemed a sadly vague and pointless kind of place, with its continual movement of armies and refugees, and its battles and tragedies and separations. He kept wondering how his prisoner had fared. He did not particularly regret her escape; he had done his best, but Fate had out-manoeuvred him. Nine-tenths of life seemed always to consist of letting things happen.
Oblimov was an excellent and resourceful companion. He made a fire and boiled tea, and while A.J. slept in the dappled sunshine he raided a woodman’s cottage in the valley and came back with bread and meat. He also brought some coarse tobacco, which he smoked joyously during the whole of the afternoon. He was a great talker and looked on life in a mood of pleasant fatalism. Soldiering was doubtless the worst job in the world, but what else was there for a man of his type? He had no home; he couldn’t settle down. And soldiers did, in a sense, see the world. They met people, too—people they would never have met otherwise—“like yourself, brother. We came across each other on the battlefield, surrounded by dead men, and now we are yarning in a wood with our bellies full and the blue sky over us. To-morrow, maybe, we shall say good-bye and never see each other again. But is it not worth while? And will you ever forget me, or I you?”
He went on to tell of his many experiences; he had been fighting, he said, for years—ever since he had been a young man. He had fought for the Serbs in the first Balkan War and against the Serbs in the second Balkan War, and in the Great War, of course, he had fought the Germans. But that war had not pleased him at all, and after a year of it he had allowed himself to be taken prisoner. Fie admitted it quite frankly; his view of war was a strictly professional and trade union one: if soldiers were not treated properly, why should they go on performing their job? Two years in a German prison-camp had not been pleasant, but they had been preferable, he believed, to what he might have had to endure otherwise. The return of the prisoners to Russia after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had brought him back again to normal life—that of ordinary, rational soldiering. “A soldier does not mind occasionally risking his life,” he explained, “nor does he object to a battle now and again or a few tiring marches across country. But to stand in a frozen trench for weeks on end is another matter—it isn’t fair to ask such a thing of any man.” The warfare between Reds and Whites was much more to his taste—the localness of it, its sudden bursts of activity, its continual changes of scene, and its almost limitless chances of loot and personal adventure—all agreed with him. He did not much care on which side he fought; lie had already fought on both and would doubtless do so again. “But personally,” he added, “I am a man of the people.”
His completely detached attitude towards life and affairs prompted A.J. to confide in him more than it was his habit to confide in acquaintances. He told him briefly about the ‘daughter’ with whom he had been wandering and from whom he had become separated during the excitements of the day before. What was really on his mind was whether she was likely to have been decently treated by the White soldiers before the proving of her identity. To Oblimov, of course, he merely expressed his anxieties as a father. Oblimov was sympathetic, but hardly reassuring. “What will happen to her depends on what sort of a girl she is,” he declared concisely. “If she is pretty and not pure she will have a very good time. If she is pure and not pretty she will be left alone. But if she is pretty and wishes to remain pure…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Women,” he added, “are really not worth worrying about, anyway, and evidently you think so too, else you would be searching Saratursk for your daughter at this present moment instead of enjoying the sunshine.” A.J. was a little startled by this acuteness. Oblimov laughed and went on: “Brother, you cannot deceive an old soldier. I believe she is not your daughter at all, but your wife or mistress, and you are more than half glad to be rid of her! Don’t be offended—I know you think you are very fond of her and are worried about her safety. But I can see that deep down in your heart you do not care.”
He went on talking about women in general, and A.J. went on listening until both occupations were suddenly interrupted by a sound that came to them very clearly across the valley. It was the sharp rattle of machine-gun fire. Oblimov, all his professional instincts aroused, scented the air like a startled hound. “It looks as if the battle’s moving back on the village,” he said. “Let’s go down a little and see if we can judge what’s happening.”
They picked their way amongst the trees till they reached a small clearing whence could be seen the whole of the valley. Machine-gun and rifle- fire was by that time intense, and a thin chain of white smoke ringed the town on the further side. Already a few cavalry wagons were leaving Saratursk by the mountain road. By late afternoon the battle was over and its results were obvious; the Reds had retaken the town and the Whites were in full retreat to the east. “Now,” advised Oblimov, “we had better move along ourselves. If the Whites are pursued too hard, some of them may hide in these woods, and it would be just as well for us not to be found with them.” So they descended the hillside and walked boldly into Saratursk. There was no danger of their being noticed or questioned; the recaptured town was in far too much uproar and chaos. The earlier victory of the Whites had been due largely to the poisoning of the water that the Red soldiers had drunk; many more men had died of that than of battle-wounds, and the survivors were disposed to take revenge. The whole place, they said, was White in sympathy, and it was certainly true that the more prosperous shopkeepers and private citizens had loaded gifts upon White officers. Now they wished they had been more discreet. As the victorious Reds lurched into the town, drunk with that highly dangerous mixture of triumph and fatigue, the shopkeepers put up their shutters and made themselves as inconspicuous as possible. All the omens were for an exciting night.
Oblimov soon joined his soldier companions, but A.J. preferred to mingle with the crowd that surged up and down the main street. It was a hot, swaying, tempestuous, and increasingly bad-tempered multitude. The market-place, packed with wounded Reds for whom there was no hospital accommodation and hardly any but the most elementary medical treatment, acted as a perpetual incitement to already inflamed passions. Amidst this acre of misery
the town doctor and a few helpers worked their way tirelessly, but there was little that could be done, since the retreating Whites had commandeered all medical supplies—even to bandages and surgical instruments. This was bad enough, but even worse to many was the fact that the Whites seemed also to have drunk the whole town dry. There was not a bottle of beer or a dram of vodka in any of the inns, and the litter of empty bottles in all the gutters told its own significant tale. The first ‘incident’ was caused by this. A few soldiers, refusing to believe that there was absolutely no drink to be had at all, insisted on inspecting the cellar of one of the inns. There they found a couple of bottles of champagne. They drank without much enthusiasm, for they preferred stronger stuff, and then wrecked the inn-keeper’s premises. The news of the affair soon spread and led to a systematic search, not only of inns, but of private houses. In many cases the terrified occupants handed over any liquor they possessed; where they did not, or had none to hand over, the soldiers usually went about smashing pictures and furniture amidst wild shouts and caperings. All this time the town was becoming more crowded; soldiers were still pouring in from the west, and these later arrivals, having endured more prolonged hardships, were in fiercer moods. Towards eight o’clock the rumour went round that a certain local lawyer had been responsible for the poisoning of the water-supply the day before. The man, who was hiding in his house, was dragged out into the middle of the street and clubbed to death. This only whetted appetites; between eight and midnight, perhaps a dozen citizens, mostly shopkeepers and professional men, were killed in various ways and places. Then the even more exciting rumour gained currency that a whole houseful of Whites, including high-born officers and ladies, were in hiding about a mile out of the town, their retreat having been cut off by the Reds’ rapid advance. The village schoolmaster saved his life by giving details of this illustrious colony; it included, he said, no less a personage than the Countess Marie Alexandra Adraxinc, well known in pre-Revolution Petersburg society, and distantly connected with the family of the ex-Emperor. She had been passing as a peasant, continued the informative schoolmaster, and had caused a great sensation among the White officers by declaring and establishing her true identity. Many of them had known her in former times, and a great party had been held both in her honour and to celebrate the glorious White victory of Saratursk. And it was the effects of this and similar parties that had helped towards the equally glorious Red victory that had so immediately followed.