by James Hilton
He answered, shouldering his bundle and helping her quickly over the uneven ground: “No. I have decided to accept your suggestion and will try to get you to the coast, where you can take ship for abroad. Now don’t answer me—don’t talk at all just save all your strength for the long journey.”
* * *
PART IV
He stood on the summit of the first low ridge that lifted out of the long level of the plains. Dawn was creeping over the horizon; distant and below lay the clustered roofs of the town. He and his companion had stopped for but a moment, to share bread and water together; she was so tired that she was already half asleep on the springy turf.
He stared strangely upon that refreshing August dawn, yet in his own mind, for some reason, he saw another picture—a frozen Arctic river under sunshine, all still and stiff, and then suddenly the splitting shiver of the ice-crust and the surge of water over the quickening land. He felt as if something like that were happening within himself. “Come now,” he said, picking up the bundles. She was asleep and he had to waken her. She smiled without a word and stumbled forward.
He dared not have allowed more than that moment’s halt, for though they had had good fortune so far, there was still danger, and perhaps the greatest of all now that daylight had come. They plunged on and on as the glow in the eastern sky deepened and became glorified by sunrise; over pine-covered ridges and down into little lonely valleys, through swishing gullies of dead leaves and round curving slopes whence Saratursk, glimpsed between tree-trunks, seemed ever further away yet ever dangerously near. By ten o’clock they had covered seven or eight miles, and were already deep in the foothill forests; but she was so tired that she could not take another step. There was nothing for it but to rest for at least a few moments. They sat on a fallen tree-trunk and she was asleep again instantly, with her head leaning forward into her hands.
He was tired himself and after a short time, being afraid of falling asleep also, he got up and moved about. Ten minutes—a quarter of an hour—might be enough to give her just the needful strength to scramble a few miles further. Even during those few minutes, he guessed, pursuers would be gaining on them. He had no illusions or false optimism; he knew that the escape must have been discovered within a few hours, at most, of its taking place, and that immense efforts would certainly be made to recapture such a fugitive. He had seen the whole routine carried through so often before—a price upon some prisoner, dead or alive—a whole army setting out on perhaps the cruellest and therefore the most intoxicatingly thrilling game in the world—a man-hunt. And a woman-hunt would be even a degree better than that. Then suddenly, even while he was pondering over it, he heard, very faintly in the distance, a shrill whistle, and, a few seconds later, a still fainter whistle answering it. The hunt had begun already.
He touched the woman on the shoulder, but it was no use—he had to shake her thoroughly to get her awake. He said quietly: “We must hide for a time—I think searchers are somewhere in the woods.” She answered in a dazed way: “All right. I’m ready.” He helped her to her feet and they moved away, he with eyes alert for a good hiding- place.
He was fortunate in finding one quite soon. A steep valley ended in a lame and desolate tract of undergrowth amidst whose tangle there seemed a good chance of escaping notice. Even if pursuers ever reached it, they would not be likely to give every thicket the attention it deserved. He plunged eagerly into the bushes and for ten minutes, out of sight of the world around them, they both wriggled further and deeper into the dense undergrowth. At last the seemingly perfect spot revealed itself—a little hollow hidden behind thick brambles and knee-deep in litter of twigs and leaves. “Here,” he cried, with sudden satisfaction. He stared thankfully about him at the protecting foliage, and then upwards at the blue sky just visible through the lacery of branches. Then he heard once again, but a little nearer, that shrill whistle and its answer.
He laid her gently on the ground and yet again she fell asleep instantly—so instantly that he smiled a rather rueful smile, for he had intended to give her some cautionary advice. No matter; it could probably wait. He would not think of wakening her. And then as the moments passed and he watched her sleeping, a feeling of tenderness came over him, like a slow warmth from another world, and he did something he had never done before in all his life—he put his arm round a woman and drew her gently towards him. She would sleep more comfortably so. He gazed on her with quiet, almost proprietary triumph; all the way from Khalinsk he had not ceased to guard her, through all manner of difficulty and peril, and here she was still, by miracle, under his protection. He was hungry and thirsty and tired and anxious, yet also, in a way he had never known before, he was satisfied.
The thicket was noisy with buzzing insects, but every few moments over the distant air came the whistling—now quite distinctly nearer. His heart beat no faster for it; he felt: We are here, and here is our only chance; we must wait and take whatever comes…The nearest of the pursuers, he judged, must be perhaps half a mile away; there were others, too, not far behind, and probably hundreds already combing the forests on the way from Saratursk. Soon the whistling became less intermittent and seemed to come from north and south as well as west; once, too, he thought he heard voices a long way off. Hunger and thirst were now beginning to be importunate, but he dared not satisfy them, since it might be night before he could risk leaving the thicket in quest of any fresh supplies.
Then he saw that her eyes were wide open—dark, sleepy eyes staring up at him. She whispered, half smiling: “How uncomfortable you must be—with me leaning on you like this!”
“All the better,” he answered, with a wry smile. “It helps me to keep awake.”
“I think it is your turn to sleep now.”
“No, no—you go on sleeping.”
“But I can’t.” Her voice dropped agonisingly. “I’ve kept my nerve pretty well up to now, but I’m afraid—I’m beginning to be just—terrified.”
“Terrified? Oh, no need for that.”
“Those whistles that keep on sounding—we’re being hunted—that’s what they mean, don’t they?”
“They’re looking for us, of course. That was to be expected. But it doesn’t follow that they’re going to find us.”
“Promise me—promise me one thing—that you’ll kill me rather than let them get me again!”
“Yes, I promise.”
“You mean it?”
“Absolutely.”
A whistle suddenly shrilled quite close to them—perhaps two or three hundred yards away, on the edge of the undergrowth. Even he was startled, and he felt her trembling silently against him. He whispered: “Keep calm—they’re a long way off yet—they might easily come within ten yards and not see us in a place like this. Don’t worry.”
All she could muster, amidst her fear was: “You have your revolver? You remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
His arm tightened upon leer; he whispered: “Poor child, don’t give up hope.” Then they both waited in silence. It seemed an age until the next whistle—an answering one that appeared to come from about the same distance on the other side. What was happening was not very clear; perhaps the two searchers were passing along the edges of the undergrowth and did not intend to make any detailed search amongst it. He could imagine their condition—tired, hot, thirsty, and probably bad-tempered after the so far fruitless search. The prickly brambles would hardly tempt them. On the other hand, there was the big reward that had most likely been offered—men would do most things for a few hundred roubles.
After a short time it was evident that the searchers numbered far more than two; whistling proceeded from every direction, and sounded rather as if fresh searchers were coming up at every moment. Then came echoes of shouting and talking, but voices did not carry very well and he could not catch any words. He judged, however, that some sort of a consultation was in progress. Next followed a chorus of whistling and counter-whistling from both sides, the mea
ning of which was only too easy to guess.
“They’re coming through!” she gasped.
He whispered: “I daresay they’ve got the sense to realise that this is a good place to hide. And so it is, too. There are so many of them there’s bound to be over-lapping and confusion. Keep calm. We’ve still a good chance.” The approach of almighty danger gave him a feeling of exaltation as difficult to understand as to control. He went on, a moment later: “Leaves—these leaves. A childish trick, but it might work. I want you to lie down in this hollow and let me cover you up.”
“Yes, if you wish.”
He placed her so that, with the leaves over her, there seemed no break in the level ground. The whistling by this time was very much nearer, and there could be heard also the tearing and breaking of twigs as some of the searchers broke through. He whispered: “Keep still—don’t move or say a word. And whatever happens, trust me and don’t be surprised. Whatever happens, mind.” A moment afterwards the tousled head of a Red soldier, streaked with dirt and perspiration, pushed itself through the undergrowth a few yards away. A.J. did not wait to be accosted. Wiping his forehead with his sleeve and kicking up some of the litter of twigs, he shouted: “Hallo? Found anything yet? There’s nothing here.”
The man answered: “Nor here either, Tovarish. It’s my belief she didn’t go into the forest at all. And if she did, she wouldn’t have got so far as this. It’s a terrible job, searching through this sort of country on a hot day.”
A J. agreed sympathetically. “You’re right, my friend—its the devil’s own job. And I’ve lost my whistle too, confound it.”
The other laughed. “Never mind, I’ll whistle for you.” He gave two mighty blasts. “That’ll show we’ve done our duty, anyway. Have a drink with me, Tovarish, and It’s get out of this muddle.”
A.J. accepted the offer by no means ungratefully, for he wanted the drink badly enough. The soldier seemed a simple, good-natured fellow, with a childishness, however, that was quite capable of being dangerous. “You were with the other lot, I suppose?” he queried, and A.J. nodded. They struggled through the thickets and reached at last the open ground. There a few other soldiers were already gathered together, evidently satisfied that they had performed their share of the search. They were all rather disgruntled. It was a ticklish moment when A.J. joined them, but his highest hopes were realised; there had been a tremendous amount of confusion and no man expected to know his neighbour. The chief concern of all was the food and drink due to arrive from the forests below.
A.J. found them a friendly lot of men, behind their temporary ill-humour; he soon learned that they had been promised a large reward for the discovery of the escaped Countess, and that the latter, if captured alive, was to be accorded a solemn full-dress execution in the market-place at Saratursk. “She will be hanged, not shot,” said one of the men, rolling a cigarette between grimy fingers. And he added contemplatively: “It is a pity, in some ways, to hang a woman, because their necks are made differently. I am a hangman by profession, and I can speak from knowledge.”
Soon a few men came toiling up the valley with sacks of bread and buckets of thin potato-soup. The searchers greeted them boisterously, relieved them of their burdens, and began to eat and drink ravenously. A.J. and his tousled companion, whose name was Stephanov, managed to secure a loaf of black bread between them, as well as a large can of soup. Stephanov was not astonished that A.J. knew none of the men. “That is the worst of the army nowadays,” he said. “They shift you about so quickly that you never get to know anybody. It was different in the old days when there were proper regiments.” He went on chatting away in a manner most helpful to A.J. “I suppose all the others have got lost—that’s what usually happens. I only know one of the fellows here by name. That’s little Nikolai Roussilov over there. Do you see him? That man snoring against that tree-trunk.” A.J. looked and observed. “I can tell you a secret, Tovarish, about that man—and though you’ll hardly believe it, I assure you it’s the heavenly truth and nothing less.” He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “That man was once kissed by the Emperor.”
A.J. made some surprised and enquiring remark and Stephanov went on, pleased with his little sensation: “Ah, I guessed that would startle you! Well, you see, it all happened like this. Nikolai was doing sentry duty one night outside a railway train in which the Emperor was sleeping. The train was drawn up in a siding, and it was Easter Sunday morning—in the old clays, of course. You know the custom—you kiss the first person you meet and give the Easter greeting. Well, Nikolai was the first person the Emperor met that morning when he stepped out of the train, so the Emperor kissed him. Isn’t that remarkable? And you would hardly think it to look at him, would you?”
Many of the men had already fallen to dozing in the shade, but Stephanov’s conversation showed no signs of early abatement. A.J. was not wholly sorry, for the man’s garrulous chatter gave him much information that he guessed might be of value in the immediate future. At last, towards the late afternoon, an officer appeared on the edge of the scene and gave leisurely instruction to the half-sleeping men. They were to form themselves into detachments and march back to Saratursk. Evidently the search, for that day, at any rate, was being abandoned.
A.J.’s problem, of course, was to escape from the soldiers without attracting attention, and there were many ways in which he hoped to be able to do so. Having, however, been given such incredible good fortune so far, he was determined to take no unnecessary risks, and he saw no alternative to accompanying the men for some distance, at least, on their march back to the town. He and Stephanov walked together, or rather, Stephanov followed him with a species of dog-like attachment which threatened to be highly inconvenient in the circumstances. The retreat began about six o’clock and dusk fell as the stragglers were still threading their way amongst the pine-trees. From time to time as they descended, other parties of soldiers joined them—all tired and rather low-spirited. But for the too pertinacious Stephanov, it would have been a simple matter to slip away in the twilit confusion of one or other of these encounters. At last, however, when the last tint of daylight had almost left the sky, an opportunity did come. Stephanov halted to take off his boot and beat in a protruding nail; A.J. said he would go ahead and see how far they had still to go. He went ahead, but he did not return, and he hoped that Stephanov would realise that, in the darkness, nothing was more likely than that two companions, once separated, should be unable to find each other again.
A.J. waited till the last faint sounds of the retreating men had died away in the distance; some were singing and could be heard for a long time. Then he took deep breaths of the cool pine-laden air and tried to induce in himself a calm and resourceful confidence. He took careful note of his bearings; the stars and the rising moon and the slope of the ground were all helpful guides. His Siberian experiences had made him un-cannily expert at that sort of thing; with a night lasting for nine months it had been necessary to train the senses to work efficiently in the dark. Still, it was not going to be an easy task to locate the exact whereabouts of that valley wilderness. During the journey with Stephanov he had tried to memorise the ground passed over, and he had counted five successive ridges that they had crossed.
Cautiously he climbed to the summit of the first ridge. There moonlight helped him by showing a vague outline of the next one. He paused a moment to munch a little bread he had managed to save; there was still some left. At the next stream he filled his water-bottle to the brim. On the top of the second ridge he saw cigarette wrappings that had been thrown away by the soldiers, and that was heartening, for it showed that he was in the right direction. Twice after that he imagined he was lost, and the second time he had just decided to stay where he was until dawn, when he caught a distant glimpse of a pale clearing that seemed somehow familiar. He walked towards it, and there, glossy under the moonlight, lay that steep valley with the wilderness of thickets like a dark velvet patch at the upper end of it. He stumbl
ed over the turf with tingling excitement in his blood, and all at once and surprisingly for the first time the thought came to him that she might not be there. What if she were not? If she had grown tired or terrified of waiting—if she had wildly sought to escape on her own—if she had lost hope of his ever returning? He gave a low whistle across the empty valley, and at once a hundred voices answered, so that he shivered almost in fear himself. Then he smiled; they were only owls. He reached the edge of the thickets and plunged into them, not caring that the brambles tore at his clothes and face and hands. In a little while he dared to speak—he shouted softly: “I’m coming—don’t be afraid—I’m coming. Tell me where you are.” And a voice, very weary and remote, answered him.
When he came at last to that little hollow of dead leaves she sprang up and clung to him with both arms, sobbing and laughing at the same time. “Darling—darling,” she whispered hysterically, and he felt all the ice in his soul break suddenly into the flow of spring. “Were you thinking I wouldn’t come?” he stammered, dazed with the glory of her welcome. She could not answer, but she was all at once calmed. Then he stooped and kissed her lips, and they were like the touch of sleep itself. “You must be so tired,” she said, and he answered: “I am—yes, I am.” There was a curious serenity about her that made him feel a child again—a child to whom most things are simple and marvellous.
They shared food and water and then lay down together on the bed of leaves until morning.
The chorus of birds awoke him at sunrise; he looked up and saw the blue sky between the branches and then looked down and saw her sleeping. He memorised her features as he might have done the contours of some friendly, familiar land; he saw her wide, round eyelids, and her slender nose, and her lips a little parted as she slept. He wondered if she were really beautiful, as one may wonder if a loved scene is really beautiful; for to him, as she lay there, she meant so much more than beauty. He saw her as the centre of a universe, and all else—those years of exile and loneliness and wandering—dissolved into background.