by Hugh Walpole
They searched the wood until late in the afternoon, trampling through the wet, peering through thickets, listening for one another’s voices, finding sometimes a trophy in the shape of an empty shrapnel case, an Austrian cap or dagger. Then, quite suddenly, a sanitar noticed that the bursting of the shrapnel was much closer than it had been during the early afternoon. It was now, indeed, very near and they could sometimes see the flash of fire between the trees.
“There’s something strange about this, your Honour,” said one of the sanitars nervously, and they all looked at Trenchard as though it were his fault that they were there. Then close behind them, with a snap of rage, a shrapnel broke amongst the trees. After that they turned for home, without a word to one another, not running but hastening with flushed faces as though some one were behind them.
They came to the trench and to their surprise found it absolutely deserted. Then, plunging on, they arrived at the two wagons, climbed on to one of them, leaving Trenchard alone with the driver on the other. “I tell you,” he remarked to me afterwards, “I sank into that wagon as though into my grave. I don’t know that ever before or since in my life have I felt such exhaustion. It was reaction, I suppose — a miserable, wretched exhaustion that left me well enough aware that I was the most unhappy of men and simply forced me, without a protest, to accept that condition. Moreover, I had always before me the vision of the dead body. Wherever I turned there it was, grinning at me, the black flies crawling in and out of its jaws, and behind it something that said to me: ‘There! now I have shown you what I can do.... To that you’re coming.’...”
He must have slept because he was suddenly conscious of sitting up in his car, surrounded by an intense stillness. He looked about him but could see nothing clearly, as though he were still sleeping. Then he was aware of a sanitar standing below the cart, looking up at him with great agitation and saying again and again: “Borjé moi! Borjé moi! Borjé moi!”
“What is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. The sanitar then seemed to slip away leaving him alone with a vague sense of disaster. The sun had set, but there was a moon, full and high, and now by its light he could see that his wagon was standing outside the gate of the house at M —— . There was the yard, the bandaging-room, the long faded wall of the house, the barn, but where? ... where?... He sat up, then jumped down on to the road. The big white tent on the further side of the yard, the tent that had, that very morning, been full of wounded, was gone. The lines of wagons, horses and tents that had filled the field across the road were gone. No voices came from the house — somewhere a door banged persistently — other sound there was none.
The sanitars then surrounded him, speaking all together, waving their arms, their faces white under the moon, their eyes large and frightened like the eyes of little children. He tried to push their babel off from him. He could not understand.... Was this a continuation of the nightmare of the afternoon? There was a roar just behind their ears as it seemed. They saw a light flash upon the sky and fade, flash again and fade. With their faces towards the horizon they watched.
“What is it?” Trenchard said at last. There advanced towards him then from out of the empty house an old man in a wide straw hat with a broom.
“What is it?” Trenchard said again.
“It’s the Austrians,” said the old man in Polish, of which Trenchard understood very little. “First it’s the Russians.... Then it’s the Austrians.... Then it’s the Russians.... Then it’s the Austrians. And always between each of them I have to clean things up” — and some more which Trenchard did not understand. The old man then stood at his gate watching them with a gaze serious, sad, reflective. Meanwhile the sanitars had discovered one of our own soldiers: this man, who had been sitting under a hedge and listening to the Austrian cannon with very uncomfortable feelings, told them of the affair. At three o’clock that afternoon our Otriad had been informed that it must retreat “within half an hour.” Not only our own Sixty-Fifth Division, but the whole of the Ninth Army was retreating “within half an hour.” Moreover the Austrians were advancing “a verst a minute.” By four o’clock the whole of our Otriad had disappeared, leaving only this soldier to inform us that we must move on at once to T —— or S —— , twenty or thirty versts distant.
“Retreating!” cried Trenchard. “But we were winning! We’d just won a battle!”
“Tak totchno!” said the soldier gravely, “Twenty versts! the horses won’t do it, your Honour!”
“They’ve got to do it!” said Trenchard sharply, and the echo of the Austrian cannon, again as it seemed quite close at hand, emphasised his words. Except for this the silence of the world around them was eerie; only far away they seemed to hear the persistent rumble of carts on the road.
“They’re gone! They’re all gone! We’re left last of all!” and “The Austrians advancing a verst a minute!”
He took a last look at the house which had seemed yesterday so absolutely to belong to them and now was already making preparations for its new guests. As he gazed he thought of his agony in that field below the house. Only last night and now what years ago it seemed! What years, what years ago!
He climbed wearily again upon his wagon. There had entered into his unhappiness now a new element. This was a sensation of cold despairing anger that ground should be yielded so helplessly. About every field, every hedge and lane and tree, as slowly they jogged along he felt this. Only to-day this corn, these stones, these flowers were Russian, and to-morrow Austrian! This, as it seemed, simply out of the air, dictated by some whispering devil crouching behind a hedge, afraid to appear! This, too, when only a few hours ago there had been that battle of S —— won by them after a struggle of many days; that position, soaked with Russian blood, to be surrendered now as a leaf blows in the wind.
When they arrived at T —— and found our Otriad he was, I believe, so deeply exhausted that he was not conscious of his actions. His account to me of what then occurred is fantastic and confused. He discovered apparently the house where we were; it was then one o’clock in the morning. Every one was asleep. There seemed to be no place for him to be, he could find neither candles nor matches, and he wandered out into the road again. Then, it seems, he was standing beside a deep lake. “I can remember nothing clearly except that the lake was black and endless. I stood looking at it. I could see the bodies out of the forest, only now they were slipping along the water, their skulls white and gleaming. I had also a confused impression that Russia was beaten and the war over. And that for me too life was utterly at an end.... I remember that I deliberately thought of Marie because it hurt so abominably. I repeated to myself the incidents of the night before, all of them, talking aloud to myself. I decided then that I would drown myself in the lake. It seemed the only thing to do. I took my coat off. Then sat down in the mud and took off my boots. Why I did this I don’t know. I looked at the water, thought that it would be cold, but that it would soon be over because I couldn’t swim. I heard the frogs, looked back at the flickering fires amongst our wagons, then walked down the bank....”
Nikitin must for some time have been watching him, because at that moment he stepped forward, took Trenchard’s arm, and drew him back. Nikitin has himself told me that he was walking up and down the road that night because he could not sleep. When he spoke to Trenchard the man seemed dazed and bewildered, said something about “life being all over for him and — death being horrible!”
Nikitin put his arm round him, took him back to his room, where he made him a bed on the floor, gave him a sleeping-draught and watched him until he slept.
That was the true beginning of the friendship between Nikitin and Trenchard.
CHAPTER VI
THE RETREAT
The retreat struck us as breathlessly as though we had been whirled by a wind-storm into midair on the afternoon of a summer day. At five minutes to three we had been sitting round the table in the garden of the house at M —— drinking tea. We were, I remember, very gay. W
e had heard only the day before of the Russian surrender of Przemysl and that had for a moment depressed us; but as always we could see very little beyond our own immediate Division. Here, on our own Front, we had at last cleared the path before us. On that very afternoon we were gaily anticipating our advance. Even Sister K —— who, for religious reasons, took always a gloomy view of the future, was cheerful. She sipped her cherry jam and smiled upon us. Anna Petrovna, imperturbably sewing, calmly sighed her satisfaction.
“Perhaps to-morrow we shall move. I feel like it. It will be splendid to go through the Carpathians — beautiful scenery, I believe.” Molozov was absent in the town of B —— collecting some wagons that had arrived from Petrograd. “He’ll be back to-night, I believe,” said Sister K —— . “Dear me, what a pleasant afternoon!”
It was then that I saw the face of the boy Goga. I had turned, smiling, pleased with the sunshine, cherry jam, and a good Russian cigarette straight from Petrograd. The boy Goga stared across the yard at me, his round red cheeks pale, mouth open, and his eyes confused and unbelieving.
He seemed then to jump across the intervening space. Then he screamed at us:
“We’re retreating.... We’re retreating!” he shrieked in the high trembling voice peculiar to agitated Russians. “We have only half an hour and the Austrians are almost here now!”
We were flung after that into a hurry of movement that left us no time for reasoning or argument. Semyonov appeared and in Molozov’s absence took the lead. He was, of course, entirely unmoved, and as I now remember, combed his fair beard with a little tortoiseshell pocket comb as he talked to us. “Yes, we must move in half an hour. Very sad ... the whole army is retreating. Why, God knows....”
There arose clouds of dust in the yard where we had had our happy luncheon. The tents had disappeared. The wounded were once more lying on the jolting carts, looking up through their pain and distress to a heaven that was hot and grey and indifferent. An old man whom we had not seen during the whole of our stay suddenly appeared from nowhere with a long broom and watched us complacently. We had our own private property to pack. As I pressed my last things into my bag I turned from my desolate little tent, looked over the fields, the garden, the house, the barns.... “But it was ours — OURS,” I thought passionately. We had but just now won a desperately-fought battle; across the long purple misty fields the bodies of those fallen Russians seemed to rise and reproach us. “We had won that land for you — and now — like this, you can abandon us!”
At that moment I cursed my lameness that would prevent me from ever being a soldier. How poor, on that afternoon, it seemed to be unable to defend with one’s own hand those fields, those rivers, those hills! “Ah but Russia, I will serve you faithfully for this!” was the prayer at all our hearts that afternoon....
Semyonov had wisely directed our little procession away from the main road to O —— which was filled now with the carts and wagons of our Sixty-Fifth Division. We were to spend the night at the small village of T —— , twenty versts distant; then, to-morrow morning, to arrive at O —— .
The carts were waiting in a long line down the road, the soldiers, hot and dusty, carried bags and sacks and bundles. A wounded man cried suddenly: “Oh, Oh, Oh,” an ugly mongrel terrier who had attached himself to our Otriad tried to leap up at him, barking, in the air. There was a scent of hay and dust and flowers, and, very faintly, behind it all, came the soft gentle rumble of the Austrian cannon.
Nikitin, splendid on his horse, shouted to Semyonov:
“What of Mr.? Hadn’t some one better go to meet him?”
“I’ve arranged that!” Semyonov answered shortly.
It was of course my fate to travel in the ancient black carriage that was one of the glories of our Otriad, with Sister Sofia Antonovna, the Sister with the small red-rimmed eyes of whom I have spoken on an earlier page. She was a woman who found in every arrangement in life, whether made by God, the Germans, or the General of our Division, much cause for complaint and dismay. She had never been pretty but had always felt that she ought to be; she was stupid but comforted herself by the certain assurance that every one else was stupid too. She had come to the war because a large family of brothers and sisters refused to have her at home. I disliked her very much, and she hated myself and Marie Ivanovna more than any one else in the world. I don’t know why she grouped us together — she always did.
Marie Ivanovna was sitting with us now in the carriage, white-faced and silent. Sofia Antonovna was very patronising.... “When you’ve worked a little more at the Front, dear, you’ll know that these things must happen. Bad work somewhere, of course. What can you expect from a country like Russia? Everything mismanaged ... nothing but thieves and robbers. Of course we’re beaten and always will be.”
“How can you, Sofia Antonovna?” Sister Marie interrupted in a low trembling voice. “It is nobody’s fault. It is only for a moment. We will return — soon — at once. I know it. Ah, we must, we must! ... and your courage all goes. Of course it would.”
Sister Sofia Antonovna smiled and her eyes watched us both. “I’m afraid your Mr. will be left behind,” she said.
“Dr. Semyonov,” Marie Ivanovna began — then stopped. We were all of us silent during the rest of the journey.
And how is one to give any true picture of the confusion into which we flung ourselves at O —— ? O —— had been the town at which, a little more than a month ago, we had arrived so eagerly, so optimistically. It had been to us then the quietest retreat in the world — irritating, provoking by reason of its peace. The little school-house, the green well, the orchard, the bees, the long light evenings with no sound but the birds and running water — those things had been a month ago.
We were hurled now into a world of dust and despair. The square market place, the houses that huddled round it were swallowed up by soldiers, horses, carts and whirling clouds. A wind blew and through the wind a hot sun blazed. Everywhere horses were neighing, cows and sheep were driven in thick herds through columns of soldiers, motor cars frantically pushed their way from place to place, and always, everywhere, covering every inch of ground flying, as it seemed, from the air, on to roofs, in and out of windows, from house to house, from corner to corner, was the humorous, pathetic, expectant, matter-of-fact, dreaming, stolid Russian soldier. He was to come to me, later on, in a very different fashion, but on this dreadful day in O —— he was simply part of the intolerable, depressing background.
If this day were dreadful to me what must it have been to Trenchard! We were none of us aware at this time of what had happened to him two days before, nor did we know of his adventure of yesterday. O —— seemed to him, he has told me, like hell.
We spent the day gathered together in a large white house that had formerly been the town-hall of O —— . It had, I remember, high empty rooms all gilt and looking-glasses; the windows were broken and the dust came, in circles and twisting spirals, blowing over the gilt chairs and wooden floors.
We made tea and sat miserably together. Semyonov was in some other part of the town. We were to wait here until Molozov arrived from B —— .
There can be few things so bad as the sense of insecurity that we had that afternoon. The very ground seemed to have been cut away from under our feet. We had gathered enough from the officers of our Division to know that something very disastrous “somewhere” had occurred. It was the very vagueness of the thing that terrified us. What could have happened? Only something very monstrous could have compelled so general a retirement. We might all of us be prisoners before the evening. That seemed to us, and indeed was afterwards proved in reality, to have been no slender possibility. There was no spot on earth that belonged to us. So firm and solid we had been at M —— . Even we had hung pictures on the walls and planted flowers outside the dining-room. Now all that remained for us was this horrible place with its endless looking-glasses, its bare gleaming floors and the intolerable noise through its open windows of carts, soldi
ers, horses, the smell of dung and tobacco, and the hot air, like gas, that flung the dust into our faces.
Beyond the vague terrors of our uncertainty was the figure, seen quite clearly by all of us without any sentiment, of Russia. Certainly Trenchard and I could feel with less poignancy the appeal of her presence, and yet I swear that to us also on that day it was she of whom we were thinking. We had been, until then, her allies; we were now her servants.
By Russia every one of us, sitting in that huge room, meant something different. To Goga she was home, a white house on the Volga, tennis, long evenings, early mornings, holidays in a tangled wilderness of happiness. To Sister K —— she was “Holy Russia,” Russia of the Kremlin, of the Lavra, of a million ikons in a million little streets, little rooms, little churches. To Sister Sofia she was Petrograd with cafés, novels by such writers as Verbitzkaia and our own Jack London, the cinematograph, and the Islands on a fine evening in May. To the student like a white fish she was a platform for frantic speeches, incipient revolutions, little untidy hysterical meetings in a dirty room in a back street, newspapers, the incapacities of the Douma, the robberies and villainies of the Government. To Anna Petrovna she was comfortable, unspeculative, friendly “home.” To Nikitin she was the face of one woman upon whose eyes his own were always fixed. To Marie Ivanovna she was a flaming glorious wonder, mystical, transplendent, revealed in every blade of grass, every flash of sun across the sky, every line of the road, the top of every hill.
And to Trenchard and myself? For Trenchard she had, perhaps, taken to herself some part of his beloved country. He has told me — and I will witness in myself to the truth of this — that he never in his life felt more burningly his love for England than at this first moment of his consciousness of Russia. The lanes and sea of his remembered vision were not far from that dirty, disordered town in Galicia — and for both of them he was rendering his service.