They had reached another impasse and Gregory felt that, even allowing for the evening halt, enough had been asked of the horses in one day. In the clear Arctic night with a moon only occasionally hidden by scudding clouds they proceeded to form a camp. The men collected and cut branches while the girls got a fire going and it was soon blazing well enough for them to melt snow in saucepans for drinking-water for themselves and the horses. They had to wait a little until part of it had died down sufficiently for them cook on, but by making a separate pile of part of the red embers Angela was able to heat up some tins of soup and warm up some coffee. After they had eaten they piled the fire high with all the branches they could find and, curling up in the sleigh, went to sleep.
When they awoke next morning their vitality was very low. The frightful cold had penetrated even their heavy coverings and immediately they crawled out from beneath the rugs frost from their breath rimed their eyebrows. Their sleep had not refreshed them for they felt drowsy and their extremities were numb. While they tried to warm themselves by violent exercise they wondered miserably if after another night like the last they would fail to wake in the morning and remain frozen in their sleigh, with the snow for a canopy, until someone found them in the spring. Angela, forgetting that it was dangerous to touch metal when the thermometer was so many degrees below zero, burnt her fingers through removing her glove to open a tin; Erika was crying from the cold and her tears froze as they ran down her blue cheeks.
Snow was falling gently but, urged by an instinctive effort of self-preservation, they managed to get another fire going and cook themselves some breakfast. After they had eaten they felt a little restored. The hardy Arctic ponies had taken less harm from the cruel night than the humans and, having harnessed them to the sleigh, the party set off once more.
All through the short day they continued their journey, often having to turn south but sooner or later always finding an opening that led them further to the west. The girls were dumb from the agony they felt and Freddie, who loved winter sports and exercise, had been reduced to a state of despondency in which he was too dejected even to blaspheme each time they had to dig the sleigh out of deep snow. It was the indomitable spirit in Gregory’s lean body that kept them all going as he mocked or cussed them into making a fresh effort whenever they got stuck and encouraged them with the belief that they must sight a village in another mile or two. He was feeling the cold as acutely as any of them but he would not show it and it seemed as if he was made of steel.
The days were lengthening slightly but dusk still fell before four o’clock, an when it came they halted once more, to eat again and rest before making the second daily stage of their journey, by moonlight.
It was about eleven o’clock and their last camp was an hour behind them when Erika caught the first distant howl of a wolf. A moment later it came again and the others heard, it. Gregory was driving and he cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder. A lone wolf was nothing to be frightened of as it would never dare to attack them; but even he was not proof against a spasm of fear at the thought that they might be hunted by a pack.
The howling came again, this time from a slightly different direction—another wolf had taken it up. Within five minutes the forest, from being dead with an unearthly silence, was filled with a horrid baying in their rear.
The horses had heard the threatening note before the humans. Gregory had no need to urge them on. They were straining at the harness. For ten minutes the sleigh was carried across the snow at a faster pace than any they had made since leaving the trapper’s house.
Suddenly another barrier of trees loomed up before them in the moonlight and Gregory had to swerve south along it. Churning up the snow, which glistened in the moonlight like two sheets of spray as it flew out on either side of them, the sleigh sped on for another five minutes. But the howling of the wolves was nearer now—much nearer. They had decreased their distance by cutting across the corner formed by the sleigh’s track.
Freddie and the girls had crawled out from underneath the rugs and were straining their eyes through the semi-darkness in their wake. Another moment and they could just make out a black shadow that seemed to dance upon the snow in the distance. It was the pack that now had them in sight and was in full cry after them.
Another gap opened in the woods. Straining at the reins Gregory cornered it at such speed that the sleigh nearly overturned. A breathless second and they had straightened out again to continue their wild career.
Not one of them had spoken, but a ghastly fear filled all their hearts. They were miles from any form of help or shelter. If they struck another snow-drift, or the wolves once caught up with them, the horses would be torn to pieces and they, in turn, would suffer a frightful death as they fell fighting under the tearing fangs of the ravenous pack.
Chapter XXVI
Hunted by Wolves
Gregory dared not look behind again; it was all he could do to control the sweating, terror-maddened horses. The troika was flying over the ground at such speed that in spite of his fears he felt all the exhilaration which he would have got out of driving a Roman racing chariot; but it needed iron muscles to guide the three stampeded beasts and an unswerving eye for the ground ahead. Any hummock in the snow might conceal a tree-stump and overturn the whole outfit, leaving them a defenceless prey to the famished beasts which were hunting them so relentlessly.
The others had got out the arms they had brought and Freddie was lying with a rifle over the back of the sleigh. The wolves were now less than two hundred yards behind; a dark, undulating patch that seemed to streak along the white carpet of snow. It was impossible to count them but he reckoned that there were anything from seventy to a hundred. Another few minutes and he could distinguish the leaders; see their fiery eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
Still no-one spoke. Driver and passengers were all frantically racking their wits for some way to escape the terrible death that menaced them. It was useless to drive in among the scattered trees on the fringe of the forest in the hope of throwing the pack off. Wherever the sleigh could go the wolves would follow. For a second the idea came to Gregory that they might pull up and climb a tree. But even if in their mad flight he could have selected a tree which it would have been easy for them to climb they had not sufficient lead to do so now before the wolves would be upon them; and if they could have fought them off long enough to scramble up to safety it would have meant sacrificing the horses.
That thought gave him an idea which he was horribly reluctant to carry out; but their lives were at stake and it might mean a temporary respite during which he could perform the seemingly impossible and think of some other plan to save them. Now that he had his full mental capabilities back, to think was, once again, to act.
Rolling the reins round his left hand, with his right he drew the trapper’s sharp hunting-knife from his belt and, stooping, swiftly severed the leather thongs by which the breast harness of the off-side horse was attached to the sleigh. Directly it felt itself free of the weight it was dragging it bounded forward with a new spurt of energy nearly jerking Gregory out of the sleigh by the single rein which was all that now held it. But he had been expecting such a movement and had thrown himself backwards at the same instant, partially counteracting the pull. The other horses reared and the sleigh was almost brought to a standstill. Sheathing his knife he eased the reins and, as the sleigh started forward again, released the rein of the off horse altogether. As it broke away, outdistancing the others, he pulled his gun. For a moment the horse streaked ahead of them, its harness flapping wildly. Gregory swerved the sleigh a little to the left and did the horrible thing he had to do. Aiming his pistol at the horse he had freed he put three rounds into its buttocks.
An almost human scream of pain went up from the wounded animal. It faltered slightly in its gallop, its pace lessened. As they raced past Gregory put another bullet into its head in the hope that his last flying shot might kill it. He could not turn to see what happene
d; but the others saw. The horse plunged on, reeling from side to side for fifty yards, then fell. A howl of exultation went up from the pack and the poor beast was submerged under them.
For a few minutes it seemed as though the sacrifice had saved them so Gregory hauled on the reins of the two remaining horses to ease their pace and conserve their flagging energy. The evil baying of the wolves fell away in the distance; but it was never quite lost and soon they realised that it was drawing nearer again. For a pack of seventy to a hundred wolves a single horse was far from sufficient to satiate their ravenous appetites. The carcase had been picked clean and the pack was now hunting further prey.
Ahead another barrier of thick, impassable forest loomed up and Gregory knew that they must turn again; so he swerved to the south a few hundred yards before they reached it. Once more the others, peering out of the back of the sleigh, could see that sinister black patch undulating across the snow in their rear. The speed of the sleigh had diminished now that it had only two horses to draw it and they had already spent their best efforts; but the raw flesh that the wolves had just devoured did not seem to have lessened their pace. Very soon they were near enough again for their gleaming eyes to be seen sprinkling the black patch they formed as they loped swiftly forward.
Gregory had been driving along the side of the forest for several moments before he realised that the surface they were now on was harder than that over which they had been moving before. Instead of being crisp and uneven it was solid and beaten flat. By pure chance they had struck a road and troops with lorries or tanks must have passed that way recently. The new hope that came to him with the discovery was killed almost instantly. Villages were so incredibly few and far between up there in the far north, and the fact that troops had used the road that day did not mean that they were necessarily encamped in that area. They might be a dozen miles away by this time and in the almost static war that was being fought in the Arctic one convoy might move along a road without its following that a second would do so for another week or more.
Freddie had his rifle trained again. The girls were crouching on either side of him; the wolves had ceased to bay and were running, a sinister, silent mass, no more than a hundred yards behind the sleigh. Now that they were on a road, with little risk of being overturned by crashing into some unseen obstacle in their headlong flight, Gregory was able to glance over his shoulder from time to time. The wolves were gaining upon them every moment. He thought of sacrificing the near-side horse as the only means of securing further respite but after a moment’s reflection he knew that he dared not do it. Both horses were flagging and if he cut free the near-side horse the centre one, which carried the heavy arch of the troika, would not have sufficient strength to pull the fully-loaded sleigh much further. In its terror it would go on until it dropped; but the strain the horses had undergone in the last hour was already terrific. As it was, either of them might burst blood-vessels or die from a heart attack at any moment.
The silence was broken only by the hoof-beats of the horses. Not a sound or whisper of wind disturbed the illimitable forests and the pack ran on, a little tired now but silent, relentless and still making a better pace than the horses. The wolves crept up and up until the white breath of the leaders formed a little cloud above the dark, heaving mass of furry bodies.
Freddie waited, staring into the fiery eyes of the pursuing pack. He did not mean to waste a single bullet. But at last the leader of the pack was within five yards of the end of his rifle. He took careful aim and fired.
The big beast turned a complete somersault and vanished under the swarm of lean, dark forms that leapt across him. A few wolves at the rear of the pack stopped to worry the carcase, but the others, feeling their prey almost within their grasp, did not swerve from their course or even hesitate an instant.
Within a minute Freddie had to fire again; then he settled down to the job in earnest. It was easy enough to pick off the wolves one by one as they came up to within a few yards of the back of the sleigh; but there seemed so many of them, and ammunition was limited. As Freddie emptied one rifle Angela passed him the other and reloaded the first. Soon he had to shoot more rapidly. The wolves spread out a little on to a frontage of about thirty feet and those at each extremity of the line were constantly creeping right up to the level of the sleigh in an attempt to pass it. He had to fire first to one side and then to the others as well as picking off the more courageous brutes that were still following in the sleigh’s track.
The road lay clear before Gregory now as another thick belt of trees loomed up on their left-hand side and the way entered the depths of the forest. But a mile further on he suddenly saw that the road seemed to end; there were trees ahead of him as well. Turning, he glanced back. The wolves, now spread out across the whole width of the road, seemed hardly to have decreased in numbers for all the execution that Freddie had done among them.
With anxious eyes Gregory stared ahead, then the moonlight showed him that the road did not end but took a sharp bend to the left. As he cornered, it was just the opportunity the wolves had been waiting for. Those on the off-side of the road fell behind but those on the near-side cut off the corner and streaked ahead.
Freddie had just exhausted the magazine of one of the rifles. Grabbing the other from Angela he opened rapid fire with it but there was no time to take careful aim. Two wolves leapt and fell in their tracks. Erika came into action with her pistol, firing over his shoulder, and killed a third; but the other bullets went wide and half a dozen of the brutes were now running level with the horses.
Next instant their leader, a great, grey beast with slavering jaws, leapt at the throat of the near horse. It screeched and reared, jerking the sleigh violently to one side; but Gregory had out his knife again and in two swift strokes severed the harness.
With a neigh of fear the centre horse plunged forward just as Gregory released the near horse’s rein. The terrified beast had hardly broken free when another wolf buried its fangs in the wounded animal’s flank and the sleigh had not covered another ten yards before a dozen wolves had pulled the poor brute, screaming, to the ground.
Gregory knew that their lives could now be measured by minutes. Crazy with terror the centre horse was galloping blindly on, but now that it had to drag the full weight of the sleigh it could not possibly continue much further. The nearside horse would be devoured before they could cover another half-mile; then the pack would be after them again and all hope of outdistancing them gone.
Suddenly, ahead of him, he saw a change in the dim landscape. The forests on either side of the road ended abruptly but they did not give way to another open space. The snow was broken here and there by the black bulk of buildings. Glancing back he saw that the wolves were already on the move behind them. A black heap in the moonlight showed where about a third of their number were still tearing the remnants of the dead horse; but the rest had abandoned the fight with their comrades for a mouthful of the easier prey and were once more in full pursuit.
Even now Gregory feared that they might not reach the village in time. At this hour nobody would be about. The wolves would follow them into the village street and they might be pulled down before they could rouse the peasants to their assistance. Their only chance seemed to be that they might secure shelter in the nearest house. Freddie and Erika were now firing again as the nearest wolves gained once more upon the sleigh. The house was only a hundred yards ahead now. Using his whip for the first time Gregory drew the last spurt out of the beaten horse.
Suddenly the door of the house was flung open and a light appeared. The inmates had been aroused by the sound of firing. A group of men came out and in the bright moonlight one glance was enough for them to take in the situation. Some of them ran back into the house. As the sleigh drew level with them they tumbled out again; next moment there was the crash and rattle of machine-gun fire. There was no need to pull up the sleigh; the remaining horse tottered to a halt and fell dead at that moment, and as the party
it had carried to safety stepped into the road they saw that their rescuers were soldiers.
Their burst of fire had scattered the wolves, which were running up and down baying again now, but not daring to approach any nearer. In a few moments they were driven off and the survivors, still howling dismally at being cheated of their prey, disappeared into the edge of the forest.
No sooner had the last shots been fired than the soldiers turned with cheerful exclamations of congratulation to the people whom they had saved; but it soon became apparent that none of them could understand what was said. All Gregory and his friends could do to express their gratitude was to shake hands, smile and pat the soldiers on the back. A very tall, black-bearded, dark-eyed officer motioned Gregory’s party into the house which was evidently used as an out-post. The fug in the low room was frightful but they hardly noticed it in their relief at their miraculous escape and sank down, with their hearts still pounding, on a long bench by the wall.
They had eaten only a few hours before so they were not particularly hungry but after a little while some of the soldiers brought them bowls of hot stew and mugs of coffee substitute which Gregory thought was probably made from acorns. A quarter of an hour after their arrival the street door opened and the officer entered with another man who came over and greeted them in a language which was different from that of the soldiers. They guessed then that they had been taken for Finns and that the officer had brought a Finnish prisoner who could speak Russian from the local lock-up to question them and act as an interpreter.
This having proved a failure the officer stroked his long, black beard and regarded them with increased interest. Gregory attempted to open communications with him by using German, English, French and Italian, but apparently none of the Russians or the Finn had even a smattering of any of these languages, so the deadlock continued.
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