It wasn’t snowing now. He’d thought it was, but the snow blowing in the wind was being lifted off trees and hedgerows.
‘That’s – it, is it?’
‘Where we were.’ Schelokov nodded. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s there now.’
‘Well, we didn’t expect—’ He let that tail off: asking himself Didn’t we? Pointing, then: ‘What’s the chimney?’
‘It was a small manor house. The owners of this land – all this valley – lived there. People of no great consequence, small landowners, but apparently the usual rabble came for them. Much the same as I described to you. As it happens this was Markov’s story – I suppose he’d have heard it from some local person. Someone from the village, perhaps. The only difference from the usual pattern is that there—’ he gestured towards the farm – ‘these people’s tenants tried to protect their master and his family, so the mob killed them too and destroyed the farm as well as the house. Not as effectively – there’s nothing left of the manor, except a wall with that chimney on it. The rest of it was made of timber, burnt to the ground.’ He took the pipe out of his mouth, spat, shook nicotine juice out of the stem… ‘As for the farm – the well in the yard down there was stuffed with corpses. Including children’s. This was before I got here. Markov cried when he told me about it. He’d had them pulled out and buried, but they still couldn’t use the well. His Tartar drivers used to haul water from the river.’
‘What happened to the murderers when the Volunteer army got here?’
‘Murderers?’ Schelokov squatted on a fallen tree-trunk. He shook his head. ‘Phantoms, more like.’
Smouldering socks would have smelt better than those pipe-fumes. Even the ones Bob was wearing inside his seaboot stockings. He said – thinking of Nadia – ‘You mean nobody’d know, or—’
‘Or admit to having been within a hundred miles.’
He sat too. It had been a long night’s walk, and he’d had less than two hours’ sleep in the past two nights and a day. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at the cluster of wrecked buildings. It had the broken and deserted look, he thought, of a nest that crows have ravaged.
Ravaged twice?
It was a form of cowardice, of course – to imagine the worst, in order to protect oneself from any shocks that might be coming. The coward and his thousand deaths…
‘Bob?’
Glancing round: ‘Sorry. I was—’
‘We should go back and sleep now. Then when we’ve rested take it in turns to keep a watch here. If you agree… Never know – might learn something. Then go down there when it’s dark.’ He glanced up, at higher and lighter-looking cloud than they’d seen recently. ‘May not be as dark as we’ve been used to, eh?’
13
The bare trunks and limbs of birches were black and silver against some last vestiges of pink-flushed cloud. The land was dark, the humped shapes of the farm’s ruins hard to see as darkness filled in the space around them. The nearest was twenty or thirty yards ahead; it had been some kind of barn but was now skeletal, possibly only still standing because its sparse frame offered so little resistance to the wind.
Schelokov pointed. ‘Track turns into the yard there – between the shed and the stables I was telling you about.’ He’d mentioned them as being still intact. Stone-built, apparently, better built than the rest of the farm because it was where the landowner had kept his own horses.
They’d started down from the hillside camp as soon as the light had begun to fade. If they’d waited, getting down through the wood might have been fairly hazardous. Then at the bottom they’d been amongst the straggle of trees that stood along the high side of the road – cover enough, in the growing dusk, would have been good enough even if there’d been yet more cavalry on the road. Several detachments had clattered southward during the course of the afternoon – one big formation, regimental strength Schelokov had said, others smaller. Schelokov’s estimate was that about fifteen hundred horsemen had passed during the daylight hours – plus however many might have gone by while he and Bob had had their heads down during the forenoon and early afternoon. So with last night’s formation, you could say two and a half thousand in the past twenty-four hours.
Bob had commented, over their meal of tinned fish an hour ago, ‘Your “back of the moon”’s getting crowded, Boris Vasil’ich. Just as we arrive, they start flooding south.’
‘There was a trickle before, wasn’t there? Scouts, of course – the ones who chased us, for instance, and the detachment you saw from the air. So now – it makes sense.’ He’d nodded. ‘Be useful to know their objectives, wouldn’t it? Ekaterinoslav, perhaps. Or to secure the railway towns. One thing’s sure, they won’t be hanging around in that wilderness we’ve come through. All right, the railway towns – Karlovka and Konstantinograd, on that line – but otherwise—’
‘Kupyansk, Debaltsevo—’
‘Not these units. There’ll be other forces, on other routes. And on the railway, before long.’
‘Won’t make our withdrawal any easier, anyway.’
‘Did you expect it to be easy?’
‘I’d hoped to have been in and out again before it got to this stage.’
‘At the time you and I set out, you hoped that?’
‘Oh.’ Trying to remember. Only four days back: it seemed much longer. ‘No, I suppose—’
‘You weren’t giving yourself time to think about anything, Robert Aleksandr’ich. For reasons which we both understand. I was, though, I knew very well it could turn out like this. But if the clock were put back, you’d make the same decision again now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, I suppose—’
‘No “suppose” about it. So the hell with worrying about it. The objective’s unchanged, we’re here where we aimed to be – despite a few hurdles along the way – and as for the journey back – it’s wide-open country down there, plenty of forest, even with women to look after we can hide in it – eh?’
Pep-talk, he’d realized. Nodding… ‘When we do start south, Boris Vasil’ich – with this invasion in progress, it might be better to make directly for Taganrog, say, rather than nearer places we can’t be sure of.’
‘Yes. I agree.’
If one could be sure of Taganrog, even…
The track that led off from the road was on their left, with a branch curving right into the farmyard and the main line of it continuing into the pinewoods that surrounded the former manor house. Schelokov had stopped. Wondering – Bob guessed, by the way he was looking this way and that – whether to use the track or slant to the right behind this barn’s remains and the rear of other sheds. There was an enclosure on this side – yard, paddock, whatever, the tops of fence-posts had been visible from the hill – and one could have approached that way.
He’d grunted. ‘Wait here a minute?’
Vanishing trick, then – down into the drive and towards the wrecked barn. Moving inaudibly, under the sound the wind made in the trees and damaged buildings. And knowing his way around, of course. Just as well he did: prospecting these ruins in the dark wouldn’t have been a very practical endeavour otherwise.
Mightn’t be all that productive anyway. Just happened to be the only starting-point one had.
Darkness was still thickening as the minutes passed. Continuing meanwhile on that line of thought: what small chances one did have, realistically… But also that Schelokov had been absolutely right: given the decision to make again now…
‘Bob?’
Stocky figure materializing out of nowhere…
‘Here.’
‘There’ve been cavalry here. I’d guess a scouting patrol, and probably this morning. Their tracks aren’t even dusted. And it was coming down hard when we got here, remember?’
‘Might they still be here?’
‘No. Came and went. The later hoofmarks – superimposed on others – were made by the same number of horses leaving.’
‘Can you see that much?’
‘Feel, mostly.’ A hand spread itself in front of his eyes.
‘With this. See too, with your snout right on it. Like you can see my hand now. But do you get the implication?’
‘You mean, the place must be – uninhabited.’
‘Exactly.’ He touched Bob’s arm. ‘Come on. Let’s look around.’
Down a bank and to the right. At the corner, where the frame of the barn loomed over them, Schelokov pointed at where the track ran on, narrowing into darkness and enclosing trees. ‘Two horses went up there, then came back and rejoined their comrades in the farmyard here. It’s pretty clear they were just scouting the place out.’
It was about as dark as it was going to be, now. And – contrary to earlier indications – as it had ever been. The scent of fresh horse-manure could have been what had alerted Schelokov to the fact that horsemen might have been here.
‘Didn’t know you were a skilled tracker.’
‘Not much skill in it. Practice, mainly – two years leading scouting patrols into East Prussia. You learn something as you go along.’
The stable building was on their left, with its roof still intact. Inside, Schelokov struck a match. Four stables – boxes – with shoulder-height partitions and half-doors to the inner passage, and at the far end a tack-room. Nothing that told one anything.
Second barn on the right, next, on this south side. It had most of its roof still in place, and Schelokov said it had been the typhus isolation ward. Good reason not to linger… A line of posts and wire linked it to a larger building – cowshed, milking parlour, apparently. There were stalls in it, and in its south side sagging timber doors held shut by a wooden bar opened to the fenced area which they’d seen from the hillside earlier. Strong aroma of fresh manure, and the reek of urine: he was glad to be out of that one too – preceding his guide back into the central yard.
‘Over here now is the well. In which – you know, I told you—’
‘Yes.’
He wondered as they crossed the yard whether the farmer and his family had been dead before the mob threw them in. And how Markov’s people – his drivers, probably – would have set about clearing it. Someone would have had to go down inside, obviously. On a rope, and attach another rope, then be hauled back up – as many times as there were bodies.
‘Here. This is it.’
There was a horse-trough, a low stone wall encircling the well itself, and a gallows of heavy timber supporting a joist with an iron sheave for the bucket rope. The rope was in place, around the sheave, and the bucket was in the horse-trough. The sheave turned, squeaking, when he pushed it round.
Schelokov’s hand on Bob’s arm turned him to the right.
‘That – what you see there – was the dwelling-house. No roof, but the stove was in good order, so Markov had the tents pitched inside the walls. They rigged a tarpaulin above the stove.’
Single-storied: a typical izba – peasant’s house – in which in winter the whole family would have lived around the huge stove and slept on top of it. There was nothing else in there now, except a carpeting of snow, but Schelokov was nosing around while he continued his muttered commentary. ‘So this was the living quarters, and all the letuchka’s cooking was done on the stove here. The wards were in the stables where we came in, and in the large cowshed on the other side. Also this side – joined to this house – there’s a cartshed, and we fixed up its roof while I was here. Needed more room for the patients I’d brought in, you see.’
Most of the damage had been done by fire. The mob must have set light to all the timber buildings, although some seemed to have burned less well than others.
Outside again, Bob waited while Schelokov went into the cartshed. Its roof-line was a continuation of the izba’s, then further to the right the hay-shed with its loft – only a clutter of beams up there – rose half a storey higher.
Schelokov emerged.
‘Bob – tell you how I see this… First, I’d say the patrol that came here must have been looking for a place to stable horses – remounts, perhaps – or a base for themselves or others. Even a hospital – cavalry need veterinary hospitals, you know, tends to be a problem. But something of that sort. They made a thorough inspection, anyway – took time over it, their horses must have been in the barn there at least an hour or two. But what’s more interesting is this. When the letuchka was in operation there were beds, tents and other equipment, all over the place. Markov had small stoves set up in the makeshift wards, for instance. And his operating theatre was in this shed here – under the false ceiling, the floor of the loft. Well, most of this furniture was scavenged locally, and he certainly didn’t take it with him. And obviously the doctor or doctors with Letuchka chetiri – assuming they were here, for some period of time – would have made use of it. It was left for them… But there’s no table in there now. Nothing – nothing anywhere. And a mounted patrol of say a dozen men can’t ride off with tables, stoves, beds…’
‘Right.’
‘But nor could the letuchka people themselves – not in a rush, or at short notice.’
‘So your conclusion is they had ample time to pack up. Didn’t have to run for it suddenly. And – probably gone for some while?’
‘As we’d thought was probable, if you remember.’
‘But they could have been gone, say, a week or two, and – look, perhaps I’m being slow, but what would they have done with all that stuff? I mean—’ He’d stopped, looking round. ‘What—’
There’d been a clatter, from the hay-shed behind them.
Silence, now. He thought the sound had come from that shed, but – hard to be certain…
‘I’ll take a look.’ Schelokov started towards it. ‘You stay here, Bob, and—’
‘Wait!’
Engine-sound – some vehicle on the track leading up here from the road. A lorry, truck, by the sound of it… He saw it then – weak headlamps, moving left to right, visible briefly through a gap between two sheds, then it had gone out of sight behind the cowshed – but throwing all those semi-derelict shacks into silhouette as it rumbled on towards the farm entrance.
‘Coming here…’
‘Quick – inside!’
Schelokov pulled him towards the hay-shed. The truck noisily changing gear at the corner… One of the shed’s doors was jammed open and the other was missing except for a broken plank hanging from one hinge. Inside, the smell was of rotting fodder – damp, musty. ‘Here. Here, Bob… See – there are rungs fixed to this wall here. Here – where my hand is – got it? Follow me up, eh?’ He began climbing – the truck’s engine was loud outside there, by this time – Schelokov climbing towards a square aperture in what was effectively a timber ceiling but actually the floor of the loft. The rungs were screwed or nailed to the timber wall, their upper surfaces sloped towards the wall to provide finger-holds as well as footholds. Less decrepit than most of the structures around here: and not a long climb: the loft’s floor was only about eight feet from the ground.
It had its own floor-covering, too – several inches’ depth of rotted hay, waterlogged and malodorous. He was off the ladder and lying flat on it. Schelokov too. There was a glow of yellowish light down in the yard – stationary now, and the engine was switched off, coughing to itself a few times, wheezing into silence as a man’s voice called, ‘Keep the lights on, Mikhail… Hey, there’s the well. If the water’s good—’
‘It is. The lieutenant said so.’
Second visit of inspection?
Cavalry starting their move south, needing conveniently-placed halts en route: or – whatever, purposes such as Schelokov had been guessing at, just minutes ago. Conceivably the patrol who’d come earlier in the day had reported on this place as being suitable for whatever they were looking for, and now these – out from the village, perhaps, officials of some sort—
‘Chyort vozmi!’
An upheaval, close to him in the darkness: Schelokov had moved suddenly and violently. A whimper –
not in his tones – and more scuffling: a growl of ‘What the bloody hell…’ and a thud of impact…
‘Bob?’
‘Yes – what’s—’
‘We have – company. Hold still, you – or by God I’ll—’
‘Christ – my nose…’
‘Never mind your bloody nose – who are you?’
Some creature on its back, Schelokov on top… Then at a range of about twelve inches Bob saw he had one hand on this man’s throat, and his Nagant now unholstered in the other. Loud metallic click as he thumbed the hammer back. At the front edge of the loft floor: he’d have been inching forward to get a better view down into the yard, and – come up against this character.
That noise they’d heard – and forgotten, in the truck’s arrival…
But if he used his pistol, for God’s sake – with those people only yards away down there – even the brief scuffle and the sound of the revolver being cocked had seemed loud enough. Especially when you were virtually on a stage – could have stood up, taken a bow: ‘Gentlemen, for our next act…’
‘Excellency – proshu vas—’ hoarse, anguished whisper – ‘beg you, sir, you’re throttling—’
Ukrainian accent. It had taken a moment to identify it. Being slightly preoccupied with what was happening in the yard: and how long it would be before they heard or saw… Schelokov’s mutter: ‘Tell me very, very quietly who you are and what you’re doing here. Or believe me, I will throttle you.’
‘Maltsev. Ivan Ivan’ich Maltsev. I was – hiding. Saw the motor’s lights coming. I’d been watching you – hiding from you, thought you must be—’
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