Little Lost Lambs at the Post

by Harold Lamb

  "I am not a courtier, child,” he said, as if to himself.

  "No, you are not. It is only a little thing that will make a great difference in—in your career. Mention Nassau also with praise, please do. Potemkin needs you, but he loves Nassau.”

  Jones was silent a moment. Then, brusquely, he motioned them from the cabin.

  If Nick had not been drowsy with his wound, if Anya had dared tell the Yankee that she would have to read his report to Potemkin—but how could anyone tell Paul Jones, excited by the battle, a thing like that? It was late in the evening when he sent Ivak for Anya and gave her the sheet of paper, folded twice and carefully sealed, addressed to "Her Imperial Majesty.” He seemed to be happy because of what he had written.

  For long moments the girl lingered by Nick at the rail before going down into the cutter that would take her ashore. She kept saying that she would be all right. Looking up into his face, she said, "You have the diamond, Nick. Good-by.”

  She did not look back when they rowed her away under a blazing torch.

  They did not expect to see her the next day—until Ensign Strelsky, the very hussar who had awakened Anya at the serai, came on board to summon Paul Jones to a private audience with Potemkin. Nick departed eagerly, hoping to see Anya, and Jones clad himself carefully in a dress uniform of blue cloth with his ribbon of a Chevalier and his sword of honor. Eh, he stepped proudly into the cutter rowed by the Don Cossacks, to go on the shore and be greeted by the marshal after the victory.

  In the hour of sunset he came back, sitting very quietly in the boat and going straight down to his dismantled cabin. Yet Ivak saw how pale Jones was, and how his fingers twisted at his vest and the gold hilt of the sword. Also in the boat with him and Nick came Strelsky and the lieutenant who had been the first interpreter for Jones. Those two brought their baggage, and Nick took Strelsky aside to talk with him for long minutes before he would pay attention to Ivak.

  "Our admiral, Ivak,” he said at last, "is out of favor.”

  "How, out of favor?”

  Nick rubbed the bandage on his head helplessly. "The Yankee wrote in his report only of the men and ships under his command. Strelsky told me that. And Anya, who had to read it, told Potemkin it was the truth. Aye, that she had seen it. She ——"

  Ivak shook his head, understanding a little.

  Suddenly Nick burst out, "Potemkin wasn’t the same man—not like Kherson! He was angry; he kept demanding why Jones did not act, and destroy the Turkish fleet that was holding back the army. How could we go under the guns of a fortress with these wrecks, Ivak? Jones tried to explain how he was keeping up a blockade, and Potemkin pointed at that devil of a kirlangich—the felucca of the captain pasha, saying that it was coming and going in spite of Jones’ blockade. Then Jones lost his head; said no one could tell him how to handle his ships. He made a mistake, with Potemkin angry. But I had to translate his words. Potemkin kept pointing at that vessel and telling Jones to act courageously ... to capture that kirlangich. And Jones said he would tonight.” Ivak peered into the sunset and shook his head. The kirlangich lay moored among the distant fleet under the guns of a bastion. He thought, to set the vessel on fire by shells might be possible, if they had such guns. But not to cut out the kirlangich and sail her away.

  Nick would not think about the felucca. He had seen nothing of Anya, and Strelsky would say nothing more about her; only that she had dared say to Potemkin that Jones had written the truth. Then they could talk no more, because Jones appeared on the afterdeck in his worn sea clothing and asked for volunteers to go with him to take the kirlangich. When Nick protested, the Yankee silenced him.

  It seemed to Ivak, as darkness fell, that the death foreseen by Anya was coming to one of them. When he found brandy among the Don Cossacks, who had managed to bring some out from shore, he drank and they drank until they decided to steal long boats from Nassau’s flotilla, because they were ready to go with Little Father Jones to take the kirlangich.

  Because of the brandy and the darkness, Ivak did not remember clearly how it happened. He remembered that the injured Nick dropped into a boat with him and the owner of the knife, and that they rowed in the cold of early morning against the wind.

  He remembered how the Cossack who owned the knife was killed among the pistol flashes in the fighting on the deck of the kirlangich, and how Jones, who had no sword with him, picked up the knife; how they got the sail up, under the blasting of cannon, and how cymbals kept clashing to sound the alarm. How, in the gray light before dawn, the little vessel sat on a sandbank, while Jones tried to warp her off with an anchor and winch, until shells from their own ships, from Nassau’s gunboats, set the kirlangich afire, and Jones at last gave the order to abandon her and get away in the boats. So it happened that they left the kirlangich to burn and did not bring her back, a prize for Potemkin, as Jones had promised.

  For more than a month, until the message came, the Vladimir and her frigates marched back and forth before the port of Okzakov, while Nick’s wound healed. But the little Yankee, although he had no demands on him after the battle damage was repaired upon his ship, became like a sick man. In the night, instead of measuring the water, he would write long letters to Potemkin, begging for explanations.

  Strelsky, who carried the letters, dropped hints about the talk he had heard on shore; that Potemkin’s advisers said the Yankee admiral would serve under no one, and no one would serve under him; that in the battle he had lost two ships, while Nassau had lost none and had destroyed six large Turkish frigates of more than forty guns with all their crews; that the Yankee had kept a woman, his mistress, in his cabin all the time. Only a little of the talk had truth in it.

  Because he did not have a bad heart, and because he enjoyed dropping hints, Strelsky let Nick have an inkling of news about Anya, a word or two at a time. Of course, she was well. Potemkin was protecting her. For her good, she had been sent away to a cell. The cell was as safe as in a monastery, yet luxurious.

  What could the Scotsman do? Anya had talked too much to the foreigners; she knew all the messages that had passed to and from Jones. Her usefulness, like his, had ended. Nick brooded over that, unable to go from Jones’ side. All his cocksure spirit had left him. He sat for hours without speaking even to Ivak, because his soul was sick.

  Then Strelsky brought the message from headquarters. A courier had come from Catherine, from Petersburg. Great rewards had been given for the battle—the Cross of St. George to Potemkin, and to Nassau also, who was promoted, like Alexiano, to vice-admiral and given estates besides. A fortune, and more. A diamond-studded sword of honor for Potemkin, a sapphire-set sword for Nassau, with twenty-four gold-inlaid swords for the officers of Nassau’s flotilla.

  For the officers who had served under Jones there was nothing. Jones himself had received a minor decoration, the Order of St. Anne.

  Strelsky saw how his announcement had hurt the pride of the Yankee, and in silence he handed Jones a sealed missive. Jones’ eyes brightened at sight of the imperial seal. Then he read the message from Catherine: "By desire of Her Imperial Majesty, based upon necessity, the sphere of service of M. the Chevalier Paul Jones is fixed in the northern seas.”

  He was relieved of his command. Although he was sick, Jones did not complain. He asked Nick to thank the ensign, Strelsky, for bringing the message from Her Majesty, and he thanked Nick for rendering him brave service beyond ordinary call of duty. After a moment he explained that the hardships of the journey down and the fatigue of service had given him a rheum, so that he would need to stop at the hospital at Kherson on his journey north.

  To Ivak he made a gift, in remembrance of the times they had rowed together among the enemy. Aye, he gave the knife picked up on the deck of the kirlangich, after tracing on it some words with the yellow diamond that Nick handed him. When he gave the diamond back, he looked carefully at Nick.

  "Mr. McRae,” he said, "I hope you will find the Lady Anya. If you do, keep her with you. Then you wil
l have more than any Order of St. Anne.”

  Now, Nick had never ventured to speak to him of the girl. Did Paul Jones have no wife of his own after all his adventuring at sea? Was he thinking of how Anya had warned him that he must submit his pride to Potemkin if he wished to prosper? Or did he feel lonely in his sickness, so far from his home?

  In his weathered blue cape, Jones went alone from the Vladimir, as he had come. No bos’n piped the admiral down, and no coterie of officers stood at salute for him. Only Nick and Ivak followed.

  Yet, as Jones went down the ladder, voices followed. Up the ladders of ropes, along the rail and from the open ports by the guns, the men of the crew watched him go—rivermen and those from the Volga and the Don, the Cossacks and the Tatars. "Little Father Jones!” they called softly, for the sons of dogs were grieving. "Little Father Jones!” they called down as he stepped into the cutter. He waved back with his hand, then he waved with his hat.

  At the Kherson pier where he said good-by to Nick and Ivak, there was a carriage waiting to take him to the hospital, and in the carriage were Strelsky and the other interpreter. When Strelsky had put Jones’ valises in the back, Nick stopped him to ask for the last time if he had no more news of Anya. While he asked, Nick felt in his vest pocket and drew out the gleaming diamond, holding it so the ensign could see it.

  Strelsky smiled, shaking his head. "Anya Graeme?” he said impassively. "I don’t know any such woman.”

  It was as if she had vanished, never to be seen again.

  Nick turned the diamond over in his fingers, then thrust it into Strelsky’s hand. "Keep it for a remembrance,” he said. "It wasn’t worth so much, really.”

  When the carriage rolled away, he began to walk with Ivak through the mud, with nothing in his hand but the book that he kept to read. He had given up Potemkin’s diamond. He had nothing left to help him search for Anya, and all the river and steppe to walk through after her. But the one thing in his heart was to find her and keep her. And from that minute the omens were good.

  Aye, they stopped near the garden of the palace because he had seen her walking there. Because they waited like that among the lemon trees, Ivak, to ease his mind, told him how he had first found Anya in Potemkin’s splendid cell.

  At that, Nick cried out as if he had seen the girl’s ghost. "Safe! In a cell with every luxury! It might be that! God bless Strelsky’s tongue!”

  Calling to Ivak to come, he ran as if possessed to the small door through which Potemkin admitted visitors to his office. They found it locked, not bolted. Ivak would have tried to pick the lock with his new knife, but Nick pushed him away and drew the two pistols from his belt, firing them into the lock. They pushed in the damaged door.

  There was a woman servant who ran screaming out the other door, where a guard stared stupidly. Anya only waited, breathless, until Nick caught her up in his arms. The omens were good for them. They had no gold, they had no ship, but a night bird cried out before them as Ivak led them out into the steppe ... to hide them in his house in the village of Kurgan.

  When the Cossack Andriushko had finished his story, he sat down on the step of the Viking’s tomb. "And Pavel,” he asked, "did he find his way to his own country again?”

  Dr. David Merrick turned it over in his mind and nodded. He, who taught history, had felt for an hour the reality of the thing he taught. Henceforth he would not doubt the evidence of Andriushko’s knife or the name of the Lady Anya.

  "Yes,” he answered, remembering, "he did. Pavel never recovered from the sickness that began here at the edge of the sea. Perhaps, as you say, his soul also was sick, because he died soon after, in a place called Paris. Then, after a long time, he was remembered, and a ship came to take him home.”

  "A Yankee ship, of the line of battle? ”

  "A fleet.”

  After he had considered this, Andriushko nodded with satisfaction, and the listening folk of Kurgan repeated the word, as if something that had been missing was added to their story.

  Onslaught Of Terror

  WHILE the battalion waited for the J-47 jet planes to arrive from their base and theoretically support us, we had plenty of time to admire the scenery in the beautiful surroundings shown on our maps as a strategic plateau. I noticed a gray tower rising from an oak grove, a water wheel idle in the rushing stream, and peasant-type carts creaking along the road beneath—over which we’d placed our heavy machine guns to bear in the general direction of Vienna.

  The battalion’s mission at 10:00 that midsummer’s day during ETO’s maneuvers was to cover this road that threaded through the mountain ridge. I felt out of place in such a quiet old world. Mac felt more than that.

  "Funny,” he remarked, staring at the fields below us to the east. Then, not saying any more, he began to whistle snatches from Smetana’s Moldau. Mac had a way of picking up things like that, and of reading books we did not know existed.

  It was Venarey who started Mac to talking about what he had on his mind. Venarey had got into a discussion about new weapons, all the way from David’s sling, which was new to Goliath, to the jet planes. According to him, weapons didn’t matter as much, by the light of history, as organization. And he had a queer idea that the best-organized armies had come out of the east in bygone times. The Huns, Mongols and Turks, and others that I forget. He called them unbeatable.

  "What was ever unbeatable?” I scoffed.

  "The Mongols of Genghis Khan,” said Venarey. "The Tartars.”

  When he began to tell us how these Tartar horsemen from Asia had made hash of the Eastern European armies seven hundred years ago, Mac listened intently. "Wasn’t it just about here,” he asked, "that the Tartar invasion stopped and turned back?”

  Venarey reflected and nodded. "Yes, certainly.”

  "Then, if the Tartars never met their match, what turned them back?”

  Venarey shrugged. History, he admitted, did not say. And after seven centuries, who could say?

  Mac looked at the tower and the carts creaking down the grade. "Perhaps the man who saw them turn back.” He looked at us as if puzzled. "The thing I read, bound up in a chronicle of the city of Vienna”— he laughed—"it told about a guy like us, in a place like this.” We listened to Mac explaining.

  The Axman ran with a fear in him. Behind him there was a mighty sating of raven birds and feeding of wolves. Back there, roofs were flaming and people fleeing to the forests. He had caught only a glimpse of the terror that had come to Europe out of the east, with the melting of the snows in that year of 1242. But that glimpse had shown him an army gathered to stand against the terror from the east, and then no more an army except where the dead lay under the gathering ravens, and fugitives ran.

  So the Axman ran to the west. His long withe-bound legs plodded steadily down a stream that might bring him out on the bank of the river Moldau beyond which lay his home. He had thrown away his steel cap and his pack, but he kept his doubleheaded ax loose in the fingers of his right hand.

  When he sighted the tower on the bank above him, the Axman went up to have a spy around the countryside. This gray tower, middling small, rose from the ruined square of an outwall, like any one of a score of poor keeps. It seemed deserted, but he had served too long with warfarers to trust appearances.

  Above the water wheel and the grist stone he waited until he was satisfied that the pigeons rising from the tower had been startled by no other than himself. Entering the broken stones of the outwall, he leaned on his ax, listening—a craggy man with scars showing in the hair of his arms and head. Then he strode through the entrance, which lacked a door.

  Inside he saw only scattered gear and furnishings. On a kerchief lay two round loaves of bread. Still listening, the Axman seized one of these, broke it over his knee and pulled off a chunk with his fingers.

  The cling-clong of a bell caught his attention. Not, he decided, the bell of a ridden horse. The bell of a walking beast, a sheep or cow. Aye, a cow. Stepping to the doorway, keeping out of the
sunlight, he beheld the cow being dragged into the wall by a girl.

  After he was certain the girl had no one with her, the Axman thrust the remainder of his loaf into his belt pouch and stepped out. She shrank back from him, her blue eyes wide in her plump, hot face. She stood helplessly against the cow, watching him.

  The Axman was going by her toward the stream, when he heard her hard quick breathing and stopped. "Why are you not gone?” he asked.

  For a moment, she was too frightened to speak, then she told him, in the Moravian dialect, "They could not find Brigetta, so I waited to find her.”

  Arn the Axman, the Saxon warfarer, scowled at the sun, high at noon. His instinct, quickened by the fear in him, told him to go fast on his way. Still he lingered to say, "Listen to me, lass, and do not shake for fear I will harm you. Leave the beast and take yourself off as fast as you can.”

  She shook her head, mute again. Angered, he argued with her. Twisting her hands, she seemed like to cry before she said she would do his bidding. She scurried into the tower room to gather up her keepsakes. Then, before the cow girl was ready, his ear caught the trampling of horses, laden and moving smartly. When he placed the sound back of the tower, he ran into it and peered down from an embrasure. Back of the tower the slope fell away steep, down to a highroad. Along this a company of men unfamiliar to Arn the Axman drew nearer at a steady swinging pace.

  Twelve tens of them he counted—their dull mail lead-colored, their steel caps feathered, their leather jack coats green and brown. Only two were mounted, although a mighty baggage train followed on pack horses; yet all of them had thin yellow staffs of wood slung over their shoulders. Bows. As they marched they sang:

  "Yew for the wood,

  Wings for the feather.

  Stand we all

  And drink together.”