The Playground of Satan Part 36

"Eh, G.o.d, but we can't do more than a verst an hour if this kind of ground goes on, and I know this part. It's cut up like h.e.l.l. We shall be clambering in and out of trenches and dodging wire and dead bodies all the way. We might do three versts an hour by the road. None of you are walkers. Nor I. We Cossacks are more at home on horses' backs than our feet. You walk as if every step hurt you."

"There's something inside me that grates about as I move," admitted Ian.

"Broken ribs. I had them several times. If you tie them up it's all right, but a bit nasty if you let them jog into your flesh."

They stumbled on a bit and avoided some more wire, making a long detour to do it. Ian noticed that, whereas his mother and the two girls kept up better than he thought they could, the Father showed signs of exhaustion, though he did his bravest to hide it.

"The priest," whispered Ostap. "We shall be carrying him soon. Another reason for going to the road."

Ian said nothing, knowing he was right. In fact, he soon doubted if any of them could keep up this kind of exercise very long. The ground was intersected with trenches, and full of pitfalls in the way of tree-stumps. They had all been working since daybreak, even the Father, who was fit only for bed. Ostap was a worse walker than Ian himself, bruised and shaken by the sh.e.l.l which buried him near the church and led to their worst troubles. Ostap said he had no sleep for two nights, being afraid to doze on Sietch's back for fear of getting entrapped.

Father Constantine almost fought to keep his knapsack; but they managed to get that from him.

"Even if we do three versts an hour, it will take ten hours to Sohaczev," remarked Ostap, when they had struggled thus for some time without much progress. "... Walking all the time. That's an impossibility. What hour is it now?"

Ian took out his watch. It had stopped. The gla.s.s was smashed, too.

Ostap studied the summer sky with some attention.

"It is one o'clock," he said after a moment. "In two hours or so it will be the dawn. We can perhaps cover six versts by then, by the road.

Then we must rest for an hour, or we shall be dead."

"This will be hard on the Father," Ian whispered.

"Yes. And listen. By three we may cover six versts on the road. That leaves twenty-four. We start again at four, a good hour to walk, for it is fresh. We go on till six. That leaves us twenty-two versts, for we shall be going slower than three an hour, say two ... where was I?

"Twenty-two versts from Sohaczev."

"We rest an hour, walk three versts more. That makes eight o'clock ...

we are yet nineteen versts from our goal."

"There's a village nineteen versts from Sohaczev," Ian put in. "Vulki, it's called."

"We rest a bit. Then we make a great effort, and if we are lucky, by noon we are ten versts from Sohaczev."

"We'll never catch the Grand Duke," said Vanda, who was with the two men.

"Who knows? But at ten versts from Sohaczev there is a large camp. Or there was. If we are lucky we shall find some of the men there, or a place in a train, for there is the railway, unless we have already destroyed it. But we shouldn't do that till the last minute, for we are retreating with as little loss to ourselves as can be. Then we are safe for either headquarters at Sohaczev, or Warsaw. And Warsaw leads to anywhere in Russia. I shall join my troop, and you can rest till the war is over. It must be over sometime, even the Prussians can't help that. And then your mother, who is a brave woman, and a really great lady, can come back and rebuild your house. And you can marry your sisters in the meantime."

"They are not my sisters."

"Then the young lady is your bespoken wife."

"My husband is a volunteer in the Cossack army," said Vanda.

Ostap gave a little shout of pleasure. "Oh--good! Which troop?"

"The Kuban troop."

"And the other young lady by your mother?"

"Is English. She has been very good and kind in helping us through our troubles. She has lost one brother in the war."

"And I three. I spit upon my life. And upon money. I want to fight the Prussians and burn down a few of their towns before I am killed by them, or the cholera. For that is almost as sure as their sh.e.l.ls."

"Have you no family to keep?" asked the Countess.

"I have. But they have the farm and the wife can look after that when the time comes for my old father to die. Then my two boys will do their service, too, but I want them to go to good schools first."

"But you said you spat upon money."

"I mean for its own sake. There is enough on the farm to keep them at school. We Cossacks are beginning to wake up and have our boys and girls taught things besides fighting and horses. But Tsars have taken away all our autonomy, little by little, and have never given us the free use of all our land, like they promised. Many men in the troop find it a great burden to supply their own horses, guns and uniforms."

He was silent after that and then began again with:

"You, on the other hand, must be a powerful man, for the peasants I used to talk to when we were at Kosczielna spoke about Ruvno and its lord."

Ian told him they were mined, and had nothing but their jewels, half of which they had left behind.

"But they must be worth many farms and horses," he argued. "People like you don't bury treasure for a few roubles. As to what you left under your horse-farm, it is quite safe. The earth is your best friend in war; better than banks."

Ian said nothing. The others, too, listened in silence. There was something attractive about his frank speech and simple outlook of life.

But Ian had always noticed that about the Russians. The Poles, with their old civilization, had become as complex as the French.

"I am sorry those rascals have burned you down," he resumed. "The castle was a fine thing. I often saw it from the distance. But I should have liked most of all to see the horses you bred...."

Ian and he talked horses then, and got a little in front of the others, till a m.u.f.fled cry from the back recalled them. Father Constantine was on the ground.

"He fell," said Vanda. "I am afraid he has fainted."

"No, I haven't," he retorted with a shadow of his old spirit. "I'll be--well--in a moment."

The Countess was for giving him brandy, but Ostap intervened.

"Soak some into this," and he tore off a piece of his rye loaf, which they gave him. It finished their stock of brandy, but revived the priest, who was on his feet in another moment.

"I can walk now," he said bravely.

"No. I'm going to carry you," said Ian. Father Constantine made a step forward, then fainted in earnest.

"Let me look," said Vanda. "I believe his wound has opened."

She bent over him and said:

"Yes. It ought to be bandaged. But how?

"Your handkerchiefs," said Ostap. But they remembered that they were filthy after the digging operations and feared to use one till they could rinse it out. Ian made up his mind that they must go back to the road.

"Yes," said his mother, willing enough now. "We'll never get along on these ghastly battle-fields."