The Playground of Satan Part 41

"Very well," retorted Ian, furious. "If you send him off the train we all go. I'll tramp to Warsaw, but I won't leave him."

"He's neither so old nor weak as he looks," put in Ostap. "I'll answer for him to do his work here."

"You won't answer for prisoners getting loose," retorted the subaltern.

However, Martin was finally put with the engine-driver. He sat on the floor by the wood-chest and slept for ten hours, without feeling or hearing anything, though people came and went and he found somebody's dog fast asleep on his chest when he awoke.

It seemed as though they would never start. Several times the word was given, only to be rescinded. Many human odds and ends of a military camp arrived, apparently from nowhere, and demanded to be allowed standing-room amongst the prisoners. The weary subaltern protested and swore but all applicants seemed to find places. Before they left two empty trains came up from Warsaw to take wounded. Ian noticed they were roped like the Orsov train. In a remarkably short time they were packed, inside and out, with sick and wounded whom Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was striving to get off before the Germans came. He was an amiable lawyer in private life, with a pa.s.sion for music and a speculative mind.

Ian had the satisfaction of hearing later on that he left neither man, woman nor child behind at the camp, that he saw everything was burnt that the troops could not carry away and that he even made the grain uneatable by pouring petrol over it.

The delay fretted Ian, for he was in a good deal of pain from his broken ribs and feverish as well, suffering agonies of thirst. He had a hasty visit from Minnie and Healy, who came up as near as they could to shout him good-bye.

"We're off," said she. "I wish you were looking more comfortable."

"Oh, I'm all right. I forgot to get some water, that's all."

Healy went off and brought a bottle full. And he insisted on Ian's taking a packet of cigarettes.

"I'll reach Warsaw before you," he urged. "So do take them all. I'll keep the car there as long as I dare. Look me up at the American Consulate. You know where it is?"

"No. But I can find out."

"Good. Mind, your seat will be kept till we start."

"When is that?"

"When the Grand Duke leaves. They say here he leaves to-night. But I don't believe it. And I'm not going to forget Poland. When I've got more stores I'm coming back again."

He watched them go off in a cloud of dust. They had luck with love, he reflected. They would get on very well together. He knew Healy was well off, and Minnie had a little fortune of her own. And they would spend it wisely, helping those poorer than themselves. He had no hope of marrying Vanda. Joseph was well and safe. He ought to have been glad of it, he knew. But he hated his cousin bitterly, all the more bitterly as ruin closed around him and years of exile filled his tired vision. Very likely he would get killed before his rival.

Ostap was very cheerful. After telling the prisoners what they were to expect if they tried any nonsense he shared his last cigarette with one of them. Ian seemed to hear his voice all the time. It broke into his sorrowful meditations and sometimes got mixed up with them, for the fever made him rather muddle-headed.

"We haven't ammunition," Ostap said. "But we use the knife instead.

There were hundreds of you in that camp wounded with our bayonets. All ours are wounded with sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel because you are afraid to come too close."

"We have enough ammunition to beat the world," put in a thick German voice; it belonged to one who had been a clerk in Moscow.

"Perhaps," agreed Ostap. "But we have more men and don't care if we die or not. That will beat the people who beat the world, in the end."

Thus the talk went on. Ian dozed on his perch, wondering at last who was beating the world and where the ammunition came from. And just before sunset they arrived at Sohaczev.

XIX

Here, a rough surprise awaited them. They were bundled off the train without ceremony by a transport officer, whose temper was so bad that the memory of Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was pleasant in comparison.

"Off with you!" he shouted. "We're not going to a party. This is war."

"But we were put in charge of this train by the transport officer at the last camp," protested Ostap.

"The devil take the train. I've got wounded to send off."

"Then what are we to do?" asked Ian.

"Hang yourselves," was the polite reply and the officer turned on his heel.

The fugitives, standing in an indignant little group on the platform, hustled by the many pa.s.sers-by, turned to Ostap. He was a soldier and ought to help them out of their new predicament.

"What next?" asked Ian, voicing the thought of his followers.

"G.o.d knows." He looked round at the mult.i.tude of races who jostled and cursed and shouted and implored. "If only I could see a Cossack I might get some information. But all the tribes of the Empire seem to be here except ours."

"Look! They're marching off our German prisoners," cried Dulski, the Ruvno village blacksmith, a huge, good-natured man, whose three sons were fighting, and whose wife had gone on Vera Petrovna's train. "They must be going to Warsaw. If we follow them we can't go astray."

"On foot!" exclaimed Ostap. "Not if I know it. And you, Count!"

"I'd rather tramp than be left here, but I think we ought to try and get a lift first. I know this town and may find a Jew who will sell us something to go in." He turned to the peasants: "Don't any of you move from the station till I tell you. Here's money to buy food." He handed Dulski a twenty-rouble note and was off in search of a horse and cart.

First, however, they tried to get some information from the station-master about possible trains to Warsaw. But they might as well have talked to the moon, for all the answer they could get.

"Let us go outside," said Ian after wasting precious time in their vain quest for information. "If there are any Jews with a horse and cart to sell we shall find them there."

The precincts of the station were as crowded as the camp had been. But they found, on talking to the loiterers, that most of the citizens had decided to stay where they were. Ian noticed a prosperous horse-dealer of the race of Israel, in a new alpaca _halat_ and a pair of very s.h.i.+ny top-boots.

"There's our man," he said in relief. "If there's a bit of horseflesh left in the place Hermann has got it to sell."

Hermann met their request with florid expressions of sympathy and devotion. With tears in his eyes he swore he could not provide a lift.

"There's not a beast on four legs left within twenty versts or more," he said regretfully. "What with the army and the refugees we're as bare as that." And thrusting out the palm of one fat hand he pointed to it with the other.

Ian turned to his companion.

"There's nothing for us but to tramp it," he said sadly.

The horse-dealer shot out his arms in unaffected horror. In eastern Europe only the poor go on foot. Bad roads and good horses have something to do with people's dislike for walking.

"Tramp to Warsaw!" he cried. "The Lord of Ruvno tramp those horrible roads! Such a thing was never heard of. Peasants and the poorest Jews do that ... but no gentleman!"

"The times have changed," remarked Ostap. "But if you are so shocked at the thought of it do you help us to ride."

"Wait I will ask some of ours what is to be done."

He disappeared into a dirty-looking general shop which stood close at hand. In a very short time he emerged, beaming all over his broad, greasy face.

"My Lord Count," he cried, bursting with importance, "I have arranged everything. There will be a train."

"The last is just leaving," said Ostap. "We were turned off it to make room for the wounded."