Chapter XVII

Although it was easy to see that the Countess and the chaplain were tired, Ian listened to his mother's entreaties to set out without any rest; for who could sleep within sight of their ruined home? Besides, time was precious, unless they were prepared to remain under the Prussian rule; and they decided that exile, beggary, anything would be better than living in some town to see them every day and every hour of the day.... Their way lay through what had been the home forest, by paths and fields that run south of Kosczielna, thence south-west to Sohaczev. It was already the last day of July and the Prussians at Ruvno had been boasting that they would be in Warsaw for the third of August; and the Kaiser's second son crowned King of Poland, in the old palace, within a month. They were a couple of days late in getting into Warsaw, and Poland's crown is not yet on a Hohenzollern's head.

The fear that the Grand Duke might no longer be in Sohaczev haunted them all. Even as the crow flies, Ruvno was twenty versts from there. By the road, which ran fairly straight, it was thirty. By cutting across country, by the ways which Ian and Vanda knew well, he thought they could save five versts, thus leaving twenty-five to cover. He and Ostap, walking a little ahead, to warn the others of barbed wire and trenches, soon saw what the short cut meant.

"I'm for getting back to the road," said the Cossack.

"But it is much further." Ian explained the distances.

"Eh, God, 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 Hell. 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 shell 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 glass 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 shells."

"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 muffled 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."

So they started for the road, Ian carrying Father Constantine on his shoulders, regaining the highway by a little shrine, with an image of the Madonna. Many years before the Countess had put it there as a thanksgiving offering, when Ian recovered from an attack of scarlet fever. The peasants of the neighborhood used to say that it had miraculous powers to heal all sick children. So it was very popular with mothers of families.

"Who's there?" cried a familiar voice from the darkness.

"Your own people," answered they.

It was poor old Martin, who had been carried on in the general stampede; but he had grown very tired, and seeing the others were not amongst the mob, had the good sense to await them there, knowing they must pass the shrine on their way to safety. He had fallen asleep to find, on waking, that the moon was set and the night at its darkest.

"The others?" asked Ian. "Where are they?"

"Mother of God, they rushed on. They are mad with fear," he answered sadly. "Some fell and did not get up again. Old Vatsek, and somebody's child. The road is hard, being strewn with rubbish, what the other fugitives and soldiers have left for lack of strength."

"Seen any horses, or carts?" asked Ostap.

"Dead ones, under the moon ... they lie as they dropped, in the shafts."

"Far?"

"A quarter of a verst."

Ostap and Ian, leaving Martin with the others, went off to look for a cart. They wanted to get the side of one for Father Constantine. It would be better for him than carrying him on their backs. They had to grope about for some time, because it was the moment before dawn when night is darkest, when neither moon nor the streaks of coming day help you, when the air strikes chill to the very marrow and the heart has least courage. They finally found what they wanted by the smell of decomposing horseflesh, which guided them to a peasant's cart. They broke off one side of it, and took, too, some straw they found at the bottom. When they went back to the others the Father was talking.

"Go on," he argued. "Leave me.... I have God.... I shall not be alone."

And he said this more than once before he reached the end of his journey.

Ian managed to find a warm cover, too, and they made him as comfortable as they could. Then they ate some bread and cheese, saving the tinned meat for the morning. There was a spring near this spot, so they drank water and bathed their faces. As well as they could in the dark they washed out Ian's handkerchief--the largest--and bound up the sick man's head. The cold, damp linen revived him.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"Going to Warsaw."

"Where is my diary?"

They knew he used to keep one and did not like to tell him it was under Ruvno's ruins. So they said nothing.

"Please give it me. I want it," he urged feebly.

"What does he want?" asked Ostap.

Ian told him.

"I remember," said the Cossack, "he did take two books out of his skirt pocket, there under the moon when you were digging up the treasure. He put them in his nose-bag." He slung it off his back, drew out the two books and handed them to the sick man, who eagerly clutched at them.

"Ian," he said, "come here." When his patron obeyed he gave him the two little books, bound in black oilcloth, such as children write their copies in.

"Keep them," he said with an effort. "Have them published. People must know what Poland endures."

"I will," said Ian, putting them in his knapsack.

"Have you them safe?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Now, give me the little Crucifix. It is in the nose-bag that Cossack brought us."

They did so. He clasped it tight and pressed it to his lips. It seemed to give him strength. "I'll keep it to the end--of my journey," he said. "Countess, forgive me, all forgive me, for adding to your burden with my infirmities."

All tried to reassure him, and he spoke no more for a long time. They knew he suffered much. His head and hands burned with the fever that was consuming him.

They started off again.

Ostap was right about the road being easier. But it was even more horrible than the fields. In spite of debris, bits of soldiers' accoutrements and stiff, silent noisome forms scattered in their path, there was no comparison between it and barbed wire or trenches, so far as walking went. They walked for another hour, Martin taking short turns with one end of the stretcher whilst either Ostap or Ian rested their arms. They trudged steadily on, knowing that every step took them nearer Warsaw, further from the Prussians. Ostap and Ian, with the litter, took the side of the road, for the middle, cut with a year's war traffic, was no better than a plowed field. The three women walked near, to do the little that was possible for the patient. Martin walked by Ian, to tell him what he saw and heard with the fleeing villagers. Ian told him how Ruvno ended. They spoke low because of the Father; instinctively--but heavy guns would not have aroused him from his delirious torpor.

As dawn came on, painting the sky with gray and purple and the breeze grew less chill, Ian could see more and more plainly the desolation that lay around. Not a living creature did they meet. But the dead were many. The few surviving trees were bare as in a January frost; the roadside and neighboring fields, strewn, not only with every kind of garment, every simple article of a peasant's cottage, but with costly things which must have been a soldier's loot, with the soldier's mortal remains; and with their knapsacks, caps, ragged boots and bits of kit. Dead horses were many, too; and dead peasants, of both sexes and every age, were not a few. And he passed near by these things, flotsam and jetsam of war, passed dead hamlets, where only ruins remained, and one dead mother he saw, her new-born child near by, and dead, too. He hoped the others had not noticed, for it was the most terrible sight of all. And as the dawn spread he could see the distant fields with the burnt corn, the trenches full of horrid sights and an army's rubbish, burnt trees, wire twisted as by gigantic hands; ruined crops, ruined homes, broken lives and perished hopes.... And this was all they had left of Poland.

And when his weary eyes turned from the misery around and fell upon his dear ones, he saw how fitted they were to travel the road of death and despair.

The three women, dainty all their lives, were ragged, dirty, disheveled, their thin frocks covered with horse-blankets which were stained with blood. What did the future hold for those brave souls? He preferred not to think of that, and turned to look at Ostap, black with dirt and tan, coatless, his arms far too long for the Prussian's jersey, his feet bare and bleeding, for the boots proved too tight and he had cast them aside, his long hair wild and dusty, his nose swollen, a scar across his face; he looked as ferocious a member of an army as you could ever fear to meet. Martin had aged twenty years since he served supper the night before; he limped along painfully, his house-boots worn through with the rough tramp. Happily, the women were sensibly shod, having put on their strongest boots for yesterday's field work.

Looking on Father Constantine's ashen face, Ian knew his hours were numbered. The seal of death was on it. The thin hands which had clasped the crucifix so eagerly a little while back were clutching at the rags with which they had covered him....

The forlorn party took stock of each other furtively for some time. Then their eyes met; and they smiled.

"It is war," said Ostap. And, noting their low spirits, he did the best to cheer them with the humorous side of his year's campaign. It made them forget how dirty they looked, helped them to grow accustomed to their new selves, perhaps. Now that the light was good, Ian noticed that the Cossack's dark eyes were intelligent and merry. He had that contempt for death which enabled the retreating Russians to make ramparts of their bodies when ammunition failed. He gave them unwittingly a grim story of crippled men, muddled orders, peculation and pilfering; with that childlike literalness which is wholly Russian and the dash of fatality which stiffens courage, and makes men patient under pain....

They made a wide detour before reaching Kosczielna, fearing to run into the Prussians again, and none wished for that. No sounds came from its ruins; but many gray forms showed how well that Russian sapper, in Ruvno church did his signaling. The fugitives had planned to rest awhile near the little town; but the place was so horrible that they hurried on, quickening their pace, to leave the orgy of death behind, though death went with them step by step.

At Vulki they made a halt. Here there were signs of life, the first since they left home, though the village had been destroyed. But they found that a dozen or so of Ruvno peasants had halted there, and were cooking a few potatoes they dragged from its wreckage. Baranski, whom they had chosen as leader, saw the little procession and hurried to meet it.

"Oh--my Lady Countess," he cried, kissing her hand, "to think you have come to this plight, and the young ladies, too, and you, my lord Count, and the Father--oh, if I could only help you. But there is nothing here. Some of ours have started back to Ruvno over the fields. They hope to creep back into the village unseen by the Prussians and pretend they never left. The sight of all this misery is too much for them. They fear they will die like dogs if they go any further."

"And those people?" asked Ian, indicating the group round the fire.

"Most of them meant to stop here. The native peasants have fled. Those are too tired, they say, to go back or go on."

"Have you a watch?"

"Yes." Baranski pulled out a silver timepiece. "It is ten past five."

Ian looked at his little group.

"We can't reach that camp before one. It's only ten versts from Sohaczev."

"We had better rest," said his mother, and he saw she could not walk much further without sleep.

"Baranski, do you wake us in two hours."

"Yes. And I'll look to the poor Father here," he said. He was a loyal old peasant and heartbroken to think of the tribulation that had come upon them all. He found a mattress in a ruined cottage for Father Constantine, and searched vainly for some refreshment for them. They all slept heavily, except the invalid, till he woke them, at seven o'clock.

"And what are you going to do?" asked the Countess, when they told him and the other peasants their own plans.

"Some of us go back. We have buried our grain where the Prussians won't think to look for it," he explained to Ian in a confidential whisper, as though von Senborn himself were within earshot. "I have no liking for the road, or a tramp through Russia. They can't take my good earth away and where shall I find soil to bear like Ruvno fields?"

Six went with Ian. They had sons fighting with the Russians and did not want to be cut off from all communication with them. Ostap did not like this addition to the party till one of them returned from the far end of the village with a lean-looking but sound horse and found a cart for it. He had grown very tired of carrying the litter. They placed Father Constantine in the cart and started off, taking a sad farewell of those who remained behind....

Sore-footed, sore-hearted, faint for the lack of food, they went slowly on, through the same scenes of desolation and death, halting every half-hour for a few minutes, scarcely daring to do so, but sure of breaking down before reaching their goal unless they did. The road was very bad now; Ian and the other men often had to clear the way of the human and other wreckage which stopped the cart's passage. They spoke little. Each wrapped in his own thoughts, listened to Father Constantine's delirium. He, who had helped so many souls through the Valley of Death, must pass it unshriven.

At midday they halted again; they had not reached the camp of which Ostap spoke. The Father's frail body was making a desperate effort to retain his fleeting soul. Vanda, who had watched so many die of late, said the end was near. The peasants came up to the cart and joined in their prayers. They wept, for all loved the kind, simple old man who had taught them what they knew of God and letters.

He opened his eyes, making a feeble sign that he wanted to speak. Ian bent over to catch his words.

"Go on--" he faltered. "I'm not alone...."

And thus he died. With tears they folded his hands over the little malachite crucifix, the one relic of home. The Countess covered his thin, withered face, so peaceful in its long sleep, with a peasant woman's kerchief. Then they urged on the tired horse and their own weary limbs, the women praying for his soul as they staggered on, because retreating armies wait not and their one hope now lay in escaping the Prussians. They had no food left; every scrap of the bread, stained with the blood of those who held it in the Ruvno canteen, had gone. And strength was fast failing them.