Chapter XVIII

At last, however, they saw signs of life. A train whistle told them they were near a railroad and they passed a group of soldiers who were firing two large hay stacks.

"The camp, thank God!" cried Ostap, and they all quickened their steps.

The place had been made by the war and for the war. There were no peasants' cottages, no farm buildings. There were rows and rows of wooden huts where troops in repose had passed their time; there was a wooden church with the onion-shaped dome which pertains to Russian temples; there were gardens in which the men had grown cabbages for their soup and a few flowers, especially sunflowers, for they liked to eat the seeds. There were tents and hospitals, magazines, guns and aeroplanes. Above all, there was great confusion. Most of the troops had left and ambulances, carts, trains, motor-lorries, anything upon wheels the Russians could find, were being packed with the sick and wounded.

Leaving the others at the upper end of the camp, Ostap and Ian set forth to seek the commanding officer. It took them some time because nobody knew anything about him, and nobody cared whether they were refugees in distress or what they were. The whole mental force of the place was concentrated upon getting away as many sick and wounded as possible before the Prussians came in and seized them. After half an hour's search, however, Ian found his man. He was standing by a large hospital tent, ticking off entries from a notebook. Judging from his looks, he had neither slept nor washed for some days. At any other time Ian would have refrained from interrupting a man with that stamp of haggard determination on his face. But his own plight was desperate. He told his story as briefly as possible and asked for help to get his women to Warsaw before the Russians left there.

When the man heard the word "help" he looked up in irate surprise.

"Do you know how many wounded I've got on my hands here?" he asked.

"I can't say----"

"Three thousand of ours--a thousand Germans. I've had four thousand to get off since the night before last. The Grand Duke with his staff leaves Warsaw this evening. You know what that means?"

Two men brought a stretcher from a tent. Its occupant's face was black; he fought desperately for breath. The officer asked the bearers curt questions, made notes, signed to them to pass on. Then he turned to Ian.

"Gas. That man's regiment has lost three thousand by it, to my knowledge. That gives you an idea of our work here. Help! How can I help?"

"I'm sorry," said Ian quietly, but with that air of authority he had learned in ruling Ruvno. "But I've a right to your help. My home has been blown to bits because you left a signaler bricked up in my church-tower. I know the Grand Duke will approve of anything you can do for me. If you've German wounded you can surely let some of them wait here for their friends and send my womenfolk to Warsaw in their places."

"I've no orders to help refugees," he returned sullenly.

"I'm a personal friend of the Grand Duke's."

"He has so many friends."

He was ticking off names from his list and asking the bearers questions during this conversation, which took some time.

"My time is precious, too," argued Ian. "I'll bury my chaplain and come back to you then. In the meantime you can perhaps think of some way to help me."

The officer pointed to a motor-lorry which was passing them on its way out of the camp. It was packed full of ghastly-looking men.

"There's your answer. How can I help with this Hell going on day and night?" he exclaimed irritably.

"Give me two horses and a peasant's cart."

"There are none."

"Then a pass for a train ... room on the roof will do."

His face softened now. He thought he was to get rid of this importunate civilian.

"A capital idea. But I can't give you the pass. It's not my job. The officer who can is over there."

He pointed towards the station. "Go to him. Say I sent you. Nicolai Petrovich Ketov is my name. Good luck!" and he hurried into the tent.

On his way to the station Ian met Ostap.

"The devil take this hole!" he cried by way of greeting. "Not a horse to be found. Nor a cart. Nothing but bad temper and confusion." Then, when he heard the other's experience:

"Ketov. Don't know the name ... a Little Russian, I expect. But you can see all these officers are too busy to bother with us. I'll try humbler folk. Never mind. Do you go bury your priest. Meanwhile, give me your card, if you have one about you and write down the number of your followers and your quest upon it. Have you any money? That is always useful."

"Yes." Lately, he had been in the habit of carrying about all the ready money he possessed in case of an emergency like this. But he did not tell the Cossack he had enough to keep his little family for a few weeks, till he could sell the family jewels. In silence he pulled out a couple of hundred roubles, produced a card, and a note which he had had from the Grand Duke a week before.

"I'll not take the money, because we don't pay for any conveyance we may get till we're all in it. But I'll take that note. It may help us to get the conveyance," said Ostap.

He went off, whistling, and Ian sought the others. He found they had been more fortunate, for they had made friends with old Princess Orsov, better known in Petrograd and Moscow as Vera Petrovna. And she had heard of the Countess, first from hearsay; then, more fully, from the Grand Duke, for she was a personal friend of the imperial family.

She listened in silence to the Countess' story, her bright, Tatar eyes taking in every detail of that tired, well-bred face and the torn clothes, never made for tramping over battlefields. She took a fancy to the Polish woman at once, admired her courage and her determination. When the tale was told she made the three women go into a little pinewood hut which stood by the roadside, and managed to get them some hot coffee in a remarkably short time, considering the confusion.

"You shall have a dinner when it is ready," she said, speaking the purest French. "I'll help you to get off by hook or crook. But we are hard pressed here to find room for your wounded. Wait a moment I'll go and talk to my head nurse." And she hurried out, leaning on her stick.

"How clean this is!" sighed Vanda, looking round the cell-like place. "I wonder if she'll give us some soap and water, as well as a dinner. I seem to want it more than food."

"She'll give us everything," said Minnie cheerfully. "She is the good fairy who always turns up, even in real life, when things look blackest. No, Countess?"

The Countess did not hear. She was thinking of the life they had left behind and wondered what the future held in store. And she thought of her faithful old friend, the chaplain, now lying in peace after his long journey and envied him, till she remembered that her boy wanted her and this thought gave comfort.

In a few minutes the Princess came back.

"We're so packed that you couldn't put a bayonet between the men," she said in her brisk way. "But I can take you three ladies on my hospital train if you don't mind wearing white aprons and veils."

"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess. "If you will take these two girls for me, it will be a great load off my mind."

"But you?"

"I'll do what my son does. I've known so many cases of families being separated and not finding each other for months together. And I don't think I could bear the anxiety of that."

Vera Petrovna laughed.

"That is when people have to tramp the roads by night," she argued. "Your son can get on a troop train, by hook or by crook. On the roof, or with the stoker. It's nothing for a man."

"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw," objected the Countess. "And where should I find him with all the telegraphic communication stopped?"

"I sha'n't leave you," said Vanda.

"Nor I," added Minnie.

The old Russian was rather puzzled at this. But Ian came to the rescue. He looked on the matter in a far more practical light.

"It's the greatest piece of luck you could have," he said. "I can't tell you, Princess, how grateful I am. I've not been able ever to get anybody to listen to my request for a seat on the roof of a train, even. But I can tramp it. And I'll do it all the better when I know you're all safe."

"You can't help going to Warsaw," said the Princess. "You can arrange that whoever gets there first waits for the rest of the party.

"I wonder what the chances of getting from Warsaw to Petrograd or even Kiev are?" Ian asked her. This had been worrying him a good deal. He did not want to be left in Warsaw, unable to realize his valuables.

The Princess blinked her narrow eyes at him and tapped her stick on the floor. It was the same ebony stick whose knob was an enormous emerald set in pearls which she used in peace days. It was her one vanity. But in order to preserve the stones from scratches and dirt she had a lot of little washleather caps made for the knob which were changed and washed as soon as they showed the need for it. For many months now this wonderful old woman, remnant of a type which the revolution has probably swept away forever, whose friends of youth had passed away, who stood alone in her memories, had been living between her hospital-train and her Petrograd palace, turned into a hospital, too. With that independence characteristic of her House she refused to have anything to do with the Russian Red Cross, supplied her own train, nurses, surgeons and requisities, her own engine-drivers, her own locomotives, and wood from her own forests to heat the train and make it go. The food came from her own estates, the civilian aid from her own circle of friends and acquaintances. In fact, she supplied everything but the patients and they never lacked, for Vera Petrovna's train and hospital soon won for themselves renown for comfort and good nursing that the wounded clamored to be taken there. Ian watched her as she stood, near his mother's chair, evidently revolving some plan in her shrewd old head. He, too, had heard of her, of her wealth and imperiousness, her kind heart and open hand. He reflected, little bitterly, that her fortune was safe, because her immense forests in Central Asia and her hunting grounds in Siberia, wherein you could have put Ruvno and lost it, where trappers caught sables and marten for the world's women, lay well beyond the invaders' grasp. He could not foresee her terrible end, which she met with fortitude; little guessed that her palace in Petrograd would be broken into by Lenine's mob, looted and burnt; that her old body would be thrown into the nearest canal after the life had been strangled out of it. All he saw now was a very energetic and prosperous member of the Russian aristocracy, a woman who could afford to laugh at the German advance because her native land was intact.

"Count," she said, addressing him because she had all her life preferred to deal with men.... "I have a proposal."

"Yes?"

"Will you allow me to take these ladies in my train to Petrograd? We go straight through."

"Straight through? But the difference in the gauge of the rails?"

She gave him a wink.

"That's a Russian bureaucratic legend," she returned. "I have a contrivance they put on the wheels, and all gauges are alike. The Germans have it, too, you may be sure, all ready to run their trains right up to Vilna. But to business. It's far better for you, Countess, and you, young ladies, to come straight up to safety with me than to risk being left in Warsaw. Who knows if you will get seats in a train or motor-car now?"

"It's very kind of you," said Ian, glancing at his mother, "But----"

"No buts," retorted Vera Petrovna. "You're going to say we were complete strangers a few minutes ago. That's true. But in times like these one makes friends or enemies very fast. Oh, I've heard of all you've done for wounded Russians at Ruvno," she went on, giving the Countess one of her shrewd looks. "And it would be a great honor for me to show you that we Russians are not like our government, that we wish to be Poland's friend and help her brave sons and daughters, who have borne the brunt of this awful war."

"Oh, how nice to hear you say that," exclaimed Vanda.

"I mean it. But let us arrange this. You, Count, can join your little family at my house in Petrograd. If you've never been there, all you have to do is to ask for the Orsov Palace. Every street-urchin knows it. Now, I must leave you for a moment. So much to do! Do you wait here till a bath and dinner are ready."

Then the others held a family council and persuaded the Countess to accept Vera Petrovna's offer. Later on, if they decided to stop in Petrograd they might find a furnished apartment, but it would be a great thing, Ian argued, for him to know they were in safe hands till he joined them. He gave his mother half his store of money and many promises to use every means to join her as soon as he could. He meant to stop in Warsaw and see what had become of the hardware factory which had been making field-kitchens for the army. But he kept this to himself, knowing his womenfolk would only worry about him the more, lest he fell into the Germans' hands. They all had lively recollections of that Prussian cavalryman who was so interested in the family emeralds, and whom he told a lie to. The Countess still had scruples about letting him go off alone.

"I shouldn't mind if I felt sure you wouldn't have to tramp all the way to Russia," she said, as she reluctantly took the money.

"But I sha'n't tramp, even to Sohaczev," he said confidently. "I'm sure to get on some kind of a train. And it will be like getting rid of a millstone round my neck to know you're all going in safety and comparative comfort." He lowered his voice. "Vera Petrovna's friendship will be a most valuable thing for us in Petrograd. And she's just as charming an old woman as everybody said she was."

There came a loud rap at the door.

"Bath!" exclaimed Vanda. "Come in!"

To their surprise, it was Major Healy, as large as ever and now very sunburnt into the bargain. He looked at them for a moment, took in the situation in his rather slow, very sympathetic way and said:

"Well, I'm glad to see you safe. I've been horribly worried about you these days. I was going off to Ruvno." He glanced at Minnie, who flushed, partly with pleasure at seeing him, partly with annoyance at her unkempt appearance.

They told him their story. He listened gravely, putting in a nod or a slow, heavy gesture now and again.

"I feared it," he remarked, when they had done. "When the Princess told me Lipniki had been bombarded I knew what that must mean for Ruvno. I was going to push on there this afternoon and get your news. As you're here, I'm back to Warsaw. I've distributed all my relief. There's room in my side-car for one. Which of you is coming?"

"Oh!" said the Countess, and looked at her boy.

"I've some peasant women," said he.

Healy laughed and shook his head.

"I can only take one, and a light one. I'm a heavy-weight and the road is awful."

"They can draw lots," said Ian. "The others will have to shift with us men."

He saw Healy was not over eager to take peasants, and determined he should. They were still discussing it when Vera Petrovna sent word by a nurse that the bathroom in the train was ready for them and that there would be a hasty dinner in half an hour.

The women hurried out. Healy offered Ian a cigarette and lighted one for himself. Then, in his pondering way, he began.

"Count, we've not seen each other as much as I'd like, but I believe we're friends."

"We are," agreed Ian heartily. "And you've been a good friend to my country, too."

"Well, I've only done my duty and not half as much as I'd like," said the American giant, sitting on the camp bed, which creaked plaintively under his weight. "But for the moment I want to talk to you about my private affairs." He looked round the log hut and through the little window to the hospital beyond. "It seems an unsuitable time and place for me to worry you, when you've been torn up, root and stock. I appreciate your troubles, but I've no choice but to worry you a moment with my own affairs."

"By all means. We part soon, and you never know how long it'll be before----"

"Exactly. You've hit the spot, Count, I may as well say, without any more beating about the bush, that I'm interested in Miss Minnie Burton."

"Ah!"

"Deeply interested. I suppose she told you that we saw quite a little of each other when she was in Warsaw during that December advance."

"Oh, yes," said Ian, putting politeness before veracity.

"My interest has grown, deepened, since then. She's a real fine girl, is Miss Minnie Burton, and comes of a fine old stock. I want to marry her." Here his honest eyes met his friend's and his honest, broad face became redder than ever. "And I want to shoot her out of this danger in my trailer."

"As to marrying her, I'm not her guardian," said Ian. "Her brother----"

"On the high seas. And can't give opinions, one way or the other right here."

"I doubt if you'd find a parson to marry you just now," said Ian, who had exaggerated ideas of American impatience.

"Good God! I wasn't thinking of marrying her this minute. Nor in this Hell of a place. I guess there'll be time enough for the ceremony in Petrograd. I'd like the wedding to be from Princess Orsov's palace."

"Oh, does she know of your--your----"

"No. But she will. And she's just as cordial to yours truly as she can be. What I want is your countenance to my taking Miss Burton on my side-car. There are a few points I want to fix up with her. I guess we'll have plenty of time to talk on the way to Warsaw."

"But Warsaw isn't Petrograd," objected Ian. "I think she'll be far safer in Vera Petrovna's train. I'm responsible for her, you know, till you--till you get the family's consent to the match."

Healy laughed. The idea of family consent appeared to Ian to amuse him greatly.

"She's of age. And family consent be darned if she's willing, which I'm nearly sure she is. As to responsibility, I'd not like to have her get into any unpleasantness with that brother of hers. But she needn't worry. I'll get her safe to Petrograd as soon as the Princess could. And sooner, maybe. I know how they shunt those trains into sidings. We've got a fine touring car waiting in Warsaw and enough petrol to take us to Vladivostock. In fact, I'd be glad to give you a seat in it if you can get there in time for us to start fair of the Germans."

"Thanks very much."

"And then you'd do the chaperon, and that brother couldn't say anything. Now, then, can I take her on my trailer?"

"Yes. If she likes to go. But you'd better arrange with the Princess about taking a peasant woman in her place. I'm getting so many favors from her as it is, I can't ask for any more."

"That I will."

Ian got up.

"I'll leave you to do it. I've some things to see about." And he sought Ostap, to arrange with him about Father Constantine's funeral immediately after a hasty meal.

He was glad that Healy and Minnie were going to marry. It relieved him of any further responsibility and would certainly put an end to maternal hints about the advisability of settling down with her as wife. He did not want to settle down. He meant to go and fight as soon as he had put his mother in some secure corner and provided her with enough money to live upon.

They buried Father Constantine just as he died, in his dusty alpaca soutane, his hands folded over die malachite Crucifix. They laid him in the cemetery behind a group of tents which formed the camp hospital, amongst Russian soldiers, digging his grave with a spade Ostap managed to pick up somewhere. Several other hasty funerals were going on and nobody paid the least attention to him. They could find no wood to make a rough cross; but there was some ivy near and Vanda twisted that into one, putting it over the newly-turned sods. They could not even write his name--so left him, unrecorded, and in peace. They had not gone far towards the station when a messenger met them to say that the hospital-train was ready to start. Ostap ran up, too. He had good news.

"It's nearly settled for you and your peasants," he said to Ian. "The transport officer asks for you."

Ian hurried off, leaving the Countess and Vanda to go to the train under Ostap's guidance and found the officer in question checking figures on a bit of paper. He was as weary and worried as the first one had been. But he seemed to want men.

"Five hundred unwounded Germans leave at once," he said hurriedly. "You and your peasants take charge of some trucks. The first train to leave. We are short."

"I accept with pleasure."

"Good. Go with your peasants; for you'll be wanted in a moment."

"My peasants are here. I'll just go and say good-bye to my womenfolk."

He ran up to the Orsov train which stood at one end of the primitive station, ready to start. Ropes had been tied over the roof and down the sides of the coaches; to these clung men with bandaged heads and feet. The Princess met him.

"They are down here," she said. Then, seeing him look at the crowded roof. "You are wondering how all these men are going to hold on till we reach Petrograd. But you know what happens. We shall be shunted into sidings for hours and then they can rest. Some will be back in their regiments before a month. The bad cases are all inside."

She led the way through a crowd of soldiers, prisoners and stretcher-bearers towards the head of her train. His mother and Vanda stood there, with Minnie and the American. Ian noticed two of his peasant women on the steps of a coach as they passed.

"Why, have you taken them, too?" he asked. "You're simply wonderful."

"A nurse is ill--typhoid, I fear. So a peasant goes to do her work. Your mother tells me she has had some experience. The other goes in the English girl's place." Her narrow eyes twinkled. "She's off with Healy. These Americans make me laugh. They do things nobody in Russia would do and with impunity, too."

"Yes. But he's a good fellow."

"Excellent. But you'll see he'll make me have the wedding in my house, busy as I am."

"I shouldn't wonder," returned Ian.

He said his good-byes, with many injunctions to his dear ones not to leave the Orsov palace till he fetched them. Vanda's soft eyes rested on his and their look was an embrace.

"God bless you," he said, kissing her hand.

"And you," she returned in low tones. "Listen. There is a man here who is in Joseph's regiment."

"Have you spoken to him?"

"No. But the Princess says he told her the name of his captain. He has gone on to Warsaw. The regiment, he says, must be there by now. Will you?----"

"Yes, I'll find out. And tell him you are safe."

Then he thanked the Princess who returned his hand-kiss in true Russian fashion, with a salute on his forehead.

"God with you," she said in her native tongue. "It's more hearty in Russian than in French." She knew the Polish dislike for the language of the bureaucrats and government who had oppressed them for generations. "Your little family is safe with me." Then in French: "I'm your friend, Count, and sha'n't forget you."

A moment later he had helped her into the train, which left. He had to hurry back to his own. Healy and Minnie had disappeared.

The Germans were packed into cattle-trucks without roofs or benches. Over each truck were two sentry boxes, at either end, facing one another. Each of the guards had a rifle, taken from the Germans. But there was no ammunition. A weary-looking subaltern came up as they were getting settled and told them to use bayonet and butt if their charges gave any trouble.

Ian's peasants were distributed amongst the Russian sentries. He was with Ostap opposite him, Germans packed like cattle in between. Martin formed the subject of heated talk with the subaltern.

"He has no more strength than a cat," grumbled the Russian. "You can't take him on this train."

"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 passion 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 shells 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.