Anatoly Rybakov - THE BRONZE BIRD

"There you go with your fairy stories again," Genka said with a smirk. "Don't you ever get tired of inventing them?"

"I'm not inventing anything," Longshanks replied gravely, "it's true, every word of it. Any of the old folks will tell you that the count and his son are buried there, right under the brushwood road. A Tsaritsa came to these parts long ago, long before Napoleon. Well, she came and put them to death. And she did not allow them to be buried, but had them thrown into the mud, under the brushwood road, so that people would drive over them. That's how they lie there to this day."

"How does it concern our chaps?" Misha asked.

"Listen then. As I said, the old count and his son lie buried there, only not in the usual way. And their souls are in torment because they can't go either to heaven or to hell."

"This is killing!" Genka shouted. "Old wives' tales!"

"Let a chap finish," Korovin remarked irritably.

"As I said, their souls are in torment," Longshanks continued sternly, with a note of sorrow in his voice, "and they are groaning under the brushwood road, groaning and groaning. I've been there myself and I've heard them. The old count groans in a muffled sort of way; he groans and stops, groans and stops. But his son groans loudly, as though he's weeping, give you my word!"

"How awful," the Nekrasov sisters whispered and cast a furtive look at the woods; but that only frightened them more and they drew closer to the fire.

"And at midnight the old count rises from under the road," Longshanks went on monotonously, imitating old men. "His beard reaches down to his knees and his hair is all white. He rises and waits. If he sees a passer-by, he says to him, 'Go to the tsaritsa and tell her to give us a Christian burial. Do us that favour.' He begs, with tears in his voice. Then he bows. Instead of a cap, he takes off his head. He holds it in his hands and bows. That's enough to give anyone the creeps, to put lead into your feet. And bowing, with his head in his hands, the old count goes up to you. The most important thing for the passer-by is to stand stock-still. If he doesn't move, the count will come right up to him and vanish. If he turns tail and runs, he will drop dead on the spot and the count will drag him under the brushwood road."

"Has he done that to many people?" Misha asked with a smile.

"In the.old days, yes. But nobody goes there now. There was a party from Moscow. They dug up the road but naturally you wouldn't expect them to find the old count and his son. When the militia left, they lay in ambush again."

"What were they executed for?" somebody asked.

"Nobody knows! Some say for treason, others-that they had concealed a hoard of gold from the royal treasury."

"I should have known there'd be treasure in this," Genka observed ironically. "That's in the ordinary run."

"Were you telling us about the local counts?" Misha asked, waving his hand in the direction of the manor.

"Yes," Longshanks nodded, "about their ancestors. The count who fled across the border is the grandson of the one buried under the brushwood road."

"Stories!" Misha said, yawning.

"No," Longshanks protested. "It's what the old folk say."

"Not everything they say is true." Misha shrugged his shoulders. "Look at the miracles they used to ascribe to relics of the saints, but when they began to confiscate valuables from the church for the famine relief they found nothing in these relics. It was just a pack of lies. They're clouding your brains, that's what!"

Misha looked at his watch. It was a pocket-watch remade to wear on the wrist and was so big that it showed from under the sleeve of Misha's shirt. It was half past eight.

"Play lights out," Misha ordered the bugler.

The loud notes of the bugle pierced the silence of the night.

"We'll come to do the club in the morning," Misha said to Long-shanks as the latter took his leave. "I want you and the other chaps to go to the woods and cut some fir branches to decorate the club with."

"All right," Longshanks agreed. "Will you bring any books?"

"Definitely. And ask Nikolai to come, too. We need his help to finish the stage and the benches."

"He'll come," Longshanks replied confidently.

His shirt gleamed white among the trees and disappeared. There was a crackle of branches. Then all was still.

"Isn't he brave to walk alone in the woods at night?" Zina said.

"What's so brave about that?" Genka said boastfully. "I'll go anywhere you like at night. Even to that silly brushwood road."

"You'd better turn in," Misha said, "or you'll be late for the train tomorrow."

The troop dispersed to the tents. For some time there was the sound of bustle and laughter. Misha made his last round of the camp and checked the posts. Stopping at each tent, he said loudly, "Cut the racket. Sleep." At last, Misha, too, went to bed. Quiet reigned.

The moon lit up the sleeping camp.

But not everybody was asleep.

The sentries paced their beats across the glade, meeting at the flagstaff and parting again.

Misha lay and thought where Igor and Seva could have gone to and what ought to be done tomorrow if they should not prove to be in Moscow.

Slava was tortured by the thought that Igor and Seva had run away when he was left behind as acting leader.

The girls listened to the silence of the dark woods and, remembering Longshanks' story about the Goligin Brushwood Road, timorously drew the blankets closer about them.

Korovin lay awake, thinking that on the whole the estate was suitable for a labour commune. As for the old woman, terrible as she was, Boris Sergeyevich would soon tame her.

Genka fell asleep the moment his head touched his pillow.

The Bleater grew indignant at the thought that Genka would walk ahead and swing his brief-case in his hand and force him, the Bleater, to carry the sack of provisions. He searched his mind for a just and proud reply to Genka and gloated at the thought how Genka would be taken aback when he saw that he, the Bleater, had taken along two sacks instead of one.

Kit tossed and turned the longest. He thought of the food Genka and the Bleater would bring from Moscow tomorrow and what dishes he would be able to cook.

At last, with his mind on the morrow's breakfast, Kit, too, fell asleep.

When Misha woke up, the rays of the early morning sun were struggling through the holes in the tent. There was a smell of dry fir branches, which served the children for beds.

Misha thrust his watch beneath the tent flap. What? Only half past four! Perhaps the watch had stopped? He brought it up to his ear and heard the measured ticking. He tried to go to sleep again and drew his blanket closer up to his chin. But disquieting thoughts kept entering his mind, and of all the worries that now beset him as the leader of the troop the greatest concerned Igor and Seva.

After an ineffectual attempt to fall asleep, he got up and picked his way out of the tent, stepping carefully over his sleeping comrades.

The glade was bathed in clear, cold morning light. The twittering of birds came from the tops of the trees. Yura Palitsin, one of the sentries, was walking near the flag-staff, lazily dragging his feet. The second sentry, Sasha Cuban, was sleeping against the trunk of a tree. Just as he had thought-they were sleeping by turn! On duty! Fine sentries they were. Misha stole up to Cuban and gave him a fillip on the head. Cuban jumped to his feet and stared wide-eyed at Misha.

"Sentries don't sleep," Misha whispered impressively.

Then he went round the camp. Everything was in order. It wanted two hours before reveille. He could still put in some sleep. But since he was already up there was no point going back to bed. A swim would be just the thing to dispel his drowsiness.