Dennis Wheatley - The Ravishing of Lady Jane Ware

Roger had already taken everything he possessed into the woodshed. Now, having put out the fire, he went there himself, crawled through the hole he had left in the wall of logs, then filled it up behind him.

Soon after he had stretched himself out beside Mary, a succession of explosions sounded quite near the farm, and he told her that a French gun must have taken up its position nearby. There followed other explosions of various intensity, as the Russians shelled the French and their cannon balls exploded. Then there came bursts of musket fire. Once a man screamed and later they heard the wild war cry of charging Cossacks. The sounds of battle continued for half an hour, then faded away in the distance.

While the fighting had continued in their immediate vicinity, they had dreaded every moment that the farm buildings might be used as a strong point, bombarded and blown to pieces. Now they could breathe again. But Roger was wondering if he had not been foolish to have refrained from mounting Mary, weak as she was, on the horse the day before and joining the half frozen scarecrows of the Grand Army who had then still been passing.

Now there was no possible hope of rejoining them. He had Mary were cut off behind the Russian front. How, in the depths of winter, with only one horse, very little food and surrounded by illimitable wastes of snow, could they hope to survive?

25

Old Soldiers Sometimes Die

When the silence had continued for an hour or more Roger went out to reconnoiter. Snow was falling again, so visibility was bad. But through the ever-moving curtain of flakes he could make out blocks of infantry marching along the road at short intervals in good order. Even had he not been able to see them, he would have known them to be there from catching the sound of the melancholy Russian marching songs they were singing.

His dread now was that some body of signalers or a small battalion staff would decide to doss down in the farmhouse for the night. To have relit the fire would have drawn attention to the building, so there could be no hot meal for them that evening. Even though they found it difficult to get their teeth into the semi frozen bacon so had to hack it in bits and suck it, they made do on some of that and small pieces of the marzipan; but Roger gave his horse as much oats as it could be persuaded to eat.

He was now anxious to get away from the farm; as, apart from the risk of remaining there for another night, it was quite probable that next day the Russians would notice it and come there, not for shelter but to chop up the building for fire wood.

The pain in Mary's eye was now no more than a dull ache. In all other respects she was again as well as she had been when they left Moscow. By the light of a single candle they made their preparations. It was essential to travel as light as they could, so Roger decided to leave behind his saddle and, instead, tie the sleeping bag on his horse's back for Mary to ride on. As they would be moving only at a walking pace, she would not need stirrups. Into one of the panniers he packed the rest of the bacon, the sugar, tea, marzipan and a bundle of candles, and into the other oats and hay for the horse, three and a half bottles of brandy and another that had mule's blood mixed with it. He then fastened his sword belt round Mary's waist, in order to be free of his sword.

As he did so he recalled his civilian suit and greatly regretted having parted with it when the mule had died. If they ran into a solnia of Cossacks and he had been wearing it, he could have persuaded them that he was a Latvian business man, for his fur coat did not disguise the fact that he was a French officer.

Knowing that they no longer dared follow the road, and he must plod through deep snow, he would have given all the gold in his money belt for a pair of snow shoes. But even if he could have procured a pair, what of the horse? It was far heavier than he was and its hooves would sink deep into the snow. Still, Ney and his men had not had snow shoes when they had left the road to Krasnoye, and made their great detour round to Orcha. Perhaps the going would not be so hard as he expected.

After he had pulled away enough logs in the wall to get his horse through, he led it out and mounted Mary on it. The snow had stopped falling, but that by no means pleased him, as there was a rising sickle moon, and it gave enough light for them to be seen at some distance. But as some consolation there was no wind, and the sky was clear. So, with the help of the stars and the map that had been issued to him, he hoped to be able to keep direction. Returning for the last time to the woodshed, he passed round the back of his neck the thick strap that joined the two panniers, so that they hung down on either side of him. Taking the bridle of the horse he led it away from the refuge that had served them so well.

As they crossed the now deserted road, Mary asked, 'Where are we heading for?'

Roger gave a grim little laugh, 'For the Baltic coast, my dear. From here we go due north until we strike the river Dvina, then we follow its course until it reaches the sea at Riga.'

'How far is Riga?'

'The better part of three hundred miles.'

'Oh, Roger!' Mary exclaimed. 'We shall never get that far.'

'I think we shall,' he replied tersely. 'That is unless we fall in with some Russian troops and they find out that under my furs I am wearing a French uniform. We have already travelled nearly twice that distance.

'But, darling, it will take us weeks, and our stores will give out long before we could reach Riga.'

'My sweet, it is the only course open to us. To go east would take us deeper into Russia. To go west would bring us again into the battle zone, with the risk of being killed by one side or the other, or murdered for such supplies as we have left by some of those poor devils who are being driven mad by hunger. I tell you, Mary, that is our best chance, and I am determined not to die in this damnable country.'

The going proved easier than Roger had thought would be the case, because the intense cold froze the snow solid within a short time of it falling. The country was well wooded with larch, pine and fir trees, so there were plenty of small fallen branches to make fires with whenever they halted. The woods, too, were a god send in enabling them to avoid other people. After the first night and day they had little to fear from the Cossacks, as the

Russian army had passed on in its tireless pursuit of the enemy. But every hour or two they discerned in the distance solitary figures or groups rarely exceeding half a dozen who, although clad in the weirdest assortment of garments, they knew must be deserters. Whenever they were crossing an open space and such dubious characters came in sight, Roger quickly took the horse by the bridle, turned it and headed for the nearest wood, in which it was easy to disappear.

In order further to minimize the risk of dangerous encounters, they decided to travel mostly by night and lie up in a wood, snug in the big sleeping bag during a good part of each day. In the woods, too, they could light a fire where they halted, without its being seen from a distance and attracting unwelcome attention.

On their second day out, after having a meal they were both in the bag and Roger was just dozing off, when he was suddenly roused by a wail of misery from Mary. She was half sitting up, had got out a small mirror she carried, pushed up the bandage round her head and, for the first time, was examining her injured eye.

As Roger was unhappily aware after having dressed it each morning and night, where her eye had been there was now only a black pit containing a multi colored scab. Dropping the mirror, Mary burst into a passion of tears.

Wriggling up, Roger threw an arm about her shoulders and drew her to him as he said quickly, 'Don't cry, darling. Please don't cry. I know it is a terrible misfortune for you. But it might have been worse. You're not blind. You can still see with the other one.'