Dennis Wheatley - The Ravishing of Lady Jane Ware

'It's not that!' she sobbed. 'It's not that. I'm hideous, hideous; and you'll never love me any more.'

'You absurd child.' He kissed her cold cheek. 'Say that again and I'll slap you. Of course I'll go on loving you. Your face has nothing to do with your personality, and it's that I love. Besides, when we get back to England we will have you fitted with a glass eye, and no one will realize that you've lost one of your own. Unless… yes. Stap me, I have it! You shall have a bright blue one. The contrast to your green one will prove most mightily intriguing, and make you the toast of the town.'

His attempt to take her mind off her misfortune by a joke brought a half smile to her cracked lips. But she could not stop crying, and it was a long time before his comforting and caresses persuaded her that her disfigurement would make no difference to his feelings for her.

That night the moon was obscured by clouds and they virtually stumbled on a little town that, from his map, Roger believed to be Zepel. If he was right they had covered twenty-five miles in a little over two days and nights, which he considered to be good going. The town was burned out and, having made a cautious reconnaissance, they reached the conclusion that it had been completely evacuated. The cold was almost petrifying, as a wind was blowing from the east, so they decided to seek shelter among the ruins. Near the far end of the single street they came upon a hovel that still had a roof, but from it moisture had dripped down during the daytime to form a curtain of icicles, two feet long, over the open doorway. Breaking them off they went inside, lit a fire and spent the remainder of the night there.

The next six days and nights were uneventful. At times they saw small towns or villages in the distance, but as soon as they entered still inhabited country they were careful to keep well away from them. The greater part of their way lay through forests where more icicles hung like stalactites from the branches of trees made feathery and sparkling by the snow, and an utter silence reigned. Even on nights when the moon was hidden, the all pervading snow gave them enough light to see their way without difficulty between the trunks of the trees, and these at least broke the force of the wind that never ceased to blow across the open areas. But they found the absolute silence, broken only by the occasional howling of wolves seeking the bodies of dead deserters, eerie and oppressive, and the climate tried them sorely.

Only when, still wearing their furs, they huddled together in the sleeping bag, were they really warm; and they came to dread having to leave it. Frostbite was a constant menace. Even a short exposure numbed their noses, ears and fingers. Not an hour passed but they had to rub these places on one another vigorously, with handfuls of snow, to restore the circulation. When they were on the march, Roger's beard and the eyebrows of them both were always rimed with frost. Often they had difficulty in keeping their teeth from chattering, and Mary's chilblains caused her agonies.

Just before dawn on the eighth day they reached the frozen Dvina. When they had followed its southern bank westward for a few miles they saw at intervals across the broad river palisades running along the lower part of big, snow covered mounds, and Roger realised that the mounds must be the earthworks thrown up to form von Phull's great redoubt, behind which lay Drissa. Since there had been constant fighting in that neighborhood until fairly recently, Roger wondered for a moment why they had not come upon broken gun carriages and other debris that always littered old battlefields; then he realised that such, jetsam would long since have become mounds covered with snow, and that some of the smaller ones they had passed over probably concealed the bodies of men and horses.

By reaching the river they had accomplished nearly a third of their terrible journey and since, apart from the constant gnawing of the cold, they had suffered no ill, they were cheered by the thought that, if their luck held for just over another fortnight, they should reach Riga. But misfortune was about to strike at them again.

With all the other things he had to carry, Roger had been able to bring only five days' rations for the horse. He had counted on coming upon some, means of renewing the supply-perhaps a solitary, still inhabited farmhouse with a barn he could raid, or a barrow of turnips buried for the winter. But such hopes had not materialized, and they had not dared go near any of the villages that were inhabited.

At the time that the Prussians had attacked Mary, Roger's horse had already become pitifully thin; and they had not been long enough at the farmhouse for the plentiful supply of oats there to put much weight on it. So, although Mary had walked for a good half of the time, the hundred mile trek to the Dvina had again reduced the animal to a living skeleton.

When they woke from their daily sleep on the third day they had been unable to give the poor beast any food, they found it dead. This blow necessitated a redistribution of the things on which their lives depended and, although the panniers were considerably lighter than when they had left the farm, much as Roger would now have liked to take the meat from a whole haunch of the horse, he had to limit himself to cutting off only a few pounds, as he would also have to carry the sleeping bag.

Following the course of the river, but now and then taking short cuts across the bends, they trudged on. Neither of them could decide whether the snow storms that half blinded them and sometimes caused them to lose their way but made the atmosphere a little warmer, or a clear sky under which a knife like wind often cut fiercely at their chapped faces, was the greater affliction. Mary's chilblains itched intolerably, then broke and bled and, for a time, Roger was stricken with snow blindness, so she had to lead him.

Their thirteenth day brought them within sight of the…city of Daugavpils. With terrible longing they gazed at the spires and towers. There lay food in plenty, warmth, rest and comfort. But such joys were not for them. To have entered the city would almost certainly have meant death for Roger. Turning away, they made a great detour round it.

With the detours to avoid towns that they had had to make and, from time to time, losing their way in buzzards, they were now averaging only about ten miles in each twenty-four hours, and they still had about a hundred and thirty miles to go before they could hope to reach the coast. Neither said so to the other but, at times, both of them began to wonder if their strength would last out long enough for them to complete the journey. Apart from the horseflesh, which they had not yet touched, their supplies were getting low and, although that lightened their burdens, having to ration themselves more strictly was undermining their stamina.

On their sixteenth day they at last had a piece of luck. They were by then passing through the country that Macdonald's corps had fought over and, here and there, the skeletons of burnt-out farmhouses rose starkly from the white sheet of the almost level plain. Since setting out they had come upon and searched a score or more of such ruins, but found nothing of use to them. On this occasion, they spent, from habit, a few minutes rummaging among the charred beams without result then walked on through a hedge enclosed plot that had once been the garden. At the bottom of it there was an orchard, the trees now bare and the snow on the branches glistening in the sunlight; but, among them, there were a number of beehives.

Assuming that they would be empty, Roger would have passed on, but Mary opened one and peered inside, then gave a cry of delight. The hives had not been taken in for the winter, so the bees were long since dead, but there were several combs of honey. Eagerly Roger set about hacking out lumps of the frozen honey, with his knife, then they happily sucked pieces of the sweet, sticky, life-giving food, devouring the wax as well. Having satiated their ravenous appetites, they started on a round of the hives to collect their contents. As they were about to open a third hive an angry, gutter-bred voice shouted in French: