The Forbidden Territory (14 page)

“You are not of the Party?” he questioned, with a flash of his uneven teeth.

“No, we are not of the Party,” De Richleau answered, slowly.

“I knew that—else why should you pay?” the youth looked up quickly. “They never pay—those devils, they eat the lands.”

The Duke regarded him with interest. “Why should they pay? They are the lords now!”

The young peasant spat. As he lifted his face again there was a sudden fire in his eyes. “We killed three last winter, my friends and I—they are as a blight on the land. The land is mine,” he went on fiercely, “why should I give them the Kleb, for which I work? What are their beastly cities to me? I am a Kulak—independent. My father was head man in the local council, till they killed him!”

“So they killed your father?” said the Duke softly. “What year was that?”

“The year of the great famine,” answered the lad. “Little men, who could not have ploughed half a hectare, or they would have died—but they were many, and they hung him in the great barn—he who could plough a hundred furrows in the time that big Andrew could plough only eighty-nine.”

“And you have had blood for blood,” De Richleau nodded.

“Blood for blood—that is a good law,” said the youth with a twisted smile. “They worry us no more; unless they come in batches they are afraid. At first we had a half thought that you were one of them when you came last night; the old one, who is the mother of my mother, was for fetching the neighbours to make an end of you, but I knew by the way you spoke that you were not of them, even if your companion is much as they!”

The Duke looked at Simon, and laughed suddenly, “It is well, my friend, that you did not come to this part of the world alone. These good people take you for a Communist, and would have thrown you head first in the manure pit!”

The boy was buckling the horses into the
troika
; he did not understand a word of what De Richleau said, but he grinned quickly. “You should have been here to see the one we cooked in the stove last winter—a silly man who wanted to teach his silliness to the children in the school. We put him feet first into the stove. How we laughed while we held him there, and the mother of my mother beat him; each time he howled she struck him in the mouth with her big stick, crying: ‘Shouting does not feed the children, oh, man who reads letters—give us back our corn’; and the more he howled the more she struck him, till all his teeth were gone.”

It was as well that Simon understood nothing of all this. The Duke—who did—climbed into the
troika
and took the reins; for him it was only a nightmare echo of those years when he had fought with the White Army; it interested him to know that outside the towns, where the Communist Party held undisputed sway, this internecine war was still going on. Not a good omen for the completion of the Five Year Plan!

He gave the youngster a hundred-rouble note, and told him to say no word of them should the Reds come from the town to make inquiries. The lad promised willingly enough, and ran beside their horses down the cart track until they reached the main road, shouting and cheering lustily.

They drove slowly, saving the horses, for they had ample time. As it was, they had to wait on the corner opposite the prison. It was an anxious quarter of an hour; twilight fell, and the shadow of the arch above the central horse of the
troika
grew longer and longer. At last, in the gathering dusk, a tall figure came towards them at a quick run. Both knew instinctively that it was Rex.

He halted beside the sleigh, panting and a little breathless.

“Say, it’s real good to see you boys again. All afternoon I’ve been thinking that I’d gone crazy and just dreamt it!”

De Richleau laughed. “I wish that we were all dreaming and safe in our beds at home—but anyhow, we are together again—jump in, Rex—quick, man!”

As he spoke a Red Guard came suddenly round the corner of the wall full upon them. With one look he recognised Rex as a prisoner, and raised his rifle to fire.

For a moment the group remained immovable; De Richleau with the reins in one hand and his whip in the other; Simon leaning back in the sleigh; Rex standing in the snow beside the horses; and the soldier halted, his rifle raised, only a few feet away.

The Duke gave a sharp, rasping command in Russian. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that the man was taken off his guard. Before he had realised what he was doing he had jerked back his shoulders and raised his rifle preparatory to “grounding arms” the next second he had checked his automatic impulse, but it was too late. The instant his eyes left the American’s face and his rifle tilted Rex sprang upon him, and they crashed to the ground together.

By the mercy of Heaven the rifle did not go off. Simon and the Duke leapt from the sleigh. Rex and the Red Guard were rolling in the snow; first one on top, then the other.

“Don’t shoot,” cried the Duke anxiously, as he saw Simon whip out his big automatic.

The struggle was brief; the soldier was a big fellow, but not big enough to put up a serious fight once Rex had him in his powerful grip. In less than a minute he was on his back with Van Ryn’s hands tight about his throat.

Simon did not hesitate—the lesson of Sverdlovsk had not been lost upon him. The man must be silenced somehow, or De Richleau’s long knife would be between his ribs. He stooped and hit the man a stunning blow on the head with the butt end of his pistol.

The Red Guard lay still, a grey heap on the whiteness of the snow.

“What’ll we do with this bird?” asked Rex.

“Can’t leave him here,” said Simon. “He’ll raise the alarm when he comes to.”

“Throw him in the bottom of the sleigh,” De Richleau suggested. “We will deal with him later.”

“Sure,” Rex agreed, with a laugh. “Come on, big boy,” he addressed the unconscious soldier, as he picked him up by an arm and a leg, “we’re going to take you for a ride. Reckon your boots’ll just about do for me!” He heaved the man into the sleigh and climbed in beside Simon.

De Richleau was already on the box again. He put the horses into motion; the sleigh slithered round the corner, and they took the road for the north. The lights began to twinkle from the wooden houses, and the stars came out one by one.

As they left the town behind, Simon and the Duke were conscious of one thought. They had succeeded in one half of their enterprise; now they were faced with the second and more difficult half, to get both Rex and themselves safely out of Soviet Russia.

It was Rex who broke their sombre train of thought. “Say, boys,” he cried, with his ringing laugh, “who’d want to be on a mucky little street like Broadway, when they could see stars like this!”

De Richleau let the horses have their heads. They were fine beasts, well fed and full of spirit. An hour’s hard driving would not harm them for further service, and it was vital to get well away from the town as quickly as possible.

The three friends wasted no time in discussion. Rex asked which way they were heading. Simon told him they were making for the forests of the north, and he seemed satisfied.

The road lay chiefly along the west bank of the frozen Irtysh River; in places it left the course of the stream, and ran for long straight stretches beside the local railway, which linked up Tobolsk with the small towns of the north. The road was wide, and in far better repair than that on which they had travelled from
Turinsk; since it must be the less important of the two, this struck the Duke as curious, but he did not puzzle himself to find an explanation. He was only thankful that this enabled them to make far better progress than he had hoped.

After an hour they pulled up to rest the horses. The place was wild and desolate. Sombre forests stretched away on either hand, an almost uncanny silence brooded over the shadowy darkness, broken only by the faint soughing of innumerable boughs as the night breeze rustled the pine tops. The moon was not yet up, and the starlight barely lit the narrow ribbon of road.

They had been fortunate in meeting no one since they had left Tobolsk. The one straggling village through which they had passed had been destitute of life, its roofless houses and charred remains one of the many grim monuments that mark the years of bitter conflict throughout the length and breadth of Russia.

It was decided that they should press on all through the night, but at an easier pace to save the horses. Their prisoner started groaning, and showed signs of returning life. They tied his hands and feet securely, and put him in the bottom of the sleigh. Rex, having purloined his boots, took over the reins from De Richleau. Simon and the Duke curled up under the rugs to get what sleep they could.

The going for the next hour was difficult; heavy forests came up to the road on either hand, and the feeble starlight barely penetrated to the tunnel of darkness through which they drove. Later, when the forests fell away from the roadside, and the moon got up, its reflection on the snow made the whole landscape as bright as day. Rex was able to increase the pace considerably without straining the horses. In spite of the ever-increasing distance from Tobolsk, the road remained surprisingly even and well kept.

At a little before dawn they passed through the town of Uvatsk. It was shrouded in darkness, and fortunately the population still slept. De Richleau had stripped the sleigh bells from the harness on their
previous journey, and except for the hoof-beats of the horses on the hardened snow, their passage was almost noiseless.

A few miles on the farther side of Uvatsk, Van Ryn drove the sleigh some way up a track at the side of the road. The place was thickly wooded, and when he was assured that they were well hidden from any chance passer-by, he stopped the sleigh and woke his companions.

The three set about preparing a meal. Simon and De Richleau had never allowed the rucksacks to leave their possession, and on inspection they found that they had enough food to last them for four or five days if they were careful; by that time they might hope to put a considerable distance between themselves and Tobolsk. After that they must trust to securing supplies from isolated farmhouses. The horses were a more difficult matter. The Duke had seen to it that the nose-bags were well filled the previous afternoon, but they would need to buy or steal fodder by the following day. If possible they must secure relays by exchanging their horses for others at some farm; if they could not arrange something of the kind their pace would be bound to suffer.

Their principal embarrassment was their prisoner. If they kept him they must feed him, and he would be a further drain on their supplies. He would have to be constantly watched or he might find some way of giving the alarm.

For the present they untied him; he was too stiff from his bonds to run away, and Rex had already secured his boots. They were careful also to remove his rifle from the sleigh.

The camping ground they had chosen for their meal was some twenty yards off the track, under the shelter of some bushes; the horses were unharnessed and hobbled.

De Richleau had a fair supply of “Meta” fuel in his pack, so they boiled water for tea. While they were waiting, the Duke spread out a map and pointed to their approximate position.

“Here we are, my friends,” he said, “half-way betweer Uvatsk and Romanovsk. We have covered something over a hundred miles since we set out fourteen hours ago. That is good going, particularly as we have reason to suppose that our pursuers will not look for us in this direction. But what now? It is over a thousand miles to the frontier. How shall we make that, with stolen horses, an escaped prisoner, and a Red Guard whom we must carry with us?”

Simon laughed his little nervous laugh into the palm of his hand. “We’re in a real muddle this time,” he said.

“Well, I’ll say we’ve taken the right road,” Rex laughed. “Romanovsk is just the one place in all the Russias I’ve been wanting to see for a long, long time.”

“Let us be serious, Rex,” De Richleau protested. “We shall need all our wits if we are ever to get out of Russia alive.”

Van Ryn shook his head. “I’m on the level. You boys wouldn’t know the fool reason that brought me to this Goddam country.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” said Simon promptly. “You’re after the Shulimoff treasure—Jack Straw told us!”

“Did he, though! He’s a great guy. Well, the goods are under fifteen miles from where we’re sitting now, in the old man’s place at Romanovsk; it’d be a real shame to go back home without those little souvenirs—we’ll split up on the deal!”

“I should be interested to hear how you learnt about this treasure, Rex,” said the Duke; “also how you were caught. Tell us about it now. We must give the horses at least an hour, they’re looking pretty done.”

“It happened this way.” Rex pushed the last piece of a ham and rye bread sandwich into his mouth, and leant back against the trunk of a near-by tree.

“Last fall I went to take a look at some of those one-eyed South American States—tho’, come to that, they’re not so one-eyed after all. Of course, as kids in the States, we’re always taught to look on them as
pothole places—just crying out for real intelligent civilisation as handed out by Uncle Sam—but that’s another story. On the way home I stopped off for a spell in the West Indies.”

“Cuba?” suggested De Richleau.

“Yes, Havana.”

“A lovely city. I was last there in 1926.”

“Sure, it would be a great town if there weren’t so many of our folk there—it was like Coney Island on a Sunday!”

“You were there when? November, I suppose?”

“That’s so. The American people treat Havana like Europe does Monte Carlo. Every little hick from the middle-west has to go to that place once, or he cuts no social ice in his home town at all. The bars are open night and day, and drinks about a tenth of the price they’d pay in a speakeasy back home, which isn’t calculated to make ’em behave as tho’ they were at the King’s garden party. I should have cleared out on the next boat if it hadn’t been for a Dago with a Ford!”

Simon smiled. “You don’t look as if you’d been run over!”

“Oh, it wasn’t
this
child,” Van Ryn laughed. “I was in my own automobile behind; I toured the Sports Bentley to South America with me. Anyhow, I was taking a spin out to the tennis-courts at the Jockey Club the second afternoon I was there, and just outside the town there was only this bird in the flivver in front of me. I was waiting to pass, when he swerves to avoid an oncoming car, and in swerving he knocked down a poor old man. Did he stop? Did he hell! He gave one look, saw the old bird lying in the ditch, and put his foot on the gas!”