'Yes, as a hostage. And now you can whistle for them. Catch them
coming back for us! That railcar is worked by hand and it can only take
four people in any case.'
I must have been in a bad temper, for I drew my pistol and told
Romashov I'd kill him if he didn't stop whining. He shut up. His ugly
face twisted and it was all he could do to keep from blubbering.
The outlook was pretty blue. Dusk was beginning to creep through the
wood, but there was no sign of the girls. Of course, I never for a moment
believed that they could go away in the railcar without us, as Romashov
suspected.
Lying on my back, I looked up at the sky, which was darkening and
receding from me among the thin, trembling aspens. I was not thinking
of Katya, but something light and tender went through me. I felt:
'Katya.' It was half-dream, half-sleep, and but for Katya I would have
driven it away, because I dare not sleep, I felt that I dare not, though I
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couldn't yet say why. I dreamt of Spain or of the letter I had written
from Spain-something very youthful and muddled, not about the
fighting, but about the tiny orchards near Valencia, where the old
women, when they learnt that we were Russians, did not know where to
seat us, how to regale us. 'Whatever happens,' I had written to Katya,
though I had felt her beside me, 'remember that you are free, without
any obligations.'
I dreaded having to part with this dream, though my drenched leg felt
cold and my greatcoat had slipped far down from my shoulders and was
crumpled under me. I was holding Katya's hands, not letting go off my
dream, but already something frightful had happened and I had to force
myself awake.
I opened my eyes. A mist, lit up by the early rays of the sun, was
drifting lazily among the trees. My face was wet and so were my hands.
Romashov was sitting a little way off in the same pose of drowsy
unconcern. Everything looked the same as before, but in fact everything
was quite different.
He was not looking at me. Then he stole a glance at me out of the tail
of his eye, and I understood at once why I was lying so uncomfortably.
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He had pulled the knapsack with the rusks from under my head. What's
more, he had taken my flask containing vodka and my pistol.
The blood rushed to my face. He had taken my pistol!
'Give me back my gun this minute, you fathead!' I said calmly.
He did not answer.
'D'you hear!'
'You'll die all the same,' he said hastily. 'You don't need a gun.'
'Whether I'm going to die or not is my own business. You give me
back my gun if you don't want to face a court martial. Get me?'
His breath was coming quick and short.
'Court martial!' he sneered. 'We're alone and no one will know
anything. As a matter of fact you've long been dead. Nobody knows that
you're still alive.'
He was staring me straight in the face now, and his eyes looked very
queer-sort of solemn and wide-open. I wondered whether he had gone
mad.
'I tell you what,' I said calmly, 'take a swig out of that flask and pull
yourself together. Then we'll decide whether I'm alive or dead.'
But Romashov was not listening.
'I've stayed behind to tell you that you've always been in my way
everywhere. Every day, every hour of my life. I'm sick and tired of it! I've
had a thousand years of you!'
Definitely, he was not quite normal at that moment. That last phrase
of his spoke for itself.
'But that's all finished with now!' Romashov plunged on. 'You would
have died anyway, you've got gangrene. You'll die now all the quicker.'
'That may be.' There was not more than three paces between us. If I
took good aim and threw my crutch at him I could stun him perhaps.
My voice was still calm, though. 'But why have you taken my map-case?
My papers are in there.'
'Why? To have them find you just as you are. Who? Unidentified. (He
was omitting words). Just another corpse lying about.
You'll be a corpse,' he said arrogantly, 'and no one will know that I
killed you.'
Looking back, this scene is almost fantastic. But I have not altered or
added a single thing.
CHAPTER SIX
NOBODY WILL KNOW
As a boy I was very quick-tempered and I remember what a
dangerous sense of exhilaration came over me when I let myself go. It
was with just this feeling, which had gone slightly to my head, that I
found myself listening to Romashov. I had to keep perfectly calm, and I
forced myself to do this, while my hand slid slowly behind my back and
rested on my crutch.
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'You may be interested to know that I've sent a letter off to my unit,'
I said in a steady voice, 'so it's no use your relying on that report.'
'What about the hospital train?'
He looked at me exultantly. He meant that the attack on the hospital
train would easily explain my disappearance. At that moment I realised
how long he had been wishing my death, ever since our schooldays
perhaps.
'All right. But, strangely enough, you gain nothing by it,' I said this,
or words to this effect, just to gain time.
