There was a simple dignity about the man. He looked us all over with easy frankness. He turned his head towards Kristina again and I thought he was going to ask us about her. But he said nothing. Instead he walked around the horse’s head and reached down to the sledge for a long, slim sack which he picked up. His fingers busied themselves with the leather thong around the neck. ‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ he said. ‘I live alone and I am the only man for miles around here.’
From the sack came treasure. A loaf of dark brown bread. Four smallish dried fish. A thick, mouth-watering hunk of salted fat pork. From his belt he took a long hunter’s knife. These were the provisions of a man who was intending to be away from his home for a whole day and it was evident he had not yet eaten. We watched his performance with concentrated attention. Carefully he cut off one slice of bread and one slice of salt pork which he replaced in the sack. He motioned to Kolemenos, positioned nearest to him. Kolemenos took a couple of paces forward and the woodcutter put into his big hands the loaf of bread, the lump of pork and the dried fish.
Kolemenos stood for so long looking down at the food in his hands that eventually I said to him, ‘Put it in your bag, Anastazi, and we’ll share it out later.’
The sound of my voice caused the Russian to turn towards me — and to the gun I was holding. There was an unspoken question in his eyes. I walked over to Smith and we talked about the gun. We agreed the thing would be useless to us. We could not hunt with it because the noise of it would attract attention to us, especially in the well-populated southern areas we were now approaching. Nevertheless, security demanded we should not leave it with the woodcutter. Paluchowicz and Makowski added their opinions and the final decision was that we could not afford to take the slightest risk of the gun being used against us or as a signal to summon assistance.
I faced the Russian. ‘We are sorry, old man, but we have to take your gun with us.’
For the first time he appeared perturbed. He lifted his hands as though to appeal to us, dropped them again. ‘It will not be safe for you to use it,’ he said. ‘I understand the way you feel. Hang the gun on a tree somewhere and perhaps one day I shall find it.’
We turned to go. Once more he looked at Kristina. ‘Good luck to you all,’ he called after us. ‘May you find what you seek.’
We moved on for about an hour without much talk, all of us feeling a nagging sense of guilt at having taken that shotgun, a thing of inestimable value to a man like the woodcutter.
‘Well,’ said Zaro eventually, ‘the old man still has his horse.’ We laughed at that, but felt no better for it.
About five miles from the scene of the encounter I hung the gun on the low branch of a tree overhanging a faint track, having first bound a piece of deerskin round the breech. It was the best I could do.
The food remained untouched until the day’s march ended at nightfall. Kolemenos divided it into eight portions. So small was each lot that I could have bolted mine in a couple of minutes and still remained hungry. But the well-developed instinct of hoarding food against the possibility of even worse trouble prevailed with all of us. We decided to use what we had as an iron ration spread over three days — a little for this night and the two following nights. Kristina listened to our talk and ate as we did, one-third of her small store. She looked very white and tired that night, I remember.
In spite of the natural preoccupation with food, progress remained good as we pressed south over a succession of low ranges. The farther we went the more the signs of human settlement increased. Our method was to approach the top of each hill warily and scout from there the country ahead. Frequently we saw people moving about in the distance. We swung off course to avoid roads along which went telephone poles — always the mark of an important route — and which carried a fair amount of lorry traffic. On other occasions we heard men calling to one another and the clatter of tractors. There was often the sound of a not-far-distant factory hooter.
Daylight travelling was getting hazardous. One day after the last of the woodcutter’s food had gone, we sat down to review our situation. This was a day, I recall, when Kristina had been unable to keep up with us. Several times she had slipped away and held us up. There had been good-natured grousing. She was away from us now as we discussed plans for covering the dangerous terrain between us and the border.
‘What is the matter with the little girl?’ asked the Sergeant suddenly.
I turned rather sharply on him. ‘There is nothing the matter with her that a day’s rest won’t cure. Don’t forget she is a woman. All women become unwell. Have you forgotten?’
Paluchowicz’s face was a study of consternation. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said slowly. Nor had the others, apparently. ‘The poor child,’ murmured Makowski.
Mister Smith spoke up. ‘Obviously we shall have to revert to night marches very soon. We might as well start the new scheme now, and Kristina can have her rest. Slav, you are the youngest of us. You have a quiet word with her and tell her we won’t start until she feels quite fit to go.’
I moved away from them and met her as she came out from among the trees. ‘Kristina, we are all going to rest for a day and then start travelling at night.’
‘Is it because of me?’ There was a bright pink spot in each cheek.
‘No, no. It will be safer at night.’
‘I have been holding you back today. I am very sorry. But I could not help it, Slav. I am very tired today.’
‘I understand. Please don’t worry.’
She turned away. ‘You are very kind, Slav. You are all very kind. Thank you.’ And I led her back to the others. And everybody was immediately talkative in an elaborately casual way. Then she sat down beside Mister Smith and said, ‘Tell me some more about what the women wear in America.’ He smiled and talked. She listened without saying a word, her chin on her knees.
The new arrangement was pleasant. We slept warm during the heat of the day and had the light of the moon to guide us through the cool of night.
It was in bright moonlight that hunger forced us for the first and only time to raid a village. The scattered lights of houses about a mile and a half away stopped us on the crest of a rise. Clear to us came a single, thin squeal of a pig.
Zaro made a sucking noise through his lips. ‘My mother used to make beautiful pea soup with a pig’s tail in it.’
Kolemenos touched my shoulder. ‘Let’s go and find that pig.’
We weighed the risks. We had to eat. Smith offered the strongest opposition, then gave in. The pig-hunting party was selected — Kolemenos, with the axe, I with the knife, and the Lithuanian Marchinkovas. The others were to skirt the village off to the right from where we stood and make for a clump of trees showing up sharp on the skyline about a mile away, there to await us. It was understood that if they heard any commotion in the village which might indicate we were in trouble, they were to get away from the neighbourhood as quickly as possible.
The big Latvian and I set off, Marchinkovas following us a few yards behind. We made a beeline in the direction from which we thought the squeal had come and came to an orchard of young trees on the fringe of the village. Grass grew thickly among the trees.
At the edge of the orchard we left Marchinkovas on sentry duty and started a hands-and-knees crawl towards a small, barn-like wooden building at the other end. Kolemenos whispered close to my ear, ‘I smell pig.’ We came up off our knees in the shadow of a pile of cut logs. ‘Don’t touch them,’ urged the big man, ‘or they’ll all roll down with a hell of a clatter.’ We looked up to the roof of the building to make sure it was not after all a human dwelling place. We were reassured. There was no chimney.
I crept forward and flattened myself against the side of the building with my ear pressed against the wood. I could hear the pig moving around in rustling straw. He had scented me, too, and was snuffling at me inches away on the other side. Kolemenos ran from behind the wood-pile and joined me. We felt along for a door. There was none. ‘It must be around the other side,’ I hissed at him. The other side was the side of the village and its few lighted windows.
I found the door on the other side. It opened by a simple latch and creaked and groaned for lack of oil as I sweated to inch it open. Kolemenos squeezed in after me into the blackness. I moved over to the far side where I had heard from outside the pig moving about. By feel I discovered a small gate leading to a penned-off corner. I jumped as the pig grunted a foot away from me and brought its snout against my leg. Kolemenos came from behind me, slipped his powerful arms gently around the animal and gave a tentative heave to test the weight. ‘Too
