disturb her—for the moment. Fine sledges these: the driver is quite walled off.
So there we were; I huddled in my fur, took a pull at the brandy, and then crawled out under the side flap on to the mounting of the runner; the wind hit me like a knife, with the snow furrowing up round my legs from the runner-blades. We were fairly scudding along as I pulled myself up on to the driving seat beside East and gave him a swig at the brandy.
He was chattering with cold, even in his fur wrap, so I tied it more securely round him, and asked how we were going. He reckoned, if we could strike a village and get a good direction, we might make Yenitchi in five or six hours—always allowing for changes of horses on the way. But he was sure we wouldn't be able to stand the cold of driving for more than half an hour at a time. So I took the ribbons and he crept back perilously into the sled—one thing I was sure of: Valla would be safe with him.
If it hadn't been for the biting cold, I'd have enjoyed that moonlight drive. The snow was firm and flat, so that it didn't ball in the horses' hooves, and the runners hissed across the snow—it was strange, to be moving at that speed with so little noise. Ahead were the three tossing manes, with the vapour streaming back in the icy air, and beyond that—nothing. A white sheet to the black horizon, a magnificent silver moon, and that reassuring Pole star dead astern when I looked back.
I was about frozen, though, when I spotted lights to starboard after about twenty minutes, and swerved away to find a tumble-down little village, populated by the usual half-human peasants. After consultation with East, I decided to ask the distance and direction to Osipenke; East was carrying a rough table of places and directions in his head, out of the book he had studied, and from the peasants' scared answers—for they were in awe of any strangers—we were able to calculate our proper course, and swerve away south-west.
East had taken over the reins. Valla had come to while he was in the sled—I wondered if he'd been chancing his arm, but probably not—and had had mild hysterics, about her father, and Aunt Sara, who had been sitting up with a sick Cossack woman in the barracks, and had presumably been cut off there.
'The poor little lamb,' says East, as he took the reins. 'It tore my heart to see her grief, Flashman—so I have given her a little laudanum from a phial which … which I carry always with me. She should sleep for several hours; it will be best so.'
I could have kicked him, for if there's one thing I'd fancy myself good at, it's comforting a bereaved and naked blonde under a fur rug. But he had put her to sleep, no error, and she was snoring like a walrus. So I had to amuse myself with bread and ham, and try to I snatch a nap myself.
We made good progress, and after a couple of hours found a way-station, by great good luck, on what must have been the Mariupol road. We got three new nags, and bowled away famously, but what with lack of sleep it was getting to be hard work now, and a couple of hours after sunrise we pulled up in the first wood we'd seen—a straggly little affair of stunted bushes, really—and decided to rest ourselves and the horses. Valla was still out to the wide, and East and I took a seat apiece and slept like the dead.
I woke first, and when I put my head out the sky was already dimming in the late afternoon. It was bleak and grey, and freezing starvation, and looking through the twisted branches at the pale, endless waste, I felt a shiver running through me that had nothing to do with cold. Not far away there were two or three of those funny little mounds called koorgans, which I believe are the barrows of long-forgotten barbarian peoples; they looked eerie and uncanny in the failing light, like monstrous snowmen. The stillness was awful; you could feel it, not even a breath of wind, but just the cold and the weight of emptiness hanging over the steppe. It was unnerving, and suddenly I could hear Kit Carson's strained quiet voice in the dread silence of the wagon road west of Leavenworth: 'Nary a sight nor sound anywhere—not even a sniff o' danger. That's what frets me.'
It fretted me, too, at this minute; I roused East, and then we made all fast, and I took the reins and off we slid silently south-west, past those lonely koorgans, into the icy wilderness. I had a bottle, and some bread, but nothing could warm me; I was scared, but didn't know of what—just the silence and the unknown, I suppose. And then from somewhere far off to my right I heard it—that thin, dismal sound that is the terror of the empty steppe, unmistakable and terrifying, drifting through the vast distance: the eldritch cry of the wolf.
The horses heard it too, and whinnied, bounding forward in fear with a stumble of hooves, until we were flying at our uttermost speed. My imagination was flying even faster; I remembered Pencherjevsky's story of the woman who had thrown her children out when those fearful monsters got on the track of her sled, and had been executed for it, and countless other tales of sleds run down by famished packs and their occupants literally eaten alive. I daren't look back for fear of what I might see loping over the snow behind me.
The cry was not repeated, and after a few more miles I breathed easier; there was a twinkle of light dead ahead, and when we reached it, we found it was a moujik's cabin, and the man himself at the door, axe in hand, glowering at us. We asked him the nearest town, and could have cried with relief when he said Yenitchi: it was only forty versts away—a couple of hours' driving, if the beasts held up and weren't pressed too hard. East took the reins, I climbed in behind—Valla was sleeping still, uneasily, and mumbling incoherently—and we set off on what I prayed was the last stage of our mainland journey.
For rather more than an hour nothing happened; we drove on through the silence, I took another turn, and then I halted not far from another clump of koorgans to let East climb into the driver's seat again. I had my foot on the runner, and he was just chuckling to the horses, when it came again—that bloodchilling wail, far closer this time, and off to the left. The horses shrieked, and the sled shot forward so fast that for a moment I was dragged along, clinging to the side by main strength, until I managed to drag myself inboard, tumbling on to the back seat. Valla was stirring, muttering sleepily, but I'd no time for her; I thrust out my head, staring fearfully across the snow, trying to pierce the dusk, but there was nothing to be seen. East was letting the horses go, and the sled was swaying with the speed—and then it came again, closer still, like the sound of a lost soul falling to hell. I heard East shouting to the horses, cracking his whip; I clutched the side, feeling the sweat pouring off me in spite of the cold.
Still nothing, as we fairly flew along; there was another cluster of koorgans just visible in the mirk a quarter of a mile or so to our left. As I watched them—was that something moving beyond them? My heart flew to my mouth—no, they stood bleak and lonely, and I found I was panting with fear as I dashed the sweat from my eyes and peered again. Silence, save for the muffled thump of the hooves and the hissing of the runners—and there was something flitting between the last two koorgans, a low, long dark shape rushing over the snow, and another behind it, and another, speeding out now into the open, and swerving towards us.
'Jesus!' I shrieked. 'Wolves!'
East yelled something I couldn't hear, and the sled rocked horribly as he bore on his offside rein; then we righted, and as I gazed over the side, the hellish baying broke out almost directly behind us. There they were—five of them, gliding in our wake; I could see the leader toss up his hideous snout as he let go his evil wail, and then they put their heads down and came after us in dead silence.
I've seen horror in my time, human, animal, and natural, but I don't know much worse than that memory— those dim grey shapes bounding behind us, creeping inexorably closer, until I could make out the flat, wicked heads and the snow spurting up under their loping paws. I must have been petrified, for God knows how long I just stared at them—and then my wits came back, and I seized the nearest rug and flung it out to the side, as far as I could.
As one beast they swerved, and were on it in a twinkling, tearing it among them. Only for a second, and then they were after us again—probably all the fiercer for being fooled. I grabbed another rug and hurled it, and this time they never even broke stride, but shot past it, closing in on the sled until they were a bare twenty paces behind, and I could see their open jaws—I've never been able to look an Alsatian in the face since—and delude myself that I could even make out their glittering eyes. I'd have given my right arm, then, for the feel of my faithful old Adams in my grip—'You wouldn't run so fast with a forty-four bullet in you, damn you!' I yelled at them—and they came streaking up, while the horses screamed with fear and tore ahead, widening the gap for about ten blessed seconds. I was cursing and scrabbling in the back looking for something else to throw—a bottle, that was no use, but by George, if I smashed one at the bottom it might serve as a weapon when the last moment came and they were ravening over the tailboard—in desperation I seized a loaf (we'd finished the ham) and hurled it at the nearest of them, and I am here to tell you that wolves don't eat bread—they don't even bloody well look at it, for that matter. I heard East roaring something, and cracking his whip like a madman, and God help me, I could see the eyes behind us now, glaring in those viciously pointed heads, with their open jaws and gleaming teeth, and the vapour panting out between them. The leader was a bare five yards behind, bounding along like some hound of hell; I grabbed another rug, balled it, prayed, and flung it at him, and for one joyous moment it enveloped him; he stumbled,
