But it was not really so. The forest was still with a deathlike stillness. The dark trees like sentinels stood marshalled in sombre array on either side of the avenue. Around us, above, and below, all was silence—the mystic, beautiful winter silence of the sleeping northern forest.
Like a fish, my companion darted suddenly from our hiding-place, bending low, and in two strides had crossed the open space and vanished in the shrubbery. I followed, stealing one rapid glance up and down as I crossed the line, to see nothing but two dark walls of trees on either hand, separated by the grey carpet of snow. Another stride, and I, too, was in Russia, buried in the thick shrubbery.
I found my guide sitting in the snow, adjusting his ski-straps.
“If we come upon nobody in the next quarter-mile,” he whispered, “we are all right till daybreak.”
“But our ski-tracks?” I queried; “may they not be followed?”
“Nobody will follow the way we are going.”
The next quarter-mile lay along a rough track skirting the Russian side of the frontier. Progress was difficult because the undergrowth was thick and we had to stoop beneath overhanging branches. Every twenty paces or so we stopped to listen—but only to the silence.
At last we came out on the borders of what seemed like a great lake. My companion explained that it was a morass and that we should ski straight across it, due south, making the best speed we might. Travelling now was like finding a level path after hard rocky climbing. My guide sailed away at so round a pace that although I used his tracks I could not keep up. By the time I had crossed the open morass he had already long disappeared in the woods. I noticed that although he had said no one would follow us, he did not like the open places.
Again we plunged into the forest. The ground here began to undulate and progress in and out amongst the short firs was wearisome. I began to get so tired that I longed to stretch myself out at full length on the snow. But we had to make our village by daybreak and my guide would not rest.
It was after we had crossed another great morass and had been picking our way through pathless forest for about four hours, that I saw by the frequency with which my companion halted to consider the direction, and the hesitation with which he chose our path, that he had lost his way. When I asked him he frankly admitted it, making no effort to conceal his anxiety. There was nothing to do, however, but to keep straight ahead, due south by the pole star.
The first streaks of dawn stole gently over the sky. Coming out on to an open track, my guide thought he recognized it, and we followed it in spite of the danger of running into an early patrol. In a few moments we struck off along a side track in an easterly direction. We should soon reach our destination now, said the Finn—about a mile more.
I moved so slowly that my companion repeatedly got long distances ahead. We travelled a mile, but still no sign of village or open country. At length the Finn disappeared completely, and I struggled forward along his tracks.
The grey dawn spread and brightened, and it was quite light, though the sun had not yet risen, when at last I drew near the outskirts of the forest. Sitting on the bank of a small running stream sat my guide, reproaching me for my tardiness when I joined him. Across a large meadow outside the forest he pointed to a group of cottages on the side of a hill to the right.
“The Reds live there,” he said. “They will be out about eight o’clock. We have come over a mile too far inland from Lake Ladoga: but follow my tracks and we shall soon be there.”
He rose and mounted his skis. I wondered how he proposed to cross the stream. Taking a short run, he prodded his sticks deftly into the near bank as he quitted it, and lifting himself with all his force over the brook, glided easily on to the snow on the far side. Moving rapidly across the meadow, he disappeared in the distant bushes.
But in springing he dislodged a considerable portion of the bank of snow, thus widening the intervening space. I was bigger and weightier than he, and more heavily clad, and my endeavour to imitate his performance on short skis met with a disastrous result. Failing to clear the brook, my skis, instead of sliding on to the opposite snow, plunged into the bank, and I found myself sprawling in the water! It was a marvel that neither ski broke. I picked them up and throwing them on to the level, prepared to scramble out of the stream.
The ten minutes that ensued were amongst the silliest in sensation and most helpless I ever experienced. Nothing would seem easier than to clamber up a bank not so high as one’s shoulder. But every grab did nothing but bring down an avalanche of snow on top of me! There was no foothold, and it was only when I had torn the deep snow right away that I was able to drag myself out with the aid of neighbouring bushes.
Safely on shore I looked myself over despondently. From the waist downward I was one solid mass of ice. The flags of ice on my old green overcoat flapped heavily against the ice-pillars encasing my top-boots. With considerable labour and difficulty I scraped soles and skis sufficiently to make it possible to stand on them, and once again crawled slowly forward.
I do not know how I
