Knight Without Armour (31 page)

After which the voices and footsteps disappeared. That was during the
afternoon, and Akhiz did not release his prisoners until dusk. By that time
they were stiff with cramp and chilled to the bone. “Very heavy,
eh?” whispered Akhiz, beaming at them, when he had pushed the log a
foot or so out of place. He seemed delighted at his own share in the
escapade, though still incurious as to what it was all about. The quays were
quite dark; the whole town, which in daylight had looked so important and
flourishing, was now an overmastering stillness. Akhiz gave them scalding tea
in his cabin; A.J. then gave Akhiz the twenty-four roubles agreed upon, plus
another six for his extra services in outwitting the searchers, plus a small
tin of American baked beans. Then they bade good-bye to their faithful host
and saviour, who kissed A.J. with tremendous fervour, and even then, at that
last moment, forbore to ask where they were going or what they were intending
to do. Finally Akhiz went on deck to see if the quays were clear for them.
There were sentries patrolling around, on the look-out for pilfering, but it
was not very difficult to choose a safe moment to cross the litter of railway
tracks and reach one of the steep alleys leading up from the docks to the
town.

When they carne to the less deserted streets they were able to judge that
Saratof was in a scarcely happier condition than Novarodar. The shop-windows
were empty; the cafés closed and shuttered; no trams were running. It was all
depressing enough, except for the fact that it was, after all,
Saratof—the last important stage-point on their long journey from
danger into safety. The Whites were but a few score miles away, which, after
reckoning for so long in terms of hundreds of miles, seemed next to nothing
at all; Denikin’s army, too, might have been advancing and have made
the interval even less. As he trudged over the crunching snow, A.J.’s
spirits rose as he contemplated the future.

But there was a more immediate future to be decided. Refreshed and
abundantly fit after the river-journey, he would have pushed on that very
night, and Daly also was anxious to avoid delay. For a time they talked of
reaching some village perhaps ten miles or so out of Saratof and seeking
accommodation there. Villages were safer than towns; the people in them were
usually more kindly, less terrified of the authorities, and less likely to be
inquisitive about passports and travel-permits.

But before they reached the suburban fringe of the town this plan became
suddenly impossible, for Daly was clearly on the point of collapse. It was
obvious that she could not walk another mile, much less the unknown distance
to the nearest village, and there was nothing for it but to contemplate the
risks of seeking shelter in Saratof itself. The town was noted for its
strongly Red sympathies, and A.J. did not feel happy at the prospect of
spending a night in it. He tried a few cottages, playing the part of the
wandering but not quite penniless working-man who could pay a small sum for a
bed for himself and his wife until the morning; but in every case he was
turned away. One haggard housewife told him that nobody was allowed to take
in strangers, and that if he wanted accommodation he had better apply to the
Labour Bureau at the commisariat offices of the local Soviet. When he reached
Daly, whom he had left a little distance away, he found her lying on the
snow-covered pavement. He picked her up; she was shivering and trying to
smile, but incapable of speech and only able to stagger along with great
difficulty. There remained one last resource, which he had not wished to be
driven to—the address of the ex-butler. He mentioned it, and she nodded
agreement. Then he called at another house and enquired the way; by good
fortune it was in the same quarter of the town, quite close.

A few moments later he was tapping at the door of a small workman’s-
cottage. An elderly, white-haired man appeared, to whom he said: “Does
Stapen live here?” At that the man’s face took on an expression
of sudden terror. “Stapen?” he exclaimed, acting very badly.
“No, there is no one here of that name.” Then A.J. realised the
fears that might be in the man’s mind, and added: “I was sent
here by the Valimoffs, of Novarodar.” The old man stared incredulously
and, after a pause, asked them inside. He had been almost dumb with fear, and
now was in the same condition with astonishment. A.J. talked a little to
reassure him, while Daly sank into a chair, too weak to take any part in the
conversation.

In the end their identities were satisfactorily established, and the old
man admitted that he was himself Stapen, the ex-butler. He was also more than
willing to help them, though he had very little food and no money. His wife
was out at that moment, trying to get bread. Life was terrible in Saratof,
and he prayed that Denikin’s army might arrive soon.

Daly recovered a little in front of the fire, and Stapen recognised
her—or so he said—he had seen her in the old days in Moscow. Daly
also said (but perhaps from mere politeness) that she thought she remembered
him.

It was soon apparent that Stapen’s mind was obsessed with some other
matter which he was afraid to mention until Daly broached it first. She said:
“Well, and have you the little girl with you still?”
Stapen’s voice dropped then to a throbbing whisper, he was evidently
delighted that the strangers knew all about it, yet at the same time
awestruck to be discussing it with them. He replied: “Yes, the princess
is upstairs. She has been ill—she has had typhus—but she is now
getting well. You would wish to see her, eh? Or no—she may be
asleep—perhaps to-morrow will be better. You are going to take her with
you when you go?” He turned to A.J. and added: “Ah, I knew the
Valimoffs would make a good choice—how I have been longing for the day
when I should hand her over to someone such as yourself!”

His sincerity and devotion were beyond suspicion, but A.J. at that moment
was hardly in a mood to be appreciative. He felt, indeed, a little impatient
with the fellow. Did nothing matter except the rescue of a princess? He
realised again how difficult and complicated would be the escape to
Denikin’s lines if he and Daly were to be burdened with a small and
illustrious child.

“For the present,” he answered, rather coldly, “we can
hardly look ahead as far as that. My wife is ill and needs rest.”

Stapen bowed, controlling his excitement like a well-trained servant who
allows it to be supposed that he had momentarily forgotten himself. Within a
short time he had prepared a bed and Daly was being put into it. She
whispered, as A.J. laid her head on the pillow: “Dear, why are you so
angry with people like Stapen? You were angry with the Valimoffs too.”
He answered: “I’m not really angry with them—I’m
everlastingly grateful in most ways. It’s just that they seem to think
other things matter more than you.”

“Well, don’t they?”

“Possibly, but I can’t be expected to agree to it.”

“I don’t think you care, then, for this little
princess?”

“Not a bit. I hate her, even, because I see in her a possible danger
to you. It’s all very selfish, I know, but I can’t help it. I
won’t even try to help it. The world is so full of misery that one
cant—one daren’t—one’s eyes to it all. The most to be
done is to make sure of what one loves and never to let it go. All the rest
must be put outside—entirely.”

“Do you think Poushkoff felt like that?”

“Probably. He loved you too.”

She smiled and closed her eyes, and he went down to talk to Stapen. Her
words, however, had made him rather more friendly towards the old man, who
proved, on acquaintance, the pleasantest and simplest of types. His wife, who
came in later in the evening after failing to secure any bread, was very
different, but perhaps necessarily so in order to strike a balance with a
husband of such benignity. She was a shrewd and rather embittered woman, who
gave A.J. hut the chilliest of welcomes. A fruitless four-hour wait in a
bread- queue had put her into a mood of outspokenness that her husband sought
in vain to check; she almost began by saying: “Well, if Denikin’s
men are on the way, let hem bring some food with them. For my part, I
don’t care whether we are governed by Reds or Whites, so long as
working people can get enough to eat.”

Afterwards Stapen apologised for her with stately courtesy. “She was
always like that,” he said. “Many’s the time that my dear
old master, Prince Borosil, said to me—’Stapen, you should whip
her!’—and I promised I would. But, somehow, I could never bring
myself to do it.”

In the morning Daly seemed much better, and A.J.’s hopes began to be
optimistic again. It was all, of course, a little more difficult now that
they had met Stapen. The fellow assumed so completely that they intended to
take the child along with them when they made their dash for safety; it was a
dream he had been dreaming for months, and now it seemed about to be
accomplished he could only build pretty details all around it. Would they
take her to Paris? Or to Rome? Or to London? There were royalties and
semi-royalties all over Europe who, it appeared, would be delighted to extend
unlimited hospitality to such an exalted babe. For she was, Stapen explained
in a whisper, within measurable distance of being heir to all the Russias.
The Bolsheviks had killed so many of the ex-Emperor’s family and
relatives—far more than anyone could estimate exactly—and the
careful, systematic process of extermination was still being carried out.
“That is why they are always on the watch for the princess,” he
added, “but so far I don’t think they have the slightest idea
where she is. They have her photograph, of course, but it is bound to be an
old one, and she is different now, especially after her illness.”

A.J. and Daly were solemnly presented to the princess that morning. She
was a thin and sad little thing, wasted by fever and obviously very weak.
Stapen treated her with rather absurd decorum, while his wife treated her
exactly as if she had been her own child; and the princess showed
unmistakable affection for them both.

But the more Stapen outlined the child’s social and dynastic
importance the more unwilling A.J. was to encumber himself with her. Yet it
became increasingly difficult to convey this to Stapen. It was not only that
A.J. did not wish to offend the fellow, but rather that no means existed by
which Stapen could be brought to conceive A.J.’s point of view.
“He won’t see that we have our own future to think of,”
A.J. told Daly. “Frankly, I’m not interested in dynastic
intrigues—it doesn’t matter a jot to me that the child’s a
princess, next in succession, and so on. All I care about in the world is
getting you to safety, and I won’t agree to anything that will lessen
the chance of it.”

She smiled. “Very well, then, we shall have to tell Stapen that we
can’t take her.”

“Yes, and the sooner the better. I’ll tell him in the
morning.”

But in the morning Daly was ill again, after being sick and feverish
during the night. Their departure looked as if it must be postponed for
another day or two, and so, in the circumstances, there did not seem any
particular need to present Stapen with the arranged ultimatum.

By noon the whole situation was changed utterly and for the worse, for
Daly was by this time very ill indeed, and A.J., with fair experience of such
matters, diagnosed typhus. It was not really astonishing, and yet, for some
reason, it was a mischance that he had never even considered.

There was no doctor to attend her; there had been none for the little
princess, either. There was no private doctor, in fact, in the whole town.
Typhus, spread by the war and nourished by the famine, had overwhelmed
Saratof to an extent that A.J. had hardly realised during his few days in the
place. The hospitals were full, with patients lying on stretchers between the
beds; emergency hospitals were also full, and more were being hastily built;
yet still the disease raged and spread, and the death-rate had been steadily
and appallingly on the increase for weeks. All the hospitals were being
managed by skeleton staffs of doctors and nurses, and it had lately become so
difficult to give patients proper attention that many who stayed in their
homes with no professional doctoring at all had probably an equal, if not a
superior chance of recovery. Stapen evidently thought so, and urged A.J. not
to try to get Daly into one of the hospitals. It would have been quite
impossible, in any case, for they were State institutions and every patient
entering had to pass through a sieve of official enquiries. The same reason
had prevented Stapen from trying to find a hospital-bed for the princess, and
now, as he comfortingly explained to A.J., he was very glad of it. “The
countess will be far better here, just as the princess was,” he assured
him, and A.J.’s heart warmed towards the old man for showing such
willingness to share the burden of this extra misfortune, though in fact it
was Stapen’s wife on whom the burden mostly fell.

A.J., fortunately, was at his best in an emergency of such a kind. He had
a fine instinct for doctoring, and had acted as amateur doctor for so long
and with such success during a part of his life that he felt none of that
vague helplessness that afflicts the complete layman when faced with medical
problems. He had also a particular knowledge of typhus itself; he had often
diagnosed cases, and was quite familiar with the normal course of the
disease. Apart from which, he possessed the proper temperament for living
through anxious moments; he was calm, quiet, soothing, and never despondent.
Stapen, he soon found, was no use at all except as an amiable figurehead to
surround the whole affair with an atmosphere of benignity and goodwill; it
was his wife who did and was everything. This hard-faced, dour, and rather
truculent woman soon drew from A.J. the deepest admiration; he perceived that
it was she, and she alone, who had saved the child’s life. And she
tackled this additional job of nursing Daly with an apparent grudgingness
which concealed, net so much a warm heart, as a thoroughly efficient soul. J,
could well imagine the sort of cook she had been, and be cold also well
imagine the sort of butler Stapen had been.