Knight Without Armour

One cold sunny afternoon, as they sat together on the timber with no sound about them save the swish of the water and the occasional distant cry of a curlew, A.J. told her, quite suddenly and on impulse, that he had been born in England and had lived there during early youth. She was naturally astonished, and still more so when he told her the entire story of his early life and of the affairs that had led to his loss of nationality and subsequent exile. “But you are really English for all that?” she queried, and he replied that he was not sure how the technical position stood—there was little he could prove after so many years. “Perhaps I am as I feel,” he said, “and that is no nationality at all.”

It was curious how their life in the future, that was to be so strange and different from any life they had known together so far, seemed as much an end as a beginning. They tried not to admit it, yet the feeling was there with them both; it was so hard to think of a world that did not consist entirely of the dangers of the next hour and mile, of a life in which most things could be bought for money, in which day after day would bring peaceful, prophesiable happenings, and every night a bed and sleep. She said to him once: “Dear, what shall we do? Shall we live in Paris? Would you like to live in Paris?”

“I think I would like to live anywhere.”

“Anywhere with me?”

“I meant that. I can’t imagine life without you.”

“Can you imagine life without all this worry and adventure?”

“Hardly—yet. I don’t know.”

“How long will it take—the rest of the journey—it we have luck?”

“We shall be in Saratof within a week or so. Allow another week for reaching the Whites. I suppose then we could get through to Rostov or Odessa, and there are boats from those places to Constantinople, but we might have to wait some time to get one. There would be passport formalities and all that sort of thing.”

“And from Constantinople?”

“That again depends. Don’t let’s look too far ahead. At present I’ve got my mind on Saratof.”

“Saratof and our little princess.”

“No.” He smiled. “I don’t propose to have anything to do with her royal highness. And in any case she isn’t ours.”

“Nevertheless, I shall always think of her as ours, even if we never see her.”

One evening in mid-November when the barge tied up near a small village, A.J. heard a few men talking to Akhiz. They were saying that the war in Europe was over and that Germany had surrendered to the French and British, but the information did not create the expected sensation. Akhiz was unaware of a European war as distinct from any other war; the world, seen from his timber- barge, seemed always full of fighting, and he was entirely uninterested in details.

They passed Volshk on the fourteenth day, but by that time the clearing horizon of the future was dimmed again, for Daly was ill. It was the cold, she confessed abjectly, and bade A.J. not to worry about her; she would be all right again when they reached a warmer climate. In former times, she said, she had never been able to endure the Russian winters; she had always gone either abroad or to the Crimea. Besides, she had possessed furs in those days—“and now,” she added, half-laughing, “only Red generals dare show them.” She was still very cheerful, and inclined to joke about her own weakness, but A.J. was uneasy, because he knew that the cold was not excessive for the country and the time of the year, and that there were at least five hundred miles to be traversed before they could expect warmer weather.

The trouble was that the only alternative to the open air was the atmosphere of the cabin, which was always so sickening that it was quite as much as they could do to sleep in it during the nights.

They reached Saratof on the twentieth day, in the midst of a heavy snowstorm. A.J. had been a little apprehensive of the landing, which was just as well, for it enabled him to spy out Red soldiers, suspiciously armed and eager, waiting on the quay at which the barge was to berth. He saw them out of the cabin window, and there was just time to warn Akhiz and hurry Daly and himself to the arranged refuge amongst the timber. Akhiz fulfilled his part to perfection, pulling a huge log back to cover up the entrance to the hiding- place. It was all accomplished in good time and without mishap; again A.J.’s chief fear was for Daly, who shivered in his arms with an unhappy mingling of fear and cold. A.J. whispered to reassure her; it was only a precaution, he said; the soldiers on the quay might not be in search of them at all; and in any case, there was no reason yet to be alarmed—they had come successfully through many worse crises. But Daly would not or could not be comforted; she whispered: “Oh, my darling, I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I haven’t any nerve left at all—I can’t help it—I’m just more terrified than I’ve ever been!”