Knight Without Armour

Oddly, perhaps, the time did not seem to pass very slowly. There was always so much to be done—the mere toil of getting food, of repairing and improving the hut, of keeping himself well clothed to withstand the almost inconceivable cold. He did a little amateur doctoring whenever he found anything he fancied he could cure amidst that nightmare of disease and degradation. He made notes, without enthusiasm, yet somehow because he felt he must, about the customs and language of the natives. He even tried to teach the least stupid of the Russians to learn the Russian alphabet. And whenever, during the long winter, or while day after day of blizzard kept him a prisoner in the hut, he felt pangs of loneliness or disappointment piercing to his soul, he would slip into a coma of insensibility and wait. The waiting was not often for long. When, after the grey night of winter, the sunlight showed again over the frozen earth, at first so very timidly, he welcomed it with a smile that no one saw. Sometimes at midsummer he sailed clown the swollen river in a small boat; once, with a couple of natives, he reached the open Arctic and made a rough sketch-map of fifty miles of coast-line. He hardly knew why he did such things—certainly not from any idea of ultimate escape. There was nothing at all to prevent his making such an attempt, except the knowledge of its utter hopelessness. His stern jailers were the swamps in summer and the icy wastes in winter; and even if by some miracle, he could pass them by, there was no place of safety to be reached. It would have been more hopeful to make for the North Pole than for the semi-civilised places in Siberia.

His first winter at Russkoe Yansk was that of 1909-10.

PART III

In the late spring of 1917 a small party of Cossacks set out from Yakutsk by reindeer and dog sledge. They were seven in number and travelled swiftly, visiting each one in turn of the remoter settlements. Russkoe Yansk was almost the last.

They reached it in the twilight of a May noontide, and at the sound of their arrival the entire native population—some dozen Yakut families—turned out of their huts to meet them, surrounding the clog- teams and chattering excitedly.

At length a tall figure, clad in heavy furs, approached the throng; and even in that dim northern light there was no mistaking leadership of such a kind. One of the soldiers made a slight obeisance and said, in Russian: “Your honour, we are from Yakutsk.”

A quiet, rather slow voice answered: “You are most welcome, then. You are the first to visit us for three years. Come into my hut. My name is Ouranov.”

He led them a little distance over the frozen snow to a hut rather larger than the rest. They were surprised when they entered, for it was so much better furnished than any other they had seen. The walls were hung with clean skins, and the stove did not smoke badly, and there were even such things as tables, chairs, a shelf of hooks, a lamp, and a raised bed. Ouranov motioned the men to make themselves comfortable. There was something in his quiet, impersonal demeanour that made them feel shy, shy even of conveying the news that they had brought with them. They stood round, unwilling to sit in those astonishing chairs; most of them in the end squatted on the timber floor.

Ouranov was busying himself with the samovar. Meanwhile the soldiers could only stare at one another, while the still shouting and chattering Yakuts waited outside the hut in a tempest of curiosity. At last the spokesman of the party began: “Brother, we are the bearers of good news. Don’t be too startled when you hear it, though it certainly is enough to send any man such as yourself out of his wits for joy. At Kolymsk that did actually happen to one poor fellow, so you will understand, brother, why we are taking such a long time to tell you.”

Then Ouranov turned from the samovar and smiled. It was a curious smile, for though it lit up his face it seemed to light up even more the grimness that was there. “Whatever news it is,” he said, “you may be sure I shall not be affected in that way.”