Knight Without Armour

Rather oddly the crowd of harassed and scared refugees were now inclined to show sympathy towards A.J. and his companion. “They were going to share their tea and sugar with us,” said the man with the plaintive voice. And another man said: “It’s all very well to kill the soldiers and steal the money, but to take away a poor man’s food is something to be really ashamed of. Climb up, friends, and we’ll make room for you somehow.”

So A.J. and Daly got aboard the train after all. There was hardly a square foot of space, and they were huddled together against the dirtiest and most odorous fellow-travellers, but there they were, as they had dreamed of being for many days—on board a train that would take them a further stage on their journey.

It was dawn, however, before the train started. In despair of surmounting the hill from a standstill, the engine-driver reversed for a mile or so and tried to take the gradient by storm. The manoeuvre failed, and the train was again reversed. This time the order was given for all able-bodied men to get out and push the cars over the crest of the rise, and by this means, with many snortings and splutterings, the train did finally crawl over the summit. There was then a further long wait while the pushers regained their places, and it was not till an hour after sunrise that the train steamed into Novochensk station, less than three miles from the scene of the hold-up.

A first view of Novochensk proved to A.J. how fortunate, after all, had been the boy-bandit’s advice. The station was packed from end to end of its large platforms and freight-yards, and the train, as it entered, seemed to push a way through the crowd like a vehicle threading through a fair-ground. Added, of course, to the normal pandemonium that the arrival of any train would have caused, was the extra sensation arising out of the hold-up. There was much agitated shouting and gesticulation among the railway officials as the bodies of the shot soldiers were removed from the train. The remaining soldiers had already revised their earlier estimate of the number of attackers; it was now reckoned about a hundred.

Scarcely any of those waiting at Novochensk succeeded in getting a place on the train, and those already in occupation dared not move for fear of losing their own places. The station, too, was without food, and many of the refugees had had nothing to eat for several days. Even water was scarce, owing to the prolonged drought, and when buckets were handed into the cars, there was barely enough to give each occupant a single quick gulp.

The train left Novochensk shortly before midday, and amidst the drowsy torpidity of the afternoon A.J. had plenty of time and opportunity to observe his fellow-passengers. There were perhaps fifty or sixty of them squatting on the floor of the box-car; many were leaning against each other and trying to sleep, and the whole effect was rather that of a litter of old rags. There was just enough talk and movement, however, to indicate that the litter was alive, and there was certainly ample liveliness of another kind. A.J. and Daly, whose clothes had been fairly clean on entering, shared the common misfortune during the first half-hour.

Here and there, and from time to time, some isolated phenomenon detached itself from that jumble of rags, chatter, and drowsiness; a baby cried; a woman opened her blouse and exposed a drooping shrunken breast-’ man groaned heavily as he stirred in sleep; the train lurched over a bad patch of line and drew a sigh, a curse, or a muttered exclamation from every corner of that strange assembly. The sunlight, shining through the wooden slats, made a flickering febrile patchwork of the whole picture, showing up here a piece of gaudy-coloured cloth, there a greasy, dirt-stained face, and everywhere, like a veil drawn in front of reality, the smoke rising from the men’s coarse tobacco and the myriad particles of dust.

The speed of travel was very slow—never more than ten miles an hour, and oftener no more than five; nor could anything be seen outside save that vast, vacant expanse of brown earth, on which the horizon seemed to press like a heavy, brazen rim. Miles passed without sight of a habitation, while nothing moved over the emptiness save swirls of dust and curlews scared by the train.

Actually she whispered to him as she leaned against the curve of his arm: “Oh, I’m happy—I’m happy. I’m beginning to have hope. When do you think we shall reach Kazan?”

“In two or three days, at this rate. Are you hungry?”

“Very, but I don’t mind. We had a good meal yesterday.”

“I’ll try to get you some water to drink at the next stop.”

“Yes, if you can. And for yourself too.”

“Oh, I’m all right. Are you tired?”

“Just a bit.”

“Then go to sleep now, if you like. At night it may be chilly and you’ll be kept awake.”