Knight Without Armour

Then, bracing himself for the renewed buffeting of rain and wind, he struggled on into the town. It seemed fairly large, but he looked vainly for shop-signs or public notices from which he might learn its name. The streets were deserted in the downpour, but it was good, anyhow, to leave the mud and reach the firm foothold of paved roads. And he had roubles in his pocket—that, in the circumstances, was the most cheering thing of all.

He walked so quickly that he arrived at the apparent centre of the town well ahead of the others, many of whom had committed the tactical error of knocking at the first habitations they came to and begging for food. The cottagers, fearing invasion by a seemingly vast rabble, had replied by barricading their doors and refusing even to parley. A.J. had guessed that this would happen, and his own plan was based on it, though perhaps it was not much of a plan in any event. He passed the church and the town-hall, noticing that most of the shops were closed and shuttered and that even those whose windows were on view looked completely empty of foods. Soon he came to a district of small houses such as might belong to better-class artisans or factory-workers. He turned down a deserted street, passing house after house that looked as if it might be equally deserted, till at length he saw one whose chimney showed a thin curl of ascending smoke. He tapped quietly on the front door. After a pause it was opened very cautiously by an elderly respectable-looking woman, but his hopes fell heavily as he observed her. The too vivid eyes and jutting cheek-bones told the tale he had feared most, and her first words, in answer to his question, confirmed it. The whole town, she told him quite simply, was half- starving. Factories had closed down; men scoured the countryside every day in quest of food which became ever scarcer and dearer; food-shops opened only twice a week, and there were long queues for even the scanty allowance permitted by the new rationing system.

A.J. mentioned that he had a little money and was prepared to pay generously for food and shelter for himself and his wife, but the woman shook her head, “We have no food,” she said “no matter what you were to offer us for it We haven’t had a meal since the day before yesterday and as soon as the rain stops my daughters and myself are going to take turns in the bread-queue. The shop opens to-morrow morning but to be in time for anything we shall have to wait all night.”

He thanked her and went on to another house a little further along the street. There he was told a similar tale. He entered another street. In all he tried nearly a dozen houses before he found one whose occupants, very cautiously and grudgingly, offered a little bread and a promise of shelter in return for a quite fantastic sum of money. He gave them something on account, took a piece of the bread, and hastened back to the other side of the town. There he found rioting already going on between the invading refugees and the local inhabitants; several persons had been seriously hurt. He reached the barn where women were still sheltering, took Daly in his arms, helped her to her feet, and almost carried her across the town. He dared not offer her the bread until they were well away from the others.

At last, at last, he had her safely under the roof of the cottage, and its occupiers, with a promise of more money, were lighting a fire.

They were curious people, and he could not at first place them. There seemed to be a mother, two sons, and two daughters, all living in four small rooms; their name was Valimoff. They had much better manners and cleaner habits than were usual amongst working people; they were secretive, too, about their personal affairs, though inquisitive enough about A.J.’s. When later in the evening news reached them of the rioting at the other end of the town, Madame Valimoff asked A.J. if he were one of the refugees from the train. He said yes, he was. She replied severely: “We should have had nothing to do with you if we had known that. Why can’t you wretched people stay in your own towns, the same as we have to stay in ours?”