The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

We all experience this in strange places, but a soldier usually is not at a loss. Upon this occasion, whether it were the unusual aspect of the room, the circumstances of our bivouac, or the treacherous firelight, I cannot tell you, but moments passed before I remembered our coming to the house at all.

To this there succeeded a sense of alarm and of a peril I could not define. I thought that I was in a prison, and the Cossacks were my jailers. The fitful light upon the floor showed red and ghastly, and suggested the blood of dead comrades. I started up, pressing my hands to my eyes and prepared for any ignominy, when, as in a flash, the whole scene was recalled, and I remembered both the room and the Poles. At the same instant the fire, leaping into flame, showed me the figure of Valerie, and I could have sworn that she was about to quit the apartment. This was not so. She made a sign to me, and I perceived immediately that it was one which warned me to be silent.

Naturally, all this astonished me very much, for I had expected to find her fast asleep. And yet here she was, sword in hand, standing by the door as though an enemy had knocked upon it. Stepping over the sleeping figures of Bardot and my nephew, I asked her in a whisper what had happened.

"The Pole has not returned," she said. "I heard a sound of footsteps on the snow—many of them. We must lock the door; there is danger."

With this she swung over the great bar of iron, and it fell softly into its place. If I had any doubt of the wisdom of what she did, a quick glance about the apartment would have set it at rest. Neither the old woman herself nor the younger son were where they had been last night. Moreover, a sound of footsteps was now audible beyond all question. It was evident that the house was surrounded and that these cunning people had betrayed us.

A kick from my foot woke old Bardot, and Léon started up directly the sergeant moved. The briefest words told them what had happened; and, still yawning, they stretched out their hands and felt in the straw for their swords. Our muskets had been piled up in the corner with those of the young men, but it was soon apparent that they had been pillaged while we slept, for a purpose we could readily imagine. We had only the pistols, of which no occasion robbed us, and our first care was to prime them before going to the window. It was well that we did so. Hardly had Bardot thrown open the casement when bullets hailed into the room, and the china came crashing down like slates from a penthouse when the wind is high. This was a pretty business, to be sure—the last kind of welcome we had expected when we fell asleep by the fire.

"To the door!" cried I, as the shots rang out. We all were down on our marrow bones in a twinkling, protected by the great wooden doors and the bolt we had drawn. It was plain to me that no bullet would pierce the wood of the door, and that those who were after us must come in by the windows. The greater mystery remained—who were the bandits who attacked us in this headlong way, and what was their number? That they were not Cossacks I felt sure, for soldiers would have known how to take us in our sleep, and the rest had been easy. Were they the wretched moujiks, so many of whom armed themselves against the wounded of the Grand Army when it fled from Russia? Or were they the real bandits of the steppes? We answered the question when a bearded brigand, waving a gardener's hoe, appeared at the window and slashed at us with the gleaming steel. This man I shot dead directly he showed his face. It was evident that he was but a peasant after all, and that we had his fellows to deal with.

I say that I shot him dead; but the respite was brief enough. No sooner had the man fallen than his place was taken by others, all armed with the most barbarous weapons, but no less zealous for our blood. Under any other circumstance the scene must have been droll enough. Here were we four with our backs to the great door, the latticed windows, by which the assassins tried to enter, upon either side of us. Frightened by the death of their comrade, they now resorted to a primitive attempt to harpoon us, as though we had been so many fish in a sea. It was ridiculous to watch the hairy arms thrust in at the window, while scythes or pikes or bayonets on sticks were turned menacingly toward us and their owners bayed like dogs after quarry.

Happily, our position enabled us to treat this puny assault with derision. We were beyond the reach of their harpoons, and we neglected no opportunity to retaliate. More than one of the assassins lost his hand or his arm by a swift cut from the swords we knew so well how to use. This was satisfactory enough, but it carried us nowhere, and behind it all there lay the real apprehension that these monsters would force the window presently and butcher us as though we had been sheep. Hundreds of our comrades had so perished since we left Krasnoë. Wild creatures, more like gorillas than men, had come out of the woods with their scythes roped to sticks and had slashed and maimed the wounded without grace or pity. And here we were dealing with the same kind of villains, but, happily, neither wounded nor frightened by them. If any secret anxiety had accompanied the first moments of this amazing encounter, it was for little Joan d'Izambert, who still lay upon the far side of the room and had been forbidden by me to join us. I saw that the heavy table protected her from bullets, and bidding her lie still, I turned my attention to the window. It was time truly. Someone had now pushed a musket through the casement, and, aiming at hazard, the roar of the discharge shook everything in the apartment. This was the turn we had not anticipated. It needed all our wits now to slash at the barrels as they were poised by unseen hands, and nothing but the greatest agility saved our lives at such a crisis.

This was all very well, but you will soon see that it could not continue. Four of us there were to slash at the guns, but many outside to direct them; and presently my poor friend Bardot uttered a low cry and fell in the straw at my side.