She made up her mind, and, bending over Evans, plied him with as many questions as he could answer. Then, with her comic little air of decision, she crammed a round grey astrachan hat on her head, swung a black Caucasian cloak of pony skin on to her shoulders and made for the stables.
The sleepy transport sergeant was dragged out of his bed and set to start the Ford box-car, which carried the personal baggage of the column. Grumbling, but obedient to her English air of certainty, he swung the engine into life."
"I've spent too long on this episode introducing to your notice Norah Cleverly, and Archie Sinclair," said Ross with a yawn, "to allow me to describe to you her ride. On horseback, it would have claimed a poet's pen. As the mount was a Ford car, I can only say the road was abominable, scored into deep ruts, strewn with boulders, and, without lights, invisible. How the car kept together and the girl's strength held out and how they escaped total wreck, I can't imagine. A stoutish bit of work. Eventually—about the time that Archie's layer died in his arms—the Ford came to a full stop in the sand with its wheels spinning round tyre-deep.
Norah jumped out and pushed. The car did not stir. She looked for stones to put under the wheels to give them grip. She saw nothing but sand and immovable boulders. She sat on the step, the tears hot in her eyes. Not from fear at her position in the route of the victorious Austrian army, but from anger at her failure, and from pity for the men she had failed to rescue.
After a time she heard a voice raised in song. Russians, she knew, sing about the Volga, Teutons about the 'Heimat.' When, therefore, she heard the words:—
'And when I die, don't bury me at all,
Just pickle my bones in al-co-hol...'
she recognised a compatriot.
'God bless my soul,' said Sergeant Yates, a minute later.
* * * * * * *
'Listen,' said Archie to the survivors of his party, a little before dawn, 'isn't that a Ford?'