Chapter 5

      I’ve been in a good few sieges in my time, from full-dress affairs like Cawnpore, Lucknow, and the Pekin nonsense a few years ago, to more domestic squabbles such as the Kabul residency in ’41. But I can’t think of one worse managed than the moujiks’ attack on Starotorsk. I gathered afterwards that several thousand of them, whipped on by Blank’s fiery oratory, had just up and marched on the house to avenge their priest’s death, seizing what weapons were handiest, and making no attempt at concealment or concerted attack to take the place on all sides at once. They just stamped up the road, roaring, the Cossacks in their little barrack saw them, knocked a few over with rifle fire, and then retired to the main house just as the mob surged into the drive and threw themselves at the front door. And there it was, touch and go, with the moujiks beating on the panels, smashing in the downstairs windows on that side to clamber in, waving their trowels and torches and yelling for Pencherjevsky’s blood.³⁴

      As he stood there, clasping Valla and glaring round like a mad thing, I doubt if he fully understood it himself – that his beloved slaves were out to string him from the nearest limb, with his family on either side of him. It was like the sun falling out of the sky for him. But he knew deadly danger when he saw it, and his one thought was for his daughter. He seized me by the arm.

      “The back way – to the stables! Quickly! Get her away, both of you! We shall hold them here – the fools, the ingrate clods!” He practically flung her into my arms. “Take a sled and horses, and drive like the wind to the Arianski house – on the Alexandrovsk road! There she will be safe. But hasten, in God’s name!”

      I’d have been off at the run, but East, the posturing ass, had to thrust in:

      “One of us will stay, sir! Or let a Cossack escort your daughter – it is not fitting that British officers should –”

      “You numskull!” bawled Pencherjevsky, seizing him and thrusting him violently towards the back corridor. “Go! They will be in, or round the house, while you stand prating! This is no affair of yours – and I command here!” There was a tearing crash from the front door, several pistol shots amid the clamour of the mob and the shouting of the Cossacks, and over the banisters I saw the door cave in, and a torrent of ragged figures pouring in, driving the Cossacks back towards the foot of the stairs. The smoky glare of their torches turned the place suddenly into a struggling hell, as the Cossacks swung their sabres and nagaikas to force them back.

      “Get her away!” Pencherjevsky encircled both me and Valla for an instant in his bear-like hug, his great, bearded face within an inch of my own, and there were tears in his glaring eyes. “You know what is to do, my son! See to her – and to that other life! God be with you!”

      And he bundled us into the corridor, and then rushed to the head of the stairs. I had a glimpse of his towering bulk, with the smoky glare beneath him, and then the chorus of yells and screams from the hall redoubled, there was a rushing of feet, a splintering of timber – and East and I were doubling down the back-stairs at speed, Valla sobbing against my chest as I swept her along.

      We tore through the kitchen, East pausing to grab some loaves and bottles, while I hurried out into the yard. It was dead still in the moonlight; nothing but the soft stamp of the beasts in their stalls, and the distant tumult muffled on the other side of the house. I was into the coach-building in a flash, bundled Valla into the biggest sled, and was leading round the first of the horses when East joined me, his arms full.

      I don’t know the record for harnessing a three-horse sled, but I’ll swear we broke it; I wrenched home the last buckle while East scuttled across the snow to unbar the gate. I jumped into the driver’s seat and tugged the reins, the horses whinnied and reared and then danced forward, any old how – it’s deuced difficult, tooling a sled – and with me swearing at the beasts and East swinging up as we slid past, we scraped through the gateway on to the open road beyond.

      There was a bang to our left, and a shot whistled overhead, causing me to duck and the horses to swerve alarmingly. They were rounding the house wall, a bare thirty yards away, a confused, roaring rabble, torches waving, running to head us off. East seized the whip from its mount and lashed at the beasts, and with a bound that nearly overturned us they tore away, down the road, with the mob cursing at our tail, waving their fists, and one last shot singing wide as we distanced them.

      We didn’t let up for a mile, though, by which time I had the beasts under control, and we were able to pull up on a gentle rise and look back. It was like a Christmas scene, a great white blanket glittering in the full moon, and the dark house rising up from it, with the red dots of torch-light dancing among the outbuildings, and the thin sound of voices echoing through the frosty air, and the stars twinkling in the purple sky. Very bonny, I suppose – and then East clutched my arm.

      “My God! Look yonder!”

      There was a dull glow at one corner of the house; it grew into an orange flame, licking upwards with a shower of sparks; the torches seemed to dance more madly than ever, and from the sled behind there was a sudden shrieking sob, and Valla was trying to struggle out – my God, she still had nothing on but her night-dress, and as she half fell out it ripped and sent her tumbling into the snow.

      I threw the reins to East, jumped down, and bundled her quickly back into the sled. There were furs there, any amount of them, and I swaddled her in them before the cold could get at her. “Father! Father!” she was moaning, and then she fainted dead away, and I laid her down on the back seat and went forward to East, handing him up one of the furs – for we had nothing but our shirts and breeches and boots, and the cold was crippling.

      “Let’s get on,” says I, wrapping up myself, with my teeth chattering. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Come on, man, what ails you?”

      He was sitting staring ahead, his mouth open, and when he swung round to me, he was positively laughing.

      “Flashman!” he cried. “This is our chance! Heaven-sent! The sled – the horses – and a clear start! We’re away, old fellow – and no one to stop us!”

      It shows you what a hectic scramble it had been, with not a moment’s pause to collect one’s wits from the shock of waking until now, but for a second I didn’t see what he was driving at. And then it struck me – escape. We could light out for Yenitchi, and East’s causeway, and not a living soul would know we had gone. One couldn’t be sure, of course, but I doubted whether any civilized being would survive what was happening at Starotorsk; it might be days before the police or the army came on the scene and realized that there were three persons not accounted for. And by then we could be in Sevastopol – always assuming we got through the Russian army. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t much care for the Alexandrovsk road, either, wherever that was – God knew how far the insurrection would