Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
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side by main strength, until I managed to drag myself inboard, tumbling on to the back seat. Valla was stirring, muttering sleepily, but I’d no time for her; I thrust out my head, staring fearfully across the snow, trying to pierce the dusk, but there was nothing to be seen. East was letting the horses go, and the sled was swaying with the speed – and then it came again, closer still, like the sound of a lost soul falling to hell. I heard East shouting to the horses, cracking his whip; I clutched the side, feeling the sweat pouring off me in spite of the cold.
Still nothing, as we fairly flew along; there was another cluster of koorgans just visible in the mirk a quarter of a mile or so to our left. As I watched them – was that something moving beyond them? My heart flew to my mouth – no, they stood bleak and lonely, and I found I was panting with fear as I dashed the sweat from my eyes and peered again. Silence, save for the muffled thump of the hooves and the hissing of the runners – and there was something flitting between the last two koorgans, a low, long dark shape rushing over the snow, and another behind it, and another, speeding out now into the open, and swerving towards us.
“Jesus!” I shrieked. “Wolves!”
East yelled something I couldn’t hear, and the sled rocked horribly as he bore on his offside rein; then we righted, and as I gazed over the side, the hellish baying broke out almost directly behind us. There they were – five of them, gliding in our wake; I could see the leader toss up his hideous snout as he let go his evil wail, and then they put their heads down and came after us in dead silence.
I’ve seen horror in my time, human, animal, and natural, but I don’t know much worse than that memory – those dim grey shapes bounding behind us, creeping inexorably closer, until I could make out the flat, wicked heads and the snow spurting up under their loping paws. I must have been petrified, for God knows how long I just stared at them – and then my wits came back, and I seized the nearest rug and flung it out to the side, as far as I could.
As one beast they swerved, and were on it in a twinkling, tearing it among them. Only for a second, and then they were after us again – probably all the fiercer for being fooled. I grabbed another rug and hurled it, and this time they never even broke stride, but shot past it, closing in on the sled until they were a bare twenty paces behind, and I could see their open jaws – I’ve never been able to look an Alsatian in the face since – and delude myself that I could even make out their glittering eyes. I’d have given my right arm, then, for the feel of my faithful old Adams in my grip – “You wouldn’t run so fast with a forty-four bullet in you, damn you!” I yelled at them – and they came streaking up, while the horses screamed with fear and tore ahead, widening the gap for about ten blessed seconds. I was cursing and scrabbling in the back looking for something else to throw – a bottle, that was no use, but by George, if I smashed one at the bottom it might serve as a weapon when the last moment came and they were ravening over the tailboard – in desperation I seized a loaf (we’d finished the ham) and hurled it at the nearest of them, and I am here to tell you that wolves don’t eat bread – they don’t even bloody well look at it, for that matter. I heard East roaring something, and cracking his whip like a madman, and God help me, I could see the eyes behind us now, glaring in those viciously pointed heads, with their open jaws and gleaming teeth, and the vapour panting out between them. The leader was a bare five yards behind, bounding along like some hound of hell; I grabbed another rug, balled it, prayed, and flung it at him, and for one joyous moment it enveloped him; he stumbled, recovered, and came on again, and East sang out from the box to hold tight. The sled rocked, and we were shooting along between high snow banks on either side, with those five devils barely a leap from us – and suddenly they were falling back, slackening their lope, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, and then a cabin flashed by on the right, and then another, with beautiful, wonderful light in its windows, and the five awful shapes were fading into the gloom, and we were gliding up a street, between rows of cottages on either side, and as East brought the sled slowly to a halt I collapsed, half-done, on the seat. Valla, I remember, muttered something and turned over in her rugs.
You would not think much of Yenitchi, I dare say, or its single mean street, but to me Piccadilly itself couldn’t have looked better. It was five minutes before I crawled out, and East and I faced the curious stares of the folk coming out of the cabins; the horses were hanging in their traces, and we had no difficulty in convincing them that we needed a change. There was a post-station at the end of the street, beside a bridge, and a drunk postmaster who, after much swearing and cajoling, was induced to produce a couple of fairly flea-bitten brutes; East wondered if we should rest for a few hours, and go on with our own nags refreshed, but I said no – let’s be off while the going’s good. So when we had got some few items of bread and sausages and cheese from the postmaster’s wife, and a couple of female garments for Valla to wear when she woke up, we put the new beasts to and prepared to take the road again.
It was a dismal prospect. Beyond the bridge, which spanned a frozen canal, we could see the Arrow of Arabat, a long, bleak tongue of snow-covered land running south like a huge railway embankment into the Azov Sea. The sea proper, which was frozen – at least as far out as we could see – lay to the left; on the right of the causeway lies a stinking inland lagoon, called the Sivache, which is many miles wide in places, but narrows down as you proceed along the Arrow, until it peters away altogether where the causeway reaches Arabat, on the eastern end of the Crimea. The lagoon seems to be too foul to freeze entirely, even in a Russian winter, and the stench from it would poison an elephant.
We were just preparing to set off, when Valla woke up, and after we had told her where she was, and reassured her that all was well, and she had wept a little, and I’d helped her out discreetly to answer a call of nature – well, she’d been asleep for the best of twenty-four hours – we decided after all to have a caulk before setting out again. East and I were both pretty done, but I wouldn’t allow more than two hours’ rest – having got this far, I’d no wish to linger. We had some food, and now Valla was beginning to come to properly, and wanted to know where we were taking her.
“We’re going back to our own army,” I told her. “We must take you with us – we can’t leave you here, and you’ll be well cared for. I believe your father is all right – we saw him and his Cossacks escaping as we drove away – and I know he would wish us to see you safe, and there’s nowhere better than where we’re going, d’you see?”
It served, after a deal of questioning and answering; whether she was still under the influence of the laudanum or not, I wasn’t certain, but she seemed content enough, in a sleepy sort of way, so we plied her with nips of brandy to keep out the cold – she refused outright the clothes we had got, and stayed curled up in her rugs – and being a Russian girl, she was ready to drink all we offered her.
“If she’s half-tight, so much the better,” says I to East. “Distressing, of course, but she’ll be less liable to give the game away if we run into trouble.”
“It is terrible for her – to be subjected to this nightmare,” says he. “But that was a noble lie you told, about her father – I wanted to shake your hand on that, old boy.” And he wrung it then and there. “I still think I must be dreaming,” says he. “This incredible country, and you and I – and this dear girl – fleeing for our lives! But we are nearly home, old fellow – a bare sixty miles to Arabat, and then eight hours at most will see us at Sevastopol, God willing. Will you pray with me, Flashman, for our deliverance?”
I wasn’t crawling about in the snow, not for him or anyone, but I stood while he mumped away with his hands folded, beseeching the Lord that we might quit ourselves like men, or something equally useful, and then we climbed in and took our forty winks. Valla was dozing, and the brandy bottle was half-empty – if ever they start the Little White Ribboners in Russia, all the members will have to be boys, for they’ll never get the women to take the pledge.
The rest did me little good. The scare we’d had from the wolves, and the perils ahead, had my nerves jangling like fiddle-strings, and after a bare hour of uneasy dozing I roused East and said we should be moving. The moon was up by now, so we should have light enough to ensure we didn’t stray from the causeway; I took the driver’s seat, and we slid away over the bridge and out on to the