The Golden Sabre

‘You’ll be pulp if you don’t do what I tell you!’

‘You don’t have to do it, Nikolai,’ said Frederick gently. ‘I’ll go.’

He spun away from Eden and before she or Cabell could stop him he had run through the doorway and out into the yard. Cabell called to him in a low voice, but Frederick took no notice. Tears sprang into Nikolai’s eyes, ashamed that a boy had gone out to do what he had been afraid to; yet he still couldn’t move, stood there and wanted to die. Out in the yard Frederick stood with his back to the barn as the horseman came slowly out of the shadow-latticed avenue into the bright white dust of the yard.

‘Good afternoon.’ Frederick’s voice broke, ending on a high note; he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Good afternoon, soldier. The General does not wish to be disturbed.’

The horseman was Pemenov. Thirsty, tired of driving around in the bone-shaking car, he had come back to the gates down on the road, where the six horsemen sprawled in the shade of the poplars. He had not wanted to drive up to the house in the car for fear its noise might disturb the General before the latter was finished whatever or whomever he was doing. He knew from experience how the General hated to be distracted while raping; it was one of his few sensibilities. The walk up the long avenue was too far for Pemenov’s short legs, especially on a day like this; so he had borrowed one of the horses. He had shortened the stirrup leathers and one of the soldiers had lifted him into the saddle; he knew that they laughed at him behind his back, but they would never laugh at him to his face while he was the General’s favourite. Now he sat above this arrogant aristocrat boy, his short legs sticking out on either side of the saddle, knowing he looked ridiculous and daring the boy to laugh. He would kill him if he did.

‘I want water,’ he said. ‘A drink.’

‘Water?’ Frederick was still having trouble with his voice. Cabell, listening to him, thought, The kid’s scared stiff. He looked angrily at Nikolai, but the anger died at once. Nikolai was still crying and behind the tears there was a look on his face that puzzled Cabell.

But Frederick was still managing to fool Pemenov: ‘Get down, soldier—’

‘Don’t keep calling me soldier. I am a major, Major Pemenov.’

This funny little man a major? But Frederick couldn’t laugh. ‘Major … Get down and come into the barn. There’s water there. And some of my father’s vodka, too.’

Pemenov nodded agreeably. ‘Vodka? That would be better.’ He smiled and Frederick gave a tentative smile in reply: they were like two children getting to know each other. ‘But with water, too.’

He slipped down from the saddle, landing with unexpected grace on his tiny feet. Leading the horse, he followed Frederick towards the open door of the barn. Frederick, for his part, suddenly realized he had no idea what Mr Cabell had in mind.

He faltered, stumbled, and the dwarf, still smiling innocently, as if eager to be a friend, reached forward and steadied him. Then they passed from the bright sunlight into the dimness of the barn.

Pemenov blinked, caught a glimpse of the gleaming big motor car, one he had never seen before, standing in the middle of the barn floor. He said, ‘It’s dark and cool in here.’

Then he saw the American coming at him. Cabell hit him with the starting handle of the Rolls-Royce and he went down into an even darker and cooler state. He dragged the horse’s head down with him as he fell face forward; it stumbled but kept its feet and finished up astride him, its hooves pawing nervously on either side of him. Cabell wrenched the reins free of the dwarf’s hand and threw them at Nikolai.

‘Tie the horse over there! Okay, everyone in the car!’

Eden pushed Olga up into the rear seat, dumped the suitcases in the trailer and clambered into the front passenger seat. Cabell dragged a tarpaulin over the loaded trailer, tied it down with rope. Frederick had already jumped up into the driver’s seat, closed the air tank switch and was pumping up pressure on the dashboard gauge. Cabell flooded the carburettor, then went round to the front of the car while Frederick set the mixture control to Strong, put the ignition control to Late and the governor control to Midway. Cabell gave the starting handle two complete turns, then Frederick switched on the engine.

‘Here we go,’ said Cabell. ‘Say your prayers!’

There was no need for prayers. Henry Royce’s engine started up at once, purred like some satisfied women Cabell had known. He ran round to get into the driver’s seat, but Frederick had one hand on the wheel and with the other was reaching to let off the hand-brake.

‘Out of there!’

‘I understand this car better than you! My father taught me how to drive it—’

‘Jesus, sonny, you’d turn the Virgin Mary into a Bolshevik! In the back, you hear!’ He stood on the running-board, reached down and Frederick, with a yell, went backwards over the seat and into the rear beside his sister. ‘You argue with me again and I’ll hit you with the goddam handle!’

He dropped into the driver’s seat, reached for the brake-handle and saw Nikolai standing in front of the car. ‘Sir—’

‘For crissake, Nick, get out of the goddam way!’

‘Sir, I want to come with you—’

‘There’s no room! You’ll be safer here – just disappear for a while—’

‘Let him come,’ said Eden. ‘We can’t leave him here. He’s a foreigner, even to the people on the estate – just like you and me—’

‘Oh Jesus,’ said Cabell. ‘Okay, in the back!’

He let in the gears and the Rolls-Royce glided out of the barn, the only noise that of the small trailer bouncing along behind it on its iron-shod wheels, did a wide turn and went down between the barn and the cow-sheds and out on to the narrow dirt road that led down through the tall yellow sea of wheat.

‘Okay, we’ve started. Now where the hell do we head for?’

‘Mr Cabell, would you mind moderating your language?’

‘I will when I know where the hell we’re going!’

‘I think we should head for Tiflis,’ said Eden.

‘Jesus wept,’ said Cabell and lifted his eyes skywards. The immensity of the sky seemed to reflect the distances that lay ahead of them. He had always had love affairs with horizons, but this was heading for the edge of the world. ‘Tiflis!’

[4]

Pemenov got slowly to his feet. His head, always too big for his body, felt even bigger and heavier. He looked around, saw the tyre-marks of the Rolls-Royce as it had gone out of the barn into the yard. He felt the back of his head and cursed softly; he would kill the American when they captured him. Then he remembered the General.

He ran out of the barn and across to the house. He hammered on the front door, but there was no response. He raced down the front steps, round the side of the house; he came to the long narrow terrace and the open french windows. He went in, still running, and pulled up so sharply he skidded on the parquet floor.

It took him only a moment to learn the General was dead. He knelt beside the corpse, pulled the trousers up and covered the limp instrument that had led the General to his death. Tears came into his eyes as he looked at his uncle’s ugly, brutal face. The General had laughed at him, made cruel jokes; but he had killed three men who had made the same jokes at Pemenov’s expense. Pemenov’s mother had killed herself when she realized what she had borne; his father, always a drunkard, had been killed in a drunken brawl when the cruelly named Peregrine had been only five years old. For the next twenty-five years Yuri Bronevich had cared for his unfortunate young cousin, treating him as a nephew. He had laughed at him, abused him, belted him, but he had protected Pemenov against what the rest of the world would have done to him.

Pemenov threw the rug back over the body. He took Bronevich’s pistol from where it had fallen, went out on to the terrace and fired two shots.

In less than a minute the horsemen came galloping up the avenue, followed by the General’s car with its driver and, beside him, the soldier whose horse Pemenov had borrowed. Pemenov, who had now slung Bronevich’s gunbelt across his chest like a bandolier, shouted orders for someone to look after the General’s body; then he clambered up into the car and snapped at the driver to follow the tyre-tracks that led out of the yard. The driver let in the gears and the car, an ancient Mercedes that had never been properly serviced, wheezed out of the yard and down the narrow road that led through the wheat-fields.

It had gone no more than half a mile when its engine coughed, spluttered and died. The driver, a hulking youth who had never ridden in a car till a year ago, looked helplessly at the little man beside him. ‘No petrol, Major. I forgot to fill the tank when the General rushed us out here—’

Pemenov’s first reaction was to hit the driver with Bronevich’s pistol. But some inner caution, always on the alert from past experience, held him back; his only protector was dead back there in the house. He sat there in the car, in the midst of the blinding yellow glare of the wheat-fields, and wanted to weep tears of rage and frustration. Then, looking back, he saw the horseman galloping at full pelt along the road after them. He stood up on the front seat and waited.

The soldier reined in his horse in a cloud of dust. ‘We found a motor truck in the barn – it is the American’s! The Englishwoman lied to us!’

Pemenov almost fell off his perch in a swoon of rage. First the American who had knocked him unconscious, then the Englishwoman who had tried to protect the American. The foreigners had to be driven out of Russia. Or killed … ‘Give me your horse!’

The soldier reared back with his horse. ‘Why should I? Who are you now–?’

Pemenov levelled the General’s pistol at the man: Bronevich, though dead, still lent him some protection. ‘Bring your horse here by the car! Give me the reins. Now get down!’

The soldier glared, but swung down from his horse and backed away. Pemenov stepped up on to the side of the car and vaulted into the saddle. He gestured to the driver. ‘Give me the General’s rifle and the bandolier and his binoculars!’

The driver, careful of the gun pointed at him, did as he was told. The rifle was a Mosin-Nagent, better than the ancient Krenk in the saddle scabbard. Pemenov took the Krenk from the scabbard, unloaded it and flung it into the wheat. He adjusted the stirrup leathers, then he was ready to leave.

‘Don’t follow me or I shall kill you. Give the General a decent burial.’

He dug in his heels and turned the horse south. He had no idea where he was heading, except to follow the tyre-tracks in the dust for as far as they might go. If he lost them, he would just keep riding south anyway, into the steppes and oblivion if that was the way it had to be. He could not stay here: his life would be hell. Better to head south, ride after the American, kill him. He owed it to the General who could no longer protect him.