The Golden Sabre

They had had their meagre breakfast, none of them having any real appetite after the encounter with the boar; then they had re-packed the trailer and got on the road again. As they had driven out on to the road Cabell had seen the crows already coming in above the trees to the spot where the dead boar lay.

They had driven through the village where Nikolai had bought the mutton and bread. The villagers, alerted by the shouts of their children and the barking of their dogs, had come out of their wooden houses to stand and stare at the car as it rolled grandly down the single street. They saw only the occasional truck and never a car here; the outside world did not intrude, even the civil war was a war between strangers. The children and some of the women waved and one or two of the older men saluted: they had no idea who was in the car or whom it belonged to, but it was a symbol. Hands had been touching forelocks for centuries: it was a habit, good for one’s health.

‘I’m thinking about how far we have to go,’ said Cabell. ‘I wish to hell there was some quicker, safer way. An airplane, maybe.’

‘That’s wishing for the moon, Mr Cabell. I don’t think we should pray for miracles. I didn’t think lapsed Catholics ever did any praying.’

‘It’s a reflex action. You got any suggestions about what we should do?’

‘Just keeping heading south and hoping for the best.’

‘That’s constructive. How about this war that’s going on? It’s all over the place. We’ve got no way of knowing whether, we’re going to run into a battle. I don’t want to be caught in the goddam middle.’

‘Watch it!’

‘You have a knack for making anyone swear, Miss Penfold.’

‘Were you in the Great War, Mr Cabell?’ Frederick had recovered from his fright at seeing the danger his sister had been in. He was also recovered from his hurt at what Cabell had said to him last night. But he was still the little aristocrat, sitting upright in the back of the car while Cabell, the chauffeur, took him out for his morning spin. Despite what the American had said last night, he was not going to descend from prince to commoner overnight. His mother had coached him too well in his rank. ‘The war against the Germans?’

‘No. I was searching for oil.’

‘That wasn’t dangerous, was it? Not like fighting in a battle.’

‘No, it was a joy-ride. Just like the last couple of days.’

‘My father fought at Tannenburg, where he was wounded, and at Stanislau.’

Prince Gorshkov seemed to have had bad luck with his battles: Cabell wondered what other defeats he was presently headed for.

‘Bully for him.’

The reply left Frederick nonplussed: his ear was still too young for an adult’s sarcasm. But Eden looked at the American and wondered how he felt about his not having been in the Great War. He sounded as if he had some guilt about it. She herself had seen none of it, but she had seen the results of it. She had been at the station in Petrograd (she would never get used to that new name; St Petersburg had a ring to it, even if it was a German ring) when the hospital train had brought home the body of Igor. There had been other bodies covered with threadbare grey blankets; and wounded men, the sight of whom had depressed her more than the shrouded corpses. Men without limbs, a boy with half his face blown away; she had felt more pity for them than for the dead, even for Igor. For him she felt a terrible sense of loss; then realized later, with a sense of shame, that she felt sorrier for herself than for him. He had gone eagerly off to war, as he might have gone to the Swiss Alps to climb, which he had told her he did every summer; he would have died as he had wanted to, a hero in battle, died for Russia. She sometimes wondered, however, what had been his absolutely last thought just before death took him. Did men in battle really die as heroes or did they go out fighting death as fiercely as they had fought the other enemy?

But Cabell was not thinking of the past war. He had no regrets at having missed it, but he was irritated when someone suggested he should have been in it. He was more concerned with the present war:

‘We have no idea where the armies are—’

‘General Denikin’s army is in the Ukraine,’ said Frederick. ‘That’s where Father is.’

‘There’s a dozen damned armies. White ones, Red ones, private ones. At least back home our Civil War was pretty straightforward. What about you English?’ He looked at Eden.

‘We English don’t fight amongst ourselves. At least not for three hundred years.’

‘You fight the Irish. What about the Scots and Welsh?’

‘They try to fight us. But we’ll just ignore them.’

‘And they’ll all go home and be quiet?’

‘Eventually.’ But she really didn’t believe that, only wished for it. Though she had never lost her Englishness, England was becoming like a foreign country to her. Her parents, in the infrequent letters that got through since the Revolution, told her that England had changed during the War. Perhaps when she eventually reached home – how soon? Next month, next year? – she would not recognize the country she had left.

They were still on a mountain road, passing through pine forests, but now the road began to dip as it swung slightly south-east. The car was behaving beautifully, rolling smoothly along without effort, everyone in it marvellously comfortable. Cabell, a man who had never wished for riches, suddenly was seduced; he wanted to be an oil millionaire, have a car like this. He would chase horizons, follow beckoning roads in the grand manner, a vagabond with style.

Then the forest thinned out and they saw the narrow-gauge railway track running up to the mine cut into the side of the mountain slope. A wagon loaded with ore was being winched down the track to two wagons, drawn by oxen, waiting on the road.

The half-dozen men standing by the ox-wagons stiffened in surprise as the Rolls-Royce came round the bend in the road and glided to a halt beside them.

‘Good morning,’ said Eden. ‘Is there a town or village up ahead?’

The men glanced at one another, then a thickset, bald-headed man said, ‘Who wants to know?’

Cabell, half-turned in his seat, saw that Frederick was about to let the men know who he was. ‘Shut up, Freddie,’ he said in English.

The foreign language caused a stir amongst the men. They had been examining the car, their expressions a mixture of amazement and admiration. Now they stopped dead and looked at the man in the wide-brimmed hat who spoke a strange tongue.

‘Who’s he?’ said the bald-headed man.

‘He is an American engineer,’ said Eden. ‘I am an English teacher.’

‘Who owns such a motor car as this one?’

‘I do,’ said Cabell, and borrowed some of Frederick’s arrogance for the moment. ‘Good-day to you, gentlemen.’

He let in the gears and drove the car on before the men could move to stop him. Farther along the road, when they were out of sight of the mine, he said, ‘Those guys were asking too many questions.’

‘They are iron miners,’ said Nikolai. ‘Miners are different people from anyone else. It is the working underground, I think.’

‘Who do they work for – themselves?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Eden. ‘Probably for some landowner who lives in Moscow or somewhere far from here.’

‘They might work for my Uncle Vanya,’ said Frederick. ‘Father once said that Uncle Vanya owned everything for a hundred miles south of Verkburg.’

‘Freddie will inherit it all when Uncle Vanya dies,’ said Olga. ‘He is Uncle Vanya’s favourite nephew. I’m his favourite niece.’

‘Well, you’re not my favourite passengers,’ said Cabell. ‘I have an idea your Uncle Vanya wouldn’t be those miners’ favourite boss, either. Just keep your mouths shut about your relatives, okay? Stop playing Prince and Princess and be just plain Fred and Olga.’

‘Mother won’t like it when she hears of it,’ said Olga.

‘Your mother’s safe in Tiflis.’

The children said nothing, just looked at each other and sat back stiffly in their seats. But Eden said quietly, ‘You didn’t have to say that, Mr Cabell.’

‘I know,’ he said just as quietly; he increased the speed of the car, hoping the wind would make the children deaf to what he said. ‘But I haven’t had much experience with kids.’

‘That’s very evident, Mr Cabell.’ But she smiled when she said it and he grinned back at her.

Goddam, he thought, she’s a good-looker and she looks as if, with the right feller, she’d enjoy … But with two kids and a namby-pamby Cossack in the car, what could a feller do?