Scores of heads peered at them through the slats of the cars, and several occupants, evidently taking A.J. for some wayside railway official, enquired why the train had stopped. A.J. said he thought it was because the engine could not manage the hill, and then, feeling that nothing was to be lost by broaching the matter immediately, added: “I have a little bread and some tea and sugar—could you make room for just the two of us?”
“We cannot,” answered several, which did not sound unreasonable in view of the fact that men were even perched on the buffers between the cars. One or two voices, however, began to ask how much tea and sugar he had.
The whole colloquy was then sharply interrupted by the sound of shots proceeding from the passenger-coach. At once women began to shout and scream, and a few of the men standing on the buffers actually dropped to the ground and hid themselves beneath the cars. Other shots followed in rapid succession; then suddenly a group of men appeared out of the darkness, brandishing weapons and shouting. One carried a lantern and flashed it in A.J.’s face, exclaiming in had Russian: “What are you doing here? Didn’t you hear the order that no one was to get out?”
A.J. explained with an appropriate mixture of eloquence and simplicity that they hadn’t got out, and that, on the contrary, they were a couple of poor peasants trying their best to get in.
Another man then joined in the argument; he was clearly for shooting the two of them out of hand, but first man restrained him with some difficulty. “They are only peasants,” he said, and turning to A.J., added: “You say you were only looking for a place on the train?”
A.J. assured him that this was so, and just as he had finished, a soft, rather plaintive voice from the car above them cried out: “Yes, he is speaking the truth, your honour—they were offering us tea and sugar if we would make room for them.”
The man with the lantern grunted sharply. “Tea and sugar, eh? Come on—hand them over.” Obedience seemed advisable in the circumstances, and A.J. yielded up his precious commodities; after which the men, with a few final shouts, hurried away into the darkness, leaving the couple standing there by the side of the train, unharmed, but bereft of their most potent bargaining power.
After a judicious interval the occupants of the train took courage and set up a chorus of loud and indignant protests. The engine-whistle began a continuously ear-piercing screech, while from the passenger-coach sprang half a- dozen Red soldiers, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets. It soon became known that the bandits had run off with a large quantity of money and had also killed two Red guards on the train. The survivors, to excuse themselves, estimated the number of bandits at twenty, but A.J. did not think there could have been more than half that number.
Rather oddly the crowd of harassed and scared refugees were now inclined to show sympathy towards A.J. and his companion. “They were going to share their tea and sugar with us,” said the man with the plaintive voice. And another man said: “It’s all very well to kill the soldiers and steal the money, but to take away a poor man’s food is something to be really ashamed of. Climb up, friends, and we’ll make room for you somehow.”
So A.J. and Daly got aboard the train after all. There was hardly a square foot of space, and they were huddled together against the dirtiest and most odorous fellow-travellers, but there they were, as they had dreamed of being for many days—on board a train that would take them a further stage on their journey.
It was dawn, however, before the train started. In despair of surmounting the hill from a standstill, the engine-driver reversed for a mile or so and tried to take the gradient by storm. The manoeuvre failed, and the train was again reversed. This time the order was given for all able-bodied men to get out and push the cars over the crest of the rise, and by this means, with many snortings and splutterings, the train did finally crawl over the summit. There was then a further long wait while the pushers regained their places, and it was not till an hour after sunrise that the train steamed into Novochensk station, less than three miles from the scene of the hold-up.
A first view of Novochensk proved to A.J. how fortunate, after all, had been the boy-bandit’s advice. The station was packed from end to end of its large platforms and freight-yards, and the train, as it entered, seemed to push a way through the crowd like a vehicle threading through a fair-ground. Added, of course, to the normal pandemonium that the arrival of any train would have caused, was the extra sensation arising out of the hold-up. There was much agitated shouting and gesticulation among the railway officials as the bodies of the shot soldiers were removed from the train. The remaining soldiers had already revised their earlier estimate of the number of attackers; it was now reckoned about a hundred.
Scarcely any of those waiting at Novochensk succeeded in getting a place on the train, and those already in occupation dared not move for fear of losing their own places. The station, too, was without food, and many of the refugees had had nothing to eat for several days. Even water was scarce, owing to the prolonged drought, and when buckets were handed into the cars, there was barely enough to give each occupant a single quick gulp.
The train left Novochensk shortly before midday, and amidst the drowsy torpidity of the afternoon A.J. had plenty of time and opportunity to observe his fellow-passengers. There were perhaps fifty or sixty of them squatting on the floor of the box-car; many were leaning against each other and trying to sleep, and the whole effect was rather that of a litter of old rags. There was just enough talk and movement, however, to indicate that the litter was alive, and there was certainly ample liveliness of another kind. A.J. and Daly, whose clothes had been fairly clean on entering, shared the common misfortune during the first half-hour.
Here and there, and from time to time, some isolated phenomenon detached itself from that jumble of rags, chatter, and drowsiness; a baby cried; a woman opened her blouse and exposed a drooping shrunken breast-’ man groaned heavily as he stirred in sleep; the train lurched over a bad patch of line and drew a sigh, a curse, or a muttered exclamation from every corner of that strange assembly. The sunlight, shining through the wooden slats, made a flickering febrile patchwork of the whole picture, showing up here a piece of gaudy-coloured cloth, there a greasy, dirt-stained face, and everywhere, like a veil drawn in front of reality, the smoke rising from the men’s coarse tobacco and the myriad particles of dust.
The speed of travel was very slow—never more than ten miles an hour, and oftener no more than five; nor could anything be seen outside save that vast, vacant expanse of brown earth, on which the horizon seemed to press like a heavy, brazen rim. Miles passed without sight of a habitation, while nothing moved over the emptiness save swirls of dust and curlews scared by the train.
Actually she whispered to him as she leaned against the curve of his arm: “Oh, I’m happy—I’m happy. I’m beginning to have hope. When do you think we shall reach Kazan?”
“In two or three days, at this rate. Are you hungry?”
“Very, but I don’t mind. We had a good meal yesterday.”
“I’ll try to get you some water to drink at the next stop.”
“Yes, if you can. And for yourself too.”