At once Shaw knelt, sinking into the soft ground, plastering both their faces with mud so that no whiteness would be picked out by the beam.
He laid Virginia on the treacherous, muddy surface and flattened himself beside her, wriggling their two bodies right into the squelching earth, supporting the girl’s head so that her face was clear. They had no other cover but that mud now; they had left the scrubby fringe growth behind them long since — but the mud was good enough. Slowly, the traversing beam came closer, lingering across the ground. As it swept over him, not stopping, Shaw glanced at Virginia. Through the mud caking her he could see a nasty gash on her forehead. The searchlight moved away traveling from east to west through 360 degrees to cover both sides of the highway, leaving them in darkness once again. The troops were advancing; every now and then, Shaw could hear one man shout to another, faintly, distantly, as the line came forward to comb the ground, slow and cautious and thorough. Eventually, the line of troops must flush them out; with that beam on the move it was a foregone conclusion… and yet, in fact, it wasn’t; Not quite! Grasshopper tactics might win out after all.
Shaw waited until the searchlight had inched right round and was moving back towards him, its beam throwing every undulation of the muddy surface, every scrubby bush and stunted tree by the roadside, into sharp white relief. Rain slashed the beam, heavy rain that brought the liquid mud up in spurts around him. The moment the beam had moved on past him again and he was left in the darkness, the greater darkness of its wake, Shaw scrambled to his feet. With the girl across his shoulder, he slogged obstinately through the ooze, making such progress as he could before the beam started on its way back. Then just before it reached him he threw himself once more to the ground, his heart pumping hard and his breath coming painfully in gasps.
For the third time, the beam swept over his head, slow and steady, and then moved on. He had gained a little on the slow-motion searchers — not much, but enough to keep a few jumps ahead of them yet.
Six times Shaw doggedly repeated this maneuver.
As he lurched to his feet for the seventh time, he glanced quickly back and then staggered on with his burden. He had gone no more than a dozen paces when very suddenly the ground became softer and oozier, and he found himself sliding into what felt like a bottomless pit of mud, soft, evil-smelling mud that was already frighteningly, rising beyond his waist.
He had stumbled into the marsh, into the wicked, clutching Pripet, the marsh that so many years before had dimmed Adolf Hitler’s dream of Russian conquest.
Ten
They were being sucked down, dragged inexorably into the swamp as if by some invisible but wholly tangible power that would never let them go. To increase his body-resistance, Shaw flung his arms wide, palms downward, balancing Virginia across his shoulder; he tried to move his legs out sideways but was quite unable to do so — the sheer weight of ooze held him trapped, a helpless prisoner of natural forces.
If he moved any more he was done for, and so was the girl, who had passed out again now. Movement would only carry him down farther. For the time being he was almost stationary, though his feet could feel no solid bottom; in time, whether he moved or not, he would be bound to sink farther into the marsh and that would be the end. The muck would fill their mouths, their nostrils, their eyes, and their ears. Death would come by horrible suffocation, in total silence and total dark, and it would come slowly. But he couldn’t in fact have come very far from more or less solid ground. He had gone very suddenly from that negotiable ground into the marsh proper — one step, just one step, had plunged him immediately into it. One step… and yet, that, perhaps could prove to be enough — he was unable even to turn now. And even if he could turn, the very movement would no doubt finish them both. Nevertheless there was reassurance in the knowledge that he was, in fact, so close to safety.
The searchlight beam was circling back towards him, but it would never find them now. He and the girl together made just one more blob in a sea of mud.
Back along the highway half an hour later, the search was being abandoned. The MVD officer in charge had decided that the fugitives had come to grief in the Pripet swamp; he knew the Pripet — and he knew very well that the highway on which he was standing ran across the only piece of firm ground in the vicinity, and that anyone going off the road for more than, say, a kilometer could scarcely help falling a victim to the wicked Pripet. Also he was aware that tonight, with so much rain, the fringes would not be so well delineated as in drier weather.
The marsh would have done all that was necessary, the Pripet, in effect, acting on behalf of the MVD.
Already the ambulances had been moving off one by one as the dead and injured were taken aboard; one only remained to go now. This one headed home for Minsk just as the searchlight completed its final circuit. The officer nodded at the Red Army captain in charge of the troops, and a few seconds after that, to everyone’s infinite relief, the big beam died.
Within ten more minutes, the police cars and the army transport were rolling in for Minsk. If by some miracle the fugitives had escaped the Pripet, they would certainly be picked up with the next dawn. There was no doubt about that.
Wicks and Fawcett had in fact got well clear of the area of search even before the convoy had come from Minsk; they had lain low in the mud while the vehicles had roared past them, then they had started walking again, doggedly pushing through for the still distant town. They lay hidden again when the troops and ambulances, moving off, passed them for the second time; and when all was clear, they got up and moved closer to the road, where the ground was firmer and they were able to make better speed. They still lay low whenever a vehicle was seen approaching from the distance.
Fawcett asked bitterly, “How much bloody farther, Charlie?”
“A long way yet, so don’t start moaning again.”
“Moaning!” Fawcett shivered, tried to scrape some of the clinging mud from his face and clothes. “Where the hell’s Dubovik, I’d like to know!”
“He’ll be on his way,” Wicks answered stolidly.
It was half an hour later, by which time several vehicles had passed and forced them down into the cover of the mud, when they saw more lights coming up towards them from the direction of Minsk — but lights with a difference. This vehicle was traveling slowly, as if the driver were searching for something — or someone? Wicks said, “That could be Dubovik.” A few moments after that, they both saw the flicker of a torch, stabbing out into the dark from behind the headlights.
“He’s signaling,” wicks said in a taut voice. “It’s Dubovik, all right!” He waited till the lights were almost abreast of them and then he scrambled to his feet. “I’m going to give him a sight of us—”
“Don’t be a fool!” Fawcett pulled at his arm. “If it isn’t him—”
“It’s him all right.” Wicks stood right up and began waving his arms and calling. “He’s sending the code letters. Besides, I can see the outlines now… it’s the same old van Dubovik always uses.”
He heard Fawcett’s grunt of relief, and then both men were running towards the road. The van pulled up and a light went on; a squat, bulky man looked out at them, grinning. “Well met, Comrades!” the man said in a throaty voice. “Get in. We have no time to waste.”
“Quite. And are we glad to see you, Comrade Dubovik!”
The man showed discolored teeth in another grin. “It is like old times, yes? Now please — get in.”