Often at nights their blood was chilled by the eerie howling of wolves, and sometimes in the daytime they caught a glimpse of their grey shapes in the distance, or slinking through the trees. As men were constantly dropping out of the column to die, the packs had any number of newly dead bodies to feed on, so they never attacked those who were still capable of defending themselves. But it was a horrifying thought that, at times, men and women who had given up from exhaustion might be savaged and half eaten while there was still life in them,
From Moscow they had started out with eight hundred Russian prisoners. Not one of them now remained alive. Gruesome stories were in circulation that many of them had been taken into the woods by their Czech and Polish guards, murdered and eaten.
The 7th November proved a most unlucky day for Roger and his companions. Mules are much more sensible animals than horses. If driven to it, a horse will go on until he drops dead. Not so a mule. When he feels that he has done as much as can be expected of him, he will stop and refuse to go another step, even if severely beaten. Greuze had started out leading the animal, but after the first fortnight of the march, the youth had become so pallid and hollow eyed with fatigue that Roger feared he would soon die; so, to keep him going, he had told him to walk for two hours and every third sit in the cart and drive it. He was driving it when the mule came to an abrupt halt.
Scrambling down, he endeavoured to pull the animal forward by its bridle; but it refused to budge. Roger knew that it would be useless to whip it, and resorted to the classic way of making a mule move on. Taking his tinder box from his pocket, he struck a light and held it under the mule's tail. Greuze had seen perfectly well what his master was about to do but, probably bemused by the cold that racked his thin frame, he did not step away quickly enough from the mule's head. The little beast leapt forward like a Newmarket winner from the starting post. One of the shafts of the cart struck Greuze a frightful blow in the chest, sending him sprawling, and the cart ran over him.
Galvanized into a final spurt of vigour, the mule covered thirty yards at a gallop, knocking down two marching men and scattering others. When a sergeant grabbed at its bridle, in an attempt to stop the terrified animal, it swerved and carried the cart over a steep bank. Roger, fearing to lose the stores on which their lives depended, rowelled his mount into a fast trot. On riding up the bank over which the mule had disappeared, he saw that the cart had overturned and that one of the poor beast's forelegs was sticking out from under it at an acute angle, so was obviously broken.
The episode had roused a number of the marchers from their semi-stupor. Half a dozen of them were already scrambling down the bank, intent on looting the cart and killing the mule. Drawing his pistol, Roger yelled at them that he would shoot the first man who laid a hand on either. Then, as they reclimbed the bank, panting, the breath from their exertions making little clouds of vapour in the frosty air, he picked on a stalwart corporal and ordered him to stand guard over the cart while he rode back to look to his injured servant.
He found Greuze lying at the roadside with his head in Mary's lap. The poor youth's breastbone had been broken, and his jaw had been fractured by one of the cartwheels which had bumped over it. He was bleeding profusely and it was obvious that, in the low state to which he had been reduced by cold and hardship, he had not long to live. Roger poured enough brandy down his throat to dull his pain; then, in spite of Mary's protests he insisted that they must leave him and get to the cart in order to salvage the things it contained.
When they reached it, they found that a group of gaunt bearded soldiers, grotesquely muffled up to the ears in the rags of blankets, saddle cloths and looted finer, had knocked out the corporal whom Roger had left in charge, shot the mule and had already started to flay it. Drawing his pistol again, he drove them off, then promised them shares in the animal if they obeyed him. All of them were weak from privation and lacked the courage to attack an officer who appeared to be still full of vigour; so, with chattering teeth, a big fellow who appeared to be their leader told the others that they had better have patience.
Fortunately the cart had overturned completely, and the contents were under it, so none of the soldiers had had the chance to steal anything during Roger's brief absence. Fearful that, when they saw the food, desperate craving might lead one of them to attempt to kill him, he made Mary, whom he had armed with his second pistol before they set out, remain mounted a few yards back and keep them covered. Then he told two of them to turn the cart right side up.
When they had done so, he rummaged among the things until he found two bottles that had held brandy, but had since been filled with melted snow. Emptying them of the half frozen water, he had the big fellow open a vein in the mule's neck and drained off the blood into the bottles. He then cut a large hunk of meat from the saddle and told the men they were welcome to the rest of the beast.
While they fought ravenously over the carcass, he sorted out the stores they could take from those he must leave behind. The big sleeping bag was essential, and he strapped it under the saddle of his charger. They had used up most of the oatmeal., about a third of their tea, sugar, marzipan and preserved fruit and four of their bottles of brandy. By emptying the panniers hanging from Mary's saddle of all their spare clothes, they managed to cram into them all the provisions except the hunk of mule flesh, which would soon be frozen by the intense cold. That, and the remains of the block of salt, Roger lashed to the pommel of his saddle. Drawing in an icy breath, he heaved himself up on his horse and told Mary that they must now hurry on in order to catch up with the headquarters' cavalcade.
But she would not hear of it. The liking she had formed for the gentle young Greuze and pity for him had determined her not to allow him to die alone. Roger protested that the temperature now being twelve degrees below zero, the youth must soon fall into a coma, so to remain with him would be pointless. But Mary only shook her muffled head and turned her mount in the opposite direction to that in which the column was slowly plodding. Annoyed though he was by her stubbornness, Roger had no alternative but to follow her.
When they reached Greuze he was still conscious; but he had already been robbed of his fur coat, muff and stout, sheepskin lined boots. Mary wrapped his feet in a blanket that she took from under her saddle, and asked Roger to let her have their big sleeping bag to cover his body. But Roger refused, because he knew that it would be no kindness to prolong the lad's life and, had he been on his own, he would have covered him up to the chest with snow, so that he might the sooner become numb and oblivious to the fact that he was dying.
For over an hour Mary sat beside Greuze, holding his hand and endeavoring to comfort him. Now and then he opened his eyes and gave her a little, twisted smile; but gradually the gasps of his agonized breathing became less frequent, until his head rolled on one side and his grip on Mary's hand relaxed.
When she stood up, she was so cramped with cold that her legs would not support her. Roger had to shake and beat her to restore her circulation. For most of the time she had been crying and, as he helped her on to her horse, he saw that the tears had frozen on her cheeks, already red and peeling from the biting wind.