Yet even that could not impel many of them on indefinitely. Every quarter of an hour or so one of them would stumble and fall down in the snow, never to rise again, or just give up and sit down at the roadside on his knapsack, waiting for death to end his misery. Half a dozen times Roger saw a man halt, drop his musket, unfasten the bandolier carrying his ammunition and, with a sobbing curse, throw that down beside it. These arms and other objects that the men no longer had the strength to carry constantly added to the litter on the road. Along it, every fifty yards or so, there were mounds of snow covering the dead of yesterday or of the day before. And he knew that the road was like that for the whole of the four hundred and fifty miles back to Moscow.
In mid afternoon it began to snow again. Soon the heads and shoulders of the slowly-moving figures on the road were powdered with it. Then the fall increased to a blizzard and they were hidden from view. Suddenly apprehensive that the big, driven flakes would not provide a permanent and sufficiently thick curtain to conceal the farmhouse from the road, and that a group of men might seek refuge there, Roger hastily began to make preparations against that possibility.
First he took the panniers and saddle bags out to the woodshed, then he carried Mary there. In his wall of logs he had left a hole low down, large enough to wriggle her through, and he settled her behind it with the saddlebags beside her, and the panniers for a pillow. He then watered and fed his horse, and fed Mary for the third time on the warmed up mixture of mule's blood and brandy; it had been his intention to remain there, but he feared that to have got into the sleeping bag with her would have prevented her from sleeping. After sitting with her for an hour, he became so cold that he was taken with bouts of shivering and his teeth began to chatter. Having decided that he mast return to the fire that he had left burning in the farmhouse, he told Mary why he was leaving her and promised to return once or twice during the night to see that she was all right.
It then occurred to him that if a group of men came to the farm and brought a horse with them, his own horse might neigh and give away the hiding place, so he tied a strip of sacking round his horse's muzzle. After crawling out through the hole, he camouflaged it with some loose logs and more sacking that he had left there for the purpose, then hurried into the house.
He had let the fire there die down, as he had not wanted the light from it to attract possibly unwelcome visitors; but he felt that he must now take that risk, for he judged that the temperature was in the neighborhood of twenty below and, with no sleeping bag, he feared he might otherwise freeze to death in the night.
Having made up the fire and warmed his chapped hands at it, he pounded up some of the oats he had found in the woodshed and cooked himself a meal of porridge, washing it down with a swig of brandy. Then, for a long time, he sat over the fire wondering for how long he would be able to keep Mary and himself alive. When it became dark outside, he decided to try to get some sleep under the sacking on which Mary had lain while in the house; but first went out to see her. The weather had worsened and on his way to the woodshed he was almost blown off his feet by the driving snow that was piling up in a drift against one side of it. He was thankful to find that Mary was asleep, so remained in the shed for only a few minutes, then fought his way back to his fireside.
He was still arranging the sacking when he caught the sound of voices. The door of the room was hanging on one hinge. A great hand forced it back, and an enormously fat man pushed his way in. Roger judged that before this human barrel started on the march he must have weighed at least twenty stone, and would still turn the scale at fifteen. The man's features were hardly distinguishable in the firelight, as his heavy eyebrows and beard were so thickly rimed by the frost; but his face was round and looked as if it would normally be cheerful. Stamping his feet to shake the snow off his wraps, he addressed Roger politely in Italian:
'Signor, for the past three hours, my companions and I have been lost and walking round this accursed white wilderness in circles. I know it, for we have passed this place before. Can you tell me, please, where is the road?'
Roger smiled and replied in the same language, 'It is no more than fifty yards in front of this building.'
The fat man considered for a moment, his eyes on the fire. Then he said, 'That is good, but all the same I think I and my men will stay here for the night. I am Sergeant Giuseppe Balderino, of the Second Mantua Regiment.'
Giving a nod of agreement, Roger replied, 'You are welcome, Sergeant.' Then he put into operation a plan that he had formed to win the goodwill of any soldiers who might arrive and take the place over, by adding, 'I am in the fortunate situation of being able to offer you a meal.'
Balderino's dark eyebrows shot up, 'But, Signor, this is most unexpected, most generous. You are a Prince. My men and I are your servants.' Then he turned and shouted through the half open doorway, 'Come in! Come in! The good St. Anthony of Padua has led us here. Be not deceived by the looks of this place. In reality it is a palace. We are invited to dine here, and our host can be no lesser person than the magician Cagliostro, for he conjured up food in a land where there is none.'
Roger had realised that his single horse could not possibly carry Mary, the sack of oats, a bale of hay and all their other things, so he had decided to give half the sack of oats to any soldiers who might come to the farm.
The Italians stumbled in. They were grateful and garrulous, politely shaking Roger by the hand before crowding round the fire to thaw out their clothes, which were frozen stiff. With them they had some onions, a piece of pork and four pig's trotters. Adding these to the pounded oats they made a savory stew that they sucked down with delight, followed by much belching.
Not long after they had all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night, they were roused in a most unwelcome manner. A number of men emerged out of the darkness and endeavoured to force their way in. The Italians believed their would be intruders to be Montenegrins, but their fierce war cries gave no certain indication of their nationality.
Roger quietly slipped out of the back door to defend Mary should any of the menacing newcomers go round to the woodshed. He found her still asleep, and she did not even wake when several shots were fired. There followed a silence that lasted for a good five minutes. Gathering from it that the attackers had been driven off, Roger returned to the room and found that the Italians were settling down again. Sergeant Balderino chaffed him for his lack of courage, but he took no umbrage, being only too glad that Mary's safety had not been imperiled, and replied with a laugh that his guests owed him protection for having given them hospitality.
The only other disturbance during the night was the terrible hacking cough of one of the men named Carlo. Towards morning it ceased and, when the others roused, he was found to be dead. After carrying his body out, they made breakfast, which Roger shared with them, off some more of his oats; then, on departing, with the optimism of their carefree natures, invited him to come to see them in Mantua when the war was over.
Only too well Roger realised how fortunate he had been in the two groups of men who had shared the farmhouse with him during the past two nights; for, had either of them been Germans, their inbred brutality being so stimulated by their hatred for the French, they might well have killed him, and Czechs, Albanians or Poles could also have proved hostile and dangerous. For the night to come the chances were against his luck continuing, so he was hoping that Mary might have recovered sufficiently to take the road again with him that day.