The Winter Horses(45)

“I’m glad you’ve asked me that, Corporal Hagen,” lied Grenzmann. “You make a good point. This is why I’ve asked the sergeant to return to the big house and to follow on with more troops and supplies. In case this takes a bit longer than I’ve anticipated. All right? All he has to do is follow our trail just as we are following that of these sub-equine horses.”

“Yes, sir,” said the corporal.

“But look here, the sooner we set off after them,” said Grenzmann, “the sooner we’ll catch up with them, and the sooner we can return to the big house and make plans to leave this awful place and go back to Germany. I promise you, men. This time tomorrow, it’s northwest we’ll be headed: toward our lines and the homeland.”

Grenzmann neglected to mention that they would have to fight their way back to the German lines, of course, not that anyone was under any illusion about this; but anything was better than simply waiting for the Red Army to tighten its encirclement of Askaniya-Nova, and any mention of the word homeland was always guaranteed to bring smiles to everyone’s faces. This was the positive news that they had all been waiting for. So it was with a renewed sense of optimism about their collective future that the Germans started the engines of their big motorcycles and set off after Kalinka and her unlikely trio of animal companions.

Seated in the sidecar of the lead motorcycle, Captain Grenzmann scanned the horizon eagerly with his sergeant’s binoculars. He calculated that walking at a normal pace of six kilometers per hour, their quarry couldn’t have traveled more than thirty kilometers; even with a sidecar and a heavy machine gun, the Type Russia motorcycle could easily cover that kind of distance in an hour or two. With any luck, they could deal with the child and the horses, and be back at the big house in time for a celebratory dinner of horse meat.





FINALLY, THEY SEEMED TO be nearing the end of the flat and featureless steppe. Ahead of them, they could see some hills and a few trees and the possibility of shelter from the unforgiving, icy wind.

“At least we’re going to have somewhere to hide if they catch up with us now,” said Kalinka.

Taras barked and ran off to scout the way ahead, as was now his habit: he would race away like a bolt of lightning and then return a few minutes later, wagging his tail and grinning if he thought everything looked safe.

Kalinka pulled gently on Börte’s makeshift bridle. “Whoa, there,” she said. “While Taras is gone, I think I should take a bearing. Just to check we’re headed in the right direction.”

She jumped down off the horse, stretched her legs for a moment and put her hand in her coat pocket to find the compass, but to her alarm, it wasn’t there.

“I can’t have lost our compass,” she said, checking the other pocket of the Astrakhan coat. “Can I?” But there was no sign of it in the other pocket either.

“I have lost it,” she muttered. “How could I be so stupid?”

Temüjin snorted with what sounded like irritation.

Kalinka shook her head. “I haven’t taken a bearing—well, since I mounted Börte. I guess it must have fallen out of my pocket when I jumped up on your back.”

Börte flicked her furry tail as if there was nothing to be done about it now. Kalinka ran her hand along the mare’s short mane with affection; against her palm, it felt oddly comforting. Börte seemed to like it, too.

Kalinka looked back at the trail. In spite of the sun’s now setting to one side of them—its warmth had melted only a little of the snow—their trail was still clearly visible. But there could be no possibility of retracing their steps to look for the compass. That was just asking for trouble.

Fortunately, she had not lost the bread and the cheese and the money Max had given her, which amounted to ten karbovanets and six rubles, but of course none of this was going to help them travel in the right direction. “Max said that I could always navigate by the sun—which sets in the west, so I suppose east is that way.” She pointed to their left. “And with the trail behind us, from what I imagine must be the northwest, I calculate the southeasterly direction must be this one.”

Kalinka nodded ahead of them, in roughly the same direction from whence even now Taras was returning. He came toward her, licked her hand and wagged his tail, which everyone found reassuring. Even Temüjin, who wagged his tail back at the dog.

It seemed like the proper moment to eat. Kalinka would have shared the bread and cheese with the horses but for the fact that she knew they weren’t supposed to eat bread or cheese—it wasn’t good for them. But she gave some of the cheese to Taras, which he appeared to enjoy, so she assumed it was good for him. Some crows appeared as if from nowhere and set about collecting the few crumbs that she and the wolfhound dropped onto the ground. Life was hard for everyone on the steppe in winter, even crows.