4
Zillah Moody
hardy thing little more than a pony but very strong and ideally suited
to these harsh conditions. It was almost a duplicate of the one he was
riding. Sometimes he interchanged them to give each one a break.
Both horses were shod with iron crampon winter shoes.
They had been bred over centuries from those small fast creatures
which had swept the Mongols across the vast Russian steppes in their
fearsome quest for new lands and territories in the west during the
middle ages. Both this man and the horses were descendants of that
same stock. All of them gave prodigiously, almost it seemed, out of
proportion, for the amount they consumed.
The horse at the back was saddled with a light wooden contraption
made from pine and birch with many compartments. Kyril Tymoshenko's
field equipment was stowed here. It was all mostly designed
for lightness. He had a waxed canvas sheet carefully rolled and a long
pole and two shorter ones, which had a cruck at one end. These were
to provide him with shelter wherever he stopped. Another contained
kindling and a tinder box and was equally waterproofed in a folded
envelope once again wrapped in waxed cloth. He carried with him
a supply of dried meat, a small sack of oats for the horses, some light
tools and a flintlock smoothbore musket, also wrapped up, together with
cartridges and gun cleaning equipment. A tripod and small
metal pot completed the stores plus one or two other bits and pieces,
some tea and some personal items.
On the top of the wooden saddle was a wide, open box like structure
and on it sat a huge long haired hound called Yuri. It was the dog
which had kept him on track when in places it had seemed the trail
was running cold. All Captain Tymoshenko had to do was lift the
dog down and it would cast about on the snow and ice until it picked
up the scent again whereupon it took no second bidding when he told
it to hop back up onto its perch again. Even the horses were quite
used to this. Behind his own sheepskin covered saddle he carried a
rolled up sleeping bag of the same material tucked into a waterproof
outer case. He himself was dressed, in addition to undergarments and