20
Zillah Moody
fire with some burned pine cones, so these fugitives must have had
kindling and tinder. It just seemed to me that they had been fairly
resourceful to have survived for as long as they had in this wilderness
on foot. I reckoned that they must have had help along the way.
We all knew in Smalenai from the news read out at Mass every
Sunday that the French had miscalculated and their whole enterprise
had turned into disaster. We were sorry in a way because we had been
hoping that, if he had been successful, Napoleon would have freed us
from the burdens of foreign tyranny and serfdom. There was always
someone bossing us about. If it wasn't the Poles it was the Russians.
If it wasn't the Russians it was the Poles. If it wasn't them it was our
lord of the manor. We were let down though by their attitude when
they raided the village. Although I don't suppose that Napoleon ordered
them to behave like that, he ought to have known. It was an
eye-opener."
"So what did you do with the rest of the stuff?"
"The satchel I tied over the saddle pommel."
"Is that the old black leather thing with the brass eagle on the front
hanging in the horse's shed?"
"Yes, that's the one"
"The one which used to have all the cartridges in it?"
Jurgis seemed to lose his train of thought wincing as a pang went
through his body. Jonas wondered if it was his illness or if it had been
prompted by these painful memories.
"I saw the Russian coming back, I thought that he seemed like a
man possessed, I couldn't understand what was eating him or where
his motivation was coming from. He just seemed obsessed with finding the second fugitive."
"I showed the Russian the makeshift shelter and the remains of the
fire and he seemed thoughtful and then muttered that he thought
the remaining Frenchman was probably still fairly operational as an
adversary."
"I asked him why he thought this one had died.