II
Meanwhile, in a broad gully not far away, a different scene was beingenacted.
Across the gully lay the tangled ruins of a biplane. From the midst ofthe wreckage crawled a long figure, in the overalls, helmet, and gogglesof a member of the Flying Corps. His goggles had been partiallydisplaced, and lay askew upon his nose. There were spots of blood,already frozen, upon his cheek. His movements were slow and painful, andwhen, having emerged from the shapeless mass of metal and canvas, hetried to stand erect, he reeled, saved himself from falling by aneffort, and dropping upon an adjacent rock, rubbed his eyes, groaned,and sat as one dazed.
His immobility lasted only a few moments. Staggering to his feet, hisfeatures twisted with pain, he walked unsteadily to the ruins of theaeroplane.
"Enderby, old chap," he called, bending down.
There was no answer.
Swiftly he pulled away the broken wires and fragments of the shatteredframework, beneath which the form of his companion was pinned, thenknelt and laid his finger on the wrist of the unconscious man.
"Thank Heaven!" he murmured.
Taking a flask from his pocket he poured a few drops of liquid betweenthe half-open lips, then lifted the man carefully out of the wreckageand laid him down on the slope. Upon his brow he placed a little snow;he repeated his medicinal dose, and watched anxiously. It was someminutes before the eyelids opened, only to close again as a spasm ofpain distorted the injured man's features.
"Where is it, old man?" asked Burton.
"My leg."
The answer came faintly.
"It doesn't hurt you to breathe?"
Enderby shook his head.
"Arms all right?"
And when Enderby had lifted them one after the other, Burton placed theflask in his comrade's right hand.
"Take another pull at that while I have a look at you," he said.
Removing the puttees and cutting away the stocking beneath, Burton sawthat his friend's right leg was broken. He felt him all over, causinghim to wince now and then as he touched a bruise. There was no otherserious injury.
"Your leg's badly crocked, old man; but I'm jolly glad it's no worse.When that shell winged us I made sure our number was up."
"What about you?"
"I'm just one compound ache--must be bruised from top to toe. Ourluck's out to-day. Just clench your teeth while I see what I can do infirst aid. The machine's smashed to smithereens. How I'm to get youback to the M.O. beats me."
"Whereabouts are we?"
"Somewhere in Macedonia! In a gully, with hills all round, not a livingthing in sight. I hoped we'd be able to flutter back to our lines, butit wasn't to be. Our troops must be miles away, and getting fartherevery minute, worse luck! What fate dogs us, that we must always beretreating? Ah! that made you squirm; sorry, old man, but you'll beeasier now."
He had bound up the leg, and now brushed away the beads of sweat whichthe exertion, in his own sorry state, had brought out upon his brow.
"Now, look here, Enderby," he said, "the best thing I can do is totrudge off after our men and get a machine to bring you in. And thesooner I start, the better. You ought to be safe enough here. You'rewell hidden; the Bulgars' advance won't bring them past this spot,there's no road. But if I lose any time they'll be somewhere in theneighbourhood before a machine could arrive, and then it'll be hopeless.I'll rummage out some food from our wreck, and leave you that and myflask----"
"You'd better take it; you've a long tramp before you, and may comeacross some advance patrols of the Bulgars for all you know.Besides----"
He paused. Both men pricked up their ears simultaneously. Each lookedan anxious inquiry at the other. From somewhere not far away came arhythmic sound--a succession of strident, scraping sounds--which in amoment they recognised as the creaking of a cart.
Neither man spoke. Burton stole down the gully, and round the shoulderof a hill in the direction of the sound, which grew louder as he went.Apprehensive that his plans for the rescue of his friend were alreadydefeated, he peered cautiously round the corner of rock. He beheld arough hill-track winding upwards from right to left across his front.Some distance to the right another track ran into the first, skirting aspur from a north-westerly direction. Nothing was visible on eithertrack, but the regular monotonous creaking of the cart was drawingnearer.
Burton drew back behind a rock and waited. Presently, from round one ofthe innumerable bends and twists in the main track, appeared the greatheads of two oxen yoked together; then a woman's form came into view,perched on the forepart of a heavily laden cart; last of all, trampingin the rear, a tall old man, and, by his side, a boy whose head reachedscarcely higher than his elbow.
The watcher breathed more freely. It was only a typical refugee party;he had already seen hundreds like it toiling along the southward roadsto Salonika. There was nothing to fear here; on the contrary, itsuggested a means by which Captain Enderby might be at once removed,without the delay that would be caused by his own going and coming.
The cart was creeping laboriously up towards him. When it was nearlyopposite, Burton stepped forth from his hiding-place. His suddenappearance drew signs of momentary alarm. The woman stiffened; the oldman whipped out a revolver; the boy ran round in front of the cart, andwith a fierce expression, comical on his young face, stood before hismother, drawing from his belt a knife.
Burton threw out his hands and called out that he was an Englishman.But even before he spoke the attitude of hostility had relaxed, thewoman had addressed a few words to the old man, and he had alreadyreplaced his weapon. They had recognised that the stranger was neithera Bulgar nor a German. Only the boy remained suspicious and alert,stoutly gripping his knife.
The cart had stopped. Burton walked towards it. He had picked up a fewwords of Greek during the eleven months he had spent in the East, and heexplained in that language that he was a friend and an Englishman.Rather to his surprise the old man replied in French.
"Does monsieur speak French?"
The wall of nationality was down, and in the language of their commonally the Serbian and the Englishman held a rapid colloquy. Presentlythe old man turned to the boy.
"You were right, Marco," he said in his own tongue. "That thing youheard humming like a bee, that thing you saw moving like an eagle, wasan English aeroplane. It has come to the ground and broken, struck by aBulgar's shell."
"Oh! let me see it," cried the boy, eagerly, forgetting all else in thenew object of excitement, slipping the knife back into his belt, andmoving away from the cart.
"Wait!" said his grandfather, peremptorily. He resumed his conversationwith Burton. There was anxiety, hesitancy in his air. He appeared tobe struggling with himself. "The enemy is not far behind," he said."We have far to go; every minute is precious." He looked nervouslyalong the track behind him, then seemed to question his daughter withhis eyes. She nodded. "Tchk!" he ejaculated. "I will do it. No trueSerb, monsieur, much less a descendant of Marco Kralevich, can refuse tosuccour an ally of his nation. Show me the way."
Young Marco, to his disappointment, was left to guard the cart and tokeep a lookout. The old man hastened with Burton to the spot whereCaptain Enderby lay beside the wreck of the aeroplane. As they went,Burton caught sight of a square tower on a hill-top far away to thesouth.
"What is that?" he asked.
"An old watch-tower," replied the Serb. "There are many such on highpoints in different parts of the country."
Burton paused a moment to scan the solitary tower through his fieldglasses, then resumed his course. On reaching the fallen man, the oldSerb at once set about placing the injured limb in splints formed out ofthe wreckage, preparatory to carrying him back to the cart. He wasstill thus engaged when Marco came running up the gully.
"Grandfather," he said, breathlessly, "a party of horsemen are coming upthe side track."
"How many are they, boy?"
"Ten
or twelve. They are far away."
"I must go back," said the old man. "You will still be safe here."
"I will go with you," said Burton. "My glasses may be useful."
They followed the boy, who ran ahead, regained the cart, and went beyondit to the point where the two tracks met. The sky had now cleared, andthe white-clad country glistened in the sunlight. Keeping under cover,Burton peered through his glasses along the winding track. At first hesaw nobody, but presently a horseman came into sight round a bend,followed closely by two more riding abreast. After a short interval,another couple appeared, the first file of a party of ten, riding two bytwo. They were still too far distant for Burton to distinguish anythingmore than that they were in military uniform.
He told the old man what he had seen.
"Beyond doubt they are Bulgars," the Serb growled, drawing his fingersthrough his beard, which the sunlight had thawed.
He stood silent for a little, his eyes fixed in thought, his handsworking nervously.
"They will overtake us," he said at length. "We must move the cart fromthe track. Come, monsieur."
They hurried back to the cart. At a word from the old man the womandismounted, and going to the heads of the oxen, led them off the trackover the rough ground of the hill-face, while the three others set theirshoulders to the wheels. By their united efforts the unwieldy vehiclewas hauled round the shoulder of the hill towards the gully, to a spottwo or three hundred yards from the aeroplane, where it was out of sightfrom either of the tracks. Leaving it there in charge of Marco and hismother, the two men returned, obliterating the traces of the wheels inthe snow, and finally posting themselves behind a rocky ridge near thejunction of the tracks, where they could see the approaching horsemenwhen they should pass, without being seen themselves.