was the mystery, my Little Cossack. So I sent off a patrol yesterday when I saw their tracks change direction. The men reported back a couple of hours ago that a special boat will be coming by this morning.”
“But the river is hundreds of miles long. How do you expect to find them?”
Grigory smiled with satisfaction. “When you have fought the cursed infidels for five generations you learn to read their minds. The best place to ambush a boat is at a point about fifteen miles from here. The river swings to the left and a strip of land stretches far out into the water. If they intend to attack, it will be there. By my calculations the boat should be there in two hours.”
Paul yawned. “Fifteen miles, eh? We’ve time to spare.” He rubbed a hand through his blond beard. “I’d give a month’s pay to cut this off. It itches.”
Grigory grinned. “I could not have you in my troop if you did, my friend. We Cossacks are the Old Believers. To us, religion means more than life. It is only when we are fighting that we can even trim our beards. It is against our belief to put scissors to it otherwise.” He chuckled. “My grandfather had a beautiful beard, down to here …” his hand went halfway down his chest, “… parted in the middle, and one day, while lighting a fire, one side burned nearly to his chin. He was going to leave it like that, but everyone in the village laughed at such a comical sight, so he took two stones and beat them together against the longer beard until he had chopped it as short as the burnt one. That is the way we Old Believers are.”
“Why did you allow me to join your troop?”
The big Cossack threw an arm around Paul’s shoulders. “Who could resist you? Your love of horses and fighting. In each man’s life he is destined to meet another man who will be his friend forever. I am yours, my Little English Cossack. I cannot explain it, but I feel it. Therefore, you are a true Cossack to me.”
Paul grasped his wrist. “And I am your friend and always will be?”
Grigory straightened in his saddle. “Come, we must speed it up a bit.”
Amar Czerik, chief of the Cherkessian village overrun by Grigory, raised his head from his position behind a rock and looked downriver. He grunted with satisfaction at the sight of the boat only fifteen minutes or so away. He estimated it to be fifty-five or sixty feet long, a side-paddle steamer that must have been used upriver exclusively, for he had never seen it in this region before. That was why the news had come to his ears, because it was an unusual boat. He hoped it carried more than just passengers - something he could trade for guns and ammunition. During the past two years, the Cossack attacks had almost decimated his flocks of sheep and herds of horses, his principal source of wealth, and his arms supply had run low. Before that time, life had been most amusing. One year the Cossacks raided his village, raped a few women, stole a few animals, then went back to their farming or horse raising. The next year, he had taken his men and raided a Cossack village, raping a few women, stealing a few animals, and then coming back to tend his flocks. But since the war between Russia and Turkey three years ago, the assaults by full-time Cossack cavalry had become more numerous. He had reached the conclusion that he must pull two or three good forays to rebuild his fortune before moving everything, his herds and people, deep into Turkey, from where he could make raids without exposing his village to Cossack attacks.
He wondered how Nadia had made out this time. His other three wives gave him not a moment’s concern, for they were just lumps of flesh, but Nadia could make love so extraordinarily, deliriously exciting that the promises of Allah’s Paradise would pale in comparison. He hoped the man, or men, who covered her didn’t ruin any of her abilities. The thought made him chuckle aloud. Ruin her? Allah help the man who decided to spend the night with her, for she was not above cracking his testicles or slitting his penis if he didn’t keep her bouncing about at least half the time.
A whisper from one of his men attracted his attention. He looked downriver again. The boat was only five minutes or so away. Crawling back to the edge of the forest, he rose and rejoined his men, who were standing to horse. There were almost two hundred of them, uniformed exactly like their other enemies, the Kuban Cossacks, wearing black karakul hats, two inches lower then those of the Don Cossacks and rising to a point, long grey coats falling to their knees with cartridge loops on their chests, tight trousers of red or blue tucked into the same black, knee-high boots that the Don Cossacks wore but without heels. They were armed more simply, with scimitars, daggers, and an assortment of heavy-stocked Turkish muskets and lighter, finer British Enfield musket-rifles which had been turned over to them after the Crimean War.
At a signal from a scout at the water’s edge, Amar whipped out his sword, raised himself in his stirrups and released a high, shrill yell. At once, two hundred dark, high-cheek-boned faces let out a roar as they emerged from the forest and raced across the short stretch of open ground to the river. A hundred feet further on was the boat, sailing in water only four feet deep, the people inside oblivious to the danger sweeping down on them. Out into the river sped the raiders, throwing up fountains of spray as they splashed halfway to the boat, then slowing down as their horses sank belly deep.
The Captain of the boat finally took action. His hand grasped the bell cord and sounded the alarm. Half a dozen men rushed up from below carrying rifles.
Without pausing, the Cherkessians loosed off a volley of shots. The Captain, his pilot, who was standing next to him in the control booth, and the six men on the deck fell as if poleaxed. Shouting with glee, twenty of the Cherkessians closed in on the boat, rising to their feet on their saddles and leaping over the rail, swords in hand. Four men came up from below deck to meet them. Within seconds, two of them were cut down, the other two backing down the stairs, blocking it for the instant, fighting for their lives.
Amar was the first aboard. Leaving the few remaining men to the scimitars of his warriors, he looked about. The boat contained a row of cabins, their windows at knee-height from the deck, and scores of wooden cases piled fore and aft. His keen ears caught the screams of women below and he smiled. He hoped there were at least ten of them, for more then twenty men to a woman generally did not make for good sport.
While some of his men rushed to the control cabin to stop the boat, he shouted to a new wave of his followers clambering aboard. “The windows! Break them down!”
As the Moslems kicked in the glass and started climbing through, the screams of the women grew in number and volume.
Suddenly a bugle sounded and a great shout came from the shore! Amar wheeled about and his eyes opened wide. Two lines of cavalry were racing from the forest, a giant Cossack in the lead. Amar stood fixed to the deck in amazement as the Cossacks he had led on a wild-goose chase scores of miles in the opposite direction materialized where he least expected them. He observed the formation of the two attacking waves and a cold fist gripped his heart at the sight of the Cossack lancers leading the assault with their lances still looped to their upper arms and rifles in the hands of all.
“Down in the saddles!” he shouted to his followers milling by the side of the boat.
Too late! Grigory had raised his hand and his two lines came to an abrupt halt. An instant later, the lancers leveled their rifles and fired. A dozen of Amar’s men toppled from their horses and slid into the current of the river. At a second signal from Grigory, the rear line of Cossacks passed through that of the lancers, aimed their rifles and fired. Another dozen of the raiders dropped from their saddles.
“Face the charge!” screamed Amar.
Even had his men heard and understood and tried to obey, it would have made little difference. Before the stunned Cherkessians could take a breath, the rear rank had slung their rifles, lowered their steel-tipped lances and charged, the front rank letting them through, then, slinging their own rifles, whipping out sabres, and racing directly behind their assaulting comrades.
It was sheer slaughter. The Moslems, mounted on smaller, more agile horses, but caught in deep water and unable to maneuver, could not escape the cruel lances. Ten or more were thrust through, screaming, driven from their saddles and flung under the threshing hooves of their startled mounts, At once the lancers pulled back and made room for the yelling,