“Very well,” cried the man. “Come down and let’s get on.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the man. He jumped to the ground. “Shall we put the stuff back?”

  “Put the stuff back!” shouted the man. “What do you mean, you swine! Let the filthy peasant put it back herself!” He turned about and gave the command: “Forvarts!”

  The motors in the German truck snarled into life; shifting gears ground raucously. One by one the trucks roared by and the noise of their guttural steely throats dimmed with the distance.

  Mickey wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was too weak to reach for his kerchief behind him. He had recognized the man’s voice.

  It was Von Starheim.

  III.

  “That was a narrow squeak,” said Mickey rising from his cramped position on the floor of the cart.

  Young Feodor too rose and stretched himself when the Nazis were out of sight. “You’ll get used to them,” he remarked philosophically.

  “We’d better get down and help the woman re-pile her wagon,” suggested Mickey.

  “Not while the Nazis have powerful field glasses to pick us up with,” said the masterful youth. “She will have to do the job herself—to save us from a firing squad. We’re not yet out of danger, you know,” he reminded Mickey, “even if those Nazi roaches are out of sight.”

  Mickey eyed the boy with unconcealed admiration. This youngster thought of everything.

  The woman started putting back her furniture and other belongings. Thirty minutes later, the strange caravan was on its way. Mickey and Feodor were not as cramped this time for they had placed two small wooden chairs in the middle of the pile and they sat on them.

  “How far is the camp from here?” asked Mickey.

  “We should reach the place sometime tonight at the speed we are going,” said Feodor. “In about an hour or two she will turn off the road and take a route into the hills.”

  “She knows where the place is, I suppose,” said Mickey anxiously.

  “As well as I do,” replied Feodor. “She could find it in the dark.”

  “I’d like to get out of this and stretch my long legs,” said the American.

  “When the woman turns into the hills,” assured Feodor, “you will be able to.”

  But it took the slowed-up horses two hours to cross that part of the Steppes which lay south of the Kuban River and stretched like an endless green carpet to the base of the towering ranges. Off the mountain pass and in between two high precipitous hills the little caravan halted. They were well out of possible enemy territory now, and in deep enough for them to be sufficiently safe to start a small fire on which to cook a meal.

  The woman removed the bedding and some of the other pieces of furniture and let Feodor and the American Army doctor whose legs were so cramped he could hardly stand on them drop to the ground.

  As Mickey looked off toward the undulating range of mountains, he drew in a deep breath of the crystal clear air. He pounded himself on the chest Tarzan fashion.

  “It’s good to get out of the hemmed in position we were in,” he said stretching himself to his full height and yawning widely. The altitude, and the thinner, colder air made him feel a little drowsy.

  Even the little youngster, who had been riding outside all the time, yawned as he watched Mickey. Feodor and the woman took some of the broken furniture and started a small fire. The cattle were released and permitted to graze. Mickey took the youngster’s hand and they walked a short distance from the wagon. As the American gazed off at the gentle mist that hung over the mauve, green, gold, and white of the distant hills, he turned to the child beside him and said: “Now I know why the Don and Kuban Cossacks fight the way they do to save these mountains from the Nazi swine.”

  * * * *

  His eyes fairly glowed with the beauty of the scene. For a moment he thought he was home; back in the States where other and equally beautiful mountains rose in great golden-white peaks that looked out upon a blue Pacific.

  They ate the heavy black bread and pot cheese the woman had made herself the day before, with a gusto that amazed even Mickey. He didn’t realize he was that hungry. Water was boiled on the small fire and the cold chill was tempered in their bodies with hot Russian tea.

  Late that night, the groaning vehicle with Mickey and Feodor riding on the tail board now, reached a cave in the hills near the village of Kislovodsk, to the West of Pyatigorsk where the Kuban Cossacks held the Nazi lines whose eyes were turned toward the golden flow of the Grozny oil fields.

  As the wagon approached it from a trackless field, it was stopped by a guerrilla guard of three men. When they saw who the woman was and whom she had with her, the men were elated. One of the men took the horses’ heads and led them to a narrow pass cut in two thousands of years before by descending glacial currents. In the dark, the narrow pass was completely obscured and would not possibly have been found even by the woman who had been there before. If the guard had not taken them in, Feodor would have led them. But the guard simplified the job. Feodor could remain with Mickey to identify him.

  A few more winding turns in the dark and the wagon was halted. Mickey and Feodor dropped off the tail and Feodor preceded the American into the great, natural cavern that was recessed almost a hundred yards into the base of the hill. It was large and high-vaulted; wide and rambling.

  The place was fitted out like a dormitory, but not with modern fixtures. Not even the farms themselves could boast much of modern improvements; but there were beds of straw on both sides of the forward part of the cave; two or three roughhewn tables, and a dozen or more chairs brought up from the abandoned farms.

  As Mickey entered with Feodor, a loud shout of welcome greeted them. Several wounded men lay in the beds on the floor of the cave; others were seated on them or on chairs cleaning their “little rifles”—as they called them, by flickering candlelight. Although the cave was well set back in the hill, Koslovitch did not permit much light to be used in the hideout.

  The woman and the small boy hurried to the side of one of the wounded men. She dropped down beside him and threw her arms about his neck. So did the youngster. The man was glad to see them.

  “We have a doctor now,” the woman said. “You’ll be made well again, my husband.”

  “That is good,” replied the man. “Then I can take up the work of killing more Nazis.”

  Mickey came over to the man and brought his kitbag with him. Feodor joined him.

  “So this is the place?” said Mickey.

  “This is the place,” replied Feodor, “and these are the men.” He made a sweep with his hand that took in all the wounded men on the floor.

  * * * *

  Feodor introduced Mickey to the men. There were about twenty-five of them. The others were out on a mission. “I suppose Koslovitch, your leader, is with the others,” Mickey said turning to one of the men.

  “Koslovitch?” said the man puzzled.

  “Yes,” replied Mickey. “I understand he is quite a great guerrilla. One of the men at the prisoner’s camp mentioned the fact that he had killed no less than two hundred and fifty Nazis alone by his magnificent sniping.” Then he added quickly, “Of course, that doesn’t include a few hundred others who died in train wrecks or explosions.”

  “You do not know Koslovitch?” asked the still puzzled Russian.

  Mickey shook his head.

  The man on the straw bed laid down the rifle he was cleaning, put his head back and laughed uproariously. The other men, hearing the conversation, also joined in the fun much to the chagrin which showed plainly on the American’s face.

  “Well,” asked Mickey, “what’s so funny about that?”

  “He doesn’t know Koslovitch,” shouted the man in a deep basso profundo that echoed to the ceiling above. A roar of laughter rose again.

  Mickey turned appealingly to Feodor.

  “They do not know,” said the boy smilingly. “I must apologize for not telling you before, but—I am Koslovitch.”

  Mickey’s eyes almost popped.

  “You!” he almost yelled.

  “Yes,” said the fifteen-year-old leader of the most hated and feared guerrilla band in that part of the Caucasus. “I am Feodor Koslovitch.” He said it quietly; modestly.

  Mickey eyed the boy a moment. Then he shook his head. “Now I’ve seen everything,” he muttered.

  He understood now what he couldn’t understand before; the tone of authority in the boy’s voice; never requesting a thing to be done, but ordering it; and getting it done without question or protest.

  His reputation as a guerrilla fighter had given him a national reputation. He was known wherever a Russian defended a foot of his native soil against the Nazi invaders.

  It was odd that a boy should lead men. But this was no ordinary boy. He was a born general; a splendid, natural strategist. There were geniuses or prodigies in other fields; why not in the art of war?

  “Well,” thought Mickey, “why not?”

  He glanced back toward the rear of the cave. In the dim candlelight he made out over a hundred small wooden boxes. They contained dynamite and ammunition.

  “That’s dynamite, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Feodor nodded.

  “If that stuff should suddenly decide to go up, some night,” Mickey said, “there would be no further need here for a doctor.” Then he added smilingly: “In fact, there would be no doctor. No. And no guerrillas and no Koslovitch.”

  “You’ll get used to sleeping with it,” grinned the boy.

  Mickey removed his coat.

  “Well,” he said in a most professional and doctor-like manner, “if we’re going to put these men back on their feet, I think we’d better start now.”

  He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and went to work on the husband of the woman who drove them to the hideout. He had one of the tables cleared and the man placed on it. The woman provided clean sheets from her furnishings. Hot water was given him by one of the men young Koslovitch ordered to put on a fire. The man would need an operation. The right leg had received a nasty bullet wound; had turned gangrenous and would have to be removed.

  The man screamed he’d die first; Mickey told him he would die if he didn’t permit the operation. Koslovitch ordered it. The man quietly obeyed the young guerrilla. His eyes filled with tears; he agreed. He did not weep for the loss of the limb. He wept because he knew his days of defending his homeland were over.

  Koslovitch was right. There would be a need for brave men who survived the holocaust to revivify Russia. Even if they had only one leg, they would still prove of inestimable value in the process of reconstruction that would follow.

  The woman proved a good and able nurse. Although Mickey worked under a handicap; bad light; inadequate tools and supplies, the job was skillfully done.

  The other men were not so seriously hurt. But they needed attention and lots of it. Mickey taught the woman how to care for them. She was a most apt pupil; and an efficient worker.

  Koslovitch’s guerrillas now had a guerrilla nurse—and a guerrilla doctor.

  IV

  Mickey worked through the night on the wounded men. Dawn crept into the cave as it slipped down the pass from the opening in the hills above. As he stepped out for a brief smoke, through the gap he could see the peak of Mount Elbrus, eighteen thousand feet above him, and about five or six miles to the south.

  The other twenty-five of Koslovitch’s men trailed in during the night and dropped onto their beds of straw, tired, slightly disgruntled, for they could not find any Nazis to maraud. But their boy leader encouraged them. He would find something to do. Something important; vitally important.

  It happened sooner than he dreamed. As Mickey stood in the pass and admired Mount Elbrus, one of the men who acted as lookout brushed past him and dashed breathlessly into the cave shouting for Koslovitch.

  Mickey, sensing some exciting event impending, followed on the man’s heels. Out of breath from his mad dash down the mountain from his lookout post, he gasped:

  “Fifteen Nazi tanks. Stalled. They’re fifteen miles north of Kislovodsk. They’re headed south for Pyatigorsk and the German lines.” He paused for breath. In his hand he held a pair of fifty-seven power German binoculars taken from a dead Nazi. These binoculars could make plain almost anything within fifty miles or more.

  The man continued: “They seem to be out of fuel. They were draining the fuel tanks of those Mark III’s which had more gas than the others, and filling the empty tanks of those which had not enough.”

  “Let’s see them,” said Koslovitch.

  He grabbed the binoculars from the hand of the watch, and together they started for the entrance to the cave.

  “Do you mind if I go along, Feodor?” asked Mickey.

  “Not at all,” the boy said. “But keep low as we climb the hill. I don’t want you to be seen.”

  The three men crouched low as they climbed the side of the mountain through the brush and tall grass that grew upon it. They climbed for about two hundred feet and stopped by a tall pine whose branches were thick with needles and hid a small platform large enough for a man to sit on.

  Because they were three, they did not climb to the seat but observed the distant steppes from where they crouched. The guerrilla watch located the tanks and turned the binoculars over to the boy. He watched the spot a few minutes before he spoke.

  “They’re still dividing their fuel,” he said as he pressed the glasses closer to his eyes.

  He was much older than his years, Mickey observed. He did not look like a boy at all but a little man. A sort of Napoleon without inhibitions or complexes.

  Feodor swung the glasses over the panorama that unfolded in the lenses.

  “They are the only Nazis for miles,” he said. “The way they are dividing their fuel I don’t think they will go far.” He turned the glasses over to Mickey. “Take a look.”

  Mickey glanced through the binoculars.

  * * * *

  Fifteen Mark III’s, several on the road, others in the field at the side of the highway, were stalled and men in dirty, oily coveralls were handing each other small cans of gasoline drained from the tanks.

  The American medical officer turned the binoculars back to the guerrilla leader.

  “They look vulnerable to me,” he ventured.

  “They are vulnerable,” said Feodor.

  Back in the cave, the young fighter called his men together.

  “Pavlovnik! Stavan! Volkov! Pushkin! Shostakovitch! Kudashkin!”

  One by one the men fell into line and waited. They might have been guerrillas, but they were disciplined. The boy had insisted on military precision—and got it.

  Feodor ordered the men to get shovels, picks, and other digging tools. He ordered others to take dynamite; others detonators; still others hand grenades. He turned to Mickey.

  “You will join us, doctor,” he said.

  Mickey found he had another surprise in store for himself. Feodor led the men to another hill a short distance up the pass. He had walked so fast that he was about twenty yards in advance of the men when he suddenly disappeared. As the men approached the spot, the American saw another hole in the side of the hill.

  Mickey waited outside as the men entered. Their guns were slung over their shoulders; their cargo held carefully in their hands. He stepped inside as the last of almost thirty men disappeared within. About fifty yards back, he heard stomping of heavy feet on the soft dirt floor. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light within, he saw two long lines of horses. These horses were the individual property—or had been before the war— of the Cossacks who made up Koslovitch’s band.

  Mickey stepped out into daylight again as Feodor Koslovitch walked two horses out into the pass. The horses blinked as they emerged into the sunshine.

  “Can you ride?” he asked Mickey.

  “Not like a Cossack,” said Mickey. “But I did play polo back in the States and I stayed in the seat.”

  Feodor smiled. “That is recommendation enough.” He turned the reins of one of the saddled horses over to the American. “Here.” Feodor was a boy of few words.

  Mickey examined the girdle; mounted the horse and adjusted the stirrups to fit his long legs and walked the horse a little way down the pass to make room for the others to emerge from, and line up in front of, the cave for their orders.

  “We will go to the outskirts of Kislodovsk,” Feodor began. “Proceed five miles to the north of the village to the mountain pass those tanks will have to ride over if they ever hope to join their units.” He turned to the men with the picks and shovels. “We’ll dig traps for the tanks.” He turned to the men with the dynamite and the grenades. “You will plant your dynamite and grenades carefully.” He swung his horse in the direction opposite to that of the main cave and started a winding course in and out of depressions which hid the descending group from any possible observer.

  * * * *

  Feodor knew that country with the same expertise that Mickey knew the tracing of a nerve in the human body. He knew every knoll; every depression; every plain; every hill and mountain. He knew every cave; every farmhouse; every pass and road, open or closed. This knowledge helped more than once to save the lives of his men. They knew this and trusted him implicitly; and carried out his every order with an undeviating faithfulness that Mickey no longer marveled at. Because he now knew, understood and admired the young guerrilla leader.

  The Kuban Cossacks rode their horses as though they were a part of the animals. They rode out slowly at first. When they reached a stretch of open plain, they rode across the green with a speed that warmed the cheeks of Mickey Tchekov as the friction of the wind that flowed swiftly past rubbed the warmth back into the capillaries.

  One hour later they reached their objective. It lay at the foot of a hill—in fact, the narrow pass lay between two hills. They tied their horses to the south side of the first of the hills, hiding them among a cluster of trees and about a half mile back.

  Feodor sent a lookout to the top of the hill from which they worked to keep an eye for the approach of the German tanks. The spot cut them off ten miles in advance of the place where they had stopped to divide their gas. The guerrillas went feverishly to work. First with the picks, then with the shovels.