Free Fire Below by Dornford Yates

doubt if he heard the story we tried to tell; in any event, he was past caring who we were or whence we came, so we were to help him in a labour which Hercules might have shirked. He had but two stable boys that were fast asleep, and more than thirty horses were in his charge, all of them good to look at and most of them cross.
    We told him what Reubens had said – for that, we learned was the circus-master’s name – and hearing the song of a brook behind a hedge, asked him to give us buckets and fell to work.
    By the time that Reubens was back, all the horses had been properly watered and fed; five minutes later the circus was under way.
    From then till the show was over, no one, so far as I saw, either rested or ate; myself, I have never worked harder in all my life, and had we not broken our fast before we started, we could not, I think, have endured such gruelling toil. That everyone was too busy, and later too much exhausted, to trouble about new faces was very clear, and I think that half the circus were strangers to one another and that life was too hard for the members of that unhappy fellowship to take any interest in any affairs but their own.
    Indeed, if only the police did not repeat their visit, we seemed to be safe, for our time was spent in the horse-lines, from which the public was barred, and Reubens did not suggest that we should enter the ring.
    Before the evening performance we had a short rest and were able to eat some rations which Bach produced. Whilst we were eating, Reubens came down the lines, tricked out in a ringmaster’s dress, to say that the tents would be struck at eleven o’clock and that we should leave at midnight for Janes, twelve miles away.
    There was nothing to be said: but Janes was twelve miles from Vigil, from which we were now twenty-four.
    When the Jew was gone, we sought to consider our plight.
    We could not get out of the country: therefore, we must lie hid. So long as we stayed with the circus, we were comparatively safe. That the circus was moving westward was most unfortunate: for one thing, we were leaving the Countess: for another, each step that we took would have to be later retraced.
    We bitterly repented that we had not thought to tell Ramon where we had left the Rolls and bade him take out the Countess the instant the troops were withdrawn. This would have been common sense, but the stress of the moment had played the deuce with our wits, and now, like all the others, that chance was gone.
    There was nothing to be done.
    After a little we lay down and slept like the dead – for less than an hour.
    At eleven o’clock that night we assisted to strike the tents, and shortly after midnight we shambled on to the road.
     
    From Janes we went to Vigil.
    Our pitch lay west of the city, some two miles out. Our feelings may be imagined, yet what could we do?
    We saw no papers, heard nothing of what was happening, feared to inquire. We could not communicate with Madame Dresden, still less with Leonie. Lest we be recognized, we dared not leave the horse-lines, much less dared leave the circus, for without some means of transport we could not even reach Gola during the night.
    But for the Countess, our way would have been plain enough. After five more days the circus would leave Riechtenburg, crossing the western frontier on Thursday night. Here the country was flat, and the river which made the border was, I knew, used by barges and could not, therefore, be dangerous to men that could swim. Even if the troops were still out – and this seemed unlikely – we ought to be able to evade them without any fuss. But that was a dream. The moment we dared, we must return to Gola. Reason suggested that we should return very soon. What frightened me most of all was that Leonie, hearing no news, might act for herself.
    One good thing we had of Vigil, and that was a full night’s rest. But when I awoke the next morning, I then and there made up my mind to leave the circus that