The Europe That Was Read Free

asked, ‘how long before I can begin to work?’
    â€˜Four weeks,’ she said. ‘Perhaps five.’
    That was all right. He would be up in time to get in the harvest. And while he was confined to bed he wouldn’t need to eat very much. The children could have his share.
    â€˜You would set it crooked for me?’
    â€˜You will limp a little all your life,’ she promised him.
    Pavlo could not ask better than that; but it was not so easy to break a leg and harder still to do it so convincingly that the doctor in uniform and the lawyer in his black coat would write it down on their papers as an accident.
    It was then that the bandit, Brancovitch, himself entered the story. All four went out to find him—Pavlo, Despina and the two children. They were quite confident. He did not rob peasants. He was as poor as they. When he had accumulated a little store of coins he bought powder and shot with them, just as the men who lived in cottages bought seed. He lived a lot worse than they and ate, perhaps, a bit better, for he had more meat—when he could swallow it down. It was not always very fresh meat. He used to hang it in a forked branch like a wild-cat.
    The family found him sitting in the sun at the entrance to his winter cave, preparing a pine-marten skin. He made more out of selling shabby furs than banditry. There were few travellers really worth the trouble of holding them up.
    While the children played in the scrub of the hillside, Pavlo explained the disaster of the call-up and made an eloquent speech such as his father might have delivered to a Turkish bey, begging for patronage. The formality was correct but unnecessary. Towards the neighbours Brancovitch was as benevolent as Robin Hood, within the limits of his charity. They were quickly reached. His largesse might perhaps run to a couple of sparrows on a wooden spit if a friend were ill.
    â€˜I want you to shoot me through the leg,’ said Pavlo.
    Mirko Brancovitch understood the urgency of it. But his weapon was not equal to his skill. He had only an old muzzle-loader. Normally he charged it with bird shot. On any game as big as Pavlo Popovnic he would have to use ball.
    He pointed out that what Pavlo and Despina required was difficult. A leg was very small. He might give a flesh wound which wouldn’t keep anybody out of the Army or, worse still, he might smash the knee-cap. Of course, at point-blank range he could make sure, and if he used a light charge of powder he could guarantee a clean break. But what about the powder burns and the wadding? The military examiners could be trusted to find that palpable evidence, for it would be just what they were looking for.
    â€˜Besides,’ he had said, ‘why in the devil’s name should I shoot at you?’
    Pavlo looked blank. He himself knew very well the sort of crime which Brancovitch would or would not commit, but he assumed that to the outside world a bandit was unaccountable; if caught, he would be executed in any case, so he was free to take a pot shot at anyone he pleased to amuse himself. It did not occur to Pavlo Popovnic that bandits had to have motives like anybody else.
    Despina thought up a dozen reasons for shooting at her husband, but all of them were improbable and involved quite unforeseeable consequences. Brancovitch sadly refused to have anything to do withthe plan. He accepted a bottle of Despina’s plum brandy and gave in return a little bag of wild seeds for the hens. It was very welcome. At home there were few scraps fit for chickens, and of course no grain.
    On their way back Pavlo was silent. His obstinate male mind was more impressed by the technical than the personal difficulties of firing a ball into a leg. He was an experienced shot himself. The death of the family cow had compelled him to sell his gun to buy a heifer.
    He left his family to their thin soup and returned to the bone-setter, though it was now after dark and no time to