hours before, we had seen stretching ahead of us unbrokenly as far as eye could range. We walked along quite a wide track between the trees, grateful to be out of the sharp cut of the wind and to know our nightly shelter was assured. We noticed, too, that the soldiers were showing some signs of cheerfulness and guessed, rightly as it turned out, that this must be a landmark near the end of the journey. The progress through the forest lasted two days and there was a sense of drive and urgency about the second day’s march that convinced men who were almost dead to hope that the great trial was finishing. It was a long march, starting at the first light of dawn and continuing through the short winter day to dusk. We emerged in the failing light into a big, man-made clearing carved out from the surrounding forest. There were lights ahead and voices calling.
This, then, was our destination — Camp Number 303, on the north side of the Lena River, which I estimate to have been between 200 and 300 miles south-west of the Northern Siberia capital, Yakutsk. I do not remember in any sharp detail the scenes of arrival that night in the first week of February 1941. I remember how we moved, reindeer team by reindeer team up to a massive main gate in a stout palisade of rough-hewn logs, of being freed of my chains, the odd feeling of security as I milled about inside the compound, the meal enhanced by turnip-water ‘soup’, the lighting of fires on what appeared to be a big parade-ground, the hearing of my name called in the checking of the lists. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Grechinen round a crackling pile of logs, I talked a little, dozed often, stood up to ease the pain in my aching legs. Over a thousand miles of marching from Irkutsk and we had got here. I found myself marvelling. In spite of my physical misery I had a feeling that was almost happy. The awful strain of two months on the road was over. Nothing the next day could bring could be worse. I think I must have been a bit light-headed.
Aching, heavy-eyed and weary, we were astir, by habit, at dawn. Some of the men were very sick and their companions had to lift them to their feet. The Ostyaks and their reindeer had gone in the night. The first day of my life in a Soviet labour camp was before me.
7
A FAINT early-morning haze dissipated and in the cold, clear light of day I looked round at the place to which I had been consigned to spend twenty-five years of my life. Camp 303, lying between 300 and 400 miles south of the Arctic Circle, was a rectangular enclosure about half-a-mile long and about 400 yards broad, at each corner of which stood a guard tower raised high on solid timber stilts, manned by machine-gun crews. The main gate, around which were built the troops’ quarters, the kitchens, storehouses and administrative huts, faced west in one of the shorter sides of the oblong. Roughly in the centre of the enclosure was an open stretch of ground which served as the security no-man’s-land between the soldiers and the prisoners.
Between us and the surrounding forest were the typical defences of a prison camp. Looking from the inside, the first barrier to freedom was an unbroken ring of coiled barbed wire, behind which was a six-feet-deep dry moat, its inner side cut downwards at an angle of about thirty degrees and its outer wall rising sheer and perpendicular to the foot of the first of two twelve-feet-high log palisades presenting a smooth surface inwards but strongly buttressed on the far side. Both outer sides of the two wooden walls were protected by rolled barbed wire. The space between the two provided a well-beaten track giving access from the main gate guardroom to all four control towers, and was regularly patrolled by armed sentries accompanied at night by police dogs, who shared kennels near the west gate with a pack of sled dogs.
Mingling diffidently with us that first morning were about a thousand men, a large proportion of them Finns, who were already installed when our bedraggled crowd of some 4,500 arrived. They came from four big huts at the eastern end of the compound. These log-built prisoner barracks were about eighty yards long by ten yards wide conforming in situation with the general plan of the camp itself, the doors, facing west, in the narrow end and protected from the direct blast of wind and snow by a small covered porch with a southerly opening. It was obvious that there was no accommodation for us newcomers.
Speculation was cut short by orders from the troops to line ourselves up for food. We shuffled along in line to the open window of the kitchens, one of the buildings to the left of the main gate. There was the usual issue of ersatz coffee and bread. Each man drank up as quickly as he could and returned his tin mug through another window. There was plenty of hot liquid but a shortage of utensils. This shortage remained all the time I was in the camp and applied also to the wooden bowls in which soup was dished out.
Into the middle of the parade ground soldiers carried out a portable wooden platform. Around it, under orders from junior officers and N.C.O.s, they formed a ring. We prisoners were then hustled to form ourselves in a big circle around the troops, facing inwards towards the platform. Accompanied by a small armed guard, two Russian colonels walked through the ranks to the foot of the platform. One of them stepped up. From my place in the front row I eyed him closely. He was tall, slim and distinguished looking, his hair greying at the temples, a typical example of a professional soldier in any army. His small grey moustache was carefully trimmed, his lean face showed two deep lines etched from a firm mouth into a strong chin. He carried his head slightly forward and I was struck by his air of detachment, that indefinable quality of effortless authority that any man who has served in armed forces will have met in professional commanders. He was facing a hostile audience, a mob of ill-treated humans whose bitter hate of all things Russian was almost a tangible thing, but he gave no sign. He stood perfectly relaxed with no movement of hands, feet or body. From the assembled prisoners there was a hum of comment. The Colonel turned his head slowly to look at us all. There was perfect silence.
He spoke clearly and crisply in Russian. ‘I am Colonel Ushakov,’ he said. ‘I am commandant of this camp. You have come here to work and I expect from you hard work and discipline. I will not talk to you of punishment since you probably know what to expect if you do not behave.
‘Our first job is to provide shelter for you. Your first task, therefore, will be to build barracks for yourselves. How quickly you get inside out of the weather depends on your own efforts. It is up to you. In all communities there are those who will let others do the work for them. That kind of slacking will not be tolerated here and it will be to the benefit of all of you to see that everyone pulls his weight.
‘I expect no trouble from you. If you have any complaints I will always listen to them, and I will do what is in my power to help you. There are no doctors here but there are trained soldiers who can administer first-aid. Those of you who are now too sick after your journey to work will be accommodated in the existing barracks while the rest of you get on with the new buildings. That is all I have to say.’
He stepped down. Immediately the other Colonel took his place. He did not step up so much as leap forward in eagerness. There was nothing relaxed about this man. If there was a sense of restrained authority about Ushakov, this fellow wore his power like a flaunting banner. He was better dressed than the Commandant. He wore a sheepskin jacket, his well-made high boots were of soft leather, brightly polished. He was young enough to have been Ushakov’s son.
If I ever knew his name, I do not remember it. He was the political officer and we never called him anything but the Politruk, the short title by which all such officials were known. He stood for fully a minute just looking at us, faintly smiling, eminently sure of himself, a picture of well-being and arrogance. The men stirred uneasily and stayed quiet.
He spoke like a sergeant-major, strongly, harshly and insultingly. ‘Look at you,’ he said, hunching his shoulders and placing his gloved hands on his hips. ‘You look like a bunch of animals. Just look at yourselves! You are supposed to be the highly civilized people who fancy they can run the world. Can’t you now appreciate what stupid nonsense you have been taught?’
Fortified by his anonymity in the restless crowd, one brave man had the temerity to answer back. His voice shocked the silence of the pause which the Politruk had allowed himself for dramatic emphasis after his opening onslaught. ‘How can we look any different? You won’t let us shave, there’s no soap and no clean clothes.’
The Politruk turned in the direction of the voice. ‘I’ll get your food ration stopped if I am interrupted again.’ He was not interrupted again.
‘After a time here,’ he went on, ‘and under the guidance of Comrade Stalin, we shall make useful citizens of you. Those who don’t work don’t eat. It is my job to help you to improve yourselves. It won’t all be work here. You can attend classes to correct your way of thinking. We have an excellent library which you can use after working hours.’
There was some more in the same vein. Then, briskly, ‘Any questions?’ A prisoner asked, ‘When does spring come here?’ Replied the Politruk, ‘Don’t ask stupid questions.’ The meeting ended.
The first few days of building the new prisoners’ barracks were chaotic. All were willing enough to work but
