One death, seventeen casualties for treatment. A doctor from Saransk said that he had read that dysentery was most likely to provide complications for the malnourished. He asked whether it was possible that a guard could suffer malnourishment. His question was not answered.
The news of the death reached Vasily Kypov as he dressed in his bungalow half a kilometre from the compound. There was a telephone beside his bed and, while he spoke, his Orderly was brewing coffee in the kitchen and whistling a popular tune of the young people in Moscow. A breath of cheerfulness swam from the kitchen as Kypov listened to the message from the hospital. As a military man he knew of casualties. The paratroops had taken killed and wounded on the streets of Budapest when he was a junior Lieutenant.
As a Captain he had known the pain of casualties in the old quarter of Prague. Casualties were inevitable; even on manoeuvres in the German Democratic Republic or on exercise in eastern Poland there would be accidents. His former colleagues serving out time as garrison troops in Jalalabad would know the meaning of casualties – unused sleeping bags, packaged personalized belongings. Casualties were part of the paraphernalia of war.
But this was not war. This was the tedium of camp administration. This was the boredom of watching over a criminal scum.
The Hungarians had kicked back. The Czechs had struck out. The Afghans would fight with the teeth of ground-to-air missiles, rockets, medium machine-guns. That was pre-dictable, acceptable. But this?.. . Was he in a state of war with eight hundred scarecrow filth as an enemy? He had never thought of the zeks as his enemy, never believed they had the will to bite against his authority. One pig from out there had killed a young man for whom Vasily Kypov, formerly a major of paratroops, was responsible.
He had not been a hard man, he told himself that, he had never resorted to brute repression. He had been fair, and they had shown their gratitude. They had given him a boy who was dead.
His chin shook, his hand trembled with his anger. When the Orderly brought his coffee the liquid slurped from the filled mug and dribbled from his jaw.
From the distant lit line that was the perimeter fence of the camp he could hear the amplified strains of the National Anthem. The night's snow lay on the track, sheeting the previous day's ice and grit. The Orderly drove slowly, with great care, towards the Administration block.
There was more coffee in the Officers' mess.
Kypov and his own at one end and, away across the room, the huddle of the interrogators who had arrived during the night. He saw that Rudakov flitted between the two groups as if uncertain of his allegiance. If one fell then all would fall.
And camp security was the one area of administration where the Commandant gave ground to the junior KGB officer on attachment.
He was buggered if he would be a prisoner in his own mess.
He strode across the room, introduced himself to the senior interrogator. The two men stood for several minutes on the no-man's-land of the central carpet, heads close, voices low. The mess was warm, the stove fire well ablaze, and when they had finished talking he found that his eyes wandered to the red coals, and he remembered the searing flash as the flames had leaped from his own fireplace, and he glanced at the coal bucket. He was afraid, in his own mess he was afraid. That was the cancer that had to be cut. He turned back to the senior interrogator.
'You have everything that you need?'
'Everything. Each man has a room allocated.'
'Excellent.'
'We are not patient, Major… there have been very firm instructions from Moscow.'
'I hope you kick the shit out of them,' Kypov said.
He buttoned his greatcoat, drew on his gloves. Out from the mess and into the darkness. The snow flakes nicked the skin of his cheeks. Around him were his officers and guards with machine-pistols, and dogs and warders with wooden staves.
In front of him the gates were pushed open, piling snow to the side. He saw the prisoners, vague through the snow-fall.
He was at war, and victory in war demanded the harshest resolution. Out there was his enemy. An enemy bent in its rags against the wind. But a boy lay dead in the refrigerated mortuary of the Central Hospital, and amongst his enemy was that boy's murderer.
A few metres forward of the centre of the front line of prisoners had been placed a wooden box, white from the snow-fall. He marched towards it and the murmur of talk died in the ranks.
As if it were a drill movement, and looking straight ahead, Kypov stepped onto the box… slipped… skidded…
His arms flailed for support and could clutch at nothing.
He landed in the snow on his back, arms and legs spread, sinking in its softness. And the boots and the hems of greatcoats crowded around him, and gloved hands lifted him and beat the snow from his shoulders and his buttocks.
It started as a growl, the laughter of the men in front of him. It began as a tremor, became a quake, and as far as he could see there were mouths open in mirth. His fingers gripped tight inside his gloves. And in front of him the faces were animated, alive, bright with fun.
He turned.
The nearest man with a machine-pistol. He snatched it, and still the laughter rattled in his ears. With his teeth he dragged a glove from his hand. All the time the laughter. He cocked the weapon and the crack of the metal movement was lost in the laughter's gale. He fired over their heads, his forefinger locked to the trigger. All of the magazine. Thirty-six shots. When the magazine was exhausted his finger was still tight on the trigger.
The report of the gunfire beat back at him from the low snow-cloud.
The prisoners were silent. Heads down, shoulders cowed, mouths shut.
He shouted and his words carried clearly across the compound.
'Within the last week a part of the Administration block, the property of the State, was sabotaged by fire. Within the last forty-eight hours the water supply to the garrison has been poisoned. As a result of the first action, property of the State was destroyed to the value of many hundreds of roubles. As a result of the second action the life of a young man has been taken… he has been murdered. Neither of these actions was accidental. I guarantee that the malefac-tors will be sought out and will be subject to the most rigorous penalties laid down by law. Some of you may labour under the misguided belief that you have a duty to shield a killer and a saboteur. If we discover that any of you have followed that road then I promise that you, too, will feel the full harshness of the law. Every man from this compound will be questioned by investigators. You must co-operate fully with the investigation team. Until we have arrested this murderer certain penalties will be imposed on all prisoners… No visits, short or long, will be permitted.
No parcels will be accepted. No incoming mail will be distributed, no outgoing mail will be despatched. The Library will be closed, all entertainments are cancelled. If the culprit has not been discovered by Sunday then a full day's work will be peformed on that day. There is one, or there are some, amongst you who want to play rough with me. I, too, can play. I can play rough with all of you.'
They waited in the snow. They waited for the order to move off towards the Factory compound and the shelter of the workshops. The order was not given. They stood in their lines and ranks and the snow fluttered to their caps and lay on the shoulders of their tunics and gathered over their thin felt boots.
Twelve from the front rank were taken to the Administration block.
They watched the camp Commandant, alone and brooding, as he paced around them, and they were encircled by guards and the dogs crept close to the legs of their handlers.
Few bothered to brush the snow from their caps and tunics. They had not been forbidden to talk, but the voices of the zeks were dampened.
In the rear rank were the men from Hut z.
Byrkin who had been a Petty Officer said, 'They will never let go of this one. That is the way of the Services, they will go on until they have a body. At first they will try to have the right body, afterwards they won't care… My wife was to have come next week and the children. Nothing is worse than missing a visit. I can just remember what the children look like.'
Mamarev who carried the stain of informer said, 'Who ever did this, he had no right to involve us all. He's
