The hand that had gloried in the skin of Elena was now white and clenched on the telephone. Abruptly he replaced it, then sagged back onto the bed. Though the room was dark his hands covered his face. For a full minute he lay quite still on the bed, not caring to cover his nakedness, then he dragged himself from the coverlet and started a hapha-zard search across the floor for the items of his uniform. He let himself into the living-room where he would dress.
Because Elena Rudakov's head was deep beneath her pillow he did not hear her weeping.
He had lost a jewel, a jewel that would have adorned his crown.
On the railway line, beyond the reach of the village lights, two men heard the far cry of pursuit, the siren's howl, and tried to run faster.
Chapter 16
There had been a long night of confusion in the hut.
The zeks lay on their beds as they had been ordered and were drowned by the blazing ceiling lights. None were to leave their beds. The counting had been long ago; now they lay submissive on their mattresses, witnesses to the anger of the high and mighty of the camp who came to inspect the insult of two empty bunks and two folded blankets. The zeks were forbidden to talk, but they watched each move of the investigators. Ever since the siren had awakened them the zeks had been alert to the drama of the night. The Commandant had come, glowered at the unused mattresses, stalked the length of the hut, departed, and had returned. The Political Officer had been three times to Hut 2, as if some factor in the outrage of escape had first eluded him, and there was fury on his face for every time that he stamped the boards of the hut to the far wall where guards and warders stood, useless as statues.
Each man in the hut read the message. Escape was the great weapon. Escape was a cudgel that whipped across the shoulders of the men of authority. The anger of Vasily Kypov, the fury of Yuri Rudakov, were twin witnesses of the wound that had been done to them. He would have been a brave man who sniggered in their hearing, an idiot man who smirked in their sight. The zeks were silent, the zeks averted their eyes from the faces of the men in authority.
All the men in the hut would reckon that they knew Adimov. Only a few could claim to be familiar with the Englishman.
Chernayev from his bunk watched the two camp officers who would co-ordinate the hunting down of Holly and Adimov, and against his vest was the letter that he had been charged to hand to Rudakov when the late afternoon came.
Byrkin who in his time had been a Petty Officer and so was familiar with command and instruction saw the pacing frustration of the Commandant. Poshekhonov turned to his pillow and pretended to sleep so that he might better hear the whispered conversations of Kypov and Rudakov when they came close to the mother heat of the stove.
'Right under the corner tower they went out.' A snapped accusation from Rudakov.
'Under a tower?… and the tower was manned?'
'Of course it was manned…'
'You have a trail?'
'Something that is nothing. We have a trail that is under twenty centimetres of snow. Two sets of wire cut, and then a trail to the woods on the north side… If we have the dogs out blundering in the trees in darkness we screw all the scent that's left. If we leave it till first light we have another twenty centimetres sitting on the scent… it's a bloody shambles.'
'How could that happen?'
Vasily Kypov spoke almost to himself, as if the question bemused him.
He won no charity from Rudakov.
'They had wire-cutters. They went out underneath a tower. I'm not responsible for fence security… '
'Holly was yours. You were responsible for him. Full enough last night with your boasts of success.' Kypov flared in retaliation, and the memory of hospitality received a few hours earlier fled. if he had not been able to walk out of your camp – to walk through two wire fences and over a wooden fence – then he would have been mine.'
'You should have observed your man better.'
'You should have secured your perimeter. Isn't that what they teach the serving officer?' Rudakov sneered.
'They'll singe us for this.'
'They'll have our arses.'
Kypov cocked his head, peered out through the window into the stinging snowfall.
'Where can they go?'
'How can they go anywhere? They can only run, freeze, starve.'
'There will have to be an inquiry.'
'When a prisoner escapes there is always an inquiry. They will say that escape is not possible from an efficiently run camp.'
'The search parties will start at dawn.'
Kypov bit at his lip, tucked his chin to his chest, and stamped out of the hut into the last moments of the night.
Trailing behind him were his Adjutant and a radio operator whose set crackled static across the compound.
Rudakov stood by himself close to the stove. He felt the frail, local warmth.
They were all watching him, but if he raised his eyes all would turn away. He was hated here. Scum, weren't they
…? They could be beaten till they fell, they could be starved till they tumbled, but to the moment of death they would hate, loathe him. He understood the source of that strength. Holly and Adimov had given it to them. An escape through two wire fences, and over a high wooden fence, and under a watch-tower. He felt a private wound. He had offered freedom to Michael Holly and had been given an obscenity for a reply. Rudakov threaded between the guards and the warders to the far end, to the empty bunks. He crouched beside Feldstein's.
'Did you know, Feldstein?'
'Know what, Captain?'
'Don't piss with me, did you know?'
'Would I tell you, Captain, if I had?'
'Do you want to go to the SHIzo block?'
' I… I did not.'
'Why did they go?'
'You want to know?' A grimness in Feldstein's voice.
'I want to know.'
'They had the courage to say that what happens in a Concentration Camp is not inevitable, is not irreversible.
Every man in this hut shouts in his heart for their success.'
Rudakov whispered beside the ear of Feldstein. if they are not s h o t… if they are returned here then what has been the value of their courage?'
Feldstein laughed without mirth. 'They have damaged the institution of the camp, they have kicked the authority of the Comrade Commandant, they have battered the dignity of the Comrade Political Officer. I have to tell you that?' if for this escape there is collective punishment against all the men in the camp, what then is the value of their courage?'
'We have nothing. If you have nothing what then can be taken from you…?'
At first light a convoy of lorries and jeeps arrived at Camp 3.
A hundred cold, cursing men who had been pulled early from their barracks' beds at Yavas. They brought with
