display the latest of the telex messages to have come from Saransk concerning events at ZhKh 385/3/1.
He was adept at his work, this senior official. When he had been ushered into the Procurator's presence and sat humbly on the edge of his chair, he was ready with his denunciation.
'You will remember, Procurator, that this is not the first incident involving Camp 3 at Barashevo this year. Within the last month we have had the fire, as yet unexplained, that burned down the Commandant's office. We have had the dysentery epidemic that claimed the life of a guard and hospitalized seventeen others. Now we have an escape. I should draw your attention, Procurator, to the identity of one of those who is missing. Michael Holly, an Englishman serving a fifteen-year sentence for espionage against the State. He was a Red Stripe prisoner and yet he was able to acquire wire-cutters and cut through two wire fences, and scale a wall, right underneath a watch- tower. Already I have had Lubyanka on the telephone, they describe this man as a prisoner of maximum importance. I think you will agree, Procurator, that the matter is a disgrace…'
'Who is the Commandant at Camp 3?'
'Major Vasily Kypov, formerly paratroop.'
'How is my diary next week?'
'You are in Moscow – routine.'
'Make the travel arrangements.'
The train had spurred them on, driven them forward with fresh hope.
When they had heard its approach, slow in the dawn light, they had been staggering along the path of chip- stones and snow-covered sleepers. They had plunged together into the snow at the side of the line and tried to arrange their sheets across their backs. It was an old steam engine, pulling a crocodile line of goods wagons and belching black smoke, forcing the snow from the line with an angled fender. The train lumbered past them, scattering soot over their bodies.
Holly had seen the value of the train. He had seen the way it had scoured the track of surplus snow, tossed it on one side, and spilled down a debris of coke and dirt. The dogs would have a hard time of it, a hard time following the scent now that the train had passed. Desperately tired, he had dragged Adimov up from the snow, on down the track. It was a chance that must be taken. Adimov had cursed him, and Holly's grip on his tunic had tightened. They had gone on together, two grey shadows on the embankment of the track.
They had walked another hour after dawn and then they had seen the farm hut a few yards from the line.
While Adimov wrenched at the door, Holly smoothed their snowprints flat.
A windowless hut, with a floor-covering of wet hay. A palace to two fugitives.
They sank to the rough floor.
They eyed each other.
One thing to be friends when the momentum of escape drove them forward. Another matter when they were alone, isolated inside four tin walls. Almost a shyness between them. Holly knew why. Adimov had the food and Adimov had never shared his food with any zek in the camp.
'We have to eat, Adimov,' Holly said.
The bastard wants me sleeping, Holly thought. On my back and cold and out, and then he'll stuff the bloody food down his throat.
'We're going to share the food, Adimov. Crumb for crumb we're going to share it.'
'I don't need you… not now.'
'Get the food out.'
Both men on their knees now and the brightness of anger in their faces. Bitter, locked eyes.
'I gave you the cutters, you took me through the wire – that's where it ended.' it ends when I say. Get the food and share it.'
On their knees because they had walked all night and neither had the sinew to stand. Ready to fight over half a loaf of hard black bread, and a cube of cheese, and a pinched paper filled with sugar.
Adimov reached between the buttons of his tunic.
'You want the food, you get the food..
Holly remembered the blade, steel sharp against the blanket of a bunk in Hut i. He lurched forward, swung his weight against Adimov. Had to go fast. Find the wrist, hold it. One blow, one harsh stroke. The glaze was in Adimov's eyes. Beaten, destroyed by one punch. Holly reached inside Adimov's tunic, took the handle of the knife and the plastic bag of food. He crawled to the door, pushed it a few inches open and threw the knife as far as his strength allowed. The snow still fell, the hiding-place would be covered, lost until the spring thaw.
The cheese could wait, and the sugar too. They would be needed on the second day and the third. He would break into the bread alone. He tore off a quarter of half a loaf and then divided that quarter. He crawled across the floor of the hut towards Adimov and the man shrank away from him until he was against the wall and could go no further. Holly put an arm around Adimov's shoulder.
'Together we have a chance, alone we are beaten. Eat, Adimov.'
When the old zek had closed the door Yuri Rudakov tore open the gummed-down envelope. He read the words, written in a strong decisive hand, with a growing astonishment.
Captain Rudakov,
You have a man accused of the poisoning of the barracks water supply. He is not guilty of that offence. 'I alone was responsible. On the question of my escape 'I want you to know that Adimov was not the instigator of the attempt. Again I take full responsibility. With this knowledge I hope you will take the appropriate actions.
Sincerely,
Michael Holly.
Chapter 17
They lay together, two grey bundles of quilted rags, and the cold burrowed against their bones.
Holly remembered when he had taken Adimov for that first time to the perimeter path and talked of escape. To get through the wire had then been the summit of their aspirations. Bloody daft, bloody idiot thought… To get through the wire was nothing. To get away and clear, that was everything. And they lay on the floor of a farmer's hut a few short kilometres from the camp, soaked and frozen, they were starved close to exhaustion. What had he been thinking of when he had taken Adimov to the perimeter path?
There had been no plan. Only the blazing anxiety to get clear of the camp because he had consigned a man to the condemned cells of Yavas and, if Michael Holly could break out, and leave a pathetic note for Rudakov to read, then he could in some way scrub his conscience clean. Escape was an absolution, a few fleeting hours of the hair shirt and the whip. Holly had thought that escape would purge him of the responsibility for the man who would be shot at Yavas.
Bloody naive. Escape should have been a symphony of electric excitement, it should have been a dream of fresh flowers and spring time. Escape was a body draped in wet clothes, without heat, without food, without hope…
Without hope, Holly?
237
Lying on the floor of the hut he believed that he knew why men bent the knee and turned the cheek in the camp.
They had managed nothing, nothing that was worthwhile. They had exchanged one prison for another. He almost yearned for the bunk in Hut 2, he almost wished to hear the dragging of the main gate shut behind him. God, Holly, bloody beaten, and not out of the bloody place eighteen hours. Is that all you're worth? Eighteen bloody hours… And this was only the beginning, only the first short footstep. Barely out of sight of the camp, barely beyond
