find a way to get there. Bloody well swim the Black Sea if he had to. Poshekhonov was a survivor. That's what he had told Holly, told him that his weapon was the humour that won him small victories. And Holly had dismissed him. 'Little victories win nothing • • Extraordinary, that Chernayev had sat down. Sensible old goat, he'd always reckoned Chernayev. Byrkin, well Byrkin was different – half mad, wasn't he? Everyone knew that Byrkin was touched. And who wouldn't be if they'd been locked in a cabin below the waterline with the bombs falling. 'Little victories win nothing… ' Feldstein on hunger strike, Chernayev sitting down, Byrkin following him, that wasn't; a little victory, only an inconvenience. But if the whole of Hut z sat down, what then? Perhaps it would be a big victory if the whole of Hut z sat in the snow. He looked to the man on the right of him, who was described as a 'parasite to society', and saw that his gaze was questioned. He looked to the man on the left, who was described as a 'hooligan', and saw that his action was waited for. You're not mad, are you, Poshekho nov? You're not going to play daft buggers? If the whole of Hut z were to sit down…
The prison diet had not entirely stripped away his fat.
Poshekhonov made a faintly ridiculous sight as he rolled down onto his buttocks.
And the zek on his right followed him, and the zek on his left.
First the fraud, then the parasite, then the hooligan.
And like a line of tin soldiers who will keel over when one is pushed, the zeks of Hut z sat down.
For a moment only Mamarev was standing, and he looked hard at the Adjutant and saw only indecision, then he too lowered himself to the snow.
The Adjutant pursed his cold-chapped lips, wet them with his tongue. Behind five ranks of standing prisoners a whole line was sinking, dropping from his sight.
'Request Major Kypov to come here, and suggest to him that his attendance is immediate.'
The Adjutant rasped the instruction to an N C O, who turned and ran towards the Administration building.
It was a familiar place, almost a place that was home.
As Holly was led inside Yuri Rudakov's office he felt the warmth. worm beneath his clothes. He looked warily at Rudakov while the warder's keys unfastened his manacles.
He saw on the Political Officer's face the smile of studied friendship.
'Sit down.'
'Thank you.'
'You have suffered no injury during y o u r… your expedition?'
'There is no heating in the SHIzo, my clothes are still wet.'
'Of course. Put your tunic on the radiator, your socks too.'
'Thank you.'
Holly laid his tunic on the hot pipes and the worn socks beside them and the heat tingled his fingers.
'Your shirt, ypur trousers?'
'They're all right. Thank you again.'
'Coffee? Something to eat?'
'No, thank you.'
Yuri Rudakov rested his elbows on the desk, balanced his chin against his hands. They could have been friends, they might have been companions. Two educated young men.
Their smells divided them – Rudakov rich with the talc from his bathroom, Holly ripe with the sweat stains from his flight. Their cheeks separated them – Rudakov close-shaved, Holly raw with a week's stubble.
'I would not have credited that you could have been so crass, so stupid.' Rudakov said. 'You believed in the possibility of escape, Holly. You believed so strongly in the possibility of running clear that you even sent me a little letter. That showed a touching faith in your ability to leave us.' There seemed a mocking serenity in Rudakov. That was his outward armour. There were two paths he could take.
There was friendship, there was the fist. His choice was based not on kindness but on expediency. 'You have confessed to murder. You make a confession and at the same time you run away like a truant from a teacher. Did no one ever tell you how many get clear from the Dubrovlag? You know, Holly, down the road is Camp 5 where we keep the foreigners – addicts, currency offenders, drunks, religious maniacs – never has one of them done anything as stupid as to try to break out. For a foreigner it is impossible… '
'What are you going to do?'
'Why should I do anything, Holly? It is on you that we wait.'
'No riddles, please. You don't sleep when you're running, nor when you're on a concrete floor.' if I do not have your statement then I do not interfere in the case of a man held at Yavas. If I have your statement then I take upon myself a different course of action. That is not a riddle.'
'You're a pig, Rudakov, a stinking, lousy pig.'
'You don't have to be theatrical, Michael. If you did not want to meet me you could have stayed in England. If you did not wish to make a statement to me you could have avoided introducing excrement in the water supply of the barracks.' There was a change now in Rudakov, a cut of hard steel. 'He was a young boy who died. He was a conscript. He served his country, he had done no harm to you. You had no right to murder him.'
'What guarantees do you give me?'
'You cannot ask for guarantees, you are owed nothing.
You have to trust me when I say that an innocent man will not die at Yavas because of what you have done. You have no alternative but to trust me.'
Holly looked down at the floor, saw the blisters on the joints of his toes where the skin had been rubbed away by boots that were sufficient for the slow shuffle of the prisoner, inadequate for the gallop of the escaper. He was no longer certain. He had boasted of his strength, and his strength was found out and false. The life and death of a man at Yavas had rotted it.
He could have cried out the name of Mikk Laas, he could have cried for an older fighter's forgiveness.
'You'd better get a sheet of paper,' Holly whispered.
Vasily Kypov strode across the compound. He glowered at the front lines that stood in dumb hostile insolence. Relief at his coming lit the face of the Adjutant.
He recognized the signs. Any trained and experienced officer would have recognized the signs of approaching mutiny. You catch mutiny early, he had been told that at some long ago staff officers' course, you catch it early and you belt the balls off it. He saw the widely spaced cordon of guards around the lines of prisoners, and the three small groups of warders who huddled together with only their truncheons to sustain them. Too few men, he decided.
He reached the Adjutant, but did not concern himself with returning the salute.
'I want every man out of the barracks,' Kypov hissed. 'And I want the perimeter guard doubled.'
'Most of the men who are in reserve are at Visitors'
Reception…'
'Get them here.'
'Who is to supervise the visits? There is the searching of visitors… '
'Fuck the visits, fuck the visitors. I want them out.'
The zeks in the front rank had heard. The Adjutant watched the bitter hardening of their faces. Visits were the cornerstone of their lives. Visits were precious. is that wise, Commandant?'
'I will say what is wise.'
In a camp of Strict Regime such asZhKh 385/3/1, prisoners are entitled by law to two brief and one prolonged visit each year. A brief visit may last up to a maximum of four hours, a prolonged visit may be extended to three days with prisoner and relative sleeping together in small rooms set aside in a secure section of the Administration block. Before and after both brief and prolonged visits, the men and women and children who have travelled to the camp to see their loved ones are subjected to a vigorous and painstaking body-search.
Weakened by their winter journey, depressed by the surroundings, the relatives on this Tuesday morning sat in the wooden hut beyond the outer door of the Administration building and waited to be strip-searched. The hut was full, the search cubicles already occupied, when Kypov's order found its destination.
The daughter, aged twelve, of a fifteen-year man was in one cubicle, her skirt up around her waist, her knickers at her ankles, feeling the fingers of a wardress pry her open in the hut for contraband.
A farmer from a collective outside Kazah, and past seventy years and the father of an army deserter, was in
