Holly watched him go. His legs shook. He lost Adimov in the haze of trees.
Holly's turn. But he must go backwards, his back to the trees. He must be bent so that he could push the snow again into the holes that their feet had left. Forty yards to cover while his glance wavered between the snow pits and the back of the guard in the watch-tower. Don't turn, you bastard, don't turn. He remembered Feldstein's question: if you had known that this place waited for you would you have done what you d i d? '… and a miserable answer he had given. Of course he hadn't known of ZhKh 385/3/1, of course he hadn't known of two wire fences and a high wooden fence and a guard above him with a machine-gun and clear fire field…
Did Alan Millet know? Holly wanted to shout the question, found it rising in him. Did the man who gave him sandwiches and beer in a pub near the Thames and a package to take to Moscow, did he know? When he was out
… when… he'd find Alan Millet.
Adimov clutched him, twisted him towards the abyss of the woods. No gun had been cocked. No siren button had been depressed.
At first they went in caution, doubled beneath the lower branches of the firs and larches and wild birch. Sometimes where the trees were set thickest there was little snow, but when they came to places of more open planting they would fall up to their waists into drifts. They blundered in the blackness with an arm raised to protect their faces from the whiplash of loose young branches. When the lights over the perimeter of the camp could no longer be seen, they went faster. They cared less for noise now. The pace increasing, the exhaustion surging. And through all the hours of darkness they must never stop, never break the rhythm of distancing themselves from the fences.
'We're going north?'
'As I said we would, Holly.'
'How far, like this?'
'Till we reach the railway that runs north from Barashevo.'
'We will go along the line?'
'The line is safer than the roads.'
'I thought… I thought there would be a greater excitement…'
Adimov leading, not looking back, the snow falling from the branches that he disturbed onto Holly's face and body.
'Excitement at what?'
'At getting out. Stupid, I thought I'd be singing.'
'Stupid, Holly… it's not a bloody Pioneer ramble…
You want to know what chance you have of getting out, right out, over the frontier? None. You've done all this just to be brought back, and when you're back it will be worse
… And for me, what is there?'
'There is your wife, Adimov…'
'My wife who is dying. To see her, should that make me excited?'
In morose silence they trudged on through the woods.
There were tears in the sheets where they had caught against branches. Neither man was willing to stop to remove the drapes, and they would need them when they came to the railway line.
No excitement, Holly. Only the pain, only the waiting for the siren to reach out for them.
He missed little. He noticed everything that broke the pattern of the hut.
Mamarev had strolled with an inoffensive innocence the length of the aisle between the bunks.
As he had gone by the bunks he was watched but not spoken to. They all knew which was the 'stoolie' amongst them. And they tolerated him because his person was sacrosanct. He was protected by the death penalty, he was kept safe by the threat of the SHIzo block. A nine-year stretch – a stretch for taking a girl into a truck park. Loud and clear she'd said 'yes', till her fucking knickers were at her ankles. A nine-year stretch and they'd said they'd halve his time. He had been a clerk, he had worked in the offices of the administration of Transport in Novosibirsk. He was not a part of this place, he owed nothing to these creatures in the bunk beds of Hut 2, he owed it only to himself to get clear of this stinking cesspit camp.
Two bunks were empty when the ceiling lights were switched off. Adimov and Holly. He had seen them together earlier at the perimeter path, and now their bunks were empty.
The Englishman was nothing, he had no fear of the Englishman, but Adimov was different… Adimov carried a knife.
The trustie from Internal Order slept at the far end of the hut to the bunks of Adimov and Holly, a double bunk-frame to himself, and a curtain to shield him from the common zeks. Mamarev had allowed an hour to pass from the dousing of the lights before he slid from his bed and went on his toes towards the drawn curtain. A wraith moving along the rough-floored aisle of the hut. Let the bastard trustie inform on the bastard 'baron'. He drew the curtain aside, he insinuated himself behind it. He shook the shoulder of the sleeping man until he woke. He whispered into the ear of the trustie.
'There are two beds that are empty. Adimov's and Holly's…'
'You little shit
With the 'baron's' help the trustie could run an easy hut.
Not that they could be friends, of course, but they need not cross each other. A 'baron' was a bad enemy, even for a trustie.
'Two beds are empty. I've told y o u.,. what are you going to do?'
'Fucking strangle you, that's what I could do about it.'
'And lose your precious curtain, and Good Conduct, and your red stripe, and your fucking life.'
'Get back to your bunk… ' the trustie spat the words in a rare savagery.
The trustie heard the fall of the curtain, the drift of a light footfall. He had no choice. He pulled on his boots. He slipped into his anorak with the bright red band on the upper right arm. He switched on his torch and walked the length of the hut. He saw the two folded blankets. He cursed quietly, sadly. When he came back between the bunk ends his torch showed him Mamarev sitting upright on his mattress, smiling. No choice. The trustie opened the door of Hut z, bent his head and began to walk to the Guard House.
They had reached the railway line. Behind them were the blurred lights of Barashevo railway station. In front the twin rails stood out in the half-gloom between the black cloud and the whiteness covering the sleepers and chip stones.
Holly put his hand on Adimov's shoulder. 'Well done… well done.'
Adimov did not reply.
The wind was at their backs. The sheets were pressed against their bodies. Two ghosts going north from the village along the railway track. Outside the confines of the camp Holly felt the terrible nakedness of the fugitive. And the little camp was exchanged for the big camp. It was a thousand miles to the perimeter path of the big camp. Into the night, into the driving snow, into the short horizon of the narrowing railway lines.
The sergeant was sprawled in a chair in front of the stove of the Guard House. His dog lay beside his feet close to the opened doors where the flames curled from the heaped coke. The sergeant was near to sleep, the dog snored. On a better night he would have gone out again, toured the fence a second time as midnight approached. Buggered if he would on such a night. Get himself soaked and half-frozen, and he could lose a good dog in a snow blizzard, get her cold again when she'd not dried out her fur, that was the way tc kill a good dog. The radio played quietly on the table besidt him. He had his tobacco. He had mugs of tea brought by one of the kids each time he shouted for it. Buggered if he'd go out again. His skis stood against the outside wall of the Guard House and they'd stay there.
'Sergeant, the Internal Order prisoner from Hut 2 wishes to speak with you… '
The sergeant straightened, swung in his chair to face the Duty Orderly. His fingers flicked nervously at the buttons of his tunic. The dog stirred. When the sergeant saw the snow-covered, muffled shape of the trustie framed by the doorway he felt the premonition of crisis. i am sorry to disturb you, sergeant. I thought you should know. Two men are missing from Hut 2.'
'So tomorrow you have the Englishman?'
'Tomorrow I have him.'
'You've played it strangely, I'll say that Rudakov, bloody strangely… and now you are to be rewarded for your eccentricity.'