Major Pugachov remembered how Vlasov’s emissaries had come to the camp with a ‘manifesto’ to the hungry, tormented Russian soldiers.
‘Your government has long since renounced you. Any prisoner of war is a traitor in the eyes of your government,’ the Vlasovites said. And they showed Moscow newspapers with their orders and speeches. The prisoners of war had already heard of this earlier. It was no accident that Russian prisoners of war were the only ones not to receive packages. Frenchmen, Americans, Englishmen, and prisoners of all nations received packages, letters, had their own national clubs, and enjoyed each other’s friendship. The Russians had nothing except hunger and bitterness for the entire world. It was no wonder that so many men from the German prisoner-of-war camps joined the ‘Russian Army of Liberation’.
Major Pugachov did not believe Vlasov’s officers until he made his way back to the Red Army. Everything that the Vlasovites had said was true. The government had no use for him. The government was afraid of him. Later came the cattle cars with bars on the windows and guards, the long trip to Eastern Siberia, the sea, the ship’s hold, and the gold-mines of the far north. And the hungry winter.
Pugachov sat up, and Soldatov gestured to him with his hand. It was Soldatov who had the honor of beginning the entire affair, although he was among the last to be accepted into the conspiracy. Soldatov had not lost his courage, panicked, or betrayed anyone. A good man!
At his feet lay Captain Khrustalyov, a flier whose fate was similar to Pugachov’s: his plane shot down by the Germans, captivity, hunger, escape, and a military tribunal and the forced-labor camp. Khrustalyov had just turned over on his other side, and his cheek was red from where he had been lying on it. It was Khrustalyov to whom Pugachov had first chosen several months before to reveal his plan. They agreed it was better to die than be a convict, better to die with a gun in hand than be exhausted by hunger, rifle butts, and the boots of the guards.
Both Khrustalyov and the major were men of action, and they discussed in minute detail the insignificant chance for which these twelve men were risking their lives. The plan was to hijack a plane from the airport. There were several airports in the vicinity, and the men were on their way through the taiga to the nearest one. Khrustalyov was the group leader whom the escapees sent for after attacking the guards. Pugachov didn’t want to leave without his closest friend. Now Khrustalyov was sleeping quietly and soundly.
Next to him lay Ivashenko, the mechanic who repaired the guards’ weapons. Ivashenko had learned everything they needed to know for a successful operation: where the weapons were kept, who was on duty, where the munitions stores were. Ivashenko had been a military intelligence officer.
Levitsky and Ignatovich, pilots and friends of Captain Khrustalyov, lay pressed against each other.
The tankman, Polyakov, had spread his hands on the backs of his neighbors, the huge Georgadze and the bald joker Ashot, whose surname the major couldn’t remember at the moment. Head resting on his first-aid bag, Sasha Malinin was sound asleep. He’d started out as a paramedic – first in the army, then in the camps, then under Pugachov’s command.
Pugachov smiled. Each had surely imagined the escape in his own way, but Pugachov could see that everything was going smoothly and each understood the other perfectly. Pugachov was convinced he had done the right thing. Each knew that events were developing as they should. There was a commander, there was a goal – a confident commander and a difficult goal. There were weapons and freedom. They slept a sound soldier’s sleep even in this empty pale-lilac polar night with its strange but beautiful light in which the trees cast no shadows.
He had promised them freedom, and they had received freedom. He led them to their deaths, and they didn’t fear death.
‘No one betrayed us,’ thought Pugachov, ‘right up to the very last day.’ Many people in the camp had known of the planned escape. Selection of participants had taken several months, and Pugachov had spoken openly to many who refused, but no one had turned them in. This knowledge reconciled Pugachov with life.
‘They’re good men,’ he whispered and smiled.
They ate some biscuits and chocolate and went on in silence, led by the almost indistinguishable path.
‘It’s a bear path,’ said Soldatov who had hunted in Siberia.
Pugachov and Khrustalyov climbed up to the pass to a cartographic tripod and used the telescope to look down to the gray stripes of the river and highway. The river was like any other river, but the highway was filled with trucks and people for tens of miles.
‘Must be convicts,’ suggested Khrustalyov.
Pugachov examined them carefully.
‘No, they’re soldiers looking for us. We’ll have to split up,’ said Pugachov. ‘Eight men can sleep in the haystacks, and the four of us will check out that ravine. We’ll return by morning if everything looks all right.’
They passed through a small grove of trees to the river-bed. They had to run back.
‘Look, there are too many of them. We’ll have to go back up the river.’
Breathing heavily, they quickly climbed back up the river-bed, inadvertently dislodging loose rocks that roared down right to the feet of the attackers.
Levitsky turned, fired, and fell. A bullet had caught him square in the eye.
Georgadze stopped beside a large rock, turned, and stopped the soldiers coming after them with a machine-gun burst. But it was not for long; his machine-gun jammed, and only the rifle was still functioning.
‘Go on alone,’ said Khrustalyov to the major. ‘I’ll cover you.’ He aimed methodically, shooting at anyone who showed himself. Khrustalyov caught up with them, shouting: ‘They’re coming.’ He fell, and people began running out from behind the large rock.
Pugachov rushed forward, fired at the attackers, and leaped down from the pass’s plateau into the narrow river-bed. The stones he knocked loose as he fell roared down the slope.
He ran through the roadless taiga until his strength failed.
Above the forest meadow the sun rose, and the people hiding in haystacks could easily make out figures of men in military uniforms on all sides of the meadow.
‘I guess this is the end?’ Ivashenko said, and nudged Khachaturian with his elbow.
‘Why the end?’ Ashot said as he aimed. The rifle shot rang out, and a soldier fell on the path.
At a command the soldiers rushed the swamp and haystacks. Shots cracked and groans were heard.
The attack was repulsed. Several wounded men lay among the clumps of marsh grass.
‘Medic, crawl over there,’ an officer ordered. They’d shown foresight and brought along Yasha Kushen, a former resident of West Byelorussia, now a convict paramedic. Without saying a word, convict Kushen crawled over to the wounded man, waving his first-aid bag. The bullet that struck Kushen in the shoulder stopped him halfway.
The head of the guard detail that the escapees had just disarmed jumped up without any sign of fear and shouted:
‘Hey, Ivashenko, Soldatov, Pugachov. Give up, you’re surrounded. There’s no way out!’
‘OK, come and get the weapons,’ shouted Ivashenko from behind the haystack.
And Bobylyov, head of the guards, ran splashing through the marsh toward the haystacks.
He had covered half the way when Ivashenko’s shot cracked out. The bullet caught Bobylyov directly in the forehead.
‘Good boy,’ Soldatov praised his comrade. ‘The chief was so brave because they would have either shot him for our escape or given him a sentence in the camps. Hold your ground!’
They were shooting from all directions. Machine-guns began to crackle.
Soldatov felt a burning sensation in both legs, and the head of the dead Ivashenko fell on his shoulder.