While Lom made the fire, Florian took a small hand axe from his knapsack and hacked an armful of larger branches from the fallen spruce. He propped them against the side of the tree and wove thinner stem-lengths through them to bind a strong, shallow-sloping wall, on which he piled deep armfuls of brush and damp earth, until he had made a low, dark tunnel closed at one end, with a mouth at the other. He took some branches still heavy with needles and cut them to size, to make a door for the entrance which could be pulled shut once you were inside.
When he had finished, he came across to the fire. Considered it with approval.
‘It’s good,’ he said.
He pulled a little pan from his knapsack and set it on the fire. Used the axe to cut a fist-sized chunk of pork into slices and dropped them in. ‘I raided the kitchen at Terrimarkh,’ he said. ‘The shelter is for you. You should spread more leaves inside on the floor.’
‘What about you?’
‘I have no need. I will not sleep.’
When they had eaten, Florian set some water to boil in the pan and scattered it with coffee grounds. Dropped in a small pebble of sugar. He set the pan aside to cool and then they drank from it in silence, alternating sips. The drink was dark and bitter and sweet and good. Night thickened between the darkness and the trees.
Lom sat quietly and stared out into the darkness, taut as wire.
77
Hundreds of miles to the south Eligiya Kamilova lay on her back on a narrow shelf in a crowded stinking cattle wagon. The train had been stopped for hours. There was the noise of other trains outside, shunting and moving slowly past. Shouted orders. Men talking. Narrow shafts of bright arc light beamed in through the gap near the top of the wall and splashed across her face. She did not know where they were. She was no longer hungry or thirsty. That had passed. She was not waiting. The time would come when it was ready to come. There was nothing to wait for.
The freight car door rolled open with a crash and light spilled in. Electric light and cold night air which smelled of bitumen and naphtha and trees. More people were being shoved inside, though there was no room. VKBD men swore at them as they hesitated. A woman started to shout and scream. Eligiya Kamilova couldn’t understand what she was saying. A young boy in uniform smashed her in the face with the butt of his rifle. That quieted her. Kamilova turned away, staring at the pitch-soaked wooden ceiling close above her face. It would be bad if she were seen looking.
When the door was rolled shut and locked again, she took another look at the new arrivals. They brought with them nothing. No bags. No coats. No food or water. They stood or crouched in the shadows. Some of the men on the lower shelves were jostled. They swore at the newcomers in low vicious voices and pushed them away.
There were two young girls in school clothes standing together near her, close and side by side, their faces drawn and scared in the harsh shadowy light. They were looking for somewhere to go, somewhere to be out of the way. Kamilova recognised them. It took her a few seconds to recollect their names.
‘Hey,’ she called across to them quietly. ‘Galina. Yeva.’
The girls looked round, trying to find where the voice was coming from.
‘Over here,’ said Kamilova. ‘Up here.’ The girls stared at her. They didn’t move. They had learned not to trust the friendly voice. The invitation. ‘You are Elena Cornelius’s girls aren’t you. Do you remember me?’
‘No,’ said Yeva.
‘Yes,’ said Galina.
‘It is Eligiya,’ said Kamilova. ‘I know you. I know your mother. From the raion. I am her friend.’ She swung herself awkwardly down from the high shelf and squeezed her way towards them, stepping over the tightly packed people sitting on the floor.
‘Is your mother with you?’
‘No,’ said Galina.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘No. She was left behind.’
Hours later, Kamilova lay on her shelf listening for the sound of movement outside the train. There was none. For half an hour, as well as she could judge, there had been none. The arc lights still burned. It must have been nearly dawn. She climbed slowly, carefully down and went to find the girls. They were sitting together on the floor, backs against the door. Yeva was asleep. Galina was watching her with wide blank eyes.
Kamilova knelt down and nudged Yeva gently awake.
‘Get ready,’ she whispered. ‘I am going now and you’re coming with me.’
‘Where are we going?’ said Galina.
‘Do you want to stay on the train?’
‘No.’
‘Then it’s time to get off.’
Kamilova stood up and pulled the girls to their feet. They looked uncertain and confused but they did it.
‘When I say,’ said Kamilova, ‘run. Stay together and stay with me and run as fast as you can. Whatever happens don’t stop. Don’t listen to anything else but me. Don’t look back and don’t stop running unless I say.’
She turned to face the doors, closed her eyes and took a breath.
Calm. Calm. Think only of the night and the air.
The timbers of the massive heavy door screamed. The wood fibres ripped as it bowed and bellied outwards and split and burst and sprang from its rails and crashed to the ground below.
Kamilova jumped down and turned to catch Yeva and Galina.
‘Now!’ she screamed at them. ‘Run! Now! Run with me! Run!’
78
Every night at midnight General Rizhin gathered his city defence commanders together to hear their reports, review the day just finished and make plans for the next. In the early days of the siege, when they first understood that Rizhin intended to make a stand, the commanders he appointed had attacked their tasks with a fierce commitment and determination. Few among them thought they could actually succeed in driving back the overwhelming force of the enemy, but there was honour, and for some a fierce joy, in fighting not running. A week of bloody resistance was worth more than a lifetime of capitulation, and every day that Mirgorod did not fall was a day stolen from inevitability by their own determination and will. Rizhin had chosen them because that was how they felt, and he’d chosen well.
But now, as Rizhin’s gaze moved round the table, examining first one face and then another, he saw tiredness, lack of confidence, reluctance, even despair. One by one they gave their reports, and none of the news was good. Every day the enemy’s forces made some small advance, and the best that Mirgorod ever achieved was not to lose more. Defeat was only a matter of time, and the longer it took, the more grindingly desperate, even humiliating the resistance became. Rizhin knew that his commanders were beginning to feel this, and some were even willing quietly and privately to say so. A shared collective opinion was forming among them, in the way that such opinions do, without any one person leading it, that to continue the battle further was to impose pointless suffering on the people of the city. And so, this midnight, Rizhin called the city commanders together, grey-faced and dusty with the struggles of the day, in a different room, one end of which was separated off by a wide, heavy curtain.
When they were assembled, Rizhin took his place at the head of the table, relaxed and smiling, and spoke to them in a quiet voice.
‘Colleagues,’ he said, ‘friends, I know how tired you all are. You are fighting bravely, you do wonders every day, but I see in your faces that some of you don’t trust the struggle any more. Perhaps some of you think I should have accepted the enemy’s terms of surrender—’