by Earl Nelson
I was numb to all of this. I just sat there as the court was brought to order. It was all in Russian, so I think that was what was happening. Everyone stood up when a fat man in black robes entered the room. I was forced to my feet.
The entire trial took about an hour and a half.
The guy at my side who in the US would have been my lawyer made a speech in English about how I was young and misguided by my evil masters in the CIA. He even named my master, a Rip Robertson. I laughed out loud at this which turned out to be a major faux pas in a Russian court. I was immediately gagged and bound.
The only time the gag came off was when I read my confession. As I read it, I did the only thing that I could. I blinked my eyes in Morse code, SOS, tortured. I was able to repeat this twice while reading slowly. I was then asked for my plea.
"Guilty."
There would be no., "Your Honor," from me.
The judge slammed his gavel down and sentenced me to twenty years of hard labor in a Siberian gulag.
I was taken from the room and my suit removed and I had to put on a grey jumpsuit. I was then taken down the hall and outdoors. It was a closed courtyard still within the Lubyanka building. I was taken over to a wall and chain to a post. A white piece of paper was pinned to my chest.
Five guards with rifles came out and lined up facing me. I was being executed!
There was nothing I could do so I stood as tall as I could. Give them a good target and die like a man.
The commands came.
"Ready!'
"Aim!"
It seemed like the last command took a million years, but it came.
"Fire!"
The rifles crashed. I had closed my eyes at the last moment. I stood there. What happened did they all miss?
My 'friend' from my torture came out.
"Good joke, heh?"
Someday, somehow, I will joke him, to death.
I was unchained from the post and taken to another windowless unmarked van. It still reminded me of a black maria. From there I was taken to a train station.
Chapter 18
My chains and shackles were removed, and I was shoved into a windowless railcar. I later learned these were called Stolypin, they were used for transporting prisoners to Siberia.
It was small, maybe ten feet by ten feet inside. There were eight other prisoners there already.
It was going to be an uncomfortable crowded trip.
I was no sooner inside than a big guy came towards me like he was going to kill me. As he took a step forward several of the other prisoners started yelling at him.
He stopped and backed up. I swear he got pale.
He stammered in broken English, “I sorry, did not know you the English CIA killer.”
Sometimes a reputation can be a good thing, earned or otherwise.
The trip was long and boring. We had to sleep on the floor, There was barely room for us to all lay down at once. The train made frequent stops and we were allowed out to use the facilities. We were given bread, water, and hard sausages to eat. I don’t think I will ever eat sausage again if I get out of this.
I learned a few Russian words during the trip, most of them nasty. I did find out that we were not all going to the same camp. They would be dropping off prisoners on the way. We thought this would give more room in our car.
Not so, it seems they transfer prisoners from camp to camp. Usually, it was one-off and one on, once it was one-off and three on. That was a miserable two days.
I wondered why prisoners didn’t run for it at the rail stops. Upon asking I learned the locals were paid a bounty if they caught a prisoner off the train platform. I learned to be careful not to stand close to the edge while waiting for the restroom.
Locals were known to push prisoners off the edge of the platform then capture them for the reward. The prisoner would have a year added to their sentence each time they were caught.
I thought about running for it, but it seemed a high-risk chance. I would wait for a better situation. In the meantime, maybe I get lucky and be included in a prisoner exchange.
I found out that there were different levels of prison camps. There were the official state prisons with cells. These were more like the American prisons except with no TV and forced labor.
The three levels of outside camps ranged from almost a country club to a forced labor concentration camp.
The best ones allowed weekend passes, family visits but importantly had food and health care. The worse was like the Nazi slave labor camps. They would work their prisoners to death knowing there would always be more.
I wasn’t getting a country club; no weekend passes for me. At the same time, we were kept in a barracks rather than a cell. After our workday, if we had the energy, we could wander the camp.
There were no fences, a prisoner could just wander off. Except the camp kept well-trained tracking dogs and the locals, the few that were around were paid a bounty on prisoners captured.
That and the fact I would be five hundred miles into the wilderness with only a dirt track road leading to the camp. This road was well patrolled and never had a prisoner make it out, using it. At least that is what I had been told.
Most of this information came from one guy who spoke fairly good English. He talked a lot to me and the other prisoners, sharing reasons why we shouldn’t even think about escaping.
I begin to think he was in the pay of the KGB or Gulag authorities to create a mindset.
It didn’t matter what he told us; I was going to escape as soon as possible.
Everything must end and so did that train ride in that stinking crowded rail car. It didn’t seem possible that I would be glad to be at that prison, but I was.
We weren’t at the prison. Two other guys and I were dropped off at a rail siding. There was a truck with one prisoner in it who was pushed into the railcar.
The other guy and I were told, at least he was, and I followed, to get into the truck. We were on the back of a flatbed truck and had to hang on so we wouldn’t fall off. A few boxes and fifty-pound sacks were loaded from the train.
We moved these around to form a barrier from falling off and to serve as a windbreak. The guards up front didn’t seem to care what we did.
My traveling companion pried several of the boxes open. They contained cold-weather pants, jackets, hats, socks, and boots. We both put on a complete set of them. I thought I would probably be needing them.
We then pounded the nails back down as best as we could.
After eight hours of bouncing around, we stopped for the night at a way camp. Nothing was said about our new clothes. None of them were new, they were more like clean rags, but they were better than nothing.
Late the next day we arrived at our camp in the middle of nowhere. The check-in was simple. We were taken to an office where they asked our names. They then checked us off against a list and told us our barracks and bunk numbers.
We were going to different barracks, so I seldom saw my traveling companion again.
It was late in the day, so we separated to go to our respective barracks. No guard accompanied us. It appeared that we were free to rove about the camp after hours.
When I entered the barracks, an older man approached me.
In English, he told me, “I am Joseph, it is my job to see that you are settled in, and to assign you a job and give you the tools.”
“You are a big guy so you’re going to be an axman. Tomorrow morning see me for your ax, gloves, and a sharpening stone.”
Just like that, I was absorbed into the working life of the Gulag. I had a top bunk as the new guy. I was told as lower ones opened; I could get one.
I made the mistake of asking how they opened.
“Men die here.”
“Accidents?”
“Some, more from disease, and many from starvation.”
“They starve us to death?”
“Not on purpose, when the weather is bad food can’t get through, they never stor
e any on-site. They are afraid we will steal it and run away. They bring enough food for a week at a time. When the weather is bad, we may not get any food in a month. Men die.”
“Then there is tuberculosis. It is always here but when we have no food it gets worse, many men die.”
“Oh.”
That was all I could say, what sort of place had I been sent to? I thought they had sent me here as a place to keep me until they could exchange me for their people.
Now it seems they don’t care if I live or die. Welcome to the USSR.
“How did you know to speak to me in English?”
“Your haircut and how you hold yourself. It is easy to see you are not Russian. Your hair cut differently like an Englishman would wear.”
I was impressed with his observation skills.
“Plus, every day we get a form talking about any new people. If you spoke German, Pavel would have welcomed you.”
He showed me my bunk and watched as I made my bed with the provided sheets. They were course material that felt like sandpaper. Thousand thread count, they weren’t.
The next morning, I followed the other men, first to the stinking outhouse, then to breakfast. Have I mentioned that I hate sausage?
I saw Joseph signaling me, so I went to him. He had a threadbare pair of gloves, an ax, a sharpening stone.
“You chop down marked trees. Do many so we meet quota, if we miss quota, no food for a week.”
I made a vow to myself to never miss a quota.
The men were filing out of the camp into the woods, so I followed.
This was not an environmentally friendly place. The forest was being clear-cut. It looked like a disaster zone. There were stumps everywhere and piles of limbs that were too small to bother with.
We went to the far edge of the cleared forest and started chopping down trees.
I had never done this before, so I had a lot of wasted motion. I was lucky to not cut a leg off.
When my first tree was falling, I yelled, “Timber.”
This must work in all languages as men looked at the falling tree and got out of the way.
I sharpened my ax and moved on. My shoulders were burning, and blisters had formed on my hands, but I was working for my life.
An older man carried a water bucket around us all day long. There were no official breaks, but I saw men resting between trees, so I followed suit. There was no noon meal.
At the end of the day, my hands were bloody, and I was as tired as I have ever been in my life.
Chapter 19
When I got back to the barracks, I was given a nasty-smelling salve to put on my hands. It did remove a lot of the pain. He also had a better pair of gloves,
“You worked well today; the committee has decided to give you decent gear. If you had not done well, we would have let you die.”
That made the inmate rules clear, produce to help the whole or die.
I wandered around the camp and saw men doing varied tasks. Many were playing chess. I watched a few games and realized that grandmaster in New Orleans was wrong about my playing at an Expert level or these guys were all great.
I suspect the guy had been blowing smoke trying to get me into another game.
Guys were carving small figurines, some of them nice pieces. Mostly animals but some of the better ones were people. One of them caught my eye and spoke to me in fairly good English.
“So, you’re the Duke that they caught for spying?”
“I was kidnapped, off a golf course, and have never been in the USSR before, how could I be a spy?”
“They say you a spy, you’re a spy.”
“I’m glad we got that cleared up. Just call me Bond, James Bond.”
“Where is your pretty girl?”
“At home.”
“Then you not James Bond, he would have been in bed with Natasha the cook here at the camp.”
“Is Natasha being a pretty girl?”
“No, she is as ugly as a fence post, has a big wart on nose, very fat, also only women in camp. It is said that when she starts to look good you have been here too long.”
“I have been here twenty-seven years and she still not look good. Though to be fair she only came here twenty years ago.”
I had to escape this place. The thought of Natasha looking good was too much.
“What do you do with these pieces you are carving.”
“We trade them to the guards for more food or little things.”
“So, there is trading going on in camp?”
“Yes, you can get anything but weapons, women, or a way out.”
“Why don’t people walk away?”
“They do, most are crazy and die in the woods, some serious attempts are made but the dogs track them down or the locals turn them in for the reward.”
“So, when I run for it, I have to make sure the dogs can’t track me, and that I don’t get near any locals?”
“That’s it, as the Americans say, easy peasy.”
I knew it would be anything but.
A bell rang, which turned out to be the dinner bell. I got in line with the other men and was given a tin cup and plate. Dinner was a dished-up stew of some kind.
It was the sort of meal you didn’t ask about; you just ate it. There was a barrel full of water which all dipped our cups in. Sanitation wasn’t high on the list here.
I was tired so was in bed early. There was a lights-out curfew in the camp at around ten o’clock, but I didn’t make it that long.
The next day was more of the same. It took two weeks before my hands toughened up enough that they weren’t bleeding by the end of the day. In another four weeks, I could tell I had put on muscle from all the ax work.
During this time, I was wandering around the camp in the evenings picking up what information I could. I was learning a few Russian phrases and numbers, but it wasn’t much.
I did hear one word that was the I thought I recognized. I thought I heard Yew, but when I listened it was pronounced Tu. Since they were talking about wood I double-checked.
Fortunately, one of them had a little English. It was surprising how many of them did. Then again it shouldn't be surprising as this camp seemed to be where they sent the intelligible residents.
The one who spoke English was called Dr. Z by the rest of them. He told me that it was Yew the same wood that the English made their bows out of.
Suddenly my chances of a successful escape rose.
I didn’t know what a Yew tree looked like, so I asked them. Once they showed me a branch, I realized that I had chopped many of them down.
The next day I deliberately picked a sixty-foot-tall Yew to chop down. Once I felled it I limbed half a dozen branches. They all were at least eight-foot-long, four inches in diameter, and straight.
I took them with me from tree to tree during the day. Maybe I should have waited for the last three of the day.
Now all I needed was a knife to carve a bow stave.
I went back to Dr. Z and asked him how I could get a knife. He told me he would provide if I kept him in a supply of Yew for his figures. That was a deal.
I had never carved anything, much less a bow. I had seen my archery instructor, Rod Bell do that, so I had a vague idea.
It took me two weeks and four destroyed staves before I had anything that resembled a bow. I had to go back out into the woods to do my carving so no one would know what I was up to.
That meant I only had a few hours of light to work with. It was now September, and the light was fading. I wondered if Popeye became a member of the Royal Order of the Purple Porpoise.
I felt lonely that night, but I was determined to get through all of this. I had no idea what was going on in the outside world and couldn’t count on help.
I knew a lot of people cared and governments would be putting pressure on the Soviets, but I don’t think anyone would go to war over me.
The bow I had carved looked good, but I know that was an illusion. It was green
wood that would warp as it dried. I had maybe two or three weeks' use out of it.
I carved another one and crawled under my barracks one night. I placed it on the cross beams that ran under one of the stoves that heated in the place. I hoped that would dry the wood out without it warping too badly.
I had been collecting sticks to make arrows out of, They had to be straight and at least a yard long. They were as big around as my finger.
When I cut a tree down, I would check for birds' nests and feathers that I could use on the arrows. I never found any of the correct sizes. One evening I saw a guy set up feathers for sale of all sizes.
I asked him what they would cost me. The Soviets were paying me ten roubles a week which was practically nothing but since I had nothing to spend it on, I had fifty roubles.
For my fifty I was able to get enough feathers for one hundred arrows. When I walked away, I thought that this was one of those deals where each party thought they had made out best.
Glue was common in camp; it had many uses. Inmates boiled hoofs down to make the glue. I never asked where the hoofs came from. I suspected they may have been dinner some nights but didn’t want to know.
Now all I needed for my arrows were points. I set that thought aside for the moment and worked on making a bowstring.
There was plenty of hemp rope around the camp. I unwound a good length of that, and reverse wove half a dozen bowstrings. My boy scout knotwork had taught me how to make an eye splice at the ends.
My arrowhead problem took care of itself. Joseph approached me one evening.
“Rick, we have been watching you make your bow and arrows. What are your plans.”
“Immediately to help our barracks food supply, long term to get out of here.”
“I’m glad you are thinking of good; it is almost falling now; we have had several touches of frost. The game will be getting scares. Anything you can bring in will help.