Archangel

by Gerald Seymour

  'There's an engine,' Kypov said. 'They rolled it out last May Day and trundled it past the General. Bloody near choked him with all the smoke out of its arse.'

  'Get it here, Major, that's my suggestion. Get it here before dusk,' said the Adjutant mildly.

  The Major flipped the pages of his notebook for the number of the Duty Officer at Yavas, then reached for Kypov's telephone, banging the receiver sharply for a line.

  The bolt slid back.

  'Get up, Adimov.'

  The very sight of the man made Rudakov feel unclean.

  His dealings with the criminals were rare. This one he had not met before,

  'Yes, Comrade Captain.'

  Adimov watched the KGB officer with suspicion. Why should the Political Officer concern himself with Adimov?

  'I have a job for you.'

  'What job, Comrade Captain?'

  'You are to broadcast to the camp, to tell them of the futility of further resistance. Tell them that if there is immediate return to normality only the leaders will be punished.'

  'Why ask me?'

  'You have influence in Hut 2.'

  Adimov whined, 'You know why I went out, Comrade Captain?'

  The cell stank. No slopping out that morning.

  'Why?'

  'My woman is in Moscow. She is dying of cancer. I went out to see her.'

  'I am sorry, Adimov, believe me. Do this for me, Adimov, and there will be a rail-warrant and parole, that I promise.

  And there will be a sentence review.'

  'I will do it.'

  Adimov and Rudakov left the SHIzo block together, a smelly zek and a Captain of KGB.

  'Have there been any letters for me?'

  if there is one I'll get it for you.' It would cost Rudakov nothing, a small package of kindness.

  Inside the Administration block, Rudakov went first to the Post Room. In the pigeon hole for 'A' there was a letter addressed in a crude, inexpert hand. They went together down the corridor where they had to edge their way past men in combat fatigues, and at the far end of the corridor was the tube of a n o m m mortar lying on a pile of four stretchers, and some of the floor space was littered with a heap of gas masks. Rudakov held Adimov by the arm, Adimov held his letter tight in his fist.

  'Wait here . . .'

  Rudakov knocked and opened the door to the Commandant's office. The officers were bent over Kypov's desk and a plan of the camp.

  'Commandant, the prisoner Adimov will broadcast to the compound when you wish; he will urge surrender.'

  'There's a T34 coming up from Yavas. It'll be here by four. If it's to have a wasted journey you'd better back your man up for before that. They'll have a chance to respond, after that they're blasted.'

  'At five minutes to four I'll put Adimov on the loudspeakers. Will you want to address the camp yourself?'

  'No.'

  Rudakov stepped back out of Kypov's office. Beside him in the corridor a soldier handed back a single sheet of paper to Adimov. There were five lines of writing. Adimov gazed at him impassively.

  'We'll wait in my office, we'll have some coffee,' Rudakov said. 'You'll broadcast in thirty-five minutes.'

  is Holly involved?'

  i don't know.'

  Feldstein had finished, he stepped back from the table. For the first time since he had come to the camp he had spoken of his beliefs. He had preached the warfare of the turned cheek.

  Now the storm burst amongst the men of the Committee.

  'The Jew had no right to speak. If he wants fucking non-violence let him go and sit in the fucking SHIzo . . . '

  'They're the only card we have. Stick them out in front, let the bastards shoot right through them . . . '

  'We can do a trade. No reprisals for the Colonel General's life . . .'

  Holly slammed his fist into the table. The words, the swearing, the hate, had sapped him. Morozova was sitting at the far end of the Kitchen talking with Poshekhonov. Silly old bugger, trying to pretend he was a big man down on the Black Sea when he was just a zek with half a regiment waiting to shoot out his guts.

  His fingers tingled from the impact.

  'I say they go free.'

  if they'd been ordered to, they would have killed you happily,' said Chernayev softly.

  'You know why they have to go, Chernayev.'

  'What do we gain?'

  Holly struggled for the words, if we keep them and we do not use them, then there is no point in our having kept them.

  If we keep them and we use them, then we are the savages that they believe us to be. If they go out, then we will never be forgotten, we will be remembered as long as the camps exist.'

  is that what you want, Holly, to be remembered?'

  'I want all of you to be remembered. If the Colonel General goes out then the memory of you all will be burned in their minds. If you are never forgotten, the power of the Dubrovlag is broken.'

  Chernayev, unfamiliar in anger, spat across the table.

  'And the boy who died from dysentery, where does he fit into the scheme of memories?'

  Holly surged up from the bench seat, his fist leaped the table's width, he caught at the throat of Chernayev's tunic.

  'There is a man in the condemned cell at Yavas. Don't sneer at me about memories.'

  Gently, Byrkin eased Holly's hand loose. 'So be it, Holly, take them to the gate.'

  In a rush Feldstein came to Holly. His spindly arms were round Holly's shoulders. The girl came after him, but shyly and her hand rested hesitantly on his arm.

  The clock on the wall, above the food hatch and below the broken frame of the photograph of the President, showed twenty minutes to four.

  The tank had rattled out of the barracks at Yavas.

  It slewed onto the main road north, skidded towards a parked car. It would take the driver several minutes to familiarize himself with the driving sticks that he had not handled for nine months.

  The tank went to war ingloriously with a militia car in front, blue roof-light rotating, to clear the traffic from its path.

  Old the tank might be, but not obsolete, not for putting down an insurrection. Six shells for the main armament had been scrounged from the arsenal. A machine-gun of 50mm calibre was mounted on the turret. If anything was wrong with the old monster, the driver thought, then it was the fitting of the turret hatch. The rubber sealing of the hatch had long ago rotted, it leaked and he sat in a pool of water.

  But it was only nine kilometres to Barashevo, and the pack snow on the road was good for the tracks.

  When they passed the station at Lesozavad, a small crowd of villagers waved to the observer in the turret and cheered the tank on its way.

  " You have not behaved to us as we would have expected.'

  The Colonel General moved along a line of prisoners and offered his hand as if he were a departing guest. Manicured fingers met those that were bone-thin and filthy with factory oil.

  The gates opened, a gun-barrel peeped first, then a helmeted head. The gates were wide enough apart for a single man to squeeze through. The crew didn't wait, they were gone. The Colonel General was slower, as though he sought an answer that as yet eluded him. He paused in front of Holly.

  if you ended it now, after what you have done for me, there would be leniency.'

  'You are not going through the gate because we hope for leniency.'

  'I think I knew that. I will not forget you.'

  'Goodbye.'

  The Colonel General swung on his heel. The gates creaked as they were pushed shut. There was an emptiness now, a moment of confusion, and Holly shook himself, tried to shrug away the mood.

  it was the right thing. We fight them clean . . . '

  The driver swore at the sluggish sticks as he brought the tank to a halt in front of the Major.

  The Major skinned up over the track skirting and the paint-chipped armour-plate of the turret. He carried the plan of the camp in his hand.

  'We have a few minutes yet before you go,'
he called into the hatch. 'I want the main armament readied, one in the breech. They'll use the machine-guns against you, and you are authorized to use shell-fire against them. You'll be hatch-down, but we'll be with you on the radio. I don't want any pissing about with those machine-guns, if necessary ride right over them. As soon as they're out, the infantry goes in.

  Keep on the move inside.'

  'We heard they'd got a Colonel General as prisoner,' said the observer.

  'They let him go.'

  Astonishment from the gunner.

  'Other than the machine-guns do they have any firing weapons?' the gunner.

  'Two machine-guns, that's their lot.'

  'Poor bastards . . .' The driver spoke to himself from the bowels of the tank.

  'There's a queue in Hut 5,' Poshekhonov said. He laughed because Holly did not understand him. 'Hut 5 is a brothel now. That's the extent of our liberation, Holly. Home comforts for the storm troops. There's a queue half way down the hut. She wasn't the only one through the fence, you know, the little one who came to see you.'

  'What have we begun?' Holly seemed to lean against Poshekhonov's shoulder.

  'You should know that, Holly. Of all of us, you should know what we have begun.'

  Holly's face was close to Poshekhonov's. 'Promise me something, friend.'

  it is not an easy time to make promises that can be honoured.'

  'Promise me you will take care of the girl.'

  'When?'

  'When they attack.'

  'Our iron man, our leader of more than seven hundred zeks, and he asks for the safety of a girl who need not have come?'

  'Promise me.'

  Poshekhonov tried to laugh again, but when he looked hard into Holly's face he met only the steel gaze.

  'I think you care for all of us, Holly.'

  'I care for all of you.'

  'I promise, Holly. I will care for the girl when they attack.'

  Holly punched Poshekhonov playfully on the arm and walked away.

  Rudakov ushered Adimov out of his office.

  Down the corridor the door to Kypov's room swung open. Rudakov saw the Colonel General follow the Commandant into the passageway. Ten minutes before, the Colonel General had been held in the camp Kitchen . ..

  What was happening? He forgot Adimov. He hurried down the corridor after the two men.

  Kypov turned.

  Rudakov looked at the Colonel General in bewilderment.

  'How did it happen?'

  'They let me out, myself and the flying crew.'

  'Why?'

  'Their leader said that if they kept us and tried to use us as a shield they would be animals. He said animals would be forgotten. He said that if they freed us they would never be forgotten, never as long as the camps exist.'

  'What bloody use is it to them whether they're forgotten or not, when they're about to be mangled?'

  'I don't know,' said the Colonel General drily. 'I've never led a mutiny.'

  'Who is the leader?'

  'They've all taken the name strips off their tunics. There is one who can be identified. Tall, darkish, speaks fluent Russian but with something of an accent.'

  'Michael Holly . . . '

  'Once the attack goes in, he's to be shot on sight,' Kypov spoke with determination, a man who had at last retrieved his respect in the anticipation of combat.

  'What did you think of this Michael Holly?' A hoarseness in Rudakov's voice.

  'I thought rather well of him,' the Colonel General replied. There was a light smile at his face, as if he were not prepared to share his emotions with strangers. 'They have a Central Committee, and every man on the Committee wanted either to use us as sandbags or to hang us. Of course I think well of him. He is not a man to be underestimated.'

  'Get that scum of yours on the microphone,' Kypov ordered.

  Inside the Guard House they found a chair for Adimov. He was sat down in front of a table, and Rudakov lifted down the microphone from the wall bracket. Adimov gripped the microphone with white knuckles. He looked round at the walls that were covered with lists and typed guard rosters and duty orders and photographs from the files of selected prisoners.

  He felt Rudakov's faint tap on his shoulder.

  'This is Adimov, from Hut z. You will all recognize my voice. I want to tell you to surrender. You have been misled, you have been betrayed by your leaders. In a few minutes the gates of the camp will be opened, and those of my comrades who wish to leave the camp may do so, and they will not face penalties . . .' He had no script to read, he spoke as Rudakov had tutored him. 'I have been told by the Comrade Political Officer that only the leaders will be punished. This is your last opportunity, I urge you to come through the gates. My friends, all of our grievances will be most thoroughly investigated. Take this cbance, walk out of the compound . . . '

  Adimov looked over his shoulder at Rudakov, saw the nod of satisfaction. His thumb slid purposefully along the stem of the microphone as if he raised the switch from 'On'

  to 'Off'.

  'Was that good, Captain Rudakov?'

  'Excellent, Adimov.'

  The voice was distorted over the loudspeakers in the Kitchen.

  'And the tank attacks at four o'clock?'

  'Not your concern.'

  A desperate hush in the Kitchen, all eyes on the twin loudspeakers.

  'And once the attack starts Holly is to be shot on sight?'

  'What's it to you, Adimov?'

  The words were ferried the width of the compound by the exterior loudspeakers.

  Then a distant shout, harder to hear.

  'The microphone's live . . . '

  Rudakov was close to the microphone now, and screaming. There was the sound of struggling.

  'Bastard, stupid shit.. . stupid bastard, Adimov.'

  'I don't need your ticket, she's dead. The letter said she was dead. She was dead before I went o u t . . . '

  The loudspeakers were severed. For a few seconds there was ice-cold soilness inside the compound, then the zeks were moving.

  'I didn't know he had the guts,' Holly said. 'Can you deal with a tank?'

  'I can deal with a tank,' Byrkin replied.

  Chapter 23

  The camp lay squat on the snow plains, an isolated place that seemed to fly the yellow pennant of contamination.

  Outside, soldiers in pairs and threes had used their trench spades to make small holes in which they could cower down from the wind with their rifles, their machine-guns, their anti-tank rocket launchers. The dog-handlers were out with their animals and the skis. The Major had told his boys whose homes were two and half thousand kilometres from the Dubrovlag of the dangerous, seditious scum led by Western provocateurs, who had risen in rebellion behind the creosote-covered fence. The troops did not doubt the word of their Major. Let the Fascists break out, let the Traitors come through the fence . . . There were no birds in the winter trees, no song to impede the crackle of instructions over the portable radio sets. The camp was doomed.

  The death of the camp would come before dusk, and dusk was hurrying across the flat snowscape of Mordovia, like a fog wall on a calm sea.

  The marksmen watched the camp from their eyrie on the roof of the Administration building. There should have been despair among the zeks. The bastards knew that a tank was coming, they knew that an infantry force had gathered, they knew that their leader was a man marked in the gunsights for death.

  A grey light was settling on the compound. Only the perimeter lights were lit. The huts were deep shadows. The Kitchen was blurring, fading, from the view of the marksmen. They followed with difficulty the movements of men running between the huts, between the Kitchen and the Bath house, between the Store and the Library.

  The tank was late coming. They would not use the searchlight that had been brought to the roof of the Administration building until the tank arrived in the compound.

  The Kitchen was built of brick and concrete, the most secure construction in the camp. A
ll who would not fight the action were gathered there. The old, the useless, the sick. And the women made a lonely group as if the liaisons of Hut 5

  counted now for nothing. There were no jokes in the Kitchen, but a desperate, close quiet, with each man listening for the low-slung conversations of the Committee who were grouped close to the doorway. Holly stared out towards the black spaces sandwiched between the compound snow and the outline of the huts. Waiting for Byrkin. Byrkin away on his rounds and sprinting from hut to hut, diving for the cover of the darkness underneath the stilted floors.

  Chernayev was with Holly, and Feldstein. The girl was close to Holly, ignored and uncomplaining.

  The loudspeakers barked at them from high on the walls.

  ' . . . The gates have been opened. You must go immediately to the gates. You have two minutes. There will be no further opportunity to leave the compound before the intervention of the military . . . '

  Kypov with his parade-ground shout.

  '. .. You have this last chance. Go immediately to the gates with your hands on your heads. You will not be harmed. You have two minutes.'

  Holly looked around him, watching for the first man to rise. One man close to him with the cough of consumption, one with a crutch and an amputated right leg, one with the tremble of a disease that was incurable, one who could not see without grotesque owl spectacles.

  Who would be the first, Holly?

  Why don't the buggers move? They can't fight. They're helpless bloody food for the tank gun . .. why don't they go? Holly thought of a second hand ticking on a watch face, jerking through the movements of revolution. Two minutes only.

  'You can go . . . Any of you who want to go. There is no shame in going. . .' Holly shouted.

  They gazed back at him. Dumb cattle, quiet.

  'Who are you to tell them that they can go?' Chernayev hissed. 'You think that you pull every string, Holly?'

  Holly pitched himself forward towards the nearest part of the sitting mass. He dragged at the man with the consumptive cough, and the grip of his hands was flailed away. He pulled at the man with the amputated right leg and felt the crutch end spear into his stomach. He tugged at the man who could barely see and found only a weight that was dead to him. No man moved.