Kolyma Tales

by Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov

  The guard on duty was supposed to open the kitchen cupboard, but he knew it was hopeless to try to control the cook, that no locks would help if the cook wanted to steal, so he entrusted the keys to the cook – especially at five in the morning.

  The guard had worked more than ten years in Kolyma, had been receiving a double salary for a long time, and had given the keys to the cooks thousands of times.

  ‘Take ’em,’ he muttered and reached for the ruler to write up the morning report.

  Gorbunov walked behind the guard, took the keys from the nail, put them in his pocket, and grabbed the guard from behind by the neck. At that very moment the door opened and the mechanic, Ivashenko, came through the door leading into the camp.

  Ivashenko helped Gorbunov strangle the guard and drag his body behind the cabinet. Ivashenko stuck the guard’s revolver into his own pocket. Through the window that faced outward they could see a second guard returning along the path. Hurriedly Ivashenko donned the coat and cap of the dead man, snapped the belt shut, and sat down at the table as if he were the guard. The second guard opened the door and strode into the dark hovel of the guardhouse. He was immediately seized, strangled, and thrown behind the cabinet.

  Gorbunov put on the guard’s clothing; the two conspirators now had uniforms and weapons. Everything was proceeding according to Major Pugachov’s schedule. Suddenly the wife of the second guard appeared. She’d come for the keys that her husband had accidentally taken with him.

  ‘We won’t strangle the woman,’ said Gorbunov, and she was tied, gagged with a towel, and put in the corner.

  One of the work gangs returned from work. This had been foreseen. The overseer who entered the guardhouse was immediately disarmed and bound by the two ‘guards’. His rifle was now in the hands of the escapees. From that moment Major Pugachov took command of the operation.

  The area before the gates was open to fire from two guard towers. The sentries noticed nothing unusual.

  A work gang was formed somewhat earlier than usual, but in the north who can say what is early and what is late? It seemed early, but maybe it was late.

  The work gang of ten men moved down the road to the mine, two by two in column. In the front and in the rear, six meters from the column of prisoners as required by the instructions, were two overcoated guards. One of them held a rifle.

  From the guard tower the sentry noticed that the group turned from the road on to the path that led past the buildings where all sixty of the guards were quartered.

  The sleeping quarters of the guards were located in the far end of the building. Just before the door stood the guard hut of the man on duty, and pyramids of rifles. Drowsing by the window the guard noticed, in a half-sleep, that one of the other guards was leading a gang of prisoners down the path past the windows of the guard quarters.

  ‘That must be Chernenko,’ the duty officer thought. ‘I must remember to write a report on him.’

  The duty officer was grand master of petty squabbles, and he never missed a legitimate opportunity to play a dirty trick on someone.

  This was his last thought. The door flew open and three soldiers came running into the barracks. Two rushed to the doors of the sleeping quarters and the third shot the duty officer point-blank. The soldiers were followed by the prisoners, who rushed to the pyramid of weapons; in their hands were rifles and machine-guns. Major Pugachov threw open the door to the sleeping quarters. The soldiers, barefoot and still in their underwear, rushed to the door, but two machine-gun bursts at the ceiling stopped them.

  ‘Lie down,’ Pugachov ordered, and the soldiers crawled under their cots. The machine-gunners remained on guard beside the door.

  The ‘work gang’ changed unhurriedly into military uniform and began gathering up food, weapons, and ammunition.

  Pugachov ordered them not to take any food except biscuits and chocolate. In return they took as many weapons and as much ammunition as possible.

  The paramedic hung the first-aid bag over his shoulder.

  Once again the escapees felt they were soldiers.

  Before them was the taiga, but was it any more terrible than the marshes of Stokhod?

  They walked out on to the highway, and Pugachov raised his hand to stop a passing truck.

  ‘Get out!’ He opened the door of the driver’s cab.

  ‘But I…’

  ‘Climb out, I tell you.’

  The driver got out, and Georgadze, lieutenant of the tank troops, got behind the wheel. Beside him was Pugachov. The escapee soldiers crawled into the back, and the truck sped off.

  ‘There ought to be a right turn about here.’

  ‘We’re out of gas!’

  Pugachov cursed.

  They entered the taiga as if they were diving into water, disappearing immediately in the enormous silent forest. Checking the map, they remained on the cherished path to freedom, pushing their way straight through the amazing local underbrush.

  Camp was set up quickly for the night, as if they were used to doing it.

  Only Ashot and Malinin couldn’t manage to quiet down.

  ‘What’s the problem over there?’ asked Pugachov.

  ‘Ashot keeps trying to prove that Adam was deported from paradise to Ceylon.’

  ‘Why Ceylon?’

  ‘That’s what the Muslims say,’ responded Ashot.

  ‘Are you a Tartar?’

  ‘Not me, my wife is.’

  ‘I never heard anything of the sort,’ said Pugachov, smiling.

  ‘Right, and neither did I,’ Malinin joined in.

  ‘All right, knock it off. Let’s get some sleep.’

  It was cold and Major Pugachov woke up. Soldatov was sitting up, alert, holding the machine-gun on his knees. Pugachov lay on his back and located the North Star, the favorite star of all wanderers. The constellations here were arranged differently than in European Russia; the map of the firmament was slightly shifted, and the Big Dipper had slid down to the horizon. The taiga was cold and stern, and the enormous twisted pines stood far from each other. The forest was filled with the anxious silence familiar to all hunters. This time Pugachov was not the hunter, but a tracked beast, and the forest silence was thrice dangerous.

  It was his first night of liberty, the first night after long months and years of torment. Lying on his back, he recalled how everything before him had begun as if it were a detective film. It was as if Pugachov were playing back a film of his twelve comrades so that the lazy everyday course of events flashed by with unbelievable speed. And now they had finished the film and were staring at the inscription, The End. They were free, but this was only the beginning of the struggle, the game, of life…

  Major Pugachov remembered the German prisoner-of-war camp from which he had escaped in 1944. The front was nearing the town, and he was working as a truck driver on clean-up details inside the enormous camp. He recalled how he had driven through the single strand of barbed wire at high speed, ripping up the wooden posts that had been hurriedly punched into the ground. He remembered the sentry shots, shouting, the mad, zigzag drive through the town, the abandoned truck, the night road to the front and the meetings with his army, the interrogation, the accusation of espionage, and the sentence – twenty-five years.

  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 joine
d 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.

  Another haystack fell silent. A dozen bodies lay in the marsh.

  Soldatov kept on shooting until something struck him in the head and he lost consciousness.

  Nikolay Braude, chief surgeon of the main hospital, was summoned by Major General Artemyev, one of four Kolyma generals and chief of the whole Kolyma camp. Braude was sent to the village of Lichan together with ‘two paramedics, bandages, and surgical instruments’. That was how the order read.

  Braude didn’t try to guess what might have happened and quickly set out as directed in a beat-up one-and-a-half-ton hospital truck. Powerful Studebakers loaded with armed soldiers streamed past the hospital truck on the highway. It was only about twenty miles, but because of frequent stops caused by heavy traffic and roadblocks to check documents, it took Braude three hours to reach the area.

  Major General Artemyev was waiting for the surgeon in the apartment of the local camp head. Both Braude and Artemyev were long-term residents of Kolyma and fate had brough
t them together a number of times in the past.

  ‘What’s up, a war?’ Braude asked the general when they met.

  ‘I don’t know if you’d call it a war, but there were twenty-eight dead in the first battle. You’ll see the wounded yourself.’

  While Braude washed his hands in a basin hanging on the door, the general told him of the escape.

  ‘And you called for planes, I suppose? A couple of squadrons, a few bombs here and there… Or maybe you opted for an atom bomb?’

  ‘That’s right, make a joke of it,’ said the general. ‘I tell you I’m not joking when I say that I’m waiting for my orders. I’ll be lucky if I just lose my job. They could even try me. Things like that have happened before.’

  Yes, Braude knew that things like that had happened before. Several years earlier three thousand people were sent on foot in winter to one of the ports, but supplies stored on shore were destroyed by a storm while the group was underway. Of three thousand, only three hundred people remained alive. The second-in-command in the camp administration who had signed the orders to send the group was made a scapegoat and tried.

  Braude and his paramedics worked until evening, removing bullets, amputating, bandaging. Only soldiers of the guard were among the wounded; there were no escapees.

  The next day toward evening more wounded were brought in. Surrounded by officers of the guard, two soldiers carried in the first and only escapee whom Braude was to see. The escapee was in military uniform and differed from the soldiers only in that he was unshaven. Both shin-bones and his left shoulder were broken by bullets, and there was a head wound with damage to the parietal bone. The man was unconscious.

  Braude rendered him first aid and, as Artemyev had ordered, the wounded man and his guards were taken to the central hospital where there were the necessary facilities for a serious operation.

  It was all over. Nearby stood an army truck covered with a tarpaulin. It contained the bodies of the dead escapees. Next to it was a second truck with the bodies of the dead soldiers.

  But Major Pugachov was crawling down the edge of the ravine.