The chief of militia listened aghast to this, and to the story of Ponomarenko.
‘There will be many things for me to look into here,’ the general told him forbiddingly, ‘but Tchersky’s warehouse facilities – fix this in your head – are not among them. He’s got away. These trucks are all halted?’
‘Every one, General.’
‘Too late, I expect. I’ll have every manjack re-questioned all the same. He knows of a vehicle somewhere. You’ve got a complete list of all those in the area?’
‘All of them, General. Full details, within fifty kilometres. All surrounding areas contacted also, according to your last instructions.’
‘And nothing’s missing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well. Every one of those to be rechecked, too – confirmed. These short-haul routes you say he knows best – I’ve been looking them over. A lot of scattered developments. This one here – Anyuysk. What’s doing there?’
‘Various works. We had the local police check them out.’
‘Hmm. And beyond it?’
‘South – a few small places. They were all checked. And east, nothing till Provodnoye. Also checked – a truck delivered a load there Saturday.’
‘This river in between, the ice road. What’s near it?’
‘Nothing – the odd trapper’s hut.’
The general looked up and stared at him. Then he turned to his aides. The colonel was stretched on the sofa, the others in easy chairs; all hollow-eyed, but alerted now at his gaze.
‘The odd trapper’s hut?’ the general asked, quietly.
‘Tiny shelters,’ the chief of militia said placatingly. ‘Maybe three or four. Spread over a hundred kilometres – well away from the banks. For trappers. He couldn’t get to them.’
‘Do the trappers have vehicles?’
‘No, General. Trappers don’t have vehicles.’
‘What do they have – dogs, sleds?’
‘Yes. Dog sleds. Where could he go with a dog sled?’
‘God knows where he could go with a dog sled! Find out! Trappers scout around. Maybe they’ve seen something. Go there. Cover that area. Cover this stretch from – where is it? Anyuysk. Anyuysk to Provodnoye. Volodya, I believe I could manage a drink now,’ he said to his junior aide. ‘And you – sit down. There are more areas like this. Have you got a notebook? Start writing down in your notebook.’
It was well after 4 a.m. before the chief of militia got away but before five the sturdy vehicles of his force, their searchlights mounted on top, were off on their missions, the first of them bound for Anyuysk, and for the little tributary that branched off to Provodnoye.
In the cave, he had done what he could. A screwdriver at the carburettor, and a series of fiddles with the distributor, had brought down the revs and evened out the note.
He still didn’t like the sound of it. It was too noisy. He knew he had to get it out on the track for a proper test, but was nervous about moving it at all. It could let him down after half a kilometre.
He bent over the engine, revving up and down. After all, a new engine … Maybe it had to settle in.
He let it run for five minutes and took it out.
He ran on his sidelights, eyes adjusting to the dark. He went towards Provodnoye, made a kilometre, tried all the gears, tried the brakes. The bobik slewed left when braked hard. And the suspension was too stiff; it would give trouble on rough ground. He reversed a fair distance, stopped, turned, went back, passed the cave. On a high bank beyond he tried out the lights. Also a bit out of true. He decided to forget the lights. They worked, high beam and low, it was enough.
He drove back to the cave. It was now 2.30 a. m., and he needed a rest. But the brakes and suspension had to be attended to first. He knew them inside out but it still took time. And another test outside. Then it was finally done, as final as it was going to be, and he got into the sleeping bag: 4 a.m.
But now he couldn’t sleep; and at five he gave up and went into the last routines.
He climbed on the bobik and took down the block and tackle. He fixed the other seat. He stowed everything he had brought with him in the back; all the loose cartons and packing, the engine harness, the stove, all his supplies.
Then there was only the curtaining, and the lighting. He dismantled the circuit – the flex, the plugs, the bulbs – until there was no light and he used the torch. The generator went in last.
He took the bobik out, directed its headlights into the cave and walked in for a final inspection. In the harsh beam he could see the plug holes showing in the roof and the walls. But frost would soon cover them.
Six a.m. on his watch.
He went, and didn’t look back.
By 6.30 the Tchersky militia were threading a tortuous way down the tributary from Anyuysk to Provodnoye, and cursing hard. Even with the big headlights, even with the top-mounted searchlight, it was difficult to see the bends until you were on them. The navigator was counting bends.
‘Cut the lights!’ he shouted suddenly.
The driver cut the lights and stopped.
‘What the fuck!’ he said, alarmed.
‘There’s a car!’
‘Where?’
‘A flicker. Stop the engine.’
The driver stopped the engine, and they both sat peering in the dark. The navigator opened his window. Dead silence.
‘You’re seeing things,’ the driver told him presently.
‘There was a flicker.’
‘Our flicker. Where is it now?’
‘It’s gone now.’
‘That’s right!’ The driver switched everything on again and got moving, swearing.
But there had been another flicker. Porter had cut his lights, and now sat watching those of the militia. They were moving again and he could hear the engine note. He was barely half a kilometre away. He had made it just in time.
In the dark he found a cigarette and lit it.
A few minutes more and they’d have met head on! He’d been going slowly, searching for the stream. And by God’s grace had found it – minutes before!
He had noticed the stream first a few weeks ago, between the cave and Anyuysk. He had looked it up on the wall map in the Despatch depot. There it was shown as unnegotiable for trucks. From what he could see it ran from the north-west, but at some point it changed direction and meandered east. On the map he had traced the meander. It ran miles and miles, through rising ground, through mountains, to a highway. He couldn’t see how it got to the highway. But it was the Bilibino highway; and above the word Bilibino was the sign for an airport, a major one.
He had tucked this away in his mind as a possible, a remote alternative. But now, with what had happened, there was no other. He didn’t even know if there was this.
In the school atlas the long range of peaks showed up in purple, with only a general title: Kolymsky Heights. A tremendous journey. He didn’t know if a bobik could do it. And this was a Mickey Mouse bobik, untried, put together in a cave.
But if it couldn’t?
He let the militia go and started the engine.
Seven
KOLYMSKY HEIGHTS
51
By 10 a.m., with only forty-two kilometres on the clock, he had discovered why the stream was unnegotiable for trucks. No part of it was wider than two metres and it was littered with boulders. The boulders were iced, blanketed in snow and he had slithered over or squeezed past them. But some were not visible, and into these he had thudded as if into a wall. He was still in first gear, peering behind his lights.
He thought he must have gone halfway. On the wall map it hadn’t looked more than eighty kilometres. The powerful heater kept the windows defrosted, but he could see nothing beyond the headlights.
Presently, uncertain even that this was the right stream, he stopped, got out and climbed the shallow bank. In the freezing wind, the shapes of mountains showed, still climbing. They told him nothing, and he got back in and drove on.
&nbs
p; A little after 1 p.m. a dark outline loomed ahead, and he put the lights off and got out to inspect it.
A bridge; spanning the stream.
He mounted the bank and found himself on the Bilibino highway.
It couldn’t be anything else: six metres wide, levelled, a made road. The Bilibino highway. But where on it? Left must go to Tchersky, and right to Bilibino, but how far either way? He couldn’t remember the position on the map. During the journey with the convoy he must have passed scores of such bridges.
Nothing was moving on the highway.
He went down again and drove the bobik up. The road ran straight, no flicker of light visible. For the first time he put the car properly through its gears, through second, through third, to top – and for the first time the bobik began to hum. It hummed through seventy kilometres an hour, and eighty, and eighty-five. He watched the needle, and remembered prising the bare frame off the ground, remembered bolting every part of it together. Oh you sweet little bastard, he told the bobik.
The big trucks wouldn’t stop, he knew, just flash their lights. But there would not only be trucks. On the earlier journey, there had been the odd recovery vehicle, occasional supply bobiks. And these he had seen stopped, their drivers chatting. Well, he would have to pull off somewhere if he saw them ahead; or keep going and chance raising suspicion.
Somewhere he would have to rest. There were laybys on the road, but he couldn’t stop there. Other vehicles might also stop. No stopping at the road stations, either. He would have to get off the road. In the mountains there was nowhere to get off it. He would have to rest before the mountains; if he knew where the mountains were; if he could first fix his position.
The next road station might give a clue; but without a map even this was in doubt. The school atlas was useless. For this reserved area it showed no details; just main rivers, towns, the red line of the highway and nothing else.
Presently he saw the lights of a road station far ahead, and he cut his headlights. As he approached it he cut the sidelights too, and coasted slowly in.
A huddle of big trucks, bobiks, a tracked recovery vehicle. All still.
He switched the engine off and opened the window. Faint music came from the log hut. He peered at it. The huts were very similar, all the early ones of wood; only a few, farther along the route, of concrete. This was one of the early ones. It couldn’t be the earliest?
With a sinking feeling, he realised that it could be; that it probably was. He suddenly recalled that it was only after the first road station that the switchback had started. There had been no switchback yet. This was the first road station – 600 kilometres still to go …
He got moving again, and worked this out. The clock showed 180 kilometres – the stream more than double the length he’d thought. A lot of fuel had been used. In rough going; but the big engine was heavy on gas any way. Even at best it gave only seven kilometres a litre – twenty miles a gallon. He wasn’t getting anything like that. He couldn’t make Bilibino on what he had.
The route was beginning to look familiar, and he recalled that this stretch he’d driven himself, had taken the wheel from the first road station. Under Vanya’s tuition he had swung the big rig into line in the convoy. The steep climb into the high passes would start soon, and then the switchback.
And soon the first pass came – the peaks on either side no longer visible in the midwinter dark. Ahead the ice road shone clear for miles, not a thing on it. He came out of the pass on to a straight plateau, stopped the car and got out, with the torch.
A savage wind nearly took his head off. He hunched through it to the edge. Stanchions and solid railings guarded the edge. Only flanks of icy rock gleamed in the torch beam, and below blackness. Here he was over half a mile high, and below was a gorge. The first task.
He went back to the bobik and collected the debris – the engine harness, the block and tackle, the cans and cartons, everything that could lead back to its origin – and in three journeys pitched it over, together with Ponomarenko’s lumber jacket, the mink hat, the balaclava, the stove.
He was very hungry and he ate, and drank coffee from a flask, watching the road both ways, and then started off again.
Next would be the switchback, and somewhere along it Road Station No. 2. Another task there. And beyond the one after it, a place to rest before the mountain labyrinth. More and more the little bobik was taking the route in its stride. The joking in the stream had done it good: the engine note settling, the eager bark yelping when he stepped on the gas. And he was making excellent time – no lumbering convoy, and a clear road.
The switchback came: rise and fall, rise and fall, a ribbon of ice but running dead straight. And presently Road Station No. 2. He doused his lights, approached carefully, and sat and watched it a while.
Lighted windows, music faintly audible, and in the parking area a dark huddle of trucks and bobiks. He coasted slowly in and cut the engine.
From the back he collected two empty jerricans, the plastic tube, and a wrench. The trucks ran on diesel: no use. He kept his eye on the hut door and tackled the fuel cap of the first bobik. Iced up. He got the wrench to it, inserted the tube, sucked, got the siphon going and filled the jerricans. It took no time, and he was away.
Two jerricans weren’t going to be enough.
Twenty litres – 120, 140 kilometres. Needed more. What he had in the tank would get him past the next road station and he’d refill from the jerricans when he found a place to rest.
Stars were visible now; the overcast dispersed. Another weather system. He’d gone a fair way. He lit a cigarette to stay awake; and, as he did so, saw a vehicle approaching, far off.
It was moving fast, not a truck; headlights coming rapidly up and down the switchback. As it neared he saw it was a bobik, and that it was slowing and stopping. They’d both dipped their lights, and now he briefly flicked his and kept going, and in the rear-view mirror saw the other car had started again. They’d raised a hand to each other in passing. All okay. The other bobik didn’t belong to Tchersky; some other kind of plates on it.
He suddenly realised he didn’t have any plates.
He couldn’t run into Bilibino without plates.
He worked this out, and had found a solution before he saw the lights of the next station, in a hollow of the switchback far ahead, Road Station No. 3.
He stopped on the hill above it, doused his lights, and took what he needed out of the back. Then he coasted down and went in, in the dark.
Fuel first, and he took it from a bobik. The car was backed in tight to a snowbank. Too tight for the next task. He had decided he needed only one plate – and a rear one was the least likely to be missed.
He found his target, and got to work. Fixings iced solid, and he didn’t bother with them. He muffled the chisel with a rag and thumped it with the wrench. In a few minutes he had prised the plate off, and had it with him in his own bobik.
Road Station No. 3; goodbye. 5 p.m.
He was making fast time; but also tiring fast. Eleven hours of driving since he’d left the cave. And the mountains would be coming up. He had to find a place soon.
He drove slowly, looking for it. If he’d left it too late, he could turn and go back to one he had already spotted. But this he didn’t have to do. In starlight, from a hilltop, he saw it: at the foot of the slope, a dark hollow in the expanse of white. He drove down, and took a look at it.
Barely noticeable when travelling; a little culvert with a bridge over it, one of many. In the darkness underneath was a frozen stream, a couple of metres below the road, the same kind he’d driven out of hours before. The bridge was the width of the road. The bobik would tuck easily under it.
The bank sloped gently, and he drove down, on to the stream and under the bridge.
He slept two hours there, with the heater off to save fuel. The bobik was a deep freeze when he came out of the bag, and he started the engine and the heater. Eight o’clock.
He unwrappe
d the bread and sausage. The hard salamis had been separately wrapped when she’d brought them. Now they were in one coarse sheet of paper. He ate, and drank some coffee from the flask; and in torchlight took a look at the number plate.
One bolt was still bent in it. He had spare bolts in the tool kit. The whole ingenious vehicle was put together with only a few types of bolt. He sawed this one off presently, and got out and fixed the plate on the front. Then he filled up the tank, and attended to a few needs of nature.
He hadn’t washed much since leaving the house on Friday, and it was now Monday night. He chipped a bit of ice and did the best he could with his hands and face, and then his teeth. Then he climbed up and had a look at the road. All clear.
By ten, despite the constant zigzagging in the mountains, he had made Road Station No. 4.
He had decided to take four jerricans here. That should see him to Bilibino, with some extra in case of a detour. He hadn’t seen the airport there. In the mountainous area it could be way out.
He drove in without lights, and got out with the first pair of jerricans. He filled them rapidly, and returned with the second. Only one other bobik was in the car park – too near the hut, but shielded by a truck. He siphoned a can out of it and started the next, and stopped abruptly. The hut door had opened.
Two men, roaring with laughter, were coming out. And coming to the bobik. He had no time to get the cap back on. He hid behind the truck and heard them exchange cheerful obscenities with others still at the hut door. Then the men got in the bobik and he watched it go, across a huddle of trucks. Light from the hut door gleamed off the truck hoods, and then the door closed and he stood for some moments, quite still.
He first secured the jerricans in the car and then went back and looked at the trucks. In the dark their hoods no longer gleamed, but he went round them one after the other, and there was no doubt of it. A thick coat of ice was on the hoods. The engines hadn’t been used for hours – probably not all day.
Kolymsky Heights Page 34