Forty Days at Kamas

by Preston Fleming

  I thought of the sick and the wounded and the mentally ill lying in their dispensary beds, some aware that their lives might change entirely by morning, others blissfully unaware. And I thought of Georg Schuster and his nurses and the responsibility they bore, not only for their current patients, but for the many hundreds who might become casualties the next day.

  I thought of the newlyweds and the newly joined lovers who had already received far more joy in their short time together than they had ever allowed themselves to hope for once the dark curtain of arrest fell upon their lives. I wondered what plans they were making to remain united once the revolt was over, whether in Kamas, Orem, Provo, Yellowknife, or the peaceful land beyond the grave.

  I thought of my fellow observation post watchers, including Jon Merrill, who would be the first to see the flares go up, the machine guns open fire from the watchtowers, and the tanks tearing through the perimeter walls and fences. Would they sound the alarm when they realized that an attack was at hand or would they be paralyzed with fear? During their long vigil, would any of them remember me as a friend or would they curse me roundly as a traitor?

  After all the thoughts and images had collided into one another and joined to spin around in my head, I thought of my family. I thought of my wife, Juliet, and daughter, Louisa, still captives in Philadelphia but by now aware that they would soon be free to leave America and to begin a new life in exile. I thought of Claire, who had enjoyed relative freedom over the last few months but had been forced to learn more about life and fate than any twelve–year–old should have to.

  I even dared to imagine myself released from Kamas, reunited with my wife and daughters to spend the rest of our lives overseas. But I also dared to peer down into the abyss, where I saw myself half–frozen, working a pick and shovel in a northern mine, determined to survive my sentence against all odds and to reclaim what remained of my life when the nightmare came to an end.

  The frightful image of the northern mine jolted me to attention. With a mental clarity I had not experienced since the isolator, I realized that I could hear the somber whisperings of Brian Gaffney and Steve Bernstein, lying many yards to my right, as well as the yipping of coyotes in the far hills.

  Suddenly I understood that the reason I could hear the coyotes was that the bulldozers had stopped roaring. The night was totally still. Before long even the whispering stopped as the other prisoners dropped off to sleep. I felt the muscles in my neck and shoulders relax as the accumulated tension of the day slowly loosened its grip. I imagined the same sense of relaxation passing over every barracks in camp, as those who had been kept awake night after night by the clatter of the earthmovers sank into sleep. And then I slipped into a deep, if not entirely blissful, slumber of my own.

  CHAPTER 43

  "You don't put an enemy down with sermons. You have to burn him."

  —Nicolai Ceausescu, Romanian dictator

  THURSDAY, JUNE 27

  DAY 38

  I felt a sharp pain in my ribs and emerged from a deep and dreamless sleep. A dark figure loomed over me poised to kick again. I rolled onto my side and missed the full impact of the blow.

  "Get up, vermin," came a shout from one of the black–helmeted warders who surrounded us. "You’re late for work."

  A faint moonglow penetrated through the clouds, enough to make out the shapes of the other men within the barbed–wire pen. With kicks, shoves, and whacks from their nightsticks, the warders herded us in a single–file line toward a two–ton truck. While we waited, a short, sallow–cheeked lieutenant in a neatly pressed camouflage uniform handed us each a rough plastic–fiber sack of the kind used to make sandbags.

  "Get into the back of the truck and pull the sack over your head so that it bunches up around your neck," the lieutenant instructed. "I'll be watching you out the back window. Go!"

  With that, he pulled a .45–caliber automatic pistol from his holster and waited for us to obey his command.

  We slipped the bags over our heads and in a moment the truck lurched forward. Despite the loose weave of my sack, within moments I felt that I would suffocate. After the longest four or five minutes of driving in my life, the truck slowed, crossed a shallow ditch, and came to a lumbering stop.

  "Pull off the sacks and leave them in the truck," the lieutenant ordered.

  When my eyes adjusted to the light I saw that the truck was parked behind a row of a dozen or more heavy battle tanks, lined up ten yards apart behind the berm that rose between us and the camp's outer wire. The tanks’ cannon barrels tilted over the edge of the berm as if to fire point–blank into the camp. Several turret hatches were propped open for the tank drivers to perform last–minute checks. A .50–caliber heavy machine gun protruded from each turret.

  Arrayed twenty yards behind the tanks was a similar row of armored personnel carriers. In the APC closest to me, a crewmember poked his head out the forward hatch to gaze down upon us with disdain.

  Our young escort officer waited a few more moments for our eyes to adjust before speaking.

  "Okay, hop down, hustle over to the tent on the double, and form a single rank three paces behind the other prisoners."

  About fifty yards away, well to the rear of the APCs, stood a spacious, straight–sided tent of the kind used for Army field headquarters. Not far from the tent some twenty prisoners were lined up at arm's length from one another. We formed a new rank behind the other prisoners as we had been told.

  In the semi–darkness I could see three uniformed men emerge from the tent. They looked older and stockier than the lieutenant who had accompanied us on the truck, and I guessed it was they who were in command here.

  "Stand at attention," the lieutenant ordered us. "Colonel Tracy will address you now."

  We stood and waited for the colonel to speak. I glanced down the line and saw many familiar faces among these Unionist sympathizers and agents. They held their heads up proudly now, as if to proclaim their undying loyalty to the Party. But it was hard not to see in them the sniveling naysayers they had been in the days and weeks before.

  Colonel Jim Tracy paced deliberately back and forth before us in camouflage battle dress, his chest puffed up with a thorough appreciation of his own importance, then stopped to fix us with a solemn gaze.

  "In a few minutes the punitive force gathered here will advance to crush the mutiny that has festered in this camp for the past forty days. A key objective of our mission is to identify the mutiny's ringleaders and bring them to justice.

  "Each of you volunteers will be assigned to one of the armored vehicles that will enter the camp in the second wave. Once your assigned sector has been brought under control, your job will be to assist the security detail in identifying prisoners and in checking their names against our watch list.

  "You will be unarmed and are not to take part in any fighting. Once you cross the outer perimeter, anyone who attempts to desert or refuses to carry out an order will be shot without warning. Do I make myself clear?"

  The prisoners in the front rank remained at attention. Those of us in the back row looked at each other in quiet bewilderment. We had not volunteered for any of this.

  Tracy seemed to sense our confusion.

  "Are there any questions about what you are expected to do?" he asked, searching our faces with his penetrating stare.

  "Yeah," someone called out not far to my right.

  "What is it?" the colonel barked.

  "I never volunteered for anything," the speaker declared angrily. "No way I’m riding back into camp on one of your damned tanks!"

  The voice belonged to the former deputy capo of the camp's thieves, Randy Skinner.

  Colonel Tracy stepped aside to confer with our young lieutenant. A minute later he addressed us again.

  "I stand corrected. Those of you who came over last night were not asked to volunteer. Never mind, I'm asking you now. If you volunteer, you'll receive the same reward as the others: a one–third reduction in your remaining sentenc
e. If you refuse, you'll be sent north. So there you have it. All those in the second rank who volunteer, step forward two paces."

  Everyone stepped forward except for Skinner, Brian Gaffney, and me.

  "Very well, Lieutenant," Tracy concluded with a self–satisfied nod, "Deliver the volunteers to their assigned vehicles for the assault. Bring the others to me."

  The prisoners who volunteered were loaded onto the troop truck and dispatched down the line of APCs, one prisoner to each armored vehicle.

  Next the lieutenant summoned the waiting squad of warders to bring Skinner, Gaffney, and me to Colonel Tracy's tent. As we approached I recognized Tracy’s two colleagues as Doug Chambers and Jack Whiting. Both seemed agitated and restless. It occurred to me that Skinner, Gaffney, and I were not the only ones whose futures were in jeopardy should events go the wrong way.

  "Do you know these men, Major Whiting?" Tracy asked.

  "I certainly do," the Wart replied with a sardonic laugh.

  "What do you propose we do with them?"

  "Let's give them one last chance to cooperate," Whiting suggested. He unbuttoned the flap on his black leather military holster and turned to Skinner.

  "You, Skinner, are you going to help us or not?"

  "Go to hell," Skinner replied.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Whiting drew his pistol from its holster, pointed it at Skinner's chest and fired twice. Skinner's body fell backward and hit the ground with a thud. The speed and utter cold–bloodedness of the shooting took my breath away.

  "Now, let's see about the others. You, Gaffney," he called out, still holding the pistol. "Are you going to help?"

  Gaffney opened his mouth but seemed too stunned to speak. Whiting raised the pistol.

  "Hold your fire!" Doug Chambers called out suddenly and brought his hand down on Whiting's extended arm. "Not here. Wait and let it happen inside the camp, in the heat of battle. Handcuff him to the turret, if you have to. The same with Wagner here. Warders!"

  When he said my name I thought I saw a look of sadistic pleasure in his eyes.

  At that moment, two of the warders who had marched us to the tent pulled plastic strip fasteners from their belts and grabbed Gaffney's wrists to tie them behind his back. At first Gaffney seemed to submit, but in a flash he broke free. He flattened the first warder with a punch to the jaw and lowered his head to charge the other.

  "Don't shoot!" Chambers shouted once more to Whiting. "Take him alive!" The warder who was the target of Gaffney's charge grabbed hold of his attacker's coveralls with both hands and held on tenaciously until Gaffney slowed, lost his balance, and fell heavily onto his side. In an instant the other warders piled on, flailing away with their nightsticks and wrenching Gaffney’s wrists behind his back.

  From the moment Whiting unbuttoned the flap on his holster, my mind had been racing. Having shot Skinner, would he shoot all three of us? What if I agreed to help? Would they chain me to a tank turret, anyway, and kill me inside the wire looking like a traitor after all? My spirits sank and I regretted more than ever having left the camp.

  Just then it became clear to me that, above all else, I must not let the bosses take me back inside the wire. I accepted now that my life was over. All that remained was to avoid doing harm to my friends and show loyalty to the revolt. I felt bitter disappointment at not being able to rejoin my family but I had long ago come to terms with the possibility of dying in captivity. My bitterness was more for my daughters’ loss of a father than for my life coming to an end.

  I saw Grady and Mills finish with Gaffney and start toward me with plastic wrist fasteners in hand. I felt an instantaneous surge of strength and vowed that they would not take me alive. My eyes fixed on the earthen berm and the row of tanks before me. Beyond them stretched the electrified perimeter wire. All at once I realized that, if I ran for the wire, death would be certain, either by electrocution or by gunfire. All I had to do was outrun a pair of hulking thugs long enough for one of their trigger–happy comrades to fire on me. It would be so sudden I probably wouldn't feel a thing.

  With the other warders still swarming over Gaffney, I dodged Grady and Mills, sprinted past the tanks to the edge of the berm, and clambered up the rock–strewn slope. At the top, outlined against the horizon, I fully expected to die. But when I remained unharmed I lurched down the other side and poured on every bit of speed to cross the remaining fifty yards to the perimeter fence.

  I heard pistol shots and commands for me to stop but kept on running. As the fence loomed nearer, I thought momentarily about whether I should grab the wire or run straight into it like a sprinter breaking the finish line tape. Then the frightening thought came that someone may have turned off the electricity in anticipation of the attack. Never mind, I thought, I'll crawl under the fence and keep going until they shoot me.

  Less than ten yards separated me from the wire when I felt hands grasp me around the hips and topple me to the ground. A moment later, a second pursuer slammed onto my chest and knocked the wind out of me. I heard their breathless shouts and curses and recognized them as Grady and Mills. Their well–aimed truncheon blows came next, first on my head, then on my back. I curled into a ball with my hands clasped behind my neck and let them pound away while I set my mind free. I barely felt the pain until a crushing blow struck my lower back at a spot where I had been injured twice before.

  The blow sent a column of pain roaring up my spine into my head with such force that it seemed to burst out the top of my skull and soar into the night sky. Like the ball of glowing fire that carried me through the roof of the prison car the night I arrived at Kamas, the surging pain took me high above the valley to an altitude where I saw the sun’s spreading glow of the sun just below the far rim of the Uinta Mountains. Far below, scrub–covered foothills spread out in all directions.

  I turned my attention toward camp and instantly found myself hovering over it. Peering inside its walls, I saw huddled defenders waiting nervously behind the barricades, observers scanning the horizon from barracks roofs, and sentries marching in pairs along the inner perimeter wall.

  Outside the wall I saw platoons of expectant shock troops looking to the skies as if for a sign and machine–gunners in their watchtowers fingering belts of shiny brass cartridges. Beyond the no–man's–land I saw tanks and APCs lurking behind the berm and felt the throbbing of their engines as they awaited the command to attack. And nestled among the hills overlooking the camp, I saw a brightly lit administration building whose broad balconies stirred with restless generals and bureaucrats eager to view the show that was about to begin.

  A steady wind swept across the valley from the northwest, creating swirls of dust on the open range. As I hovered above the camp, I felt buffeted, not by the winds, but by waves of emotion similar to those I had sensed when looking down from the sky the night I arrived. Once more I felt the prisoners' hatred, resentment, despair, and outrage rising up in a cloud destined to burst upon those below in a storm of catharsis. And as I had done before, I turned my face away from the camp and climbed higher.

  I looked down again in time to see signal flares ignite over the camp with the brilliance of several full moons. This was the sign that the attackers had been awaiting. Suddenly the mighty engines of the tanks and APCs roared into action. Across the berm, pre–set explosive charges ripped massive gaps in the perimeter walls and fences through which the tanks could enter. Behind the tanks, helmeted troops in full body armor boarded APCs that would carry them into battle. And from low bunkers scattered to the north and south, mortars lobbed round after round of tear gas canisters from one end of the camp to the other.

  I saw the canisters bounce and roll, burning with a white–hot heat and spewing clouds of choking gas across the open yards and among the barracks. I saw the snipers in the watchtowers, taking aim through night–vision scopes at forward observers, sentries, and defenders inside the wall. And in the same watchtowers, I saw machine gun crews lay down interlocking fields of trac
er fire across the women's camp and the Service Yard. The defenders who had been issued Jerry McIntyre's primitive gas masks wore them, while others covered their faces with moistened undershirts or whatever scraps of cloth they could find.

  Al Gallucci and Jon Merrill looked up from their observation post on a barracks roof in Division 2 the moment they heard the pop of the first flare being launched. It was Al Gallucci's last moment of life. The sniper who took aim at him from a tower at the northwest corner of Division 2 sent a single round straight through Gallucci's generous and ever–cheerful heart. Seeing Gallucci slump forward, Jon Merrill scurried to the edge of the roof and dropped to the ground. There he sounded the alarm before crawling into a hole under the barracks' cement foundation to hide from the machine guns' raking fire.

  A burst of gunfire caught Judge Richardson unawares while he made his way to the latrine. At about the same time, a tear–gas canister plummeting through the roof of the judge's Division 2 barracks drove his colleague O'Rourke outside, where he, too, was brought down by sharp–eyed gunners. And all across the camp, snipers and machine gunners kept the camp’s defenders pinned down in their bunkers and trenches while non–combatants cowered within their flimsy barracks.

  An orange flare rocketed skyward. A few seconds later the gunfire stopped. For a moment all was still. Then the clanking of treads and the throbbing of titanic tank engines grew louder outside the walls. Suddenly explosions rocked the northern edge of the women’s camp where sappers demolished the exterior wall. A dozen or more heavy battle tanks waded through the smoking rubble, lining up abreast into an unstoppable phalanx as they swept southward through the women's camp and into the Service Yard, their machine guns blazing at anyone who crossed their path.

  The tanks no sooner passed from the women's camp into the Service Yard when some fifteen armored personnel carriers swarmed in from the north behind the tanks and pulled up opposite key buildings in Division 1, including the commission offices and the Security Department offices in the old women's jail. The armored vehicles raked these buildings with gunfire before disgorging shock troops to take the buildings. But the invaders found all the offices abandoned and nearly all documents destroyed, their ashes still smoldering in blackened oil drums outside.