Also, it wasn’t exactly easy to find ships where Allan would be readily accepted as a stowaway. A lot of transports went to mainland China, others to Wonsan on the North Korean east coast. There was reason to believe that a Chinese or North Korean captain who found a Gulag prisoner in his hold would either turn back with him or throw him overboard (with the same final result, but with less bureaucracy).
Overland didn’t seem much easier. Northwards into Siberia where it really was cold was no solution. Nor was going westwards into China.
What remained was southwards, to South Korea where they would surely look after a Gulag refugee who would be assumed to be an enemy of communism. Too bad that North Korea lay in between.
There would be some stumbling blocks along the way, Allan realised, before he had even had time to work on something vaguely resembling a plan for his overland escape to the south. But there was no point in worrying himself to death because then he’d never get any vodka.
Should he try on his own, or along with someone else? In that case it would have to be Herbert, miserable though he was. In fact, Allan thought he could find some use for Herbert in his preparations. And it would certainly be more fun to be two on the run, than just one.
‘Escape?’ said Herbert Einstein. ‘Overland? To South Korea? Via North Korea?’
‘More or less,’ said Allan. ‘At least that’s the working plan.’
‘The chances that we will survive can’t be more than microscopic,’ said Herbert.
‘You’re probably right about that,’ said Allan.
‘I’m in!’ said Herbert.
After five years, everybody in the camp knew how little cognitive activity there was in the head of prisoner number 133 – Herbert – and even when there was evidence of some activity, it seemed to only cause trouble internally.
This, in turn, had created a certain tolerance in the prison guards when it came to Herbert Einstein. If any other prisoner didn’t stand the way he was supposed to in the food line, then at best he would be shouted at, second best he would get a rifle butt in his stomach, and in the worst case it would be goodbye for ever.
But after five years Herbert still couldn’t find his way around the barracks. They were all just the same brown colour, and all the same size; it was confusing. The food was always served between barrack thirteen and fourteen, but prisoner 133 could just as often be found wandering about beside barrack seven. Or nineteen. Or twenty-five.
‘Damn it, Einstein,’ the prison guards would say. ‘The food line is over there. No, not there, there! It has been there the whole damn time!’
Allan thought that he and Herbert could make use of this reputation. They could of course escape in their prison clothes, but to stay alive in those same prison clothes for more than a minute or two, that would be harder. Allan and Herbert each needed a soldier’s uniform. And the only prisoner who could get anywhere near the soldiers’ clothes depot without being shot immediately on discovery was 133 Einstein.
So Allan told his friend what to do. It was a question of ‘going the wrong way’ when it was time for lunch, because it was lunchtime for the staff at the clothes depot too. During that half-hour the depot was guarded solely by the soldier at the machine gun in watchtower four. Like all the other guards, he knew about prisoner 133’s strange ways, and if he saw Herbert he would probably just shout at him rather than shoot him. And if Allan was wrong about that, it wasn’t a huge issue considering Herbert’s eternal death wish.
Herbert thought that Allan had worked it out well. But what was it that he was supposed to do, could he tell him one more time?
And of course it went wrong. Herbert got lost and for the first time in ages found himself in the right place for the food line. Allan was already standing there, and with a sigh he gave Herbert a friendly push in the direction of the clothes depot. But that didn’t help, Herbert went the wrong way again and before he knew it he found himself in the laundry room. And what did he find there, if not a whole pile of newly washed and ironed uniforms!
He took two uniforms, hid them inside his coat, and then went out around the barracks again. The soldier in watchtower four saw him, but he didn’t even bother shouting. In fact, the guard thought that it looked as if the idiot was actually on the way to his own barracks.
‘A miracle,’ he mumbled to himself and returned to what he was doing before, which was dreaming that he was somewhere else far away.
Now Allan and Herbert each had a uniform to show that they were proud recruits in the Red Army. Now it was just a matter of carrying out the rest of the plan.
Recently Allan had noticed a considerable increase in the number of ships on the way to Wonsan. The Soviet Union was officially not in the war on the North Korean side, but lots and lots of war material had started to arrive by train in Vladivostok where it was then loaded onto ships that all had the same destination. Not that it was actually advertised where they were going, but Allan had the sense to ask the sailors. Sometimes you could also see what the cargo consisted of, for example rough terrain vehicles or even tanks, while on other occasions they were just wooden containers.
Allan needed a diversionary tactic like the one in Tehran six years earlier. Following the old Roman maxim of keeping to what you do best, he thought that some fireworks might be just the thing. And that was where the containers to Wonsan came into the picture. Allan couldn’t know, but he guessed that several of them contained explosives and if such a container were to catch fire in the dock area and if it started to explode… Well, then Allan and Herbert would have the opportunity to slip around the corner and change into the Soviet uniform. And then they would have to get hold of a car – which would need to have the keys in the ignition and a full fuel tank – plus no owner in sight. And then the guarded gates would have to open on Allan and Herbert’s orders, and once they were out of the harbour and Gulag area, nobody would notice anything strange at all, nobody would miss the stolen car and nobody would follow them. And all of this before they were even in the vicinity of problems like how they would get into North Korea and – above all – how they would then move from north to south.
‘I might be a bit slow,’ said Herbert. ‘But it feels as if your plan isn’t entirely ready.’
‘You aren’t slow,’ Allan protested. ‘Well, perhaps a little, but when it comes to this, you are perfectly right. And the more I think about it, the more I think that we should just leave it at that, and you’ll see that things will turn out like they do, because that is what usually happens — almost always, in fact.’ The escape plan’s first (and only) step thus consisted of secretly setting fire to a suitable container. For that purpose they needed 1) a suitable container, and 2) something they could set it on fire with. While waiting for a ship with a suitable container, Allan sent the notoriously stupid Herbert Einstein out on another mission. And Herbert showed that Allan’s faith in him was not misplaced by managing both to steal a signal rocket and hide it in his trousers before a Soviet guard discovered him in a place where Herbert had no right to be. But instead of executing or at the very least searching the prisoner, the guard just shouted something about it being not unreasonable to expect that after five years prisoner number 133 should be able to stop getting lost. Herbert said he was sorry, and tiptoed away. For the sake of the charade, he went in the wrong direction.
‘The barrack is to the left, Einstein,’ the guard shouted after him. ‘How stupid can you get?’
Allan praised Herbert for a job well done and for acting the part well. Herbert blushed, while dismissing the praise, saying that it wasn’t hard to play stupid when you are stupid. Allan said that he didn’t know how hard it was, because the idiots Allan had met so far in his life had all tried to do the opposite.
Then, what seemed to be the right day turned up. It was a cold morning, 1st March 1953, when a train arrived with more wagons than Allan, or at least Herbert, could count. The transport was obviously a military one, and everything was going to be loaded
onto three ships, all destined for North Korea. Eight T34 tanks couldn’t be concealed as part of the load, but otherwise everything was packed in massive wooden containers without any labels. But the gaps between the planks were just big enough to allow a signal rocket to be fired into one of the containers. And that was exactly what Allan did when he had the chance after half a day of loading.
Smoke soon began to billow out of the container, but, helpfully, it took several seconds before the load caught fire, so Allan could get away and was not immediately suspected of being involved. Soon, the container itself was ablaze, immune to the effects of the sub-zero temperature outside.
The plan was for it to explode after the fire reached a hand grenade or some similar item in the load. That would make the guards react like headless chickens, and Allan and Herbert would be able to get back to their barracks for a quick change.
The problem was that nothing ever exploded. There was however an enormous amount of smoke, and it got even worse when the guards who didn’t want to go near the fire themselves ordered some of the prisoners to pour water onto the burning container.
This, in turn, led three of the prisoners to use the smoke as a screen while they climbed over the two-metre-high fence to reach the open side of the harbour. But the soldier in the watchtower saw what was happening. He was already sitting behind his machine gun and now he fired off salvo after salvo of bullets through the smoke towards the three prisoners. Since he was using tracer ammunition, he hit all three with a large number of bullets and the men fell to the ground dead. And if they weren’t already dead, then they most certainly were a second later, because it wasn’t only the prisoners who were hit. An undamaged container that stood to the left of the one on fire also received a hail of bullets. Allan’s container held 1,500 military blankets. The container next to it held 1,500 grenades. The tracer bullets contained phosphor and when a first bullet hit a first grenade it exploded, and tenths of a second later it took 1,499 others with it. The explosion was so powerful that the next four containers flew between thirty and eighty metres into the camp.
Container number five held 700 landmines and there was soon another explosion just as powerful as the first one, which in turn led to the contents of a further four containers being spread in all directions.
Chaos was what Allan and Herbert had wished for, and chaos was what they got. And yet it had barely begun. The fire reached container after container. One of them was full of diesel and petrol. Another was full of ammunition, which took on a life of its own. Two of the watchtowers and eight of the barracks were fully ablaze already before some armour-piercing shells got in on the act. The first shells knocked out watchtower number three, the second went right into the camp’s entrance building and, in passing, took the entrance barrier and guard post with it.
Four ships were berthed and ready for loading and the next salvo of armour-piercing shells set fire to all of them.
Then another container of hand grenades exploded and that started a new chain reaction, which finally reached the very last container at the end of the row. This happened to be a second load of armour-piercing shells, and now these shot off in the other direction, towards the open part of the harbour where a tanker with 65,000 tons of oil was about to berth. A direct hit to the bridge left the tanker drifting, and a further three hits to the side of the tanker’s hull started the largest fire of all.
The violently burning tanker now drifted along the edge of the quay towards the centre of the town. During this last journey, it set fire to all the houses along its route, a distance of 2.2 kilometres. The wind was coming from the south-east that day. So it didn’t take more than another twenty-five minutes before – literally – all of Vladivostok was ablaze.
Comrade Stalin was just finishing a pleasant dinner with his henchmen Beria, Malenkov, Bulganin and Khrushchev in the residence at Krylatskoye, when he received news that, basically, Vladivostok didn’t exist any longer, after a fire that had started in a container of blankets had gone amok.
The news made Stalin feel really out of sorts.
Stalin’s new favourite, the energetic Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, asked if he might be permitted to give a piece of good advice on the matter, and Stalin lamely answered that yes, Nikita Sergeyevich certainly might.
‘My dear Comrade Stalin,’ said K, ‘I suggest that what has happened in this case has not happened. I suggest that Vladivostok is immediately sealed off from the rest of the world, and that we then patiently build up the town again and make it the base for our Pacific Fleet, just as Comrade Stalin planned earlier. But above all – what has happened has not happened, because the opposite would indicate a weakness that we cannot afford to show. Does Comrade Stalin understand what I mean? Does Comrade Stalin agree?’
Stalin still felt out of sorts. And he was drunk too. But he nodded and said that it was Stalin’s wish that Nikita Sergeyevich himself should be responsible for making sure that what had happened, hadn’t happened. Having said that, he announced that it was time for him to withdraw for the evening. He wasn’t feeling well.
Vladivostok, thought Marshal Beria. Wasn’t that where I had that Swedish fascist expert sent to keep him in reserve in case we couldn’t build the bomb by ourselves? I had forgotten all about him. I should have liquidated the devil when Yury Borisovich Popov so brilliantly solved the problem by himself. Anyway, perhaps now the man has been incinerated although he didn’t need to take the whole town with him.
At the door to his bedroom Stalin informed his staff that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. And then he closed the door, sat on the edge of the bed and undid the buttons of his shirt while he reflected.
Vladivostok… the town that Stalin had decided would be the base of the Soviet Pacific Fleet! Vladivostok… the town that was to play such an important role in the coming offensive in the Korean War! Vladivostok…
Didn’t exist any longer!
Stalin just had time to ask himself how the hell a container with blankets could start to burn when it was -20°C. Somebody must be responsible and that bastard would…
Upon which Stalin fell head first to the floor. There he remained stroke-bound for twenty-four hours, because if Comrade Stalin said that he didn’t want to be disturbed, then you didn’t disturb him.
Allan and Herbert’s barracks was one of the first to catch fire, and the friends immediately scrapped their plan of sneaking in and putting on the uniforms.
The fence around the camp had already fallen down and if there were any watchtowers left standing there was nobody in them to keep guard. So getting out of the camp was not difficult. But what would happen next? They couldn’t steal a military truck because they were all on fire. And going into town to find a car was not an option either. For some reason, all of Vladivostok was burning.
Most of the prisoners who had survived the fire and explosions stayed in a group on the road outside the camp, at a safe distance from the grenades and armour-piercing shells and everything else that was flying about in the air. A few adventurous types set off, all of them in a north-westerly direction, because that was the only reasonable direction for a Russian to flee. In the east was water, in the south the Korean War, and directly north was a town that was rapidly burning up. The only option remaining was to walk right into the really cold Siberia. But the soldiers had worked that out too, and before the day was over they had caught the escapees and sent them to eternity, every one of them.
The only exceptions were Allan and Herbert. They managed to make their way to a hill south-west of Vladivostok. And there they sat down for a short rest and to look at the destruction below.
‘That signal rocket burned very bright,’ said Herbert.
‘An atom bomb could hardly have done a better job,’ said Allan.
‘So what are we going to do now?’ asked Herbert, and in the bitter cold almost longed to be back in the camp which wasn’t there any more.
‘Now, we’re going to North Korea, my friend,�
� said Allan. ‘And since there aren’t any cars around, we’ll have to walk. It will keep us warm.’
Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov was one of the most skilful and decorated commanders in the Red Army. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union and he had been awarded the Order of Lenin no fewer than seven times.
As commander of the Fourth Army, he had fought the Germans around Leningrad, and after 900 terrifying days the siege was broken. No wonder Meretskov was made a marshal of the Soviet Union, in addition to all his other orders, titles and medals.
When Hitler had been pushed back once and for all, Meretskov went off to the east instead, 9,600 kilometres by train. He was needed to command the Far Eastern Front, to chase the Japanese out of Manchuria. To nobody’s surprise, he succeeded in that too.
Then the world war came to an end, and Meretskov himself was tired. Since there was nobody waiting for him back in Moscow, he remained in the east. He ended up behind a military desk in Vladivostok. A nice desk it was too. Genuine teak.
In the winter of 1953, Meretskov was fifty-six years old, and was still sitting behind his desk. From there, he administered the Soviet non-presence in the Korean War. Both Marshal Meretskov and Comrade Stalin considered it to be strategically important that the Soviet Union did not for now engage in direct combat with American soldiers. Both sides had the Bomb, of course, but the Americans were way ahead. There was a time for everything, and this was not the time to be provocative – which naturally didn’t prevent the Soviets from getting involved in Korea: the Korean War could be won, and indeed it ought to be won.
But now that he was a marshal, Meretskov allowed himself to take things a bit easy occasionally. For example, he had a hunting cottage outside Kraskino, a couple of hours south of Vladivostok. He stayed there as often as he could, preferably in the winter — and if possible on his own. Except for his aide of course, marshals couldn’t drive their own cars. What would people think?
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Page 23