bitterly hostile to the Revolution.
The train jolted on past terrain more barren than Wladek had ever seen before, and through towns of which he had never heard - Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk: the names rang ominously in his ears. Finally, after two months and more than three thousand miles, they reached Irkutsk, where the track came to an end.
All the prisoners were hustled off the train, fed and issued with grey uniforms with numbers on the back, felt boots, jackets and heavy coats. Although fights broke out for the warmest garments, even the most sought-after provided little protection from the wind and snow.
Horseless wagons like the one that had borne Wladek away from his castle appeared and long chains were thrown out by the guards. The prisoners were then cuffed by one hand, fifty to each chain. They marched behind the trucks, while the guards rode on the back. After twelve hours they were allowed a two-hour rest so the dead and dying could be unchained before the living set off again.
After three days, Wladek thought he would die of cold and exhaustion, but once they were clear of populated areas they travelled only during the day and rested by night. A mobile field kitchen run by prisoners from the camp supplied turnip soup that became colder, and bread that became staler, as each day passed. Wladek learned from these prisoners that conditions at the camp were even worse, hence their volunteering for the field kitchen.
For the first week they were never unshackled from their chains, but later, when there could be no thought of escape, they were released at night to sleep, digging holes in the snow to keep warm. Sometimes on good days they found a forest in which to bed down: luxury began to take strange forms. On and on they marched, past vast lakes and across frozen rivers, ever northward, in the face of viciously cold winds and ever deeper drifts of snow. Wladek’s wounded leg gave him a constant dull pain, soon surpassed by the agony of his frostbitten toes, fingers and ears. The old and the sick were dying. The lucky ones, quietly as they slept. The unlucky ones, unable to keep up the pace, were uncuffed from the chains and cast off to die alone. Wladek lost all sense of time, and was conscious only of the tug of the chain, not knowing when he dug his hole in the snow at night whether he would wake the next morning. Those who didn’t had dug their own graves.
After a trek of nine hundred miles, the survivors were met by Ostyaks, nomads of the steppes, in reindeer-drawn sleds. The prisoners were chained to the sleds and marched on. When a blizzard forced them to halt for the best part of two days, Wladek seized the opportunity to try to communicate with the young Ostyak to whose sled he was chained. He discovered that the Ostyaks hated the Russians of the south and west, who treated them almost as badly as they treated their captives. The Ostyaks were not unsympathetic to the sad prisoners with no future, the ‘unfortunate ones’, as they called them.
12
T HE FUTURE was also worrying Anne. The first few months of her marriage had been happy, marred only by her anxiety over William’s increasing dislike of her husband, and Henry’s seeming inability to find a job. Henry was a little touchy on the subject, explaining that he was still disoriented by the war, and wasn’t willing to rush into something he might later regret. She found this hard to understand, and finally the matter caused their first row.
‘I can’t understand, Henry, why you haven’t set up that real estate business you seemed so keen on before we were married.’
‘The time isn’t quite right, my darling. The realty market isn’t looking promising at the moment.’
‘You’ve been saying that for nearly a year. I wonder if it will ever be promising enough.’
‘Sure it will. Truth is, I need a little more capital. Now, if you’d allow me to borrow some of your money, I could get myself started.’
‘That’s not
The train jolted on past terrain more barren than Wladek had ever seen before, and through towns of which he had never heard - Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk: the names rang ominously in his ears. Finally, after two months and more than three thousand miles, they reached Irkutsk, where the track came to an end.
All the prisoners were hustled off the train, fed and issued with grey uniforms with numbers on the back, felt boots, jackets and heavy coats. Although fights broke out for the warmest garments, even the most sought-after provided little protection from the wind and snow.
Horseless wagons like the one that had borne Wladek away from his castle appeared and long chains were thrown out by the guards. The prisoners were then cuffed by one hand, fifty to each chain. They marched behind the trucks, while the guards rode on the back. After twelve hours they were allowed a two-hour rest so the dead and dying could be unchained before the living set off again.
After three days, Wladek thought he would die of cold and exhaustion, but once they were clear of populated areas they travelled only during the day and rested by night. A mobile field kitchen run by prisoners from the camp supplied turnip soup that became colder, and bread that became staler, as each day passed. Wladek learned from these prisoners that conditions at the camp were even worse, hence their volunteering for the field kitchen.
For the first week they were never unshackled from their chains, but later, when there could be no thought of escape, they were released at night to sleep, digging holes in the snow to keep warm. Sometimes on good days they found a forest in which to bed down: luxury began to take strange forms. On and on they marched, past vast lakes and across frozen rivers, ever northward, in the face of viciously cold winds and ever deeper drifts of snow. Wladek’s wounded leg gave him a constant dull pain, soon surpassed by the agony of his frostbitten toes, fingers and ears. The old and the sick were dying. The lucky ones, quietly as they slept. The unlucky ones, unable to keep up the pace, were uncuffed from the chains and cast off to die alone. Wladek lost all sense of time, and was conscious only of the tug of the chain, not knowing when he dug his hole in the snow at night whether he would wake the next morning. Those who didn’t had dug their own graves.
After a trek of nine hundred miles, the survivors were met by Ostyaks, nomads of the steppes, in reindeer-drawn sleds. The prisoners were chained to the sleds and marched on. When a blizzard forced them to halt for the best part of two days, Wladek seized the opportunity to try to communicate with the young Ostyak to whose sled he was chained. He discovered that the Ostyaks hated the Russians of the south and west, who treated them almost as badly as they treated their captives. The Ostyaks were not unsympathetic to the sad prisoners with no future, the ‘unfortunate ones’, as they called them.
12
T HE FUTURE was also worrying Anne. The first few months of her marriage had been happy, marred only by her anxiety over William’s increasing dislike of her husband, and Henry’s seeming inability to find a job. Henry was a little touchy on the subject, explaining that he was still disoriented by the war, and wasn’t willing to rush into something he might later regret. She found this hard to understand, and finally the matter caused their first row.
‘I can’t understand, Henry, why you haven’t set up that real estate business you seemed so keen on before we were married.’
‘The time isn’t quite right, my darling. The realty market isn’t looking promising at the moment.’
‘You’ve been saying that for nearly a year. I wonder if it will ever be promising enough.’
‘Sure it will. Truth is, I need a little more capital. Now, if you’d allow me to borrow some of your money, I could get myself started.’
‘That’s not
Similar Books
