Kane & Abel (1979) (14 page)

‘You will look like this when you have been a prisoner for fifteen years, my boy,’ the doctor said matter-of-factly.

‘Why are you here at all?’ said Wladek. ‘Why haven’t they let you go after all this time?’

‘Let the one doctor they have here go?’ He laughed. ‘I was taken prisoner in Moscow in 1904, soon after I had qualified as a doctor in Paris. I was working in the French embassy at the time, and they said I was a spy and locked me up. After the Revolution, they sent me, without trial, to this hellhole. Even the French have forgotten that I exist. In any case, no one would believe there is such a place as this. Nobody has ever completed a sentence at Camp 201, so I will die here, like everyone else, and it can’t be too soon.’

‘No, you mustn’t give up hope, Doctor.’

‘Hope? I gave up hope for myself a long time ago. Perhaps I shall not give up for you. But always remember never to mention that word to anyone; there are prisoners here who will trade in loose tongues for nothing more than an extra piece of bread or a thicker blanket. Now, Wladek, I am going to put you on kitchen duty for a month, but you must continue to report to me every morning. It is the only chance you have of not losing that leg, and I would not relish being the man who has to cut it off. We don’t exactly have the latest surgical instruments here,’ he added, glancing at a large carving knife hanging on the wall. Wladek shuddered.

Dr Dubien wrote Wladek’s name on a slip of paper, and the following morning he reported to the kitchens, where he washed plates in freezing water and helped to prepare what passed as food. He found it a welcome change from chopping logs all day: extra fish soup, thick black bread with shredded nettles, and the chance to remain inside and keep warm. On one occasion the cook even shared half an egg with him, although neither of them could be sure what fowl had laid it. Wladek’s leg took some time to mend, and left him with a pronounced limp. There was little Dr Dubien could do for him in the absence of any real medical supplies, except to keep a watchful eye on his progress.

As the days passed, the doctor and Wladek became friends. They would converse in a different language each morning, but Dubien most enjoyed speaking in French, his native tongue; something he hadn’t done for fifteen years.

‘In seven days’ time, Wladek, you will have to return to forest duty; the guards will inspect your leg and I will not be able to keep you in the kitchen any longer. So listen carefully, for I have been working on a plan for your escape.’

‘Together, Doctor,’ said Wladek. ‘Together.’

‘No, only you. I am too old for such a long journey, and although I have dreamed of escape, I would only hold you up. It will be enough for me to know that someone has achieved it, and you are the first person I’ve met here who has convinced me that he just might succeed.’

Wladek listened in silence as the doctor outlined his plan.

‘I have, over the last fifteen years, saved two hundred roubles - you don’t get paid overtime when you work for the Russians.’ Wladek tried to laugh at the camp’s oldest joke. ‘I keep the money hidden in a medicine bottle, four 50-rouble notes. When the time comes for you to leave, I will have fastened the money into your clothes.’

‘What clothes?’ asked Wladek.

‘I have a suit, a shirt and a cap. I traded them with a guard in exchange for medicine some twelve years ago, when I still believed that one day I might escape. Not exactly the latest fashion, but they will serve your purpose.’

Fifteen years to scrape together two hundred roubles, a shirt, a suit and a cap, and the doctor was willing to sacrifice his bounty to Wladek in a moment. Never in his life had Wladek experienced such an act of selflessness.

‘Next Thursday will be your one chance,’ the doctor continued. ‘New prisoners are due to arrive by train at Irkutsk, and the guards always take four men from the kitchen to organize the food trucks for the new arrivals. I have already arranged with Stanislav, the senior cook’ - he laughed at the word - ‘that in exchange for some drugs you will find yourself on the kitchen truck. It was not difficult. No one ever wants to make the trip there and back - but you will only be going one way.’

Wladek was still listening intently.

‘When you reach the station, wait until the train arrives. Once the new prisoners are all on the platform, cross the line and get onto the train going to Moscow, which cannot leave until the prisoners’ train comes in, as there is only one track. You must pray that with hundreds of new prisoners milling around, the guards will not notice your absence. From then on you’ll be on your own. If they spot you escaping, they will shoot you without a second thought. There is only one more thing I can do to help. Fifteen years ago, when I was on that train, I drew a map from memory of the route from Moscow to Turkey. It may no longer be totally accurate so be sure to check that the Russians haven’t taken over Turkey as well. God knows what they have been up to recently. They may even control France, for all I know.’

The doctor walked over to the drug cabinet and took out a large bottle that looked as if it was full of a brown substance. He unscrewed the top and removed an old piece of parchment. The black ink had faded over the years. It was marked
October 1904,
and showed a route from the camp to Moscow, from Moscow to Odessa, and from Odessa to Turkey: 1,500 miles to freedom.

‘Report to me every morning this week, and we will go over the plan again and again. If you fail, it must not be from lack of preparation.’

Wladek stayed awake each night, gazing out of the window at the wolves’ moon. He rehearsed what he would do in any situation, preparing himself for every eventuality.

Each day he would go over the plan with the doctor. On the evening before the train was due to arrive, the doctor folded the map into six, and placed it with the four 50-rouble notes in an envelope which he pinned into a sleeve of the suit. Wladek put on the shirt and suit. He had become so thin that the clothes hung on him as if on a coat hanger. As he slipped his uniform over them, the doctor’s eye caught the Baron’s silver band, which Wladek had always kept above his elbow for fear the guards might spot it and steal it.

‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘It’s quite magnificent.’

‘A gift from my father,’ said Wladek. ‘May I give it to you, to show my appreciation?’ He slipped it off and handed it to the doctor.

The doctor stared at the silver band for several moments, then bowed his head. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘This can only belong to one person.’

He handed the band back to Wladek and shook him warmly by the hand.

‘Good luck, Wladek. I hope we never meet again.’

They embraced, and Wladek departed for what he prayed was his last night in Hut 33. He was unable to sleep that night for fear that one of the other prisoners would notice the suit under his prison clothes and report him to a guard. When the hammer beat on the triangle the next morning, he was the first to report to the kitchen. The senior prisoner pushed him forward when the guards came to select the four members of the truck detail. Wladek was by far the youngest.

‘Why this one?’ demanded a guard, pointing to Wladek.

Wladek froze. The doctor’s plan was going to fail even before they had left the compound, and there wouldn’t be another batch of prisoners coming to the camp for at least three months. By then he would no longer be working in the kitchen.

‘He’s an excellent cook,’ said Stanislav. ‘He was trained in the castle of a baron. Only the best for the guards.’

‘Good,’ said the guard, his greed overcoming his suspicion. ‘Get moving, then.’

The four prisoners ran to the truck, and the convoy set off. The journey was slow and arduous, but at least Wladek was not walking this time. And as it was summer, it was almost one degree above freezing.

It was sixteen days before the convoy arrived at Irkutsk. The train for Moscow was already standing in the station. It had been there for several hours, but was unable to begin its journey until the train bringing the new prisoners had arrived. Wladek sat on the edge of the platform with the three others from the field kitchen. Dulled by their experiences, none of them showed any interest in anything around them. But he was intent on every movement, as he studied the train on the other side of the platform. There were several open doors and Wladek carefully selected the one he would enter when his moment came.

‘Are you going to try to escape?’ the chief cook asked suddenly.

Wladek began to sweat. He said nothing. Stanislav stared at him. ‘You are.’ Still Wladek said nothing. The old cook continued to stare at the thirteen-year-old boy; then after a long pause, he smiled. ‘Good luck. I’ll make sure they don’t realize you’re missing for as long as I can.’

Stanislav touched his arm, and pointed. Wladek caught sight of the prisoners’ train in the distance, slowly inching its way towards them. He tensed in anticipation, his heart pounding, his eyes following the movement of every soldier. At last the incoming train shunted to a halt, and he watched as hundreds of exhausted, anonymous prisoners piled out onto the platform. When the station was a chaos of people and the guards were fully occupied, Wladek ducked under the prisoners’ train, ran across the track and jumped aboard the one bound for Moscow. No one showed any interest as he slipped into a lavatory at the end of the carriage. He locked himself in, waited and prayed, expecting someone to knock on the door at any moment. It seemed a lifetime before the train began to move out of the station. It was, in fact, forty-seven minutes.

‘At last, at last,’ he said out loud. He looked through the little window of the lavatory and watched the station growing smaller and smaller in the distance. A mass of new prisoners were being hitched up to the chains for the journey to Camp 201, the guards laughing as they fastened their cuffs. How many would reach the camp alive? How many would be fed to the wolves? How long would it be before they missed him?

Wladek sat in the lavatory for several more minutes, terrified to move, not knowing what to do next. Suddenly there was a banging on the door. Wladek thought quickly - the guard? The ticket collector? A soldier? - a succession of images flashed through his mind, each one more frightening than the last. The banging persisted.

‘Get on with it,’ said a deep, coarse voice.

Wladek had little choice. If it was a soldier, there was no way out - a dwarf could not have squeezed through the tiny window. If it wasn’t a soldier, he would only draw attention to himself by staying in the lavatory. He stripped off his prison clothes, made them into a small bundle and threw them out of the window. Then he took the soft cap from the pocket of his suit and covered his shaved head, before opening the door. An agitated man pushed in, pulling down his trousers even before Wladek had left.

Once in the corridor, Wladek felt isolated and terrifyingly conspicuous in his out-of-date suit, an apple placed among a pile of oranges. He went in search of another unoccupied lavatory. When he found one, he locked himself in and took one of the 50-rouble notes from the envelope pinned inside his sleeve. He returned to the corridor, looked for the most crowded carriage he could find and pushed himself into a corner. Some men in the middle of the car were playing pitch-and-toss for a few roubles. Wladek had often beaten Leon when they had played the game in the castle, and he would have liked to join in, but he feared it would draw attention to himself. As the game went on, however, Wladek noticed that one of the gamblers was winning consistently, even when the odds were stacked against him. He watched the man more carefully and soon realized that he was cheating.