Sam Eastland - Archive 17

Ignoring Deryabin’s pleas, Kirov set off towards the Orlik, whose engine chuffed patiently, as if anxious to be in motion. Reaching the locomotive, he climbed up the short metal ladder to the driver’s space. There, in the cold and oily-smelling compartment, he was faced with a bewildering array of levers, buttons, and dials showing steam pressure, oil temperature, and brake capacity. Hanging from the ceiling was a greasy chain with a wooden handle whose paint had been almost completely worn away. Grasping the handle, Kirov pulled down hard and a deafening hoot shook the air. Now Kirov studied the controls, wondering which to touch first. He grasped one well-worn lever and turned it.

The Orlik shuddered. Steam poured out from its sides, enveloping the compartment in a sweaty fog.

Hurriedly, Kirov turned the lever back to the way it had been before. Then he took hold of another lever, but before he had a chance to pull it, Deryabin had climbed aboard.

“All right! I’ll drive the train! Just get out of the way, Muscovite!”

Two minutes later, the Orlik was on the move.

Deryabin stood at the controls, adjusting levers, his hands such a blur of precision that Kirov was reminded of an orchestra conductor. From time to time Deryabin would rest the heel of his palm upon the metal wall of the compartment, rap a knuckle on the small round window of a gauge, or brush his fingertips across the levers, as if to feel a pulse coursing beneath the steel.

Kirov stood behind him, backed up against the sooty metal wall of the compartment. Coal used to power the engine was contained in a tender attached to the back of the locomotive, and its black dust glittered in the hot, damp air. On the gridded metal floor, melting snow had formed puddles which trembled with the force of the engine, making patterns in the water like Damascus on a Cossack sword.

Deryabin stooped down and opened the door to the train’s furnace, revealing a red blaze which looked to Kirov like the inside of a miniature volcano. Then Deryabin pushed past him and opened the gate to the tender. Nuggets of coal the size of apples rolled out onto the floor of the engine compartment.

“Let me tell you something a man like you will never understand,” shouted Deryabin. “When you work on a machine and you live with that machine, you become a part of it and it becomes a part of you. And one day you realize that the machine is more than just the number of its parts. There is life in it! Like there is life in you!” To emphasize his words, Deryabin jabbed a finger against Kirov’s chest, leaving an inky smudge against the cloth of his tunic.

Kirov swatted his hand away. “Have you not realized yet that I am a Major of the NKVD?”

“And have you not yet realized that you are in the wilderness, where a man’s rank is judged by his ability to stay alive and not by the stars on his sleeve?”

Kirov was too stunned to reply.

Deryabin snatched up a shovel and handed it to Kirov. “Make yourself useful, Comrade Major of the NKVD!”

Obediently, Kirov began shoveling coal into the furnace. Before long, he was drenched in sweat. When he leaned out of the compartment, the moisture froze into scabs of ice across his forehead.

The Orlik was gaining speed now, hammering along the tracks.

With a flick of his foot, Deryabin kicked the door of the furnace closed. He turned to Kirov. “She’s had enough!” He snatched the shovel from Kirov’s hand and tossed it into the corner.

“Is everyone out here as crazy as you?” yelled Kirov.

“Of course,” replied Deryabin serenely. “That’s how you know you’re from Siberia!”

Until now, Kirov had been completely preoccupied with getting to Pekkala before his kidnappers led him across the border into China. Now that he was finally close, the dangers that lay ahead were rapidly coming into focus. He hoped that the mere presence on the tracks of an armored train would be enough to persuade the kidnappers to abandon their hostage, but there was no way of telling what such desperate men might do. As for the convicts, he did not care if they escaped. His only purpose now was to bring Pekkala back alive. With fear prickling his skin, Kirov took out his gun and made sure it was loaded.

The moment Pekkala opened his eyes he sensed that something was wrong.

Kolchak lay asleep nearby, his beard a mass of icicles.

Pekkala nudged him with his boot.

Kolchak’s eyes flipped open. Breathing in sharply, he sat up and looked around. “What is it?”

“They’re gone,” whispered Pekkala.

Kolchak followed his gaze to where the Ostyaks had been sleeping. They had vanished, along with their sleds.

Both men clambered to their feet.

“They left some time ago.” Pekkala pointed to where snow had partially filled the indentations of their bodies.

“How is it possible we did not hear them?”

“They never make a sound except on purpose.”

“But why?” In a gesture of angry confusion, Kolchak raised his hands and let them fall again. “I promised them gold ! Their work was practically done. What on earth could have possessed them to vanish in the middle of the night?”

Pekkala was not sure. Perhaps they had finally realized the trouble they would bring upon themselves by helping the prisoners escape. That may have been the reason, but Pekkala couldn’t help remembering the look on the Ostyak’s face when he realized he’d been talking to the man with bloody hands. Klenovkin’s words came back to him. “They fear almost nothing, those Ostyaks, but believe me they were petrified of you.”

By now, the other Comitati were awake, shrugging off the cloaks of snow which had blanketed them in the night.

“What if they have gone ahead to take all the gold for themselves?” asked Lavrenov, wringing his bony hands.

Tarnowski shook his head. “They don’t know where it is. I made sure of that.”

“And what if they have gone to turn us in and collect some kind of reward?” Lavrenov seemed on the verge of panic.

“Then they’d be signing their own death warrants!” Tarnowski replied. “Without them, we would still be in the camp! They’re gone. That’s all we need to know. What we have to do now is carry on without them. When we have found the gold, we will build our own sleds to transport it across the border. From here on, all we have to do is keep to the tracks. Where the line divides ahead, the south fork will bring us safely into China.” Tarnowski slapped him on the back. “All you have to think about is how you’ll spend the Ostyaks’ share of the gold!”

Within minutes, they were on the move again.

The sun was out now, blazing so harshly off the snow that the men placed their hands over their eyes, peeping like terrified children through the cracks between their fingers.

Whirlwinds of snow, solemn and graceful, wandered across their path.

Not long afterwards, they found themselves in the shadow of a cliff. Beyond it, on the other side of the tracks, lay the frozen pond Tarnowski had been searching for the previous night.

“This is the place!” shouted Tarnowski. “I told you it was here.”

All of them broke into a run, floundering out across the pond. After crashing through a forest of tall reeds, they entered a clearing where Tarnowski and Lavrenov immediately kicked aside the covering of snow and began scraping at the ground. But the soil was frozen solid. The crates might as well have been encased in stone.

Tarnowski sat back, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “It’s no use. We’ll have to make a fire to soften the ground. We buried shovels on top of the crates. If we can get to those, it won’t take long to get the gold out of the ground.”

“The smoke will be visible,” said Pekkala.