Dan Smith - Red Winter

Her confidence in me made me feel good, proud even, but this was not a time for pride.

‘What I mean is that you’ll make it dangerous. You see, a commander riding into a camp is one thing, but a commander riding into a camp with a child is something else altogether. People will wonder why you are there. They may ask awkward questions. Remember when I spoke to the Cossacks? This is no different.’

‘You’re a Chekist commander,’ she said. ‘You can tell them whatever you like.’

‘No one is immune,’ I said. ‘No one is safe. You have to stay. I’m sorry.’

Anna said nothing. She pouted and stared ahead, reminding me she was only twelve years old.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can. The camp won’t be far into the forest. It won’t take long.’

‘I won’t talk to them.’

‘You don’t have to. In fact, I don’t want you to.’

She looked at me like she didn’t understand.

‘I want you to keep away from them, and I’ll tell them to keep away from you.’

‘Why? I thought you trust them?’

‘I do. I want to. I think I trust them, but they want me to lead them again and—’

‘You’re not going to, are you?’

‘No. And I don’t know what they’ll do if they find out, so you keep apart, and if anything happens, I want you to ride away as fast as you can. I’ll find you.’

‘Out here?’

‘Tuzik will help me. He’ll catch up soon.’

‘What if he follows me?’

‘He won’t. He’ll be looking for me.’

Anna bit her lip as she thought about what I’d said. ‘You will come back?’ she asked.

‘I promise.’

She closed her eyes and nodded. ‘All right.’

With that settled, we turned and headed back to where the others were waiting. I was eager to find the camp, and the day was drawing to its close. We had to leave soon.

‘How many will there be?’ Anna asked as we rode. ‘How many prisoners at the camp?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where will they all go?’

At first, I didn’t understand her question and I repeated it to myself, wondering what she meant, but then it struck me that my intention today was not exactly what Anna thought it was.

I stopped Kashtan and leaned back to look at the sky. I took off my hat and ran a hand over my head before turning to her. ‘I won’t be bringing everyone out. Only Marianna and the boys.’

‘You mean you’re going to leave everyone else? That’s…’ she searched for the right word, ‘…that’s unfair.’

‘Yes, it is, and I’m sorry for them, but it’s the way it has to be. I can’t save everyone, Anna.’

‘ I would try.’

‘That’s because you’re a better person than I am.’

The sun was setting over the forest as we approached the trees, and when we rode into the woods, following a narrow trail, everything darkened around us.

An eerie silence fell over the world as the clouds thickened and the second snow of winter began to fall. This time it was heavier, though, the flakes softer, like countless feathers filling the air between the trees. They rode the gentle currents, settling on naked branches, cheerful against the darkness of the oak and chestnut and maple, beautiful against the stubborn colours of the evergreens.

I glanced back at Krukov, his horse just a length behind Kashtan, Repnin and Manarov following, and I wondered what he was thinking. It occurred to me that he could be leading me into a trap, enticing me into the forest to take my head or nail me to a tree. Krukov was a soldier and a patriot. He might not have considered himself a thinker or a leader, but he was a true believer. He still saw righteousness in the war. He still thought a deserter was a deserter rather than a man who had seen and done enough to want just a little peace.

Then I told myself that if he was going to kill me, he would not have come this far with me. No, he wanted to help me. He wanted to assist in putting Marianna and the boys in their rightful place so that he could see me put in mine: at the head of this unit. I only hoped that once I had found my family, I could persuade him to see things differently.

I didn’t want to have to kill him.

No more than three hundred metres inside the forest, the camp had been invisible from the ruins of Nagai. As we drew nearer, we heard sounds of life – the low hubbub of voices, the occasional shout or the clatter of metal on metal – and I formed a picture of what this place would look like. I had seen many transit camps and they had all been similar: small, squalid affairs more fit for animals than for people. The prisoners they housed were criminals, enemies of the state who deserved no better.

Or so I had always thought.

This camp was new, though, much larger than I had expected. It must have taken a great team of labourers to fell so many trees and turn them into the log cabins that stood here in the forest. The inner compound, surrounded by a high wire fence, contained eight buildings large enough to house twenty people each. They were arranged in two rows with a cleared area in front of them that was now filled with prisoners milling about in the falling snow, huddled together for warmth because they would be locked out of the huts for most of the day. I sat a little higher in my saddle as we approached, trying to spot Marianna among them.

I touched the chotki and prayed she was here.

He likes to drown the women.

My heart was beating as hard now as it had ever beaten in battle. I could feel it racing in my chest, forcing blood to every part of my body so that my muscles prickled with anticipation. I fought to keep calm, to keep from spurring Kashtan into a gallop.

I was moments away from what I had longed for.

If she’s here.

Please let her be here.

Directly outside the secured inner compound, two more snowcapped buildings provided barracks for the soldiers who were posted here to guard the camp, and there was a smaller cabin for the commander. The whole area was then surrounded by another fence, at least ten or twelve metres high, that ran in a square round the entire camp. Outside the fence, the trees had been felled so that none overhung the fence, and at each corner, a watchtower stood half as tall as the trees. In each tower, a guard stood watch.

‘All this for a few harmless peasants,’ I said.

‘What’s that you said?’ Krukov asked.

‘Nothing.’

The entrance to the camp was made up of two gates, one at either end of a ten-metre run that served as a corral. Anyone coming in had to pass through an outer gate, which was then closed behind them before the final approach to the second gate that gave access to the camp.

This final approach was overlooked by guard towers.

The path we were following through the forest began to widen, and I followed it to the outer gate, beside which there was a small guardhouse.

‘I want you to follow my lead,’ I said to Krukov as he came alongside me. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Of course, Commander.’

‘Stay calm,’ I whispered to Kashtan, reaching down to pat her neck. ‘Stay calm.’

I rode straight to the front gate and stopped, Krukov beside me, Repnin and Manarov behind.

Before I could call out, a guard emerged from the hut, dressed for cold weather in a coat and budenovka hat. The material was as black as poppy seeds, not at all faded, and the star on the front of it was red like blood. In his hands, he held a Mosin-Nagant dragoon like the one I had given to Lev.

‘Comrade Commander,’ he said, looking me over, taking note of my uniform.

No longer was I dressed as a peasant, trying to remain unnoticed. Now I wore the uniform I had left on the body of a disfigured man in a distant and unwanted past. The uniform Krukov had returned to me and wanted me to wear as I led him through the remainder of this war.