Gerald Seymour - Archangel

Adimov whined, 'You know why I went out, Comrade Captain?'

The cell stank. No slopping out that morning.

'Why?'

'My woman is in Moscow. She is dying of cancer. I went out to see her.'

'I am sorry, Adimov, believe me. Do this for me, Adimov, and there will be a rail-warrant and parole, that I promise.

And there will be a sentence review.'

'I will do it.'

Adimov and Rudakov left the SHIzo block together, a smelly zek and a Captain of KGB.

'Have there been any letters for me?' if there is one I'll get it for you.' It would cost Rudakov nothing, a small package of kindness.

Inside the Administration block, Rudakov went first to the Post Room. In the pigeon hole for 'A' there was a letter addressed in a crude, inexpert hand. They went together down the corridor where they had to edge their way past men in combat fatigues, and at the far end of the corridor was the tube of a n o m m mortar lying on a pile of four stretchers, and some of the floor space was littered with a heap of gas masks. Rudakov held Adimov by the arm, Adimov held his letter tight in his fist.

'Wait here…'

Rudakov knocked and opened the door to the Commandant's office. The officers were bent over Kypov's desk and a plan of the camp.

'Commandant, the prisoner Adimov will broadcast to the compound when you wish; he will urge surrender.'

'There's a T34 coming up from Yavas. It'll be here by four. If it's to have a wasted journey you'd better back your man up for before that. They'll have a chance to respond, after that they're blasted.'

'At five minutes to four I'll put Adimov on the loudspeakers. Will you want to address the camp yourself?'

'No.'

Rudakov stepped back out of Kypov's office. Beside him in the corridor a soldier handed back a single sheet of paper to Adimov. There were five lines of writing. Adimov gazed at him impassively.

'We'll wait in my office, we'll have some coffee,' Rudakov said. 'You'll broadcast in thirty-five minutes.' is Holly involved?' i don't know.'

Feldstein had finished, he stepped back from the table. For the first time since he had come to the camp he had spoken of his beliefs. He had preached the warfare of the turned cheek.

Now the storm burst amongst the men of the Committee.

'The Jew had no right to speak. If he wants fucking non-violence let him go and sit in the fucking SHIzo… '

'They're the only card we have. Stick them out in front, let the bastards shoot right through them… '

'We can do a trade. No reprisals for the Colonel General's life. ..'

Holly slammed his fist into the table. The words, the swearing, the hate, had sapped him. Morozova was sitting at the far end of the Kitchen talking with Poshekhonov. Silly old bugger, trying to pretend he was a big man down on the Black Sea when he was just a zek with half a regiment waiting to shoot out his guts.

His fingers tingled from the impact.

'I say they go free.' if they'd been ordered to, they would have killed you happily,' said Chernayev softly.

'You know why they have to go, Chernayev.'

'What do we gain?'

Holly struggled for the words, if we keep them and we do not use them, then there is no point in our having kept them.

If we keep them and we use them, then we are the savages that they believe us to be. If they go out, then we will never be forgotten, we will be remembered as long as the camps exist.' is that what you want, Holly, to be remembered?'

'I want all of you to be remembered. If the Colonel General goes out then the memory of you all will be burned in their minds. If you are never forgotten, the power of the Dubrovlag is broken.'

Chernayev, unfamiliar in anger, spat across the table.

'And the boy who died from dysentery, where does he fit into the scheme of memories?'

Holly surged up from the bench seat, his fist leaped the table's width, he caught at the throat of Chernayev's tunic.

'There is a man in the condemned cell at Yavas. Don't sneer at me about memories.'

Gently, Byrkin eased Holly's hand loose. 'So be it, Holly, take them to the gate.'

In a rush Feldstein came to Holly. His spindly arms were round Holly's shoulders. The girl came after him, but shyly and her hand rested hesitantly on his arm.

The clock on the wall, above the food hatch and below the broken frame of the photograph of the President, showed twenty minutes to four.

The tank had rattled out of the barracks at Yavas.

It slewed onto the main road north, skidded towards a parked car. It would take the driver several minutes to familiarize himself with the driving sticks that he had not handled for nine months.

The tank went to war ingloriously with a militia car in front, blue roof-light rotating, to clear the traffic from its path.

Old the tank might be, but not obsolete, not for putting down an insurrection. Six shells for the main armament had been scrounged from the arsenal. A machine-gun of 50mm calibre was mounted on the turret. If anything was wrong with the old monster, the driver thought, then it was the fitting of the turret hatch. The rubber sealing of the hatch had long ago rotted, it leaked and he sat in a pool of water.

But it was only nine kilometres to Barashevo, and the pack snow on the road was good for the tracks.

When they passed the station at Lesozavad, a small crowd of villagers waved to the observer in the turret and cheered the tank on its way.

" You have not behaved to us as we would have expected.'

The Colonel General moved along a line of prisoners and offered his hand as if he were a departing guest. Manicured fingers met those that were bone-thin and filthy with factory oil.

The gates opened, a gun-barrel peeped first, then a helmeted head. The gates were wide enough apart for a single man to squeeze through. The crew didn't wait, they were gone. The Colonel General was slower, as though he sought an answer that as yet eluded him. He paused in front of Holly. if you ended it now, after what you have done for me, there would be leniency.'

'You are not going through the gate because we hope for leniency.'

'I think I knew that. I will not forget you.'

'Goodbye.'

The Colonel General swung on his heel. The gates creaked as they were pushed shut. There was an emptiness now, a moment of confusion, and Holly shook himself, tried to shrug away the mood. it was the right thing. We fight them clean… '

The driver swore at the sluggish sticks as he brought the tank to a halt in front of the Major.

The Major skinned up over the track skirting and the paint-chipped armour-plate of the turret. He carried the plan of the camp in his hand.

'We have a few minutes yet before you go,' he called into the hatch. 'I want the main armament readied, one in the breech. They'll use the machine-guns against you, and you are authorized to use shell-fire against them. You'll be hatch-down, but we'll be with you on the radio. I don't want any pissing about with those machine-guns, if necessary ride right over them. As soon as they're out, the infantry goes in.

Keep on the move inside.'

'We heard they'd got a Colonel General as prisoner,' said the observer.

'They let him go.'

Astonishment from the gunner.

'Other than the machine-guns do they have any firing weapons?' the gunner.

'Two machine-guns, that's their lot.'

'Poor bastards…' The driver spoke to himself from the bowels of the tank.

'There's a queue in Hut 5,' Poshekhonov said. He laughed because Holly did not understand him. 'Hut 5 is a brothel now. That's the extent of our liberation, Holly. Home comforts for the storm troops. There's a queue half way down the hut. She wasn't the only one through the fence, you know, the little one who came to see you.'

'What have we begun?' Holly seemed to lean against Poshekhonov's shoulder.