Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

“Now we have to hurry, with God’s help,” says someone.

They give Freddy a heavy warm fur coat and Freddy puts it over his thin quilted camp clothes.

“Now let’s go!” Doložil commands.

It is hard to run over slippery snow. The men push clumsily through the scrub. Freddy is out of breath; he has never run like this in his life. He sweats and suddenly feels hot. He feels like taking off his huge fur coat and cooling himself. But unconsciously he guesses that this could be the death of him. Two of his unknown rescuers support him. The gale throws clods of snow in their faces. Frozen fir needles burn them as if the wind was hammering them into their skin.

Behind them, roughly where the camp might be in the whiteout, something lights up. A rocket is fired, and then another. A guard must have discovered the fugitives’ tracks in the snow before they were covered by the blizzard. Soon, driven by murderous vindictiveness and the passion of the hunt, they will set out after them with dogs. For the camp guards, hunting escapees is a welcome, if rare, pastime.

“If they manage to start up their aerosledge,” shouts Freddy, to be heard over the blizzard, “they’ll soon get us.”

“They won’t!” shouts Doložil. “I bit through the engine cable.”

Not far off come the wolves’ wild howls. Between the trees flash long shadows: wolves as big as calves. One of them gathers courage and hurls himself at Freddy who is lagging behind. The thick fur coat stops the wolf biting through Freddy’s jugular. Freddy falls down, the wolf hanging on to his shoulder. He frees his hands and in desperation grabs the wolf by its head and sinks both thumbs into the wolf’s eyes. He presses with all his might and feels his nails penetrating soft, warm mucous tissue. The wolf howls in pain and horror. Freddy presses his thumbs all the way in and mercilessly twists his thumbs in the bloody wounds and brain matter. The wolf lets go and starts to leap about in its death agony. Its howls of pain cease. Two men help Freddy get up.

“He got a wolf with his bare hands!” the men shout in admiration. “Wow! Wow!”

One of the rescuers knifes to death a second wolf that dares to attack.

Freddy is drunk on wolf’s blood, runs amok and is about to throw himself at the whole pack and kill them with his bare hands. The men have a hard time holding him back.

“Telgarth is like a wild wolf,” Doložil tells others. “He was like that in the camp.”

It’s hard to move in the powdery, freshly fallen snow. Behind them, the wolves fight over the carrion. Their wild howling is heard all the way here. The men stop from time to time and breathe hard. There is no time to talk. After minutes of frantic running, the forest ends and then begins an extensive snow plain which ends, out of sight, at the seashore

Here in the snow three very strange means of transport are at the ready. They are huge sledges with masts like sailboats. Their sails are tucked in and the tops of the masts twist in the wind.

Freddy is amazed.

“Get on! Get on!” the voices sound all around.

The sledges begin to move over the snow with a swishing noise. Despite a side wind, the rescuers deftly rig the sails to increase steadily the speed of these strange vehicles. Freddy is alarmed by the speed.

The sledges constantly threaten to overturn. The crew hang onto cables that hold the sail and bend outward. The monotonous swish of the sledges in the snow and gentle rocking lull Freddy to sleep. So, after being on his feet and treading the snow all day in the lichen harvest zone, and after the excitement of the escape, he falls asleep.

The muffled noise of a distant aircraft engine wakes him up. Somewhere far off an aeroplane seems to be flying over the countryside.

“Aerosledge!” shouts one of the rescuers.

“So they still managed to get it started!” says Doložil. “Maybe it was the wrong cable.”

The unbearable noise in the dark distance comes closer. Freddy’s insides feel as if clenched in an invisible icy fist.

“Give me a rifle!” asks Doložil.

They give him an automatic rifle.

“Oh, my God!” he whistles in admiration.

“It’s a Czech submachine gun, Geľo,” says one of the men on the sledge. “What they showed us when we were in Prague. Model 58/V.”

“Why do they call you Geľo?” Freddy asks. “That’s the name of the leader of the uprising. I’ve always wanted to meet him and film him.”

“Well, you’ve met him,” says the pseudo-Doložil. “It’s me.”

“You?” Freddy is flabbergasted. “You’re Geľo Todor-Lačný-Dolniak? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I know you wouldn’t betray me under torture?” asks Geľo, extends the stock and pulls out the firing mechanism.

“You could have,” says Freddy, offended. “Haven’t I given you enough proof whose side I’m on?”

“You certainly have,” Geľo nods. “Plenty of proof. But why should I worry you? We’d have survived even without you knowing my real identity. And can you shoot, Telgarth?”

“Can I?!” Telgarth laughs.

“Well, here you are then,” says Geľo and throws him another submachine gun.

The man sailing the sledge and hanging on the ropes looks at Geľo.

“We’re almost on the coast, Geľo,” he says. “There’s a cliff. It’s about thirty metres high. There’s a Czech submarine underneath, waiting for us. They have frogmen in rubber dinghies waiting to rescue us.”

The sledge makes a sharp turn at an angle. So do the second and third sledges. They take the sails off the masts. The noise of the aerosledge is getting quite close.

Over crunching snow the men run to the rocky cliff edge buffeted by the wild offshore wind. The roar of the sea comes from below. Freddy looks at the shiny and phosphorescent surface stretching to the horizon. His head swims. What did they say? Thirty metres? It seems a good hundred metres to him. Just imagining those long seconds’ falling down, with the wind taking his breath away, utterly freezes his loins.

One of the rescuers signals with an electric torch. A distant flash responds. Only now does Freddy notice a long dark shadow on the surface. The submarine.

“They’re sending out a dinghy,” says a rescuer. “We have to hold on here until they come right below us. In this cold water we wouldn’t last for more than half a minute or so.”

An illuminated dot appears on the snowy plain, approaching fast.

“Lie down,” Geľo orders. “Don’t shoot until I give the command.”

The aerosledge comes closer. Freddy can now see the stained corrugated aluminium body, the cabin windows and flashes from the exhaust pipes. Its two powerful headlamps are like a fabulous animal’s eyes.

“What a monster!” says Freddy.

To the guerrillas’ surprise, the aerosledge does not slow down as it approaches the cliff but attempts to make a turn. At full speed it only slightly changes direction and flies over the cliff, disappearing into the depths with an awful noise. A huge explosion follows and a flash lights up the whole surroundings.

“So that’s the wire you bit through,” Freddy remarks to Geľo.

“Yes,” says Geľo, smiling roguishly. “That was a good wire, too.”

The rescuers put away their weapons. They look down into the depths. The petrol spilled on the surface is burning out.

Motor dinghies from the submarine are coming closer.

“Well, now, in God’s name, men!” says Geľo. “Let’s jump down! Better not to think too much: just jump in without hesitation.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” says Freddy, forcing himself to speak calmly. “We don’t need to jump. We can use the wires from the sail sledges. We’ll tie them together and lower ourselves down.”