CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tommot, Aldansky District, Yakutia, Siberia, July 1954

Tommot was a dismal dot on the map of Siberia, but for the guards and Kriegsverurteiltes it held four distinctly positive attributes. First, it was about twenty degrees warmer—the name of the town was derived from a word used by the indigenous Yakuts to mean “not freezing.” Temperature-wise, that was a decided plus. Secondly, there were houses and even a couple of taverns with smoke issuing from their chimneys with the promise of warm food. Granted those structures were somewhere between log buildings and mud huts; but, to the Kriegsverurteiltes, they might have been palaces. Thirdly, Tommot was situated on the banks of the Aldan River, which would allow the sick and filthy travelers access to clean water—something not taken for granted by men who had been without such amenities for a long time. Fourthly, the town constituted the terminus of the passenger trains of the Amur Yakutsk Mainline railroad and the chance to get to the west. For the Kriegsverurteiltes, it meant travel on real seats, meals prepared by the train crew, no more stinging nettle soup, and no more forced marches or having to pull trucks up stony inclines or out of snowbanks and mud pits.

Not everything was positive. The ranking sergeant and two privates commandeered a 1940 Studebaker President automobile maintained by the town’s mayor for delivery of any VIPs who might come from Moscow to the “Aldan International Airport” a few miles away from Tommot. By anyone’s standards, the airport was hardly international; in fact, it barely qualified as an airport. There was one pockmarked runway and one hangar. The runway accommodated only small propeller planes that did not require a long runway. Lt. Gen. Lagounov, head commissar of the Sevvostlag, and his aide, Lt. Dimitri Sobrieski, alighted from the comfort of their seats in the warm cabin of the An-2 “Annushka” biplane the general was able to commandeer in Magadan.

The master sergeant pulled the Studebaker up to the lowered steps of the plane and hurried out to open the rear passenger door for the general. His two privates rushed to collect the luggage, and one of them hurried back to the car to open the rear seat for the lieutenant. The four enlisted men somehow squeezed themselves into the front and sat uncomfortably on the inadequate bench seat. Half an hour later they pulled up in front of the assembled POWs, and the occupants of the car extricated themselves from their cramped seating arrangements.

“Achtung!” barked Lt. Sobrieski. He repeated the command in Russian, “Vnimaniye!”

The POWs who were still able to stand came to rigid attention.

Two men were bent over and another, Jérôme Christophe Mailhot—one of Antoine’s Gebirgsjägers—was being held up by Antoine. Gen. Lagounov strode down the line. When he came to the first man standing with his hands on his knees trying to get fully upright, he kicked the man’s knee so that he fell face down on the rough and frozen ground.

Gen. Lagounov looked down at the fallen man with utter disdain and muttered, “Dokhodyaga” [goner].

He struck the second ailing man in the back with his sharp elbow, and the man crumpled to the ground, too exhausted to make a protest.

Then he stood in front of Antoine and Jérôme Christophe Mailhot.

“Slabovol’nyy chelovek [weakling]!” he hissed and kicked at Jérôme, who was unable to protect himself.

Antoine made a swift pivotal move and pulled Jérôme out of harm’s way. The old general’s balance was put off by the unexpected move, and he tottered and almost fell. Two privates ran up alongside their general and glared at Antoine, who now became the focus of attention of everyone present. Both privates pointed at Antoine menacingly with their Kalashnikovs.

Gen. Lagounov calmly removed a short stout quirt from his uniform belt. He did it slowly and deliberately locking eyes with Antoine. Antoine held the general’s gaze long enough that the senior officer blinked first. Lagounov then whipped the quirt backhand across Antoine’s face with all of the force he could muster. The cruel little weapon opened a cut across the right side of Antoine’s face. Antoine steeled himself not to flinch or cry out. His face became a calm mask of hatred.

The general looked at Antoine’s face for a moment, then smiled his patented cruel lipless smile.

“This will not be forgotten, fool,” he said.

Antoine snarled inwardly, “You can bet your life on it, cafard [cockroach]!”

His fellow Gebirgsjägers fully expected Antoine to be shot on the spot; but Gen. Lagounov shook his head “No,” and the moment passed.

The surviving Kriegsverurteiltes were herded onto the decrepit passenger cars of the Amur-Yakutia Mainline bound for Moscow Kazanskiy Central train station over 3,000 miles to the west.