The Soviet Union, July 1941
A parched twilight began to close around the unlit prisoner train. For over a week the zeks in Brendan’s wagon had jolted across an arid landscape they rarely glimpsed, crushed together in putrid darkness. Only those crammed against the wooden slats ever saw the small worms of daylight flicker in through the slight cracks there. Little sound penetrated into the wagon either, just the ceaseless rumble of the tracks. Sometimes the train stopped and prisoners shifted eagerly, yearning for guards to untangle the barbed wire around each carriage and eventually wedge open the doors. In the stampede to relieve themselves, dignity would be forgotten as men and women squatted together under the gaze of the guards and their dogs. But often those stops occurred for no obvious reason. There would be no sound after the wheels came to a rusty halt, no footsteps, no safety catches unleashed, no orders screamed for zeks to get onto their knees and be counted. Instead the train would remain motionless for an indeterminable period until eventually the wheels slowly jolted forward again and each zek felt a stir of relief amidst their disappointment because no decision had yet been made to liquidate them.
Three weeks ago Brendan had known that his position had become perilous when the music on the camp Tannoy was abruptly replaced by a voice from the radio denouncing Germany’s treacherous attack on the Soviet Union. Even the guards stopped their morning count and during those few seconds guards and zeks were suddenly equal, stunned that anyone – even Hitler – could dare to defy Stalin’s confident declaration that there would be no conflict in Russia. But the crackling voice spoke of German troops on Russian soil and German planes destroying the Soviet Air Force. The voice had carried defiance, exhorting comrades everywhere to give their last breath for the Motherland. But the voice also betrayed panic and indecision until it was suddenly replaced by static, with guards starting to yell at the zeks as if even this invasion was their fault.
Kolyma barely had enough food in times of peace. But, being no longer people, the zeks knew that they would suffer in this war, even though the invasion was on the other side of the USSR. That day had been like no other on the gold fields. The zeks had worked in silence and for once did not want their labours to end. June was milder and as nobody could recall zeks being shot while out on the actual gold fields, they had felt safe sieving there. That evening the guards had needed to shout at them to march quicker back to camp.
Nobody knew if they would live through the coming night. During the long count the guards had gone through lists of prisoners, weeding out those with German surnames. Brendan had been unable to stop shivering because his nationality confused the guards. Most considered him English, but some who had heard him deny this might think him German. Few guards admitted to having heard of Ireland because expressing a knowledge of countries outside the Soviet Union could be misconstrued as treason. Brendan had not known if his file still contained details of having been seen drinking with German members of POUM in Barcelona. Such information might have been enough to have him rounded up with the German prisoners that evening who were told that they were being marched to catch a boat with no time to collect their personal belongings. Few had believed it but Brendan saw them cling to this desperate hope as they were counted and then led away from the Kolyma camp.
That night the soup ration had been cut with barely a fish head or a few small bones in the bowl. But nobody had any appetite. People were waiting for the distant sound of machine-gun fire, knowing that when they returned to the huts the urkas would share out whatever few possessions were hidden in the mattresses of the German prisoners now in a mass grave.
During the next week in Kolyma there had been no other mass executions, but every zek knew that his file was being reopened. Access to radios was forbidden, letters and parcels stopped arriving. Most political prisoners had made token confessions of spying for the very forces that were now invading the USSR. This made them enemy soldiers, especially foreigners like Brendan. Every morning he had yearned for the gold fields where he could toil in safety. No slacking was allowed there, with defeatism viewed as sabotage of the war effort and punishable by death. Even after the prolonged evening counts Brendan had never felt safe because of the midnight searches, with guards stabbing open mattresses as if a fifth column of Nazis might lurk inside them. Finally, Brendan’s name had been called out, along with every foreign national in the camp. They were told that they were leaving for a new camp. They had marched out beneath a banner painted by Yasili before his death, which proclaimed the glory of working for the USSR. Dogs had hurried them along, with some zeks openly crying and others too numbed to care. But after several days’ march all had gasped in relief at the sight of a waiting boat, knowing that they were not going to be shot, for now at least. They had been crammed into the hold, with guards screaming at them until every inch of space was used. Brendan had no idea what port they finally reached, but once there they were herded towards these waiting carriages with planks nailed across the doors and this long journey had begun.
Brendan was starving now but his hunger would be worse later. He would wait until the apex of this agony before starting to slowly chew his small hunk of black bread. Nobody had yet soiled themselves so there was no stream of urine and no stink of shit. Nobody had died in the wagon today or, if they did, they had done so without attracting attention. The wagon was so quiet that for a few moments, despite a phobia that his bread might be stolen, Brendan blacked out into sleep and dreamed of Donegal. They were bathing off Bruckless Pier with Art racing hand in hand with Eva along the stone pier to tumble laughingly into the waves. Brendan saw himself, sleek as a silvery fish, flitting through the green water. Art surfaced to ruffle Brendan’s hair and asked if he liked the kite that he had made for him. Brendan plunged his head into the water to glide behind his beloved big brother.
The train’s unexpected jolt woke him as he crested the waves. The zeks began to talk, wondering if they would be allowed out into the air. Others shouted for quiet so they could listen for the click of the guards’ rifles. Brendan discreetly checked that his bread was still there. No zek spoke but he sensed a new terror. There was just the gusting wind and the drone of an aeroplane leisurely approaching. Then the silence was broken by indistinct sounds, the bark of released dogs, guards shouting in panic, a scramble of boots scattering across the barren ground.
‘The bastards,’ an older zek muttered. ‘The guards are more concerned with saving the dogs than saving us. Come back, you cowards, unlock these doors.’
The entire wagon was on its feet now, banging at the roof and wooden walls. Bursts of machine-gun fire came from above, interspersed with cries and the noise of frantic hammering from inside every wagon. Brendan heard the crush of timber and knew that one set of prisoners had succeeded in breaking free. Their shouts turned to screams amid a heavy burst of gunfire, but he could not tell if it came from the plane or if guards might have set up a machine-gun post in the undergrowth. Two men beside him kept hammering on the roof, being lifted up by other prisoners. They broke away a wooden slat, yielding a glimpse of blue sky. Everyone was screaming, but Brendan was utterly still, mesmerised by the sky above him. It was the deepening blue of an Irish summer twilight and crossing that blue patch was a small aircraft, either departing or wheeling around for another assault. The gleam made him catch his breath as it turned in a slow loop. Others saw it too and began to scream louder. But Brendan said nothing because he had become a boy again, standing on Bruckless Pier, drawing in the bright kite that his big brother had made for him.
Then a bomb burst, bringing him to his senses as it struck a carriage further down the train. The impact rocked Brendan’s wagon so violently that the walls almost buckled before it toppled sideways down the siding. The wagon was filled with screams but Brendan barely heard them because the explosion left him disorientated and partially deafened. He closed his eyes and the sensation felt like being underwater amid a shoal of tumbling bodies. He knew that his face was bleeding and he could feel a wrenching pain where his right arm got wedged between falling bodies. People trapped near the roof had surely died while breaking his fall and those of the zeks around him.
Wooden slats burst open at the side of the wagon, wide enough for a person to crawl through. He joined in the scramble, climbing over zeks who were dead or dying. It was impossible to save anyone trapped there, because the German plane was swooping low, anxious to destroy the locomotive. The second explosion was blinding. Now there were flames all along the track as carriages ignited. The smell of burning flesh reminded him of Georgi’s corpse being burnt in a pyre at Magadan.
Brendan’s hands were covered in blood and the explosion had damaged his retinas, so he could see little beyond after-images of light. He rose to run amid the flock of zeks, all wheeling and turning in panic as if they possessed a single mind. They were swallows in search of Africa. They were children seeking their mothers. They were humans stripped of everything except this last impulse to live. Behind them the German plane wheeled around, the machine gunners on board spraying bullets along the tracks, delighting in their power to mow down the stragglers trying to flee. A further crackle of machine-gun fire came from the bushes where the Soviet guards were arrayed to prevent zeks from escaping, even though they themselves would be shot for letting the precious rolling stock be destroyed.
Brendan stopped running but the momentum of people fleeing the burning train carried him on, until he was halted by the crush of bodies at the front trying to push their way back. All that was saving him from death was the mass of bodies caught between the two hails of bullets. But, judging by the shrieks of the dying, this wall of flesh was growing thinner. A man directly in front of him turned around to face Brendan, desperately trying to push deeper into the bodies. Brendan’s sight was clearer now and by the light of the flames he recognised him as a vicious urka who had been put on the train after it was discovered that he had a foreign grandmother. Managing to free his arms amid the crowd, Brendan pinned them around the urka’s neck. You’re going nowhere, comrade, except to hell. He didn’t say the words aloud, but the urka understood them. The man had twice his strength and should have been able to fight back but seemed momentarily paralysed by fear. Then he roared into Brendan’s face and lifted his hands to break the grip. He would have succeeded had a bullet not entered him. He jerked forward, eyes fixed on Brendan. His arms kept moving but only managed to drape themselves around Brendan for support. Brendan swayed with him, using the dead body as a shield, even though he knew that a direct hit would slice through them both.
Enough space was clearing for bodies to fall. Many zeks were dead or playing dead or so terrified that they had lost the use of their legs. Among them a small child sat on a dead woman’s body, banging on the chest with her fists as if demanding that her mother rise. A lull came in the firing as if the Germans were bored, and the Soviet guards had decided to flee. But Brendan knew that this would not last. He had more chance on his own because the child would only weigh him down and even if he managed to flee he had no way of feeding her in this wilderness. But it was not in his character to leave her there. At first she screamed when he picked her up, reaching out to claw at his bloodied face. But then the firing resumed and she pressed her face against his chest, shivering in shock and with the cold. Yet her body felt warm, her face reminding him of a child he once saw in London during the General Strike. He cradled her like he knew that he would never have a chance to cradle a child of his own. Crouching down, he pushed blindly through the screaming zeks. He had a purpose now, a mission. All his life he had simply wanted to know that he was helping humanity in a small way, that his presence on earth would make some slight difference. This desire had led him to leave Marlborough College, had led him to Spain, had eventually led him here to run across this blood-soaked soil. Because maybe in the end it boiled down to this, to hold one child in a crowd and fight to give her an extra few seconds of life. If he succeeded he might finally have done something that earned him the right to stare back into Martin Luther’s eyes.
The child pressed tightly against him, whispering words that he could not hear. He wanted to share so many things with her, wanted to describe the feel of his mother’s hand stroking his hair in bed at night, the attics in the Manor House where he had played at her age, his sister Eva sketching in her studio. He wanted her to have heard a church bell instead of a siren, to wake up without the stench of mildewed clothes, to see a dog not snarling at the end of a chain. Just once in her life he wanted her to have known what it was like not to be hungry, to have lice-free hair, to picnic on a beach and have a big brother to look up to. Brendan wanted her to know these things, yet he couldn’t speak because he needed to save his breath for running. A gap appeared ahead, a space through the dying zeks, though he was so dizzy that he no longer knew in what direction he was running. But now they were out in the open with fewer bodies here and for a second he thought they were free. Then he saw the Soviet guards with their machine guns and knew that the German plane had gone and he was running directly towards the bullets with no time to turn. He knew that the same bullet which passed through the child would enter him. They would die at the same moment, with him bearing her to her death. More than anything he wanted to tell her about Bruckless Pier. About the great dread he had always felt when running down it to fling himself out into the mercy of the waves. Because tumbling down through the depths there was always this moment when he felt truly done for, before his body instinctively turned amid the green water and he knew in the core of his being that he would rise again into the light.