survived,’ he asked, ‘if Stalin had forced you to serve out your full sentence?’
Pekkala shuddered as an image returned to him, of a man he had known in the forest. His name was Tatischev, and he had once been a sergeant in the Tsar’s Zaporozhian Cossacks. After his escape from a nearby camp, which was known as Mamlin-Three, search parties had combed the forest looking for him. But they had never found Tatischev, for the simple reason that he had hidden where they were least likely to search – within sight of the Mamlin-Three camp. Here, he had remained, scratching out an existence even more spartan than Pekkala’s.
Pekkala and Tatischev met twice a year in a clearing on the border of the Borodok and Mamlin territorial boundaries. Tatischev was a cautious man, and judged it too dangerous to meet more often than that.
It was from Tatischev that Pekkala discovered exactly what was happening at Mamlin. He learned that the camp had been set aside as a research centre on human subjects. Low-pressure experiments were carried out in order to determine the effects on human tissue of high-altitude exposure. Men were submerged in ice water, revived and then submerged again to determine how long a downed pilot might survive after ditching in the arctic seas above Murmansk. Some prisoners had antifreeze injected into their hearts. Others woke up on operating tables to find their limbs had been removed. It was a place of horrors, said Tatischev, where the human race had sunk to its ultimate depths.
To Pekkala, the old Cossack Tatischev had seemed indestructible, but on the third year of their meetings, Pekkala showed up at the clearing to find Tatischev’s marrowless and chamfered bones scattered about the clearing, and metal grommets from his boots among the droppings of the wolves who had devoured him.
‘Maybe I could have survived after living that long in the forest,’ said Pekkala, ‘but I doubt I would have wanted to.’
Exhausted from his run
Exhausted from his run, Rifleman Stefanov arrived back at the Alexander Park. Until this moment, he had been so numbed by the relentless and deadly ritual of retreating, digging a foxhole, grabbing a few hours of sleep beneath his rain cape and then repeating the process again the following day that he’d barely had the energy to feel more than a vague sense of bewilderment at finding himself at Tsarskoye Selo, or Detskoye Selo, or Pushkin Village or whatever they were calling it these days. Only now was the focus returning to his mind, and as he stared across the untended grounds, the grass so deep it stood knee high in places, Stefanov was at last confronted with the past he had worked so hard to keep secret from everyone around him.
He had spent the first ten years of his life here, within sight of the Catherine and Alexander Palaces, as the son of the head gardener, Agripin Dobrushinovich Stefanov, whose family had worked on this estate for generations. Since the Revolution, he had lived in terror that this mere association with the Romanovs, however innocent, might, in the eyes of his comrades or, even worse, the Battalion Commissar, somehow constitute a crime against the State. This was why, when Sergeant Ragozin misread the map he had been given, insisting they were in the Alexander Park rather than the Catherine, Stefanov did not offer to help. Neither, when Ragozin pointed out the building which he referred to as the Japanese Pagoda, did Stefanov offer the correction that it was, in fact, known as the Chinese Theatre, having recognised it immediately from its bullet-shaped windows and gabled rooftops tweaked up like moustaches on old tsarist generals. It was only now, as he stumbled through the huge gates of the North Entrance, that Stefanov was awed to see again the huge oaks and elms which grew beside the Lamskie Pond, at the mildewed walls of the neglected Pensioners’ Stable and at the little cottage, with its buttery yellow walls and blue shutters,
Pekkala shuddered as an image returned to him, of a man he had known in the forest. His name was Tatischev, and he had once been a sergeant in the Tsar’s Zaporozhian Cossacks. After his escape from a nearby camp, which was known as Mamlin-Three, search parties had combed the forest looking for him. But they had never found Tatischev, for the simple reason that he had hidden where they were least likely to search – within sight of the Mamlin-Three camp. Here, he had remained, scratching out an existence even more spartan than Pekkala’s.
Pekkala and Tatischev met twice a year in a clearing on the border of the Borodok and Mamlin territorial boundaries. Tatischev was a cautious man, and judged it too dangerous to meet more often than that.
It was from Tatischev that Pekkala discovered exactly what was happening at Mamlin. He learned that the camp had been set aside as a research centre on human subjects. Low-pressure experiments were carried out in order to determine the effects on human tissue of high-altitude exposure. Men were submerged in ice water, revived and then submerged again to determine how long a downed pilot might survive after ditching in the arctic seas above Murmansk. Some prisoners had antifreeze injected into their hearts. Others woke up on operating tables to find their limbs had been removed. It was a place of horrors, said Tatischev, where the human race had sunk to its ultimate depths.
To Pekkala, the old Cossack Tatischev had seemed indestructible, but on the third year of their meetings, Pekkala showed up at the clearing to find Tatischev’s marrowless and chamfered bones scattered about the clearing, and metal grommets from his boots among the droppings of the wolves who had devoured him.
‘Maybe I could have survived after living that long in the forest,’ said Pekkala, ‘but I doubt I would have wanted to.’
Exhausted from his run
Exhausted from his run, Rifleman Stefanov arrived back at the Alexander Park. Until this moment, he had been so numbed by the relentless and deadly ritual of retreating, digging a foxhole, grabbing a few hours of sleep beneath his rain cape and then repeating the process again the following day that he’d barely had the energy to feel more than a vague sense of bewilderment at finding himself at Tsarskoye Selo, or Detskoye Selo, or Pushkin Village or whatever they were calling it these days. Only now was the focus returning to his mind, and as he stared across the untended grounds, the grass so deep it stood knee high in places, Stefanov was at last confronted with the past he had worked so hard to keep secret from everyone around him.
He had spent the first ten years of his life here, within sight of the Catherine and Alexander Palaces, as the son of the head gardener, Agripin Dobrushinovich Stefanov, whose family had worked on this estate for generations. Since the Revolution, he had lived in terror that this mere association with the Romanovs, however innocent, might, in the eyes of his comrades or, even worse, the Battalion Commissar, somehow constitute a crime against the State. This was why, when Sergeant Ragozin misread the map he had been given, insisting they were in the Alexander Park rather than the Catherine, Stefanov did not offer to help. Neither, when Ragozin pointed out the building which he referred to as the Japanese Pagoda, did Stefanov offer the correction that it was, in fact, known as the Chinese Theatre, having recognised it immediately from its bullet-shaped windows and gabled rooftops tweaked up like moustaches on old tsarist generals. It was only now, as he stumbled through the huge gates of the North Entrance, that Stefanov was awed to see again the huge oaks and elms which grew beside the Lamskie Pond, at the mildewed walls of the neglected Pensioners’ Stable and at the little cottage, with its buttery yellow walls and blue shutters,
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