Kolymsky Heights (36 page)

This was the position at four o’clock, when he realised he had no compass and no vehicle, and nowhere to go if he had one.

The nearest shelter before he froze was the village of Veyemik, and as he trudged there he racked his tired brain.

The first house was also the largest house. He hammered on the door, and continued hammering till he heard babies crying and shouted oaths, and presently an Eskimo stood before him in a suit of long Johns.

‘I stole nothing!’ Porter told this Eskimo.

‘What?’

‘I swear to God! They’re chasing me. They’ve chased me all the way!’

‘Who’s chasing you?’ said the Eskimo. ‘From where?’

From Tchersky, the general was again on the phone to the airbase. It was 2 a.m.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ he said.

‘He isn’t
there
. They’ve searched the camp block, they’ve searched the whole site. He’s nowhere on it.’

‘But he’s got to be there. What else is there there?’

‘Mine workings, a kilometre away. He didn’t go there – at least not with a crew. They send them out in snow tanks, it’s snowing like hell. Do you want the mine workings searched?’

‘Of course search them. He could be hiding there. We know he’s there
somewhere
. He
flew
out there.’

But this was by no means so certain. The camp said it had no record of him. He had slept in no bunk, eaten no meal, had been allotted no tags and had deposited no papers. There were also no skis or luggage for him.

‘But he was on that
plane
,’ the general said. ‘He stole a ticket to get on it.’

Again this was not certain. Another worker might have stolen the ticket and papers – unintentionally, in the course of a random robbery. But the thief would have had his own ticket. He didn’t
need
this ticket. And he certainly wouldn’t have handed in the papers. Which would account for them not being there.

The general thought.

‘The flight crew that’s staying there – don’t
they
know if the ticket was used?’

Again – no. It had been a madhouse on the plane. And no tickets had been handed in on it. They had been handed in at Baranikha. Should they check with Baranikha?

‘I’ll check with Baranikha. You check the mine workings.’

The general checked with Baranikha and he found that the ticket had been handed in and the man had got on the plane. He had got on it but he had not apparently got off it; not, anyway, at two intermediate stops, for they had checked and no natives had disembarked. The man had certainly proceeded to Mitlakino but what happened to him there they didn’t know.

‘They chased me with a snow tank! They chased me from Mitlakino. Ask them in Tunytlino – a tank roaring after me in the middle of the night!’

‘From
Mitlakino
you skied – from the mining camp?’

‘What could I do? They’d have killed me. I’ve skied all night, I’m exhausted. They hate Evenks – and the Inuit too.’ He was speaking Inuit with the Eskimos. ‘The Chukchees don’t trust us. In Chukotka it’s only them – no jobs for Evenks.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’ The Eskimo was a plump individual with a mild manner, and his house was large because he was the headman. He stroked his round face and looked with bewilderment from the hysterical Evenk to the other members of the household. Eleven of them gazed back with similar bewilderment.

‘You’d better sleep now. You can sleep by the stove. In the morning we’ll work it out.’

‘But you’ll speak for me? You won’t let them take me?’

‘I’ll speak for you. I don’t understand it yet. Where do you get the tongue?’

‘Up north. I worked some seasons … But you won’t give me up? They know I’m here. They chased me all the way to Leymin. They couldn’t get past it, not on that track in the snow. But I got past it. You’ll speak for me in the morning?’

‘In the morning we’ll see. It’s still snowing. It shouldn’t be
snowing now. In the morning there could be fog. For now, everybody sleep – it’s gone four!’

It was gone four, and at six everybody got up again, and there was fog.

And the Evenk, after his sleep, was altogether calmer. He was apologetic about his hysteria of the night. Maybe they wouldn’t have killed him, but they would have beaten him badly. A man
had
lost money in the mine and immediately they had accused him – the only Evenk. He could prove he had stolen nothing. He
had
nothing. When they came looking for him today –

‘Look,’ the headman told him, ‘nobody will come looking for you today. They can’t. It’s a fog. And if they should, the women will hide you.’

At this the Evenk showed alarm again. Why women? Why would women have to hide him?

Because the men would be away, working.

Where away? How far away?

On the ice. The sea.

Sealing by the shore? No farther than that?

The Eskimos smiled. Not sealing. Not at this season. Fishing. At their fishing station. Out in the strait. They would be out all day.

At this he showed even greater alarm. He wasn’t staying all day with women. He would ski on down the coast, then. Unless the men would take him with. Would they take him with?

If he wished, but there was no danger. Nobody could
get
here in the fog. Still, if he was nervous …

He was very nervous, and he asked nervous questions. Could anybody follow them? How far were they going?

Fifty kilometres, they said, amused; and nobody could follow. You needed a signal. The authorities fitted it in your vehicle, a tracked vehicle. The signal told them on the island who was coming – there was an island out there. And it also guided you to your station. There was a beacon at. the fishing station, also fitted by the authorities. You’d never find it otherwise. Nobody could follow – no need to be nervous!

This calmed him completely, and as they briskly set off after taking only steaming tea he showed a lively interest in the fishing. The best grounds, they told him, lay where the seabed shoaled near the islands. There were two islands there, but you couldn’t go to the second, it was American. The first you could go to only in summer. The military let you camp in the small rock bays then – that’s where the seals came up, on slabs.

So what kind of fishing did they do now?

Ice fishing, through holes, two metres square. You had to know where to cut. Mainly the ice was two metres thick out there but in some places it ran to twenty. You cut it in layers with an electric saw, off the car’s battery. The authorities came and checked your holes from time to time, and they had to be near your beacon. The signal directed you there – see it?

The signal was an amber light on the dash which pulsed at wider intervals if they veered off course. They veered a bit to show him how it worked, and laughed at his astonishment.

It was crowded in the vehicle; eight men in it, all loudly instructing the interested Evenk. Another vehicle had set off a few minutes before them to set up camp, and a third was keeping company close beside, its headlights dimly visible in the fog.

Did people come out from the island to check the holes? he asked.

Sure. They checked your beacon too, and usually you gave them a bit of fish; they always needed fresh stuff there.

They drove over in cars, did they?

Sometimes – if recruits were being trained. They trained the soldiers in ice manoeuvres. Native guys, some of them – they used them as trackers. But mainly it was in a helicopter.

They kept a helicopter on the island?

A helicopter? An army of them. See, the place was just a big hump of rock, about a kilometre long, and they’ d taken the top off and made a whole landing ground up there. If they all took off at once you couldn’t hear yourself speak.

Was it
that
near?

Ten kilometres from the fishing station. In summer, in the boat, you could see it from right here – not far to go now.

It wasn’t far to go. And then they were there: the fishing station.

Lanterns burned at the fishing station – seal oil lamps, on stakes, in a large square. Much activity was going on in the square. In the dense fog spectral shapes from the advance party were rigging a tent; others going round refilling the lanterns. All of them were on short skis, and now he put his own on. The backpack he had left in the village, and all he had taken from it was the torch, now rammed inside his anorak.

Various bits of gear came out of the vehicles; a winch, fishing lines, ropes, fish boxes. The men bustled at the work, and he followed a party of them to the first hole. Lamps burned here too and from all four sides tethered ropes slanted into the hole. The men tugged the ropes, assessing the weight in the basket traps suspended there, and each hole was visited in turn. Once the traps were hauled in they could do line work for bigger fish, they said. You dangled hook baits down through the holes; all this after breakfast.

They went to breakfast in the tent, and as they ate he asked how long the fog would last.

It depended. Snow was rare at this season, but when it snowed you got a fog. It hadn’t snowed long so the fog wouldn’t last long. Maybe only a few hours. You waited for the wind.

Did it affect their work?

No. Out
there
it affected them, the island. They didn’t like fog. Just in darkness, they could see – they had special glasses. But in fog they saw nothing.

What was it they wanted to see?

The Americans – just four kilometres the other side of the island. They watched each other. That’s what they did, while the rest of us did the work.

The men were cheerful at breakfast and cheerful as they went to work, and the headman jovially told him he could stay and
help wash the dishes to pay for his keep. He shovelled snow in a bucket and put it on the stove and observed the day’s chef cocking an ear.

‘That’s funny – there’s one up there,’ the man said.

‘A helicopter?’ Faintly now he could hear it himself.

‘Yes. Not one of the island’s, though.’

‘You can tell the difference?’

‘It’s from the mainland. A big one, going there and back, can’t you hear? No business being up in the fog.’

Porter moodily cleared the tin plates and scraped leavings from the pot.

‘Fat and rinds go in the basket. It’s bait,’ the chef told him. ‘Hello –
they’ve
started up now!’

A harsher clatter was suddenly rending the air.

‘The island?’

‘That’s them. Going up in the
fog
!’

‘Where is it, the island?’

‘Out there … What are you doing with your skis?’

He was strapping them on. They had all removed their skis as they’d sat round the trestle for breakfast.

‘I’ll just go out and take a look,’ he said.

‘You’ll see nothing in this … The island’s over
there
, past our first hole, a straight line. Jesus – more going up! Hey, stay inside the lights! It’s easy to get lost. Don’t go more than a hundred paces!’

‘Okay.’

For the first fifty paces he couldn’t see the dimly lit hole, and then he saw it. At the hole the men were busy hauling in and didn’t notice him. Looking back he could just make out the dim haze of the camp. He started counting again. He counted fifty, and sixty, and seventy; and looking back now could see neither the hole nor the camp. He had not moved his skis as he turned, and when he started again he kept on in the same straight line, and he also kept on counting. His paces on the skis were just about a metre, so after a thousand he had done a kilometre; the air black; the blackness now all roaring.

By 4 a.m. the airbase reported that the man was not in the mine, not on the site, that no vehicle had been removed from the site, and that there was no sign whatever that he had ever arrived.

The flight controller went further. He had been growing steadily more sceptical all night, and he now said that they had wasted enough time and he wished to withdraw his men.

The general considered this. Unable to talk to the godforsaken camp himself, his communications had been entirely with this little air force shit; who was becoming a peremptory shit, and an increasingly insolent one.

‘How many men have you got there?’ he said.

‘Twenty-four. In three helicopters. Eight-man squads.’

‘Isn’t there one among them who can mend a telephone?’

‘There’s a signals staff, yes. But they’re in a blizzard there. The line could be down anywhere.’

‘Have they tested the one in the building?’

‘I’ll ask them. But this is your last request, General. I will give it one hour.’

‘Request? What request? It’s an order! You will
report
to me in one hour,’ and he had slammed the phone down.

But the man was right, he knew. Four hours of air force time wasted … And the bastard had slipped away again, it was certain; could by now be halfway to Magadan.

He decided not to speak again on the phone himself.

But when the next call came, in under the hour, he took it most eagerly, having heard where it came from.

‘
Mitlakino
! You’ve found the fault?’

‘Yeah. A break. See, they have this conduit, running into a junction box, and what we –’

‘Was it cut?’

‘Well, it doesn’t look frayed. Only nobody said –’

‘All right. You. What’s your rank?’

‘Sergeant, sir.’

‘Stay by that phone. Tell the director of the camp, from me, to check his vehicles again. Every one of them has to be checked. He is to inspect them himself, including anything they have at the mine. He will report to me personally, and he had better not miss any. Do that now. I’m waiting here, I can hear you. When you’ve done it I have another order.’

The other order was for the civilian aircraft on the air strip to be inspected again. It was to be inspected from nose to tail, every centimetre of it; every seat,
under
every seat, the cargo space, the toilets, any hollow part of the fuselage.

‘But stay by the phone yourself. Somebody will talk to you. If they don’t talk, still stay on the phone. Keep this line open. Don’t let anybody else use it.’

This was at five o’clock.

At five-thirty the director of the camp asked permission to come on the phone, and the general gave it.

‘Well?’

‘General, there’s no actual
vehicle
missing –’

‘What actual? What are you talking about?’

‘Not a
vehicle
. We checked them all hours ago. It’s just – a snow plough isn’t here. It could have broken down and the driver be spending the night at Tunytlino. They don’t have a phone there but what I’ll do right now is send –’

‘Tuny what? Have they any vehicles there?’

‘Yes, they have vehicles. They have special tracked vehicles for going out to −’

‘How far to Magadan from there?’

‘To Magadan?’ There was a puzzled silence. ‘Well, I don’t know. I would say maybe – two thousand kilometres?’

‘Two thousand –’

For the first time the general was aware he didn’t know exactly where Mitlakino was. Since nothing of note existed there and it wasn’t on Tchersky’s maps nobody had given him the location. But the
airbase
had the location. He had thought the airbase was near Magadan. He had thought Mitlakino was …

‘Where the devil are you?’ he said.

‘Where am I?’ the director said in a strange voice. ‘I’m at Mitlakino. Above Lavrentiya. Below Cape Dezhnev.’

‘Cape Dezhnev!’ The general’s flapping hand had summoned maps. ‘Dezhnev … Dezhnev. You mean – the Chukotka peninsula?’

‘Yes, certainly. The Chukotka peninsula.’

‘I see a lake. And a marsh, is it?’

‘The lake and the marsh. Yes, General, we’re between them.’

‘With Tuny – Tunytlino, away on the coast?’

‘Thirty kilometres away. That’s where I think the driver of the snow plough –’

‘The coast of the Bering
Strait?
’

‘Certainly the Bering Strait.’

‘Good God! Good God!’ the general said. ‘He’s not going south. He’s going – Is that sergeant there? Give me that sergeant.’

By six o’clock, the helicopters were airborne again and making for the string of coastal villages between Tunytlino and Keyekan. Their orders were to land at the villages and search them.

By six-thirty all were reporting dense fog over the coastal area. They could see nothing on the ground, and nothing of each other. They asked permission to return.

‘No! Refused. Absolutely not!’ the general told the airbase. ‘They are to land at those villages.’

‘But they can’t see the villages.’

‘Let them go down lower and look.’

‘General, I can’t endanger my men or their aircraft in these conditions. You’ll see on your map there are
hills
in that vicinity.’

‘And you’ll see on
yours
there’s also a strait there. The Bering Strait! Let them fly over it, a little offshore. The villages will have lights. If they get out on their feet they’ll find them.’

By six forty-five a helicopter had found Tunytlino.

It reported that nothing was known of the man there but the villagers had heard a vehicle passing in the night. It had passed soon after 2 a.m. It had passed in the direction of Leymin.

Shortly afterwards Leymin called in.

Nothing of the man there, either, and no vehicle had passed through.

‘He’s made his try in between, then,’ the general said. ‘Or he went inland a bit.’ He was tracing the route on his map. ‘Let them search both villages. But I think he went on to the next, Veyemik. From there he has a clear run, due east, to the islands. But not with the snow plough – too soon detected. He’s on skis. He took them with him! But on skis he couldn’t have made it yet. And in the fog … I think he’s still there. He’s either spun them a yarn or he’s hiding there. He’s in Veyemik!’

At six fifty-five Veyemik called; and the general’s heart sang.

A stranger had come in the night to Veyemik. A terrified stranger. He said a vehicle had chased him. It had chased him from the mines at Mitlakino where he had been accused of stealing money. He had been in fear of his life and they had taken him in. Their menfolk were looking after him. Had they done wrong?

In no way! Lay hands on him immediately; subdue him, take him back to the base, keep him bound at all times! And promptly report his arrival. He would come himself as soon as notified.

Very good. One squad would remain there until the fog lifted. Then they’d go out and get him. The menfolk of Veyemik were presently at their fishing station. The man was with them.

He was where?

It took some minutes, the babble going there and back from the helicopter, for the general to gather that the fishing station was fifty kilometres out in the strait. That it was only
ten
kilometres from the first island. And that the party would not yet have reached it. They had left twenty-five minutes ago.

Twenty-five minutes!

‘Go out now!’ the general said. ‘Go immediately, don’t delay! He’ll slip off – this is what he’ll do!’

Go where? How could they find the fishing station in the fog? The Eskimos found it by beacon. The beacon was controlled from the island. The helicopters couldn’t be directed to it by the island because –

‘All right. I’ll manage the island. The helicopters are to take off immediately – all three of them. Sweep behind him, go due east. He’s still in a car, going there! From fifty metres they’ll
see
the car, even in a fog. Get them down to twenty metres! I’ll call out aircraft from the island. You’ll find him between you. If he tries to slip away and go left or right he’ll miss the island, and he’s lost in the fog. Then we pick him up at leisure. How long is the fog due to last?’

The fog was due to last, according to latest information, another two to three hours … But if aircraft took off from the island there could be mid-air collisions – visibility was zero! The best instrumentation couldn’t –

So arrange a corridor. The fishing station was fifty kilometres out? Fly forty-five. The island would be informed accordingly. Keep communication with them. He was contacting them himself immediately.

Which, immediately, he did.

From the island, after a few minutes’ delay, he learned that the Eskimos’ vehicles had already arrived at their fishing station. Three vehicles had been monitored arriving. Yes, island aircraft could reach the station very shortly. With the beacon, fog was not a problem.

The general asked what mobile forces were available on the island.

Twelve helicopters, he was told; augmented in winter by a company of patrol jeeps. Also sixteen personnel carriers, half-tracks, in four platoons. Four vehicles to a platoon, four men to a vehicle. Sixty-four men.

The general ordered a deployment of these forces.

The helicopters would surround the fishing station and search it. If the man had already skipped they would lift off again and support the surface force of personnel carriers. The surface force would leave at once. Six kilometres from the island it would assume its blizzard formation: the troops off – boarded fifteen metres apart. With the vehicles they would form a line of one kilometre, to sweep forward at ski-walking pace.

In case the man tried to slip back to the mainland, air force helicopters would sweep the area between. To avoid risk of collision in the fog, five kilometres would be kept between the two forces.

The fog was expected to last two to three hours. In that time the man could make a try for the American island. But first he had to find it; which he could only do from the Russian side. Was any audible signal used by the Americans in fog conditions?

No, no audible signals were used. But when the fog lifted the island was easily visible, only four kilometres away. Its masts and aerials had blinking hazard lights, and the satellite dishes were clearly illuminated.

But there was also another factor. The
island
was four kilometres away, but the international line was only
two
kilometres. On skis it could be reached in no time.

The general agreed another plan.

In one hour’s time, if the man had not been taken, all forces would proceed at speed to the other side of the island. The man must not be allowed to leave it. If he made a dash for the American side he was to be brought
down –
brought down
, not killed. At all costs he had to be taken alive.

While he was still speaking, urgent news arrived. The helicopters had reached the fishing station, and the man was there! He was washing dishes, in a tent, with the chef. A moment later this report was amended. He
had
been washing dishes, but at sound of the helicopters he had gone outside to have a look at them; he didn’t seem yet to have returned.

When
had he gone? When?

Three or four minutes ago, the chef thought. On his skis.

‘Good God!’ the general said. In the rapid turn of events he had been saying it repeatedly, but now he said a few things more. From two days he had reduced the gap to two hours, and then forty minutes, and then twenty-five. Now it was only three or four! If they merely
hovered
over his route, they would catch him now. How far, in three or four minutes, could he have
gone
?