Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

He drove between the embankments, and switched the headlights on again. In the glare, high walls of snow passed slowly on each side; and presently began curving right – east. Yes, this was it. On the chart the only track east led to the coast: Tunytlino. He ran for another minute, and stopped.

  He switched the interior light on and inspected the controls. Found the lever for the shovel and lowered it out of the way. Now, the wipers going, he could see clearly – at least the two embankments he had to drive between. Ahead the lane ran straight, no signs of the plough’s earlier tracks. With the heavy snow falling there would soon be no sign of his own. All to the good. The thing had no speedometer and was certainly not a racer. Still, only thirty kilometres to the coast. It was just before one o’clock; he thought he could make it in an hour, and started again. And almost immediately stopped again.

  He switched off the engine; and then the lights, too.

  A helicopter was chuntering overhead. Even above the engine he’d heard it. A big one. There seemed to be more than one. Or was it the same one, circling to find the landing strip?

  He opened the window and looked up. Through the whirling hail of snow he could see, intermittently, the hazy beam of a searchlight. The landing strip was switched off; the pilot was hunting for it. Maybe a telephone crew to see to the fault Strange, at one in the morning. But communication crews worked round the clock. He started up again and drove on, with the lights off. From the air, he knew, he couldn’t be seen, the vehicle shrouded now in snow.

  He drove for several minutes, and stopped and cut the engine again. the clatter was still in the air, but distant now. The guy hadn’t landed yet, or if he had was making a hell of a row, his rotors still going. But no sign of a beam through the heavy snow and the helicopter was well behind him, so he switched on the sidelights and got moving again, pensively.

  The line crew had arrived unexpectedly fast. He’d been right to move fast. The Chukchee at Baranikha would be awake by now and raising hell. He drove on, musing; the track dead straight, glaring white between the snow embankments, the sidelights for the time being sufficient.

  At ten past two the first village appeared, Tunytlino.

  A semi-circle of shacks, their backs facing him, chimneys smoking. The smoke was coming towards him. No lights showed and he couldn’t make out the sea; all frozen now, of course.

  He switched everything off, opened the window, and listened. No dogs. The wind hissed only a little now, but it was coming from the sea. And the snow was definitely less. Already, from the sea, a different weather system.

  A single street ran behind the shacks – a cleared stretch, at least. A path had been made from it to the track he was on, which simply petered out a hundred metres ahead, the embankments falling away. There he had to turn right.

  He thought he had better get down and see how.

  Coal smoke was in the air, acrid, from the sleeping houses. He crunched through the new snow, the village dead silent, and walked beyond it until the houses stopped and the cleared path ran out. Now he saw the sea. The beach shelved, a long way, perhaps two hundred, metres, and the flat plain began. Utterly featureless. The Bering Strait.

  To the right, everything similarly featureless. Another white plain, set above the sea. All the way along, the shore line shelved. The temperature had definitely risen here, some mistiness in the air, a few snowflakes whirling. Between the flakes and the snatches of mist he could see a star or two. All the land flat ahead. Okay.

  He turned and went back.

  In the silence, switching on the engine, he gritted his teeth at the racket Couldn’t be helped. He kept the lights off, drove the last bit of track, turned right along the coast and kept going. The mirrors, all the glass areas, were snowed up and he leaned out of the cab to look back. A light had come on in one of the houses, but soon went out. He had been heard; but without interest. He switched to headlights and drove on.

  The last few days he had slept little. But even sleepless, he seemed to be dreaming. He was driving a snow plough along the Bering Strait. Out in the darkness was America. In between, the two islands, locked in ice. All he had to do was walk there. Just get himself in position.

  Leymin next, twelve kilometres.

  Patches of mist, sudden squalls of snow; the weather changing every few minutes. But a night of changing drifts would cover his tracks anyway.

  Just under the half hour, Leymin.

  He turned inland, kept distance with the village until the shacks had passed, and returned to the coast.

  To Veyemik, another fourteen kilometres. The chart had shown wavy contour lines here, but he could see no contours.

  In a few minutes he came on them. The ground rose suddenly, the shore dropping below. And now on his right, snow-covered rocks, rising. The rocks became a cliff, and he was wedged between it and the drop on his left. He slowed to a crawl. No way of turning here. And no point in backing anyway. To return and go inland would mean only some other kind of contours, perhaps impassable: the chart had shown a chain of them.

  He kept on, at a walking pace.

  Veyemik was on a creek, so there had to be a descent to it: sea level. Whether you could drive down was another matter; it could be a precipice. Get as near as possible, have a look at the place. If necessary ski to it – not so far now. But there was the problem of the vehicle. He couldn’t abandon a snow plough, leave evidence of where he’d gone.

  He crawled on, peering ahead. The frozen strait was now a long way below, and the track very narrow. It could simply peter out and he’d be over the side.

  And then, in a minute, everything had changed again.

  The track veered seawards, a sudden squall blew in, snow spattering the windscreen, wipers working double time. And gone. Calm. Flakes twirling in the air, and below, the creek. He could see it clearly, the shoreline broken, quite a wide inlet. At the other side of it, a huddle of houses: Veyemik. And a long easy slope to it.

  He drove down, dropped smoothly on to the creek, crossed it to the other side, and came out behind the houses.

  Three o’clock.

  He switched the lights and the engine off, and got out to have a look.

  To seaward, nothing – a great plain of ice, snow-covered. This was it. The islands were now due east. In the plough he could go the whole way. Except, of course, he couldn’t. The thing would be detected at once. Both islands were certainly observation posts full of electronic devices. It would have to be on foot. From here the distance was greater than from Cape Dezhnev; perhaps fifty or sixty kilometres, but a simpler run, less chance of error – due east. Even with the little skis he could do it in five, six hours. Totally exposed, of course, if anyone knew where he’d gone. Time to lose the snow plough.

  A stream cut down from the hills backing the creek. He’d seen it on the chart and now he could see its banks. He climbed up into the cab again, made the stream and drove up it. The track soon lost itself, twisting and turning in the tangle of hills. He drove for twenty minutes without finding anywhere to ditch the plough; no cave, no gorge. It began snowing again while he peered. He decided to leave it anyway. No one would find it here before next summer. And time was going fast.

  He switched off, climbed out, attached the backpack and skis and was down again quicker than he’d gone up.

  His face was crusted with snow, his gloved hands numb as he came out on to the creek. He poled himself across the ice to the mouth. The little broad skis made hard work of langlauf striding, but they were better than nothing. He stopped to beat the feeling into his hands before taking his position.

  No shelving beach here. Just the creek running out flat with the strait. The great void stretched before him. The Russian island came first, three times the size of the American and masking it completely. He had to hit the larger one and work round it before taking a position for the other. From now on, it would be dead reckoning, his bearing checked every few minutes, for in the ocean of darkness he would be totally blind. He unhitched the backpack
and dug out the torch and compass.

  He could scarcely feel the little compass. He took his gloves off and breathed on his hands and shone the torch down on it. He couldn’t steady it with one hand, so he gripped the light under his chin and got both hands to it. Even so the needle was hard to steady. He found after some moments that it wouldn’t steady. It fluttered and swung, and fluttered and swung, ten degrees, and twenty, and thirty. It swung round the dial. He saw it wasn’t merely swinging, but pulsing. Radar pulses, some bloody pulses, from somewhere.

  He watched it a full three minutes to see if there was a pattern. The pattern was a continuous pattern: the needle, in fluttering jumps, going round the dial, round and round.

  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?’

  58

  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 car
s, 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?