War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 356

Chapter 23

J

anuary was the bleakest month, with only a few hours of daylight each day. Johann hadn’t realized how much a human needed the sun until it no longer shone. Shivering had become his normal condition and like everyone else he yearned for summer to arrive.

He

celebrated

his fifth anniversary in captivity hacking away at the ice of the frozen river, shivering like aspen leaves. That goddamn icy wind cut through Johann’s clothing and scorched his skin.

His fingers had turned numb hours ago, but there was no stopping or pausing. The work detail had been assigned to hack the ice away and take out the rafts. The river was the main means of transportation for both the village people and the camp, and logistics had to be kept flowing at all costs – otherwise everyone up here would soon starve or freeze to death.

Because the banks of the river were frozen, the boats unloaded the supplies onto rafts, which made towards the ice-laden shores. The prisoners pulled the rafts out of the water and across the ice, unloaded the supplies, and then sent the rafts back out.

It was backbreaking work, but at least the guards didn’t bother or hurry the

plenni,

because they preferred to keep warm by the fire. From his spot, Johann saw them circulating a bottle of vodka. He enviously eyed the flickering flames of the fire, imagining a wafting of heat coming in his direction.

He often wondered whether the guards were in Vorkuta because they’d volunteered, or if this was some kind of punishment for them, too. Surely there were more coveted jobs in the Soviet Gulag system.

A horrendous crack tore through the air interrupting his train of thought. The next moment his left leg burned with excruciating intensity.

“Help! I broke through the ice!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to free his trapped leg. But since he didn’t have purchase, he couldn’t heave himself up. He threw his upper body onto the ice, trying to crawl forward. But his leg refused to budge. “Help!”

One of the guards looked over and then shouted commands to the other prisoners. Johann’s leg had meanwhile turned numb and he felt life itself slipping from his body.

Indifferent to the hauling, pulling and shoving of his comrades, he opened his eyes again when someone forced a stinging liquid down his throat. Vodka! He swallowed and spluttered, the ferocious burning all the way down to his stomach indicating he wasn’t dead.

“Take the wet clothes off him,” one of the guards commanded and people started pulling at Johann’s legs. He felt how they took off his felt boots and trousers and then wrapped him in a thick blanket before laying him next to the fire.

Grateful for the warmth, Johann smiled at the village woman helping him to sit up and handing him a mug of hot tea.

“Drink this,” she urged him.

He tried, but his hands trembled so violently, he spilled half of the liquid. The kind woman came to his aid, holding the mug to his lips.

For the rest of the day, Johann was released from his work duties. He finished the tea, and rubbed his leg ferociously, hoping to get the circulation running again. When the congealed blood in his leg began to flow, his face took on a pain-stricken grimace. The intense prickle felt like oversized pins and needles pinching deep into the flesh.

But agony was better than frozen toes, or – God forbid – a frozen leg. One of the guards pointed out that he had to walk back to the camp on his own feet before he could see the doctor.

A few of the villagers sitting around the fire and waiting for the supplies from the rafts struck up a conversation with him.

“German?” a man who looked like a bear asked.

“Yes.”

“

Wojna kaput

.” The war is over, the Russian said.

Johann nodded. Because how was he supposed to answer?

Five bloody years ago the war ended, and I’m still here unjustly imprisoned by your corrupt and degenerated Communist leaders.

“You must be hungry.” A young woman handed Johann a piece of bread.

“Don’t give him anything, since he already had tea,” the guard told her off.

But she didn’t budge and said to the guard, “Give them food already. They’re humans, too.”

“That’s none of your business, woman,” the guard said.

Johann, though, was incredibly grateful for that display of compassion. Not all the Russians were bad. These villagers here weren’t cut from the same cloth as the vile bureaucrats in Moscow presiding over phony trials.

Another old woman sidled up to him and whispered, “I hear you get soap at the camp.”

He nodded. Every

plenni

received a monthly ration of soap. He’d much rather receive food, because in winter the prisoners couldn’t use the soap anyway. There was no water to wash themselves or their clothes with. Only snow. The little water they made from melting snow was used to drink or cook.

“Would you have some soap to trade?” she asked probingly.

His ears perked up. “I might. What do you have to offer?”

She looked around to make sure the guards weren’t following their conversation, or they would demand a cut. “Bread.”

“Bread is good, but…” Johann thought for a moment. They received bread at the camp. What he really needed were vegetables. Some of his mates had already succumbed to the sailor’s illness, scurvy. “…do you have onions and potatoes?”

She nodded and they arranged a barter transaction for the next day. Soap in exchange for potatoes, onions and carrots. Then he remembered that he might not be able to work for a few days and said, “See that man over there, the skinny one in rags with the fur hat?”

The woman looked at him with a confused expression and he almost laughed out loud. All the prisoners would fit that description.

“What’s your name?”

“Nadja.”

“Nadja, if I’m not here tomorrow, a man called Kurt will approach you and make the exchange.”

“Why are you still talking to that prisoner? Don’t you have better things to do?” One of the guards lashed out at her.

“Shut up,” she told him, but stood and walked away after uttering, “Kurt. Tomorrow.”