Shukhov was laying his third row (Kilgas too was on his third), when up the ramp came yet another snoop, another chief–building-foreman Der. A Muscovite. Used to work in some ministry, so they said.

Shukhov was standing close to Kilgas, and drew his attention to Der.

“Pfah!” said Kilgas contemptuously. “I don’t usually have anything to do with the bigshots. But you call me if he falls off the ramp.”

And now Der took up his post behind the masons and watched them work.

Shukhov hated these snoops like poison. Trying to make himself into an engineer, the fathead! Once he’d shown Shukhov how to lay bricks–and given him a belly laugh. A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer.

At Shukhov’s village of Temgenovo there were no brick houses. All the cottages were built of wood. The school too was a wooden building, made from six-foot logs. But the camp needed masons and Shukhov, glad to oblige, became a mason. A man with two trades to his credit can easily learn another ten.

No, Der didn’t fall off the ramp, though once he stumbled. He came up almost on the double.

“Tiu-u-urin,” he shouted, his eyes popping out of his head. “Tiu-u-urin.”

At his heels came Pavlo. He was carrying the spade he’d been working with.

Der was wearing a regulation camp coat but it was new and clean. His hat was stylish, made of leather, though, like everyone else’s, it bore a number–B 731.

“Well?” Tiurin went up to him trowel in hand, his hat tilted over one eye.

Something out of the ordinary was brewing. Something not to be missed. Yet the mortar was growing cold in the barrows. Shukhov went on working–working and listening.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Der spluttered. “This isn’t a matter for the guardhouse. This is a criminal offense, Tiurin. You’ll get a third term for this.”

Only then did Shukhov catch on to what was up. He glanced at Kilgas. He’d understood, too. The roofing felt. Der had spotted it on the windows.

Shukhov feared nothing for himself. His squad leader would never give him away. He was afraid for Tiurin. To the squad Tiurin was a father, for them he was a pawn. Up in the North they readily gave squad, leaders a second term for a thing like this.

Ugh, what a face Tiurin made. He threw down his trowel and took a step toward Der. Der looked around. Pavlo lifted his spade.

He hadn’t grabbed it for nothing.

And Senka, for all his deafness, had understood. He came up, hands on hips. And Senka was built solid.

Der blinked, gave a sort of twitch, and looked around for a way of escape.

Tiurin leaned up against him and said quite softly, though distinctly enough for everyone to hear: “Your time for giving terms has passed, you bastard. If you say one word, you blood-sucker, it’ll be your last day on earth. Remember that.”

Tiurin shook, shook uncontrollably.

Hatchet-faced Pavlo looked Der straight in the eyes. A look as sharp as a razor.

“Now, men, take it easy.” Der turned pale and edged away from the ramp.

Without another word Tiurin straightened his hat, picked up his trowel, and walked back to his wall.

Pavlo, very slowly, went down the ramp with his spade.

Slo-o-owly.

Der was as scared to stay as to leave. He took shelter behind Kilgas and stood there.

Kilgas went on laying blocks, the way they count out pills at a drugstore–like a doctor, measuring everything so carefully–his back to Der, as if he didn’t even know he was there.

Der stole up to Tiurin. Where was all his arrogance?

“But what shall I tell the superintendent, Tiurin?”

Tiurin went on working. He said, without turning his head: “You will tell him it was like that when we arnved. We came and that’s how it was.”

Der waited a little longer. They weren’t going to bump him off now, he saw. He took a few steps and put his hands in his pockets.

“Hey, S 854,” he muttered. “Why are you using such a thin layer of mortar?”

He had to get back at someone. He couldn’t find fault with Shukhov for his joints or for the straightness of his line, so he decided he was laying the mortar too thin.

“Permit me to point out,” Shukhov lisped derisively, “that if the mortar is laid on thick in weather like this, the place will be like a sieve in the spring.”

“You’re a mason. Listen to what a foreman has to tell you,” Der said with a frown, puffing out his cheeks.

Well, here and there it might be a bit on the thin side. He could have used a little more–but only, after all, if he’d been laying the blocks in decent conditions, not in winter.

The man ought to have a heart. You’ve got to show some results. But what was the good of trying to explain? He didn’t want to understand.

Der went quietly down the ramp.

“You get me that lift repaired,” Tiurin sang out after him. “What do you think we are–pack horses? Carrying blocks up to the second story by hand.”

“They’ll pay you for taking them up,” Der called back from the ramp, quite humbly.

“At the wheelbarrow rate? Child’s play, pushing up a wheelbarrow. We’ve got to be paid for carrying them up by hand.”

“Don’t think I’m against it. But the bookkeepers won’t agree to the higher rate.”

“The bookkeepers! I’ve got a whole squad sweating to keep those four masons at work. How much do you think we’ll earn?” Tiurin shouted, pressing on without a break.

“Mort-ar,” be called down.

“Mort-ar,” echoed Shukhov. They’d leveled off the whole of the third row. On the fourth they’d really get going. Time to stretch the string for the next row, but he could manage this way too.

Der went off across the open ground, looking haggard. To warm up in the office.

Something must have been eating him. But he should have thought a bit before taking on a wolf like Tiurin. He should keep pleasant with squad leaders like that; then he’d have nothing to worry about. The camp authorities didn’t insist on his doing any real hard work, he received top-level rations, he lived in a separate cabin–what else did he want?

Giving himself airs, trying to be smart

The men coming up with the mortar said the mechanic and superintendent had left. The motor was past repair.

Very well, haul ’em up by hand.

For as long as Shukhov had worked with machinery the machines had either broken down or been smashed by the zeks. He’d seen them wreck a log conveyer by shoving a beam under the chain and leaning hard on it, to give themselves a breather; they were stacking log by log with never a moment to stretch their backs.

“Damn the whole fucking lot of you!” shouted Tiurin, warming up.

“Pavlo’s asking how you’re fixed for mortar,” someone called from below.

“Mix some more.”

“We’ve got half a box mixed.”

“Mix another.”

What a pace they set! They were driving along the fifth row now. They’d had to bend over double when they were working on the first row, but now the wall had risen shoulder-high. And why shouldn’t they race on? There were no windows or doors to allow for–just a couple of adjoining blank walls and plenty of blocks. Shukhov should have stretched a string higher but there was no time for it.

“The eighty-second have gone off to hand in their tools,” Gopchik reported.

Tiurin looked at him witheringly. “Mind your own business, squirt. Bring some blocks.”

Shukhov looked about. Yes, the sun was beginning to set. It had a grayish appearance as it sank in a red haze. And they’d got into the swing—couldn’t be better.

They’d started on the fifth row now. Ought to finish it today. Level it off.

The mortar carriers were snorting like winded horses. Buinovsky was quite gray in the face. He might not be forty but he wasn’t far off it.

The cold was growing keener. Busy as were Shukhov’s hands, the frost nipped his fingers through the shabby mittens. And it was piercing his left boot too. He stamped his foot. Thud, thud.

By now he needn’t stoop to the wall, but he still had to bend his aching back for each block and each scoop of mortar.

“Hey, boys!” he pestered the men handling the blocks. “You’d better put them on the wall for me. Heave ’em up here.”

The captain would gladly have obliged but lacked the strength. He wasn’t used to the work. But Alyosha said: “All right, Ivan Denisovich. Show me where to put them.”

You could count on Alyosha. Did whatever was asked of him. If everybody in the world was like that, Shukhov would have done likewise. If a man asks for help why not help him? Those Baptists had something there.

The rail clanged. The signal went dinning all over the site and reached the power station. They’d been caught with some unused mortar. Ugh, just when they’d got into the swing of it!

“Mortar! Mortar!” Tiurin shouted.

A new boxful had only just been mixed. They had to go on laying; there was no other way. If they left anything in the box, next morning they could throw the whole lot of it to hell–the mortar would have petrified; it wouldn’t yield to a pickax.

“Don’t let me down, brothers,” Shukhov shouted.

Kilgas was fuming. He didn’t like speed-ups. But he pressed on all the same.

What else could he do?

Pavlo ran up with a barrow, a trowel in his belt, and began laying himself. Five trowels on the job now.

Now look out for where the rows meet. Shukhov visualized what shape of block was needed there, and shoving a hammer into Alyosha’s hand egged him on: “Knock a bit off this one.”

Haste makes waste. Now that all of them were racing one another
Shukhov bided his time, keeping an eye on the wall. He pushed
Senka to the left and took over the laying himself toward the
main corner on the right. It would be a disaster if the walls
overlapped or if the corner wasn’t level. Cost him half a day’s
work tomorrow.

“Stop!” He shoved Pavlo away from a block and leveled it himself. And from his place in the corner he noticed that Senka’s section was sagging. He hurried over to Senka and leveled it out with two blocks.

The captain brought up a load of mortar, enough for a good horse.

“Another two barrowsful,” he said.

The captain was tottering. But he went on sweating away. Shukhov had had a horse like that once. He’d thought a lot of that horse but then they’d driven it to death.

They’d worked the hide off it.

The top rim of the sun dipped below the horizon. Now, without Gopchik having to tell them,. they saw that the squads had not only turned in their tools but were pouring up to the gates. No one came out into the open immediately after the signal–only a fool would go and freeze out there. They sat in the warmth. But the moment came, by agreement between the squad leaders, when all the squads poured out together. Without this agreement, the zeks, a stubborn lot, would have sat each other out in the warmth till midnight.

Tiurin himself realized that he’d cut things too fine. The man in charge of the tool store must be cursing him out.

“Hey,” be shouted, “use enough of that shit! Carriers! Go and scrape the big box. Throw what’s left into that hole there and scatter some snow on it to keep it hidden. You, Pavlo, take a couple of men, collect the tools, and hand them in. I’ll send Gopchik after you with the three trowels. We’ll use up the last two loads of mortar before we knock off.”

Everyone dashed to his job. They took Shukhov’s hammer from him and wound up his string. The mortar carriers and the block lifters hurried down into the machine room. They’d nothing more to do up there. Three masons remained on top–Kilgas, Senka, and Shukhov. Tiurin walked around to see how much wall they’d built. He was pleased. “Not bad, eh? In half a day. Without any fucking lift.”

Shukhov noticed there was a little mortar left in Kilgas’s hod. He didn’t want to waste it, but was worried that the squad leader might be reprimanded if the trowels were handed in late.

“Listen, men,” he said, “give your trowels to Gopchik. Mine’s not on the list. So I won’t have to hand it in. I’ll keep going.”

Tiurin said with a laugh: “How can we ever let you out? We just can’t do without you.”

Shukhov laughed too, and went on working.

Kilgas took the trowels. Senka went on handing blocks to Shukhov. They poured Kilgas’s mortar into Shukhov’s hod.

Gopchik ran across to the tool store, to overtake Pavlo. The rest were just as anxious to bein time, and hurried over to the gates, without Tiurin. A squad leader is a power, but the escort is a greater power still. They list latecomers, and that means the guardhouse for you.

There was a terrible crowd near the gates now. Everyone had collected there. It looked as if the escort had come out and started counting.

(They counted the prisoners twice on the way out: once before they unbolted the gates, to make sure they were safe in opening them, and again when the gates had been opened and the prisoners were passing through. And if they thought they’d miscounted, they recounted outside the gates)

“To hell with the mortar,” said Tiurin, with a gesture of impatience. “Sling it over the wall.”

“Don’t wait, leader. Go ahead, you’re needed there. (Shukhov usually addressed Tiurin, more respectfully, as Andrei Prokoflevich, but now, after working like that, he felt equal to the squad leader. He didn’t put it to himself, “Look, I’m your equal,” he just knew it.) And as Tiurin strode down the ramp he called after him, jokingly: “Why do these bastards make the work day so short? We were just getting into our stride when they call it off.”

Shukhov was left alone now with Senka. You couldn’t say much to him. Besides, you didn’t have to tell him things: he was the wisest of them all; he understood without need of words.

Slap on the mortar. Down with the block. Press it home. See it’s straight Mortar.

Block. Mortar. Block….

Wasn’t it enough that Tiurin had told them himself not to bother about the mortar?

Just throw it over the wall and fuck off. But Shukhov wasn’t made that way– eight years in a camp couldn’t change his nature. He worried about anything he could make use of, about every scrap of work he could do–nothing must be wasted without good reason.

Mortar. Block. Mortar. Block. . . .

“Finish, fuck you,” shouted Senka. “Let’s get out of here.”

He picked up a barrow and ran down the ramp.

But Shukhov–and if the guards had put the dogs on him it would have made no difference–ran to the back and looked about. Not bad. Then he ran and gave the wall a good look over, to the left, to the right His eye was as accurate as a carpenter’s level.

Straight and even. His hands were as young as ever.

He dashed down the ramp.

Senka was already out of the machine shop and running down the slope.

“Come on, come on,” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Run ahead. I’ll catch up,” Shukhov gestured.

But he went into the machine shop. He couldn’t simply throw his trowel down. He might not be there the next day. They might send the squad off to the Socialist Way of Life settlement. It could be six months before he returned to the power station. But did that mean he was to throw down his trowel? If he’d swiped it he had to hang on to it.

Both the stoves had been doused. It was dark, frightening. Frightening not because it was dark but because everyone had left, because he alone might be missing at the count by the gates, and the guards would beat him.

Yet his eyes darted here, darted there, and, spotting a big stone in the corner, he pulled it aside, slipped his trowel under it, and hid it. So that’s that.

Now to catch up with Senka. Senka had stopped after running a hundred paces or so. Senka would never leave anyone in a jam. Pay for it? Then together.

They ran neck and neck, the tall and the short. Senka was a head taller than Shukhov, and a big head it was too.

There are loafers who race one another of their own free will around a stadium.

Those devils should be running after a full day’s work, with aching back and wet mittens and worn-out valenki–and in the cold too.

They panted like mad dogs. All you could hear was their hoatse breathing.

Well, Tiurin was at the gates. He’d explain.

They were running straight into the crowd. It scared you.

Hundreds of throats booing you at once, and cursing you up and down. Wouldn’t you be scared if you had five hundred men blowing their tops at you?

But what about the guards? That was the chief thing.

No. No trouble with them. Tiurin was there, in the last row. He must have explained. Taken the blame on his own shoulders.

But the men yelled, the men swore. And what swearing! Even Senka couldn’t help hearing and, drawing a deep breath, gave back as good as he got. He’d kept quiet all his life–but now, how he bellowed! Raised his fists too, ready to pick a fight right away. The men fell silent. Someone laughed.

“Hey, one hundred and fourth,” came a shout. “Your deaf guy’s a fake. We just tested him.”

Everyone laughed. The guards too.

“Form fives.”

They didn’t open the gates. They didn’t trust themselves. They pushed the crowd back from the gates (everyone stuck to the gates like idiots–as if they’d get out quicker that way!).

“Form fives. First, Second, Third . . .”

Each five, as it was called, took a few paces forward.

While Shukhov was recovering his breath he looked up. The moon had risen and was frowning, crimson-faced. Yesterday at this hour it had stood much higher.

Pleased that everything had gone so smoothly, Shukhov nudged the captain in the ribs and said: “Listen, captain, where does this science of yours say the old moon goes afterward?”

“Where does it go? What do you mean? What stupidity! It’s simply not visible.”

Shukhov shook his head and laughed. “Well, if it’s not visible, how d’you know it’s there?”

“So, according to you,” said the captain, unable to believe his ears, “it’s another moon every month.”

“What’s strange about that? People are born every day. Why not a moon every four weeks?”

“Phaugh!” said the captain and spat. “I’ve never met a sailor as stupid as you in my life. So where do you think the old moon goes?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. Where does it go?” Shukhov showed his teeth in a smile.

“Well, tell me. Where does it go?”

Shukhov sighed and said with a slight lisp: “In our village, folk say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.”

“What savages!” The captain laughed. “I’ve never heard that one. Then you believe in God, Shukhov?”

“Why not?” asked Shukhov, surprised. “Hear Him thunder and try not to believe in Him.”

“But why does God do it?”

‘Do what?”

“Crumble the moon into stars. Why?”

“Well, can’t you understand?” said Shukhov. “The stars fall down now and then.

The gaps have to be filled.”

“Turn around, you slob,” a guard shouted. “Get in line.”

The count had almost reached them. The twelfth five of the fifth hundred had moved ahead, leaving only Buinovsky and Shukhov at the back.

The escort was worried. There was a discussion over the counting boards.

Somebody missing. Again somebody missing. Why the hell can’t they learn to count?

They’d counted 462. Ought to be 463.

Once more they pushed everybody back from the gates (the zeks had crowded forward again).

“Form fives. First, Second. . . .”

What made this recounting so infuriating was that the time wasted on it was the zeks’ own, not the authorities’. They would still have to cross the steppe, get to the camp, and line up there to be searched. The columns would come in from all sides on the double, trying to be first at the frisking and into the camp. The column that was back first was top dog in the camp that evening–the mess hall was theirs, they were first in line to get their packages, first at the private kitchen, first at the C.E.D. to pick up letters or hand in their own to be censored, first at the dispensary, the barber’s, the baths–first everywhere.

And the escort too is in a hurry to get the zeks in and be off for the night. A soldier’s life isn’t much fun either–a lot of work, little time.

And now the count had come out wrong.

As the last few fives were called forward Shukhov began to hope that there were going to be three in the last row after all. No, damn it, two again.

The tellers went to the head guard with their tally boards. There was a consultation. The head guard shouted: “Squad leader of the hundred and fourth.”

Tiurin took half a pace forward. “Here.”

“Did you leave anyone behind in the power station? Think.”

“No.”

“Think again. I’ll knock your head off. . . .”

“No, I’m quite sure.”

But he stole a glance at Pavlo. Could anyone have dropped off to sleep in the machine shop?

“Form squads,” the head guard shouted.

They had formed the groups of five just as they happened to be standing. Now they began to shift about. Voices boomed out: “Seventy-fifth over here,” “This way, thirteenth,” “Thirty-second here.”

The 104th, being all in the rear, formed there too. They were empty-handed to a man, Shukhov noticed; like idiots, they’d worked on so late they’d collected no firewood.

Only two of them were carrying small bundles.

This game was played every evening: before the job was over the workers would gather chips, sticks, and broken laths, and tie them together with bits of string or ragged tapes to carry back with them. The first raid on their bundles would take place near the gates to the work site. If either the superintendent or one of the foremen was standing there, he’d order the prisoners to throw down their firewood (millions of rubles had gone up in smoke, yet there they were thinking they’d make up the losses with kindling). But a zek calculated his own way: if everyone brought even a few sticks back with him the barracks would be warmer. Barrack orderlies were issued ten pounds of coaldust a stove and little heat could be squeezed out of that. So the men would break up sticks or saw them short and slip them under their coats.

The escort never made the zeks drop their firewood at the gates to the work site.

For one thing, it would have been an offense to the uniform; and secondly they had their hands on machine guns, ready to shoot. But just before entering the zone several ranks in the column were ordered to throw their stuff down. The escort, however, robbed mercifully–they had to leave something for the guards, and for the zeks themselves, who otherwise wouldn’t bring any with them.

So every zek brought some firewood along with him every evening. You never knew when you might get it through or when they’d grab it.

While Shukhov was scouring the ground in search of a few chips, Tiurin had finished counting the squad.

“One hundred and fourth all present,” he reported to the head guard.

Just then Tsezar rejoined his own squad from the group of office workers. His pipe was glowing as he puffed away at it; his dark mustache was tipped with frost

“Well, captain, how’d it go?” he asked.

A man who’s warm can’t understand a man who’s freezing. “How’d it go?” What a damn fool question!

“If you really want to know,” said the captain, his shoulders sagging, “worked so hard I can hardly straighten my back.”

You might give me something to smoke was what he meant.

Tsezar gave him something to smoke. The captain was the only man in the squad he stuck to. He could unburden his heart to him–to no one else.

“There’s a man missing from the thirty-second. From the thirty-second,” everybody began to mutter.

The deputy squad leader of the 32nd scurried off with another young fellow to search the repair shops. And in the crowd people kept asking: Who? How? Where? Soon it reached Shukhov’s ears that it was the dark little Moldavian who was missing. The Moldavian? Not the one who, it was said, had been a Rumanian spy, a real spy?

You could find up to five spies in each squad. But they were fakes, prison-made spies. They passed as spies in their dossiers, but really they were simply ex-POW’s.

Shukhov himself was one of these “spies.”

But the Moldavian was genuine.

The head of the escort ran his eye down the list and grew black in the face. After all, if the spy were to escape what would happen to the head of the escort?

In the crowd everybody, including Shukhov, flew into a rage. Were they going through all this for that shit, that slimy little snake, that stinking worm? The sky was already quite dark; what light there was came from the moon. You could see the stars–this meant the frost was gathering strength for the night–and that runty bastard was missing. What, haven’t you had your bellyful of work, you miserable idiot? Isn’t the official spell of eleven hours, dawn to dusk, long enough for you? Just you wait, the prosecutor will add something.

Odd that anyone could work so hard as to ignore the signal to knock off.

He completely forgot that he’d been working like that himself only an hour ago–that he’d been annoyed with the others for assembling at the gate too early. Now he was chilled to the bone and his fury mounted with everyone else’s; were they to be kept waiting another half hour by that Moldavian? If the guards banded him over to the zeks they’d tear him apart, like wolves with a lamb.

Yes, the cold was coming into its own now. No one stood quiet. They either stamped their feet where they stood or walked two or three paces back and forth.

People were discussing whether the Moldavian could have escaped. Well, if he’d fled during the day that was one thing, but if he’d hidden and was simply waiting for the sentries to go off the watchtowers he hadn’t a chance. Unless he’d left a trail through the wire the sentries wouldn’t be allowed back in camp for at least three days. They’d have to go on manning the towers for a week, if necessary. That was in the regulations, as the old-timers knew. In short, if someone escaped, the guards had had it; they were hounded, without sleep or food. Sometimes they were roused to such fury that the runaway wouldn’t get back alive.

Tsezar was arguing with the captain: “For instance, when be hung his pince-nez on the ship’s rigging. D’you remember?”

“Hm, yes,” the captain said as he smoked.

“Or the baby carriage on the steps. Bumping down and down.”

“Yes. . . . But the scenes on board are somewhat artificial.”

“Well, you see, we’ve been spoiled by modern camera technique.”

“And the maggots in the meat, they crawl about like angleworms. Surely they weren’t that size?”

“What do you expect of the movies? You can’t show them smaller.”

“Well, if they’d bring that meat here to camp instead of the fish they feed us and dumped it straight into the kettle, we’d be only too. .

The prisoners howled.

Three small figures were bursting out of the repair shop. So they’d found the Moldavian.

“Boooo!” went the crowd at the gates. And they yelled, as the group drew nearer:

“Bastard! Shit? Idiot! Cow’s twat! Lousy son-of-a-bitch!”

And Shukhov joined in: “Rat!”

It’s no joke to rob five hundred men of over half an hour.

Ducking his head, the Moldavian ran like a mouse.

“Halt!” a guard shouted. And, noting down “K 460,” said: “Where were you?”

He strode over to the man and turned the butt of his rifle at him.

In the crowd people were still hurling curses: “Ass! Louse! Pig!”

But others, seeing the guard make ready to swing his rifle, held their tongues.

The Moldavian could hardly keep on his feet. He backed away from the guard.

The deputy squad leader of the 32nd advanced.

“The damn fool crawled up to do some plastering. Trying to hide from me!

Warmed up there and fell asleep.”

And he hit the man hard in the face and on the neck, pushing him farther from the guard.

The Moldavian reeled back, and as he did so a Hungarian, one of his own squad, leaped up at him and kicked him hard from behind.

That wasn’t like spying. Any fool can spy. A spy has a clean, exciting life. But try and spend ten years in a hard-labor camp!

The guard lowered his rifle.

The head of the escort shouted: “Back from the gates. Form fives.”

Another recount, the dogs. Why should they count us now that everything’s clear?

The prisoners began to boo. All their anger switched from the Moldavian to the escort.

They booed and didn’t move.

“W-wha-a-at?” shouted the head of the escort. “Want to sit down on the snow?

All right, I’ll have you down in a minute I’ll keep you here till dawn.”

He was quite capable of doing it, too. He’d had them on the snow many a time.

“Down on your faces!” And, to the escort: “Release safety-catches!” The zeks knew all about that. They drew back from the gates.

“Back, back!” yelled the escort.

“What’s the sense of shoving up to the gates anyhow, you crappers?” men barked from the rear at the men in front as they were shoved back.

“Form fives. First, Second, Third . . .”

Now the moon was shining full. It cast its light all around and the crimson tint had gone. It had climbed a quarter of the way up the sky. The evening was lost. That damned Moldavian. Those damned guards. This damned life.

As the prisoners in front were counted they turned and stood on tiptoe to see whether there were two men or three in the back row. It was a matter of life or death to them now.

Shukhov had the feeling that there were going to be four. He was numb with fear.

One extra. Another recount. But it turned out that Fetiukov, after cadging a butt from the captain, had been wandering around and had failed to get into his five in time. So now he’d turned up in the back row as if he were an extra.

A guard struck Fetiukov angrily on the back of the neck.

Serve him right.

So they counted three in the back row. The count had come out right, thank God.

“Back from the gates,” shouted a guard at the top of his voice. But this time the zeks didn’t mutter–they’d noticed soldiers coming out of the gatehouse and forming a cordon on the other side of the gates.

So they were going to be let out.

None of the foremen was in sight, nor the superintendent, so the prisoners kept their firewood.

The gates swung open. And now the head of the escort, accompanied by a checker, came and stood on the other side, near some wooden railings.

“First, Second, Third . . .”

If the numbers tallied again the sentries would be removed from the watchtowers.

But what a distance they had to tramp along the edge of the site to reach the towers at the far end of it! Only when the last prisoner had been led off the site and the numbers had been found to agree would they telephone all the towers and relieve the sentries. If the head of the escort had his wits about him he’d put the column on the move right away, for he knew the zeks had nowhere to run to and the sentries would overtake the column. But some of the guards were so foolish, they feared they didn’t have enough troops to handle the zeks; so they waited.

They had one of those idiots this evening.

A whole day in that freezing cold! The zeks were already chilled to the marrow and now to stand around another shivering hour, when work was over! Yet it wasn’t so much the cold and the fact that they’d lost an evening that infuriated them; the point was, there’d be no time now to do anything of their own in the camp.

“How is it you happen to know like in the British Navy so well?” Shukhov heard someone in the next five asking.

“Well, you see, I spent nearly a month on board a British cruiser. Had my own cabin. I was attached to a convoy as liaison officer. And imagine–after the war the British admiral–only the devil could have put the idea into his head–sent me a gift, a souvenir as ‘a token of gratitude,’ damn him! I was absolutely horrified. And now here we are, all lumped together. It’s pretty hard to take, being imprisoned here with Bendera’s men. . . .”

Strange! Yes, a strange sight indeed: the naked steppe, the empty building site, the snow gleaming in the moonlight. And the escort guards: they’d gone to their posts, ten paces apart, guns at the ready. And the black herd of prisoners; and among them, in a black coat like all the rest, a man, S 311, who’d never imagined life without gold shoulder straps, who had hobnobbed with a British admiral and now sweated at a barrow with Fetiukov.

You can push a man this way, and you can push a man that way.

Now the escort was ready. This time without any “prayer” the head guard barked at them: “Double time! Get a move on!”

To hell with your “Get a move on!” All the other columns were ahead of them.

What sense was there in hurrying? The prisoners didn’t have to be in league with one another to figure the score: You kept us back; now it’s our turn. The escort too, after all, was dying for a warm corner.

“Step lively!” shouted the guard. “Step lively, you in front.”

To hell with your “Step lively.” The zeks marched with measured tread, hanging their heads as at a funeral. Now we’ve nothing to lose–we’d be the last back anyhow. He wouldn’t treat us like human beings; now let him burst himself shouting.

On he went, “Step lively! Step lively!” But he realized it was futile. He couldn’t order his men to shoot either. The prisoners were marching in fives, keeping in line, all correct. He had no power to hound them faster. (When they marched out to work in the morning the zeks walked slowly, to spare themselves. A man who’s in a hurry won’t live to see the end of his stretch–he’ll tire and be done for.) So on with regular, deliberate steps. The snow crunched under their boots. Some of them talked in low voices; others walked in silence. Shukhov asked himself whether there was anything he’d left undone in the camp that morning. Ah, the dispensary. Funny, he’d forgotten all about the dispensary while he’d been working.

This must be around the consulting hour. He’d manage it if he skipped his supper.

But now somehow his back wasn’t aching. And his temperature wouldn’t be high enough.

A waste of time. He’d pull through without benefit of the doctor. The only cure those docs know is to put you in your grave.

It wasn’t the dispensary that appealed to him now; it was the prospect of adding something to his supper. His hopes were all pinned on that long-overdue parcel of Tsezar’s.