At nightfall the train stopped, and all up and down the tracks they could hear the sounds of car doors being opened and Russians shouting. When their turn came, a few men prepared to rush the doors.
The sight that greeted them quickly changed their minds about that tactic. Standing well back from the car were several Soviet soldiers with machine pistols, pointed into the packed Americans. If one of the Russians touched a trigger, it would be a massacre. Another Russian brought a bucket of water, and another tossed in a sack of bread. Dinner. Then the door rolled shut again.
MacDonald organized the rationing of the bread before it could become a free for all, seeing that each man received an equal-sized hunk. The water was more problematic because there was nothing to drink it with. Nobody had so much as a cup or spoon. They resorted to each man having to kneel and scoop up water in his hands.
The water was barely enough to sustain them, considering that in the heat of the day the cramped interior of the rail car grew to be as sweltering as an oven. Nightfall brought little relief, because by the chill hours before dawn they were all shivering. No one had so much as a blanket or a spare coat.
Ramsey developed a hacking cough that wracked his whole body. Though he was a tough and wiry man, he was a good deal older than Whitlock, and the poor diet and conditions were taking their toll on him. He had been a prisoner for several months, subsisting on lousy food.
The car rolled on and on. If life in the barracks had been dull, the passage of time was now stultifying. Whitlock found a crack to peer through for a glimpse of the countryside. They passed through cities and towns. He saw tall buildings topped by exotic minarets that must be Russian. It sure as hell wasn’t Boston. Whitlock had only a dim grasp of the geography beyond Germany, so he had no idea exactly where they were.
The steel wheels ground on. Once they reached Russia, the train began to make stops to disgorge POWs. In some places, load after load of Germans from the neighboring cars were marched away at gunpoint.
No one came for the Americans until days later, when the train lurched to a stop after midnight. Whitlock peered through the crack but could see only inky darkness — there was no sign of civilization. Without warning, the car door opened and the Soviets began pulling prisoners roughly out, simply grabbing the ones nearest the opening. But when others got the idea to leave, they were stopped at gunpoint. The door rolled shut again.
That routine continued for the next few days. The train would stop, and the Russians grabbed a few of the Americans. Some men positioned themselves near the doors, just for a chance to get off the endless train.
Almost by instinct, Whitlock shrank away from the doors, ensconcing himself in a corner.
MacDonald and Ramsey joined him. "The three of us need to stick together. I don't know what these Ruskie bastards have planned for us, but it can't be good. Let's see how long we can ride it out."
The train rolled on, stopping every now and then for the Russians to unload more Americans. Whitlock tried to make some sense of it, or to find a pattern. When he mentioned it to Ramsey, he said that it seemed obvious to him: "They're splitting us up, don't you see? A few here, a few there — they don't want us all in one place.”
“Why the hell would they do that?”
“If you’ve got a lot of something to hide, what do you do? Spread it out in different hiding places.”
Finally, it was just half a dozen men left in the car. The empty car grew cold and echoed with every clank and creak. Ramsey’s cough had grown worse. At night, they had to huddle together for warmth. MacDonald took to calling their trio The Three Musketeers. A couple of days sometimes passed before someone thought to bring them food, although now there would be a pail of cabbage soup or even some kind of meat — there were now only three of them to feed so the Russians didn't have to be so stingy.
One night, Whitlock thought he heard a wolf howling. When he persuaded MacDonald and Ramsey to put him up on their shoulders, all he could see was darkness uninterrupted by a speck of light. He thought at first that they were passing through a tunnel until he looked up and saw stars. When he stared out between the cracks in the slats by day, he saw vast empty plains, rolling hills, and thick, wild forests. Where on God's green earth were they being taken?
Two nights later, MacDonald made the mistake of sleeping too close to the door, and got rounded up with three others. He tried to crawl back into the car, but the Russians dragged him out.
"I'll see you back home or in hell, fellas!" he shouted before the door slammed shut. Now it was just Whitlock and Ramsey. MacDonald was gone. The train started rolling again, with both men too heartsick to even attempt conversation.
Then one morning, the train finally stopped for good. The door of the car was opened, and Russians on the ground gestured for them to come out. The soldiers were already wearing winter coats. They carried rifles slung over their shoulders, but didn't bother to point them at the Americans.
Whitlock soon saw why. They were in the midst of a desolate landscape. If Whitlock started to run, the guards could go get coffee and by the time they came back, he would still be in rifle range on that vast landscape.
The only structure visible was a prison camp. Unlike Stalag Twenty-two B, this Soviet camp looked exactly like the prison that Whitlock had imagined and feared. Guard towers stood at each corner. High barb wire fences stretched in between. The barracks were squat, rusting hulks set into muddy prison yard. The impression it made was of a medieval castle, but one built out of barbed wire.
Ramsey said, “Say what you want about the Russians, but they really know how to build the hell out of a prison camp.”
"Where are we?" Whitlock wondered.
“I’d say that we’re in hell, but the sort that freezes over," Ramsey said, then doubled over with a wracking cough as the cold air hit his lungs. When he coughed lately, his chest sounded like an empty paper bag. “We’re stuck so deep in Russia that it’s going to take a corkscrew to get us out. God help us."
CHAPTER 10
Vaccaro looked at the Mosin-Nagant rifle in Cole's hands.
"You're really going to do it, aren't you?" he asked.
"I'd like to see someone try to stop me. You comin’ or not?"
“Hell yeah," Vaccaro said. "What's the worst that could happen? It’s not like they can send us to the front. The war’s over.”
Cole was feeling itchy, or maybe just plain ornery — there wasn't any other way to describe it. It all came down to there being nothing to do. He did not mind sitting for hours on end, staring through a rifle scope — but this business of having nothing to do jangled his nerves. Some men passed the time drinking and playing cards, or chasing the local fräuleins. Fraternization with the enemy was officially forbidden, but there wasn’t much the hungry local girls wouldn’t do, being so desperate for food from the well-supplied Americans.
The women didn’t much interest Cole. If he longed for anything, it was the sense of power that being a sniper had given him. Now he was just a nobody. He missed the biting smell of cordite. He spent hours cleaning his rifle, and then cleaning it all over again.
The war had just plain petered out. For the Americans, there had been no final, climactic battle. The fighting at the end had been in fits and starts, with brief but vicious skirmishes in a final bloodletting. Then the Germans surrendered. Spring became summer and now there was talk of starting to send everyone home. Guys were talking about the first thing that they were going to do once they got home.