Zaro was first out in the morning after taking the last guard shift. He burst back into the hut. ‘Somebody’s playing the violin out there,’ he shouted. We roared with laughter and asked Zaro what new trick he was up to. He was trying to be serious but suffering from his reputation as a humorist. ‘I tell you somebody out there is trying to play the violin,’ he insisted. We went on laughing. Mr. Smith suggested Zaro might do a Russian dance to the music. Zaro stood his ground. ‘Come outside and listen,’ he invited. The Sergeant, eyeing him for a sign of a smile, got up to go out with him. We followed. About twenty yards back of the hut Zaro held up his hand for silence. We stood with our heads cocked.
Zaro had indeed heard something extraordinary. The description of someone trying to play a violin was setting it a little high musically. It was like the plucking of a string on a double-bass. The note was loud and sustained, dying gradually away. It was being struck about once a minute and throbbed through the trees. We looked at one another in wonderment and started a stealthy general move in the direction of the sound. Fortunately — and quite accidentally — we reached the source downwind of it, and froze. We were on the edge of a clearing, on the other side of which was a tree blasted by lightning. The main trunk had fallen outwards from the clearing without having torn itself completely free of its lower part. At the break, about five or six feet above the ground, a long splinter stuck straight up. And as we watched, the splinter was drawn back until it was bent like a bow. Then it was released and the ‘music’ vibrated on our ears. And the performer? A great, black Siberian bear, reared up on his hind legs to his full and impressive height.
Peering round trees we saw him pull at the splinter again and again, standing each time with head on one side listening in comical puzzlement to the sound he was producing. The performance lasted several minutes before he got tired of it and shambled off — away from us.
The incident was good for a laugh for a long time afterwards. Zaro’s act, entitled ‘The Russian Fiddler’, was well worth seeing. Incidentally, the bear had a considerable advantage over us on his chosen instrument. We found afterwards that not one of us could haul the splinter back far enough to set up any vibration. It took Kolemenos and two others to reproduce the note. This was the only bear we saw, although the older inmates of the camp had told us they were not uncommon and, especially in early spring, were dangerous to meet. Wolves, the other menace, we never saw, although we heard their howling and often came across their tracks. Our immunity from attack we probably owed to the size of our party.
The weeks slipped by into the middle of May and we noted gratefully the first signs of the short Siberian spring. The wind was milder, there were a few buds on the trees. Overhead we heard the beat of wings and looked up to see geese and ducks flying in to their summer feeding and breeding places. The streams we crossed were still frozen hard and the carpet of snow lay undisturbed, but conditions generally were easier and we felt the worst climatic hardships were behind us.
The last thing we wanted was to meet other men and in this our luck held. We crossed the very occasional roads only after thorough reconnaissance. There were nights when we saw afar the lights of a village or small township. There were days when we saw the faraway outlines of buildings and tall chimneys plumed with white smoke. In these areas we proceeded with extra caution.
At times there were minor outbursts of irritation and temper, almost always at the end of a particularly trying day’s march and almost always concerned with the allocation of camp duties before settling down for the night. But they were short-lived. Happily, among the seven there was no clash of personality between any two men. It was not necessary for anyone to impose a one-man leadership. Helpful suggestions from whatever quarter were accepted and acted upon. If there was divided opinion on any issue, Elder Counsellor Smith, by general consent, gave the casting vote and a course once decided on in this fashion was never questioned thereafter. The few altercations about camp duties were usually ended by Kolemenos, who never argued with anybody, walking off and doing whatever had to be done. He always did more than his share without thinking about it, a tireless, generous and altogether admirable gentleman.
Oddly, we knew we were near Lake Baikal a couple of days before we actually saw it. We became aware of the peculiar smell of water, combined with the faint flat fragrance of water plants and indefinable other things that bring nostalgia to people who have dwelt beside great waters. We still had not reached the lake when we came upon a heap of the bones of big fish. There was no water near this spot and we speculated how they had got there. Coming down from the Baikal Range, we began to meet real roads, probably of secondary importance but far better than anything we had encountered since we broke from camp. Borne on the wind from the direction of the lake came the sound of a distant factory hooter.
We came to a high point from which we could look down into a valley and we decided excitedly this must be the beginning of Baikal. Miles away to the west groups of factory buildings caught the eye. The panorama included a view of massive ochre-coloured rocks wearing copses of firs like a savage’s dark top-knot. Alongside the water at one point was a huddle of sturdy small wooden houses, beside them a few upturned boats and spaced-out wooden poles such as fishermen use for drying their nets. Visibility was excellent, the air was still and the smoke from the factory chimneys went pencil-straight into the sky. Nothing moved in the fishing hamlet and we wondered if the houses were used only during summer. Far below, between us and the water, there wound a road alongside which were telephone poles with their big white insulators carrying a weight of wires which indicated the presence of a fairly important highway. Our difficulty was to discover at what point we had struck the lake. We talked it over and finally made up our minds that we had swung too far west and were now somewhere near the northeast corner. This meant that we should have to follow the north shore westwards until it turned down to point our route through Southern Siberia.
For upwards of an hour the seven of us squatted there, absorbed in the widespread scene below. Once we thought we heard the hoot of a steamer siren. All of us were in good humour at the thought of having attained another objective on our long trek south. We exchanged opinions, we faced the fact that our food supplies were down to a few scraps, including some small pieces of high-smelling venison. We talked of Baikal and I told the others it was claimed as the world’s deepest lake, a great, scooped-out basin nearly a mile deep in parts. I recalled the story told me by an uncle who had fought with the White Russians in Siberia of the disaster which overtook the remnants of an anti-Bolshevik army which had tried to cross the frozen lake. The Baikal was not frozen in the middle and the fleeing men had died in their hundreds. I vaguely remembered reading reports that this vast stretch of water, restless with the strong underwater currents of the many turbulent rivers which fed it, could never be completely frozen over.
Smith finally broke up the session. ‘Let’s go down and take a look round,’ he suggested.