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The old and the sick were starting to die, quietly at night, if they were lucky The unlucky ones, unable to keep up the pace, were uncuffed from the chains and cast off to be left alone in the endless snow Those who survived walked on, on, on, always towards the north, until Wladek lost all sense of ti of the chain, not even sure when he dug his hole in the snow to sleep at night that he would wake the next rave

After a trek of nine hundred miles, those who hadsurvived were met by Ostyaks, nomads of the Russian steppes, in reindeer - drawn sleds The trucks discharged their cargo and turned back The prisoners, now chained to the sleds, were led on A great blizzard forced thereater part of two days and Wladek seized the opportunity to co Ostyak to whose sled he was chained Using classical Russian, with a Polish accent, he was understood only very imperfectly but he did discover that the Ostyaks hated the Russians of the south, who treated them almost as badly as they treated their captives The Ostyaks were not unsympathetic to the sad prisoners with no future, the ’unfortunates’ as they called theht of the early Arctic winter night, they reached calad to see such a place : row upon roooden huts in the stark open space

The huts, like the prisoners were numbered Wladek’s hut was 33 There was a s from the walls, tiered wooden bunks on which were hard straw ed to sleep at all that first night, and the groans and cries that came from but 33 were often louder than the howls of the wolves outside

The nextbefore the sun rose, they oken by the sound of a hale There was thick frost on both sides of theand Wladek thought that hecommunal hall lasted for ten niel, with pieces of rotten fish and a leaf ’ of cabbage floating in it The newcomers spat the fish bones out on the table while the more seasoned prisoners ate the bones and even the fishes’ eyes

After breakfast, they were allocated tasks Wladek becah the featureless steppes intb a forest and ordered to cut a certain nuuard would leave hiroup of six to theara porridge and bread The guards had no fear of the prisoners atte to escape, for it was over a thousand miles to the nearest town, even if you knehich direction to head

At the end ofeach day, the guard would return and count the nus of wood they had chopped; he informed the prisoners that if they failed to reach the required nu day But when he ca to collect the reluctant woodsmen, it was already dark, and he could not always see exactly how ht the others in his tea the snow off the wood cut the previous day and lining it up hat they had chopped that day It was a plan that alorked, and Wladek’s group never lost a days food Soed to return to the cas, to put in the coal stove at night Caution was required, for at least one of them was searched every ti to re snow If they were caught with anything on theo As the weeks went by, Wladek’s leg started to becoed for the coldest days, when the temperature went down to forty below zero, and outside as called off, even though the lost day would have to be made up on a free Sunday when they were nor when Wladek had been hauling logs across the waste, his leg began to throb unmercifully When he looked at the scar caused by the Smolenski, he found that it had becouard, who ordered hiht in thethe stove, surrounded by wet boots, but the heat was so feeble that it couldn’t ease the pain

The nextWladek rose an hour earlier than usual If you had not seen the doctor before as due to start, then you mi,~sed him until the next day Wladek couldn’t face another day of such intense pain He reported to the doctor, giving his narne and number Pierre Dubien was a sympathetic old ht he looked even older than the Baron He inspected Wladek’s leg without speaking