Red Ice: A Cold War Thriller
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Special Prisoner 734 limped to the fallen tree. It lay barely ten meters away, but he was out of breath by the time he reached it. Others trimmed away the branches and slowly began to saw it into sections. Carefully he uncoiled the chain that he had figure-eighted around his shoulders. Though it weighed less than seven kilos, he could not stand upright until it dropped off.
Another man, Special Prisoner 605, made a faint effort to help him fasten the chain to the fallen tree. They kept bits of rag between their hands and the ice-cold metal. The touch of metal in this bitter-cold climate could leave fingers useless for the rest of the day. The guards did not appreciate useless fingers. Neither talked. They had both withdrawn into the zombielike state that pretended to forget the cold.
He noticed that 605’s face was chalky and mottled with greenish brown bruises. Emaciated by the exhausting work of timbering and by lack of food, neither prisoner could survive much longer, but clearly 605 was nearer to death. He had collapsed twice already today and the VOKhk guards had beaten him with the butts of their SKS rifles until he had crawled in the direction of the timber cut.