And while they are saying this, the Council of People's Commissaries and the Gpu are fettering their prisoners to the Solovky and its "continuations" for their whole lives — by sending them on to other more or less remote places. Since the autumn of 1924, by a special order of the Gpu — submitted to and confirmed by the Vtsik — every prisoner who has served his term in the Solovky is sent for three years to a "free settlement" in the Narym region, then to the Petchersk region for three years more, then to the Turukhansk and Zyriansk regions — that is to say, for twelve years in all. For those who somehow or other contrive not to die during these twelve years, a final reward is reserved — exile to a permanent settlement in Eastern Siberia.
Thus, whatever "offence" you have been found guilty of, however you have conducted yourself in the Solovky, you will never be released. Every person transported by the Soviet Government is doomed to die on his journeyings from prison to prison, from one place of forced exile to another.
The terrible knowledge that one is a convict for life, that, after the Solovky, one will be driven off to new torments, be given a new Nogteff, a new Kirilovsky, a new ration, be compelled to do more hard labour, get into other "sacks," rot in another Sekirka, makes the prisoner realise that this endless, hopeless pilgrimage of pain must be cut short once and for all — by escape.
But a successful escape from the Solovky is a miracle, a fabulous piece of good fortune, granted to a few out of scores of thousands.
During the time that I spent in the Solovky I heard of only one case in which a prisoner had escaped from the Solovky — and he did not escape abroad, but into the interior of Russia. He was a medical student named Nikolaeff — a "K.R." He succeeded by some means or other in getting himself employed as a clerk in the camp commandant's office, and winning the confidence of the Tchekists by pretended hatred of "K.R.'s." He came to manage the whole business of the camp, had all the forms and papers at his disposal, and occasionally even went to Kem — without a guard! — on business connected with the commandant's office. He forged all the necessary documents for himself — in an assumed name: a railway pass, even a certificate of membership of the Communist Party. Then he went to Kem, allegedly on business — and never came back. Many weeks later we got a letter saying that Nikolaeff was in Moscow, sent us his kind remembrances, and wished us a speedy departure southward.
Every other attempt to escape had invariably ended in the fugitives being captured and put to a torturing death. It was so with the Finlander who tried to escape in March, 1925, and with Captain Skhyrtladze's party. Six "K.R.'s," headed by Captain Skhyrtladze, escaped from the Solovetsky Monastery in a boat which they had got hold of after killing a sentry. For five days they were tossed about in a rough sea, trying to make the shore near Kem. They had no food, their strength gave out, and several times the idea of committing suicide by upsetting the boat presented itself to them. At last one of the unhappy Columbuses cried "Land!" They came to the shore and landed at night. They were so weak and exhausted that, having lit a fire in the woods, they forgot everything else and fell down beside it half dead. A patrol from the Solovky found them there. The Tchekists flung bombs at the fire. Four of the fugitives were killed on the spot; the two others, one of whom was Captain Skhyrtladze, were recaptured. Skhyrtladze had one hand blown off and both legs broken. They were taken to hospital, given some treatment, and then, after cruel tortures, were shot.
Only a miracle, a direct act of God, could make the impossible possible. But we — I and my four comrades — believed in miracles, and prayed to God for one. And He led us for thirty-five days through the marshes of Karelia and the forests of the border region, and on the thirty-sixth day brought us to Kuusamo, in Finland.
CHAPTER II
LAYING OUR PLANS
Cautious Reconnaissance Work — Bezsonoff's Arrival — Our Party Made Up — Elaborate Contrivance Necessary — A Critical Moment.
The thought of escape was always in my mind, even in the Caucasus, in the prisons of the Extraordinary Commissions of Batoum, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and Grozny. On my arrival in the Solovky, I first began to sound the possibilities in this direction. In the concentration camps of the north, inquiries of this kind have to be made with extreme caution; the greatest delicacy must be employed in asking questions and reconnoitring the ground. You cannot tell which of the prisoners are secret agents of the Gpu and which are people who feel as you yourself do. There have been many cases in which educated prisoners, at first sight most charming fellows, have betrayed their companions.