"Well," said the young man, "no. He didn't have a chance."
"And is the question political?"
The young man started to give a short lecture on the theme "politics is everything" but he caught the sardonic smile on his boss' face. All he said was, "No."
"Fine. Let's eat lunch."
* * *
Dugan and his two comrades reached the main jail at Blagoveshchensk. After many days of waiting, Dugan was given a summary trial. He was dishonorably discharged from the Red Army, sentenced to four years' hard labor as a civilian convict, and provided with an identity card showing him to be a bad character. But when he was put on board a convict train which carried hundreds of men to an unstated destination, Dugan took along a considerable supply of liquor, four extra identity cards, and some spare clothes. He had traded the stolen watches for pens, for money, for other watches, and had gambled the proceeds till he was one of the richest men ever to board a forced-labor train. Soon after he got on the train, things began to percolate.
OZERYANE: WHAT THE LOCAL PEOPLE THOUGHT
They will never, at the railroad station, forget that particular Thursday night.
The freight train came in. Hooked on the back there were three prison cars full of howling monkeys. The guards were hiccuping along with the prisoners. Everybody at the train's end was as drunk as Christmas.
Some one of the prisoners — non-politicals, they were, going to Vladivostok for trial and reassignment — had traded a wrist watch (a gold-mounted one, they said it was, with diamonds) for four cases of vodka and some miscellaneous bottles of kvass. There was an investigation, but it was never found out how the smuggling was done.