The conversation turned to the Germans.

'It's the same with them. You can tell at once whether someone's a real pilot, or whether he's just on the look-out for stragglers and greenhorns.'

'Their patrols don't stick together like we do.'

'I don't know about that.'

'They really sink their teeth into you if you're damaged. Otherwise they'd rather leave you alone.'

'One to one, I can always give them a good thrashing.'

'Don't take offence – but I wouldn't award medals just for shooting down a Junkers.'

'Why should I take offence? You can't take my medal away from me now.'

'I wonder what our squadron leader's going to do with his cow and his chickens. Is he going to put them in a Douglas and take them with him?'

'They've already had their throats cut. Now they're being cured.'

'Right now I'd be too shy to take a girl out to a club. I've forgotten what it's like.'

'Solomatin wouldn't be.'

'Are you jealous, Lenya?'

'Yes, but not concerning the girl in question.'

'I see. Faithful unto the grave.'

Their talk turned again to the combat over Rzhev, their last before being sent to the rear; seven of their fighters had encountered a large group of Junkers on a bombing raid, with an escort of Messers-chmidts. Each pilot seemed to be blowing his own trumpet, but really they were talking about what they had achieved together.

'I could hardly make them out against the forest – but it was another matter once they began to climb. JU-87S – I could tell at once by their yellow noses and their trailing undercarriage. "Well," I thought to myself, "things are going to get hot!" '

'For a moment I thought we were being fired on by our own anti-aircraft guns.'

'The sun certainly helped, I'll admit that. I dropped down on him with the sun right behind me. I was leading the left wing. And then my plane must have jumped a good thirty metres… I pulled back the stick – she was still listening…! I opened fire on the Junkers. She was on fire. And then I saw a Messer banking towards me – like a long pike with a yellow head. But he was too late. And I could see his blue tracer bullets.'

'And I could see I was hitting the bull's-eye every time!'

'Now, now, let's not get carried away!'

'As a kid, I was always flying kites. My father used to thrash me for it. And when I was at the factory, I used to walk seven kilometres to the flying club after work. I was dead beat. But I didn't miss a single lesson.'

'Listen to me! He set me on fire – the oil-tank, the feed-pipes, even the fuselage itself. He even managed to smash the windshield and my goggles. There was glass everywhere, and tears in my eyes. Well, I dived beneath him and tore off my goggles. Solomatin covered me. I was on fire, but I didn't have time to feel frightened. Somehow I managed to land. The plane was in flames, my boots got burnt – but I was all right!'

'I could see my mate was almost down. I made two more turns. He dipped his wings at me to tell me to leave. Then I was on my own. I just gave a hand to anyone who needed it.'

'I was well and truly shot to pieces – as full of holes as an old grouse.'

'I went for that Messer twelve times. In the end I singed him. I could see him shaking his head and I knew that was my chance. I shot him down with my cannon at twenty-five metres.'

'They're not happy fighting in the horizontal. They're always more at home in the vertical.'

'Now that really is news!'

'Why do you say that?'

'Everyone knows that – even the girls in the village.'

After a moment of silence, a voice said: 'We'll be off at dawn – and Demidov will be left on his own.'

'Well, my friends, you can do as you please, but I'm off to the village.'

'A parting visit? Let's go then!'

Everything – the river, the fields, the forest – was so beautiful, so peaceful, that hatred, betrayal and old age seemed impossible; nothing could exist but love and happiness. The moon shone down through the grey mist that enveloped the earth. Few pilots spent the night in their bunkers. On the edge of the village you could glimpse white scarves and hear quiet laughter. Now and then a tree would shake, frightened by a bad dream; the water would mumble something and return to silence.

The bitter hour of parting had come. One pilot would forget his girl in a couple of days; another couple would be separated by death; another would be allowed to meet again.

The morning came. Motors roared, their wind flattened the grass and thousands of dew-drops trembled in the sun… One by one, the fighters took off, circled, waited for their comrades and settled into formation…

What had seemed so infinite during the night was now dissolving in the blue of the sky… Houses like little grey boxes, small rectangular gardens, slipped by under their wings… They could no longer see the overgrown path, they could no longer see Demidov's grave… They were off! The forest slid past under their wings. 'Greetings, Vera!' said Viktorov.

The prisoners were woken by the orderlies at five in the morning. It was still pitch dark; the barrack-huts were lit by the merciless light that is common to prisons, railway stations and the waiting-rooms of city hospitals.

Thousands of men coughed and spat as they pulled on their padded trousers, wound their foot-cloths round their feet and had a good scratch. Sometimes the men on the upper tier of bedboards gave the men getting dressed down below a kick on the head; the latter just quietly pushed their feet out of the way.

There was something profoundly unnatural about the glaring electric light, the general bustle and the thick tobacco smoke. Hundreds of square miles of taiga lay frozen in icy silence – but the camp was crowded with people, full of noise, movement and light.

Snow had fallen during the first half of the night. Drifts had blocked the doors of the huts and covered the track to the mines…

Sirens began to howl in the mines; somewhere in the taiga the wolves howled out an accompaniment. The dogs were barking on the main square, the guards were shouting at one another and you could hear the tractors clearing the tracks outside.

In the light of the searchlights the dry snow seemed innocent and tender. Roll-call began on the main square, to the accompaniment of incessant barking; the voices of the guards sounded hoarse and irritated. Then a swollen river of people flowed out towards the mines. The snow creaked under thousands of leather and felt boots. The watch-tower stared after them with its single eye.

Throughout the North, sirens continued to howl. The same orchestra struck up over Krasnoyarsk, over the Autonomous Republic of Komi, over Sovietskaya Gavan, over the snows of Kolyma, the Chukotsk tundra and the camps of Murmansk and Northern Kazakhstan…

To the accompaniment of the sirens or the blows of a crowbar against a metal rail, prisoners set off to mine the potassium of Solikamsk, the copper of Ridder and the shores of Lake Balkash, the nickel and lead of Kolyma and the coal of Kuznetsk and Sakhalin. They set off to build a railway line along the shore of the Arctic Ocean, to clear roads through the tundra of Kolyma, to fell trees in the forests of Siberia, Murmansk, Archangelsk and the Northern Urals…

Day began at the same hour of night, amid the same snow, in every one of the camps and sub-camps of the vast network of Dalstroy.