Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(133)

the barbed wire, cut it, and then descend on ropes the sixteen meters down to the ground to make our escape."

Pasha and Ouspensky were quiet. Ouspensky said, "How much rope would we need?"

"Ninety meters in all."

"Oh, can we just pick that up at the canteen? Or should we ask housekeeping?"

"We will make it out of bed linen."

"That's a lot of bed linen."

"Pasha has been making friends with Anna from housekeeping." Alexander smiled. "You can get us extra sheets, can't you?"

"Wait, wait," said Pasha. "We have to jump out of our window, nine meters above concrete..."

"Yes."

Pasha tapped his foot twice on the ground. "Concrete, Alexander!"

"Hold on to the rope and run down the wall."

"And then hold on to the rope to scale another thirteen meters down into the garden, run fourteen meters across, cut the barbed wire, and descend on another rope sixteen meters to the ground?"

"Yes, but the second rope we can attach in the dark. Won't be any floodlights on the wall down there."

"Yes, but the sentries will have taken their places."

"We will have to be on the other side of the barbed wire and in the trees when they do."

"Ah!" exclaimed Pasha. "What about the long white rope that's hanging out of our window? You don't think the guards will notice that, with the floodlights illuminating it so discreetly?"

"One of our bunkmates will have to brace us and then pull up the rope. Constantine will do it."

"And he will do this why?"

"Because he has nothing better to do. Because you will give him all your cigarettes. Because you will introduce him to Anna in housekeeping." Alexander smiled. "And because if it works, he can escape himself the following night. The barbed wire will already be cut."

Ouspensky said, "Comrade Metanov, as usual, there is something you have overlooked to ask the captain. What about time? How long do we have before the new guard takes his place and the floodlights come on?"

"Sixty seconds."

Ouspensky opened his mouth and laughed. Pasha joined him. "Captain, you are always so amusing, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

wry, witty."

Alexander smoked and said nothing. Pasha did a double-take, his mouth still open, still wanting to smile. "You're not serious about this?"

"Absolutely am."

"Comrade, he will have us on," said Ouspensky to Pasha, "until Friday if necessary. He is a terrible prankster."

Alexander smoked. "What would you two rather do? Spend two years digging a tunnel? We don't have two years. I don't know if we have six months. The British here are convinced the war will be over by the summer."

"How do you know?" said Ouspensky.

"I can understand rudimentary English, Lieutenant," Alexander snapped. "Unlike you, I went to school."

"Captain, I enjoy your sense of humor, I really do. But why do we have to dig a tunnel? Why do we have to fling ourselves out of windows on sheets? Why don't we just wait the six months for the war to be over?"

"And then, Ouspensky?"

"Then, then," he stammered. "I don't know what then, but let me ask you, what now? You're throwing yourselves off a cliff, why? Where are you hoping to go?"

Pasha and Alexander both stared at Ouspensky and didn't reply.

"As I thought," said Ouspensky. "I'm not going."

"Lieutenant Ouspensky," said Pasha, "have you ever in your entire f*cking miserable life said yes to anything? You know what's going to be on your grave? `Nikolai Ouspensky. He said no.'"

"Both of you are such comedians," said Ouspensky, walking away. "You are just the height of hilarity. My stomach is hurting. Ha. Ha. Ha."

Alexander and Pasha turned back to the garden below them.

Pasha asked how they were going to get through the barbed wire.

"I've got the wire cutters with me from the Catowice Oflag," said Alexander, smiling. "Komarovsky gave me his military maps of Germany. We just need to get to the border with Switzerland."

"How many kilometers?"

"Many," Alexander admitted. "A couple of hundred." But fewer than from Leningrad to Helsinki, he wanted to add. Fewer than from Helsinki to Stockholm. And certainly fewer than from Stockholm to the United States of America, which is what he and Tania had planned.

Pasha didn't say anything. "Failure cost is high." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Oh, Pasha, what areyour options? Even if you for a moment thought I might have some, which believe me I don't, where does staying in Colditz leaveyou ?"

Shrugging, Pasha said, "I didn't say I wasn't with you, I didn't say I wasn't going. I just said..."

Alexander patted him on the back. "Yes, the risk is high. But the reward is also high."

Pasha looked up to the third-floor window of his cell, to the terrace they were standing on, down to the garden below. "How in the world do you expect us to do all this in sixty seconds?"

"We'll have to hurry."