Chapter 49 220 kilometers east of Moscow July 13

Leo lay flat on the floor, his arms thrust into the small hole used as a prisoner toilet.He scratched the iron nails between the floor and the underside of the car with a scrap of iron, and none of the nails were accessible from inside the car: they were all nailed in from the underside of the car.The only point of contact is this small hole no thicker than his wrist.Leo took the dead man's shirt off and wiped the area as clean as he could, but only superficially.To get to the nails, he had to lay his face flat on the stinking, excrement-soaked boards, groping and gagging.The splinters dug into his skin, and Raisa offered to do it because of her small, slender hands and wrists.Despite that fact, Leo's hands are longer and more likely to reach all the nails.

He tore the shirt into a strip and tied it around his mouth and nose, hoping to hide some of the stench, and he found the third and last nail, scraped it with a blade, cut and chiseled the wood, until If you have more room for yourself, insert the prong of the iron sheet under the nail head and pry it up.It took hours to pry the two nails out, interrupted by occasional toilet breaks. The last nail was the strongest, and fatigue might be partly to blame—it was late, maybe one or two in the morning—but there seemed to be something else wrong.Leo's fingertips could reach under the nailheads, but the nails did not loosen at all.The nails feel a bit crooked, as if they were forced in at an angle, and the nails may have bent as they were driven in.It cannot be pulled out.He had to dig deeper into the wood, possibly even through it.Realizing this, it may take another hour or so, and a burst of tiredness surges up.His fingers were split and bleeding, his arms were sore, and the stench kept coming up his nose.The train jolted suddenly, and in a flash, the piece of iron slipped from his fingertips and fell to the rails below with a clatter.

Leo pulled his hand out of the hole, and Raisa asked beside him, "Is it okay?" "The iron piece fell." He regretted it too much, hated himself for throwing away the other nails, and now he had no tools. Seeing her husband's bleeding fingers, Raisa grabbed the plank and tried to lift it up.One end of the plank is lifted a little, but not quite.Leo wiped his hands and looked around to see if there was anything that could be used: "I have to scrape through the wood to get that nail out." Raisa saw that every prisoner was thoroughly searched before boarding the vehicle, and she doubted that any of them were carrying any kind of metal tool.As she considered this question, her eyes shifted to the nearest corpse.The man is lying on the ground with his mouth open.She turned to her husband, "How long or sharp does the tool need to be?"

"It's almost there, as long as it's harder than my finger." Raisa stood up and walked over to the dead body of the man who had tried to rape and kill her. There was no sense of justice or satisfaction, just disgust, and she snapped the man's jaw so that he was face up.She held her shoe over his chin, hesitated, and looked around.Everyone was looking at her, she closed her eyes and smashed the heel of her shoe against his front teeth. Leo crawled over and groped in the man's mouth, pulling out a tooth still glued to its bloody root, an incisor, not quite ideal, but sharp enough to continue the scraping job. and hardened.He went back to the hole, lay down on the ground, took the tooth, squeezed his arm into the hole, found the remaining nail, and continued digging the wood, removing the pieces bit by bit until they came loose.

The nails are completely exposed.He held the tooth in his palm, in case further digging was needed, and Leo grabbed the nailhead, but couldn't get hold of it because his fingers were split.He withdrew his arm, wiped the sweat and blood from his fingers, and wrapped a shirt cloth around them before trying.Trying to be patient, he pulled hard on the nail, slowly pulling it free from the board.And that's it: you're done.The third nail was also removed, and he felt the wood to make sure there were no other nails, at least he found none.He sat up and pulled his arm out of the hole. Raisa reached her hands through the hole and grabbed the board.Leo also held out his hand, this is the test, and the two of them pulled the board together.The upper end of the plank is raised, but the lower end remains fixed.Leo moved a little closer, grabbed the bottom end of the plank, and lifted it as high as he could.Looking down, he could see the tracks under the cars, and the plan worked.There is now a gap with a width of about 30 centimeters and a length of more than one meter where the planks are laid. It is difficult for one person to fit in, but it is enough.

With the help of other prisoners, the planks could be snapped off, but fearing the sound of the snapping would alarm the guards, they decided not to.Leo turned to the whole car and said, "I need someone to help me carry this board when we jump from this gap onto the track." Immediately several men volunteered, stepped forward, and grabbed hold of the boards.Leo estimated the gap, and after they squeezed in, they should fall straight down, jumping directly under the train.The distance between the bottom of the carriage and the track was just over a meter, maybe a meter and a half.Although the train runs slowly, there is still a certain danger for jumping off the train.However, they couldn't wait any longer.They must go at once, while the train is moving at night.When the train stopped during the day, the guards might spot them.

Risa grabbed Leo's hand: "I'll jump first." Leo shook his head. He had seen the design drawings of these prison cars.They also face an obstacle: a final trap designed to prevent the prisoners from escaping. "Under this train, at the very end, the last car, there's a series of hooks that hang downwards, and if we get down on the tracks right now, wait, when a car goes over us , the hook will catch us and drag us along with the train." "Can we escape these hooks? What if we roll aside?" "There were hundreds of hooks, all hanging on top of the barbed wire, and there was no way to slide under it. We would be entangled underneath."

"So what are we going to do? We can't wait until the train stops." Leo watched the two bodies carefully, and Raisa stood beside him, obviously not understanding his intentions.He explained: "When you jump off the rails, I drop a dead body right behind you and hope it lands close to you. Wherever it lands, you have to climb over to it. Once you climb Get next to it, just lie down under it, and let it be all over you. When the last car goes by, the body on top will get hooked and you'll get away." Dragging the body to the pried-loose planks, he continued: "Do you want me to jump first? If not, you should stay here. Any death is better than being dragged away by this train."

Raisa shook her head: "This is a good way, it will work, I will jump first." When she was about to climb down, Leo reiterated: "The train is not running fast, and it may hurt when it lands, but it will not be too dangerous. Be sure to roll a few times to reduce the impact. I will drop a corpse. You didn't Too much time……" "I see." "You have to find the body, and when you do, get under the body and make sure that no part of your body is exposed. Even if there is only one hook on you, you will be dragged along by the train." "Leo, I see."

Raisa kissed him, shaking. She squeezed through the gaps between the planks, her feet dangling above the rails, and she let go of the planks and fell, out of sight.Leo grabbed the first body and pushed it through the gap.The body also fell on the track, out of sight. Raisa fell awkwardly to the ground, rolling on the track, bruised sideways.Dazed and disoriented, she lay motionless for a while.Too long, she was wasting time.Leo's carriage had gone a long way, and she saw the body he had dropped and began to crawl towards it, in the same direction as the train was traveling.She glanced back and there were only three cars left at the rear of the car, but she didn't see any hooks, maybe Leo was mistaken.There were only two cars left, and Raisa hadn't crawled to the body yet.She tripped and now there is only one car between her and the rear of the car.When the last car passed above her a few meters away, she saw hooks—hundreds of hooks all attached to wires of varying lengths, all under the car, with nowhere to hide.

She got up and continued to crawl forward, as fast as she could, until she finally reached the body.The corpse was lying face down with the head close to her body.She didn't have time to turn the body over, so she turned it over, lifted the body up, and crawled under the body with her head facing the man's head, and just lay face to face with the man who had attacked her, her eyes fixed on him Those dead eyes, try to make yourself smaller and smaller. Suddenly, the body was dragged from her body, and she saw that all around her were metal wires, like fishing lines, each with many jagged hooks attached to each wire.The body was hoisted as if alive, like a doll, entwined so that even the rails couldn't touch it.Raisa remained flat on the track, motionless.She could see the stars above her head and stood up slowly, without a hook to catch her, and she watched the train go away, and she succeeded, but there was no sign of Leo. Being taller than Raisa, Leo thought he needed the larger body, and he needed more body area to protect himself from the hook.But the corpse was too big to fit through the gap in the planks. They stripped the corpse to reduce its width, but it was too tall and shoulder-width to fit it through the hole.By this time, Raisa had been on the track for a few minutes. In desperation, Leo poked his head into the hole and looked down. He could see a person hooked at the end of the train.Is this Raisa or the corpse?He couldn't tell from this distance, he could only hope it was the corpse.So he decided to adjust his plan, thinking that as long as he was in the right position, he could escape by the hooked corpse, because the corpse had blocked all the hooks in that part.As long as he hides under this, he can survive.He said goodbye to the other prisoners, thanked them, and jumped onto the rails. Rolling close to the huge steel wheels, he stopped, facing the end of the train.The corpse hanging from the wire was approaching quickly, tangled in the left part.He adjusted his posture accordingly, and there was nothing he could do but wait, lying flat on the track as best he could, curled up as small as possible.The tail end of the train was almost above his body, and he lifted his head off the ground to see that it wasn't Raisa.She survived, and he must survive.He lay flat on the ground and closed his eyes. Corpses brushed past him. Then, a pain - a hook caught his left arm.He opened his eyes, and the hook tore through his shirt, digging into his flesh.Just a second before the wire tightened and was about to drag him up, he grabbed the hook and pulled it out, pulling out a piece of flesh and skin along the way.He gripped his arm tightly, feeling dizzy as the blood trickled from the wound.He staggered to his feet and saw Raisa rushing towards him.He ignored the pain and held her in his arms. They are free.