Free One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

a matter of chance. One evening, though, Shukhov had fooled the man in the tool store and pocketed the best trowel; and now he kept it hidden in a different place every evening, and every morning, if he was put to laying blocks, he recovered it. If the 104th had been sent to the Socialist Way of Life settlement that morning, Shukhov would of course have been without a trowel again. But now he had only to push aside a brick, dig his fingers into the chink--and presto! there it was.

    Shukhov and Kilgas left the repair shops and walked over toward the prefabs.
    Their breath formed thick clouds of vapor. The sun was now some way above the horizon but it cast no rays, as in a fog. On each side of it rose pifiars of light.

    "Like poles, eh?" Shukhov said with a nod.

    "It's not poles we have to worry about," said Kilgas casually, "so long as they don't put any barbed wire between them."

    He never spoke without making a joke, that Kilgas, and was popular with the whole squad for it. And what a reputation he had already won for himself among the Letts in the camp! Of course, it was true he ate properly--he received two food parcels a month--and looked as ruddy as if he wasn't in camp at all. You'd make jokes if you were in his shoes!

    This construction site covered an immense area. It took quite a long time to cross it. On their way they ran into men from the 82nd. Again they'd been given the job of chopping out holes in the ground. The holes were small enough--one-and-a-half feet by one-and-a-half feet and about the same in depth--but the ground, stone-hard even in summer, was now in the grip of frost. Just try and gnaw it! They went for it with picks--the picks slipped, scattering showers of sparks, but not a bit of earth was dislodged. The men stood there, one to a hole, and looked about them--nowhere to warm up, they were forbidden to budge a step--so back to the pick. The only way to keep warm.

    Shukhov recognized one of them, a fellow from Viatka.

    "Listen," he advised him. "You'd do better to light a fire over each hole. The ground would thaw out then."

    "It's forbidden," said the man. "They don't give us any firewood."

    "Scrounge some then."

    Kilgas merely spat.

    "How do you figure it, Vanya! If the authorities had any guts do you think they'd have men pounding away at the ground with pickaxes in a frost like this?"

    He muttered a few indistinguishable oaths and fell silent. You don't talk much in such cold. They walked on and on till they reached the spot where the panels of the pref abs lay buried under snow.

    Shukhov liked to work with Kilgas. The only bad thing about him was that he didn't smoke and there was never any tobacco in his parcels.

    Kilgas was right: together they lifted a couple of planks and there lay the roll of roofing felt.

    They lugged it out. Now, how were they going to carry it? They'd be spotted from the watchtowers, but that didn't matter: the "parrot's" only concern was that the prisoners shouldn't escape. Inside, you could chop up all those panels into firewood for all they cared. Nor would it matter if they happened to meet one of the guards. He'd be looking about like the others to see what he could scrounge. As for the prisoners, they didn't give a damn for those prefabs, and neither did the squad leaders. The only people who kept an eye on them were the superintendent, who was a civilian, that bastard Der, and the lanky Shkuropatenko, a mere goose egg, a trusty who'd been given the temporary job of guarding the pref abs from any stealing by the prisoners. Yes, it was Shkuropatenko who was most likely to spot them on the open ground.

    "Look here, Vanya," said Shukhov, "'we mustn't carry it lengthwise. Let's take it up on end with our arms around it. It'll be easy to carry and our bodies will hide it. They won't spot it from a distance."

    It was a good idea. To carry the roll lengthwise would have been awkward, so they held it upright In between them and set off. From a distance it