'The Wolf of Harbin'

Chapter 35

At this point, it may be useful to discuss two questions so as not to slow us down too much: why is that fish don't freeze when rivers ice over and what exactly is keelhauling? Both questions have direct reference to the plight of poor Meyer at this time. The simple answer to the first question is that only the top layer of a river actually freezes. The full answer, a process called anomalous expansion, is very interesting and, should you have the time, is well worth looking up! The answer to the second question takes us to the days of sail, when keelhauling was a punishment for sailors involving pulling a person attached to ropes either under the boat's keel from side to side or along the length of the ship from bow to stern. Few survived this terrifying experience, the most likely result of which was decapitation or loss of limb, severed on the rough underside of the boat. If you weren't decapitated and hadn't died from losing a limb, the other most likely outcome was drowning for few people can be pulled the length of a ship on a lungful of air.

Much, much colder suddenly, but still the very early morning of the fourth day of the Jewish festival of Hanukah: Wednesday, 16 December 1925

Meyer had watched grown men in Harbin jump into the icy waters of the Sungari as a way to prove their manliness. He had no idea what such cold would feel like but he'd thought the whole spectacle a little ridiculous as a test of a man's bravery. Now, kneeling and shivering in his long johns beside the ice hole that Dersu and Kola had made, he knew his own ordeal was going to be an order of magnitude different, and not for the better. It didn't help knowing the whole thing was completely pointless. As a way of persuading him to do something it would have no affect except for perhaps killing him! He didn't have the scroll and couldn't have given it to Schleicher even if he wanted. But, if he was going to die, he was at least determined to know what it was all for. What was so important about this scroll it had made Schleicher kill his father? He'd said it looked like a Torah scroll but 'in fact' that was 'not the case'. Well, what else could it be? He'd seen it with his own eyes hadn't he?

Standing above him smiling, the German's head looked even more skull-like in the torchlight. "Schleicher, what's so special about this scroll?" he asked as his body muscles began to spasm in the cold. He paused before adding between chattering teeth, "I have to know why you killed my father to get it. Why is it so important to you?"

"Did you have a chance to take a look at the rather lovely scroll, Epstein?" Meyer nodded though it was hard to move his head cleanly while he was shaking so much. "Was it a good, long look?" Schleicher paused. "Can you read Hebrew?" Meyer shook his head. "Because there can only be three explanations why you've asked me this question. Either, you saw the scroll briefly but had no time to read it; or it was very dark so you could not make out the characters; or you don't really understand Hebrew." Meyer, who could read Hebrew but didn't understand the meaning of what he read, realised he could have answered yes to each of Schleicher's three explanations.

However, Schleicher had no time to hear a reply. "The scroll you were given is not a religious document. It is in fact a German intelligence communication, gathered by my operatives, intended for the Japanese government about troop movements in China. Schleicher paused and returned to the schoolmaster's voice he'd used earlier. "Hebrew is an excellent code. I have German Jews from the military encoding at one end to create the intelligence and poor Russian Jews from Harbin in our pay decoding at the other end. We help to supply our Japanese friends in this region with information about Chinese Nationalist activities and, in turn, they supply us with intelligence about the Soviets. This is how most intelligence is traded in China." He paused. "Now, Epstein, if you will oblige me by climbing into the hole that Dersu and Kola have so kindly made for you."