COLD/Posting #15. Ewald jumps bare skin into the frozen Siberian river. (The full novel ends @ next episode, #16).

(COLD/Posting #15).

Ewald mentally prepares for frozen river crossing and then jumps in (“I had killed myself to not die.”)! Collectible book:<https://www.abebooks.com/9783741808807/COLD-1918-19-Siberian-Escape-Captain-3741808806/plp>.

If only I knew what exact day it was since leaving Nanra. I spotted a broken branch and it looked like a 7. So...I called it 27...days...away. There. I grabbed a number for one last accounting, and it felt correct enough. 27. The 7 had some power for me. I imagined it was sharp enough to scythe my way across, to safety.

I was ready.

Ready enough!

I would cross the river before nightfall.

I packed up my tarp, pulled the walking stick out of its tent-hole, and bundled everything tighter in my backpack than ever before. I tested the weight by holding it aloft above my head. It wasn't too bad. I figured I could hold it up there for the quick swim. Of course it would be heavier once I added my clothes and boots. After thinking about it, I decided that wearing boots would slow down my crossing, and take a great deal of time to dry.

So I would go barefoot after all.

A final prayer was in order. Not particularly religious, I still fell into the age-old need to address some higher entity, to speak my heart out into the ether. God, if there was one, would hear my plea that I have enough stamina to survive this coming immersion in frigid water. I prayed that I could get my tent up fast enough, get a fire started quickly enough. I realized that it would take many hours to recover from the effort I was about to make. And Nanra’s note gave me the cornerstone: Please God. Help me...win.

The moment of truth had arrived. There would be no turning back. Do or die. I would strip down to bare skin and wade in. And all the while I would keep thinking of the woman I love. She, and my unborn child, would be the fuel to propelled me forward. And I refused to fail, for us. I refused to kill the father of her child. I would...win...

The pack was tight except for a pocket where I’d add in my clothes. My boots would dangle off a snap-button. Was I absolutely ready? Really? Was it time to shed all my clothes?

The wind was down to almost nothing. The sun was out and holding steady.

It was time.

Within seconds I unbuttoned my coat, removed it, pulled off my shirts, untied my boots and pulled them off, along with my pants. Win! Next came underwear and socks. Win! I can't really describe the sensation of exposing bare skin to that deep cold air, other than to say that my skin felt like it was burning. The extreme cold was punishing me...hard.

Win!

I kept yelling that word, to give my pained brain and body something else to obsess with!

As soon as I stuffed my clothes in the pack, tied my boot laces together for dangling, I broke down the tent and rolled it up; it would sit atop the pack. The walking stick would be my underwater probe.

I headed for the bank clutching the staff and my pack (the travel rails were not deserted – I’d clutched them in the same hand as the walking stick!).

I shouted PLEASE GOD! and waded in.

The shock of being wet radiated in sharp pains throughout my entire body. Again and again I forced my steps against the current. For the first half I was relieved to find that the bottom didn't drop deeper than my waist. I prayed that the depth wouldn’t increase. And it didn’t.

WIN!

I shouted it out more times than I could count. The second half of the crossing held no horrible surprises.

Finally I hit the far bank, and stumbled maybe ten feet up onto the snow before I dropped my pack and grabbed my brace and bit. At the same time I did my best to dry off with my other shirt. I was shivering uncontrollably, but somehow grabbed the handle and started turning. My fingers were so stiff that I barely got a hole completed. I stuck in the walking stick (hands SO numb...) and dragged the tarp out of the bag. All over I could feel a horrible, convulsive burning.

WIN!

I spread the tarp, and hammered in five pegs. I had to do that because if I didn't peg the edges I would be terribly vulnerable to wolves while recovering.

Shaking uncontrollably, I made it inside while dragging my pack along, and began fire- making. My hands were too unsteady to work my flint and set sparks properly. After the longest minute a spark stuck, turning to flame. Then I tried to clothe myself over the raw, damp skin. I finally got an undershirt down over frosty skin, and my shirt over that. But my feet were suffering terribly. I tried to dry them more. Sitting on my pack I tried to manage them. They were blue. I painfully pulled on socks. No sensation of any warmth followed.

WIN!

And my legs were no better – also bluish. The skin on my entire body was on fire.

WIN!

I could barely maneuver on my pants, but finally that was completed. As I donned additional layers of cloth, covered my chest with a second shirt and coat, I knew I must be very careful not to extinguish my fire with all the squirming about. The flames rose higher and I felt momentary joy.

I kept my feet aimed toward the fire and hoped they would recover. No feeling yet. I didn't want to add fire-burn to thef rost-burn. My dear ‘pieds’ had kept me moving across the river – the burden of crossing had mostly been on them. Luckily I hadn't stepped on anything sharp!

Outside the tent it was darkening. With stabbing pain, I slid boots over my dead feet, struggled with tent laces and passed out.

17.

I awoke, cold, hurting all over. The joints in my legs and arms resisted any movement, but I forced myself to re-light the fire. Supplies were running low, so I knew I'd have to get up and somehow reach a birch tree and shave off bark for future fires. In my present state that would be very difficult. But I tried to be thankful for the miracles so far. I remembered the rushing water and counting each step as I pushed onward to reach the other side before hypothermia locked me up.

How long had I been frozen; cold, naked and wet? The crossing had taken me to a fifty-two count, so maybe that was the timeframe, but my mind couldn't be fully relied upon. If I had lost hold of the pack overhead it would have been the same as a death sentence. No pack would have meant no chance to warm up again, no chance of recovery, no clothes or fire to lull me back to life. And now, as I lay there elevating my arms, reaching toward the new flames in the small makeshift tent, I still couldn't retrieve my energy. I was essentially a cripple, someone who couldn't even stand on his own. How long would I be stuck? And what about new fire starter fuel? Or wolves?

As I'd done earlier in military life, I examined my predicament in detail. This process had served me well in the prison camp, allowing me to shift focus on various aspects of survival there. If I wasn't getting enough nourishment then I'd focus on that. And if ‘bed rest’ was a problem then I focused on that. Now, in my present situation, stuck in a tent after my water-run, I conducted a check-list, asking each body part how it felt, those fifteen or sixteen hours since the crossing.

Starting at my feet, I sensed their current state – numb. That scared me. I tried hard to reach the side of the boots and poke. No feeling. Were my feet still alive? Or damaged beyond repair? I didn't know. The temperature inside the tent was still intensely cold, even with a fire. It was still way below 0 in degrees. So all of my body parts were being kept in that freezer-zone. Before I continued with the checkout I gave my feet more attention. But the boots resisted my pokes and efforts to massage either the toes or ankles. My hands hurt and looked bruised, as they failed to make contact. Cold, raw and chapped skin. I was still alive and breathing, but all my body parts were suffering. All I could do was try to force some movement, to bring back blood circulation to the extremities.

I continued to get worse. In spite of my great accomplishment – a hell-run of more than fifty feet through frozen water – I now realized I was spent.

win...

YES...I did.
But I could die, even so.

On my various journeys I had always known that any wound could be fatal. And there I was, heading into that final spiral.

Yes, I had shelter and some small bits of food. And there was some heat, fire raising the temperature inside the tent. Maybe a difference of ten or twenty degrees (maybe up to 0). So I really had nothing to complain about, did I? If this was my end...I could hold my head up high. But for the people who depended on my existence, nothing would really ever be totally understood. For those who needed to know I was alive, I was letting them down. Certainly, that's how the parent connection worked.

Instead of gifting a mother the return of a son, letting her see him (me) again, I would be supplying a sobbing experience. I was going to rob her of that special happiness, to view her son just beyond the door hinges.

My feet were worrisome, so fragile that I couldn't imagine them out of the boots. I was afraid to try. So I threw various pieces of clothing atop, even slid my pack over, hoping some contact would help. But with each shift of my body, each reach of my hands, I experienced pain there as well. I had killed myself to not die.

It was time to use Nanra’s painkiller paste in earnest. I took two paste portions, each wrapped in cloth. That was the full dose, she had said. As the pain continued I waited. Nothing. Finally, a sense of euphoria spread over me, along with a warming sensation. But I wasn’t laughing as before. Now the pain was more physical than mental and somehow the medicine could choose to follow that path. The cold was disappearing from both my mind and limbs. Ahhhh. What a miracle Nanra had supplied.

My dear wife. She had thought of everything! I felt only love as I drifted off to sleep.

***

(To be continued…

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(Final COLD Posting, #16 next)

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