The Long Walk
Sometimes when you are in a waiting room occupying the cheapest leather sofas that you have ever seen in your life, or struggling to get comfortable on the pastic chairs in the airport waiting rooms you discover a novel that is able to distract you from it all. And it is normally these novels (that you buy at the tiny WHSmiths in the departures lounge) that you never thought you would find yourself reading, but totally find yourself liking. That is what picking up The Long Walk was like for me, something I would normally buy for my wife, I really rather ended up enjoying:
In early World War 2 the Germans occupied western Poland the Soviets occupied the East with dire consequences to Poles on both sides. The Russians arrested, imprisoned and tortured many soldiers, amongst them a young officer named Slavomir Rawicz.
Horrendously mistreated he was eventually forced on a 3 month journey by train and then on foot to his eventual prison deep in Russian Siberia, a journey that many would not complete.
Upon his arrival he discovered his prison was in fact the forest, deep in snow, way below freezing and guarded by not only armed guards but also thousands of miles of frozen waste and that he, along with his other prisoners, would have to chop would and build their own prison or die in the building as many did.
With a minimum of 25 years of hard labor ahead of him the young officer hatched a plan and began storing little pieces of tools and materials with which to give himself the best chance of survival. With a few trusted friends he had made whilst imprisoned he eventually broke out and headed south travelling at night, foraging for food and hunting when possible, but going hungry mostly.
As days turned into weeks and then into months the group slowly progressed through the cold forest, evading contact and capture and avoiding injury and serious disease whilst picking up a fellow escapee, a young girl who managed to escape from a female prisoner camp.
The book follows their journey out of the cold into the desert and beyond into and over the Himalayas before descending down into what they believed was freedom after a journey of 3 months which not all were to live through.
Tremendously moving and disturbing in equal measure it is a book that can be nothing but a heart breaking inspiration to all who read it.