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Dear Mr. L'Amour

	I enjoyed your
and I look forward to its continuation.

	You may be interested in hearing about a successful escape
from a Soviet Siberian prison camp.  My late second wife, Vera
Watson (ne\'e Alexander), was born in Manchuria in a Russian family.
Some members of that family married Japanese, and the escapee was
one of their relatives by marriage, who was taken prisoner by the
Soviets at the end of World War II.  The Soviets were in the war
for only ten days, but they took several hundred thousand prisoners
to Siberia, the last of whom were released only in 1956 when Khrushchev
emptied the camps.

	This man, I think he was an officer, escaped from the camp,
made his way to Manchuria and then through North Korea to South
Korea.  I suppose it must have been before the Korean war started,
but Vera didn't know.

	Also I have one small bone to pick.  It concerns the statement
that someone who falls in water when the temperature is very cold
is doomed to a quick death.  I noticed that statement also in
Gorky Park.
  Regardless of the air temperature, fresh
water in contact with ice will be at 32 degrees Farenheit, and that
is quite swimmable for a short time.  I've done it myself, though
when the air temperature was warm.

	However, I had the following experience in Siberia.  It was
November or December 1968, and I was visiting the Soviet Academy of Science
Siberian Division in Akademgorodok, near Novosibirsk for two months.
Many American and other foreign scientists have visited there, some for
a year.  Next to the town is a big artificial lake called the Ob Sea
behind the dam on the Ob River.  It was about 30 below zero and
about 6 in the evening and I walked out on the frozen lake and
encountered a place where a hole had been made in the two foot
thick ice about ten feet long and four feet wide.  It had frozen
over.  Very soon my guess about its purpose was confirmed.  About
five people came out on the ice and cleared out the frozen over
part.  A man stripped to swimming trunks, plunged in and paddled
around for several minutes.  He climbed out, his wife handed
him a towel, and after drying himself, he put on an overcoat,
and they all left.

	Swimming in ice water in winter is actually a common hobby among
Russians.  The hobbyists are called walruses, the word is  morzh
in Russian.

	A further item.  The September 1986 National Geographic
has a report on a polar expedition during which a woman fell in
the water.  There is a photograph of her changing clothes after
she climbed out.  They report temperatures of -68 degrees but
don't report the temperature when she fell in.  Sea water is
colder than 32 degrees Fahrenheit because of the salt.

	My opinion is that actually it is no big deal to get
wet provided one gets out reasonably promptly, has some
opportunity to change footwear, and has warm enough clothes
for the weather.