The Turks had known that at least one of the seven of us was a Russian spy. They could just have killed us all, but they wanted information, and they could only get that if they could identify which one of us to concentrate their efforts on. They had kept us awake until late into the night, asking us questions, laughing at us, jeering at us. Eventually they lined us up; made us face the wall. I was in fifth place. Then they took the first man. I heard a strange crunching sound that I could not interpret, accompanied by a scream. It was the same sound I had just heard as Foma's teeth splintered the bones of the farmer's finger.

I had still not been able to see what was happening as our Turkish captors worked their way along the line, but each time I heard the same unfathomable combination of sounds. Then they came to me. I saw the blood on the table – not a huge amount, but four small, separate stains. When they grabbed my wrist and held it down I thought I understood what was happening – that they were going to sever my whole hand. I tried to pull away, but couldn't. The blade was a mundane thing, not one of the palas with which they fought, just a meat cleaver they had found somewhere. They tucked my other fingers in and the blade fell. I don't know whether I screamed. I don't really remember the pain, but I do remember feeling the blood that ran from the stump of my little finger dripping off my other fingers to the floor.

Those of us who had already visited the table were returned to position, but facing away from the wall. Once the element of surprise had been lost, it was far better torture for us to see what was going on. They explained to us it would stop if the spy confessed; that it would end not only his suffering, but all of our suffering. I was unmoved. I had little concern for my fellow captives – Bulgarians who had been happy to fight with the Ottomans against fellow Slavs – and I had no doubt as to just how permanently our captors would end our suffering.

Then they went round again. The fear in all of us was greater this time. Even though I cannot remember the pain, I can remember being afraid of it. The sound was the same as before as each man in turn lost a second finger. Most of the men against the wall turned their heads away to avoid seeing what was happening – what would soon happen to them – but I did not. I stared at the table, saw the cleaver fall each time, saw the agonized face of the victim and saw the indifferent faces of the Turks as they brushed the severed finger aside. I don't know why I looked; perhaps it was the hope that I would become numb to it by the time my next turn came. It worked, but it worked too well. The numbness persisted – increased over the years. It was that numbness, I realized, that meant I was now able to – needed to – stand at that barn door near Kurilovo and watch the torture that went on within.

In Silistria, only one of the other victims had looked on as I did. He was the second in the row – a young man, scarcely more than a boy. He too did not scream as the blade came down and took away his finger. When they came to me, I certainly did scream. I have no idea why the second cut hurt so much more than the first. Perhaps it was the anticipation. I was not at the point of confessing, but I wondered how many fingers I would be prepared to lose before I did give in. I could face, I thought, the loss of my whole left hand, but how many fingers of my right could I lose before I became useless as a man? But why did I care? – they would kill me anyway.

Again I felt my own blood running over my other fingers. It would not be fast, but the blood loss itself would eventually be enough to kill me. One of the soldiers indicated that we should hold our hands above our heads. It reduced the flow, but it was not an act of kindness. They had done this before, and this was experience showing. Raising our arms to reduce the blood flow prolonged our lives, and added a new, throbbing pain as our numbed arms began to ache. I felt the warm trickle of my own blood now running down my arm and on to my chest.

It was after they had moved on to third fingers that the confession came – but not from me. It was from someone who, to all my knowledge, had no connection with the Turks' enemies at all: the boy who was second in the line, who had not turned his face away from the table. There had been silence after he spoke; relief on the faces of the captives – even of the boy – satisfaction on those of the captors. I remember hearing the quiet chirping of birds through the high window. We had been in the prison all night.

The odd thing was that the boy had confessed just after, not before, it had been his turn to have his third finger severed. Had the pain broken his spirit? It didn't look like it. I could only guess that he had done what I would not have dreamed of – he had decided to spare the rest of us. If that was the case then he was a noble fool, but a fool nonetheless. If he'd made up the fact that he was a spy – as he surely had, unless there were two of us – then they would soon work it out. And then the torture would resume for the rest of us – perhaps some new, even worse torture. Only at that point was I truly tempted to confess, but even then I did not.

All seven of us were led out into the early, pre-dawn light, to be thrown back into the two small cells where we had been previously kept. It was at that point the boy made a run for it. He was up on to the prison wall in a flash and about to jump over when a shot rang out. I just saw him fall, but then I was off in the other direction. My left hand first stung as it gripped the top of the wall, and then slipped on the greasy blood that still oozed from it. But by then, my right hand had got a grip, and I pulled myself over. The Turks had now realized their mistake in all pursuing the one escapee, and shots whistled over my head, but they were too late. I was lucky to escape the city and lucky not to bleed to death, but I survived. I do not know what happened to the others whose torture I had both witnessed and shared, and at the time I did not care.

Now, staring into a similar scene inside that barn, I did care. But there was nothing I could do. To engage in a fight that pitted the four of them against just me would have ended in such a pointless death as to be immoral. I knew that I had to wait for better chances – to wait for the Oprichniki to become separated and to wait for daylight – before I could risk an attack. But the more difficult question was why I stayed to watch. I did not need to see any more to appreciate the vile nature of the Oprichniki, nor to find any aspect of their behaviour which might reveal a weakness in them. Part of what I needed was fuel for my hatred. It was a facet of myself of which I had long been aware. I am, or at least I perceive myself to be, a man of many passions, but all of those passions are difficult to kindle. I arrive at them in small steps, not in giant bounds. I would not go to the trouble of taking a lover, unless that lover was so available that her selection cost me but a few roubles. Moreover, I would not go to the trouble of falling in love unless it was with someone who was already my lover; it was only through the intensity of sex that I had discovered my depth of love for Domnikiia.

And similarly, it was only through the nauseating wrath of seeing what the Oprichniki actually did that I could stoke the fires of loathing enough to know that I would carry to the end my determination to destroy them. Iuda's words to me had struck home. I was a shallow, fickle, comfort-loving man. De-sensitized by what had happened in Silistria, and by what I had already seen of the Oprichniki, I had to remain there with my eye glued to what went on within the barn in order to corral the strength and determination that I would later require to defeat the accursed creatures. And yet, though it would give me that determination, would watching also not desensitize me further? The next time – though I prayed to God there would be no next time – I saw such horrors, would I dismiss them as commonplace, needing ever greater depths of corruption to raise my righteous passion? Whatever the risk, I stayed and watched.