Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

'If you try to kill me with that bayonet, the Dutch listening post will hear us and sound the alarm. Use your head. Who do you think they'll believe was trying to desert? You, with all the rumours there already are about your plans to do a runner, or me, a party member?'

'Sit down, Sindre Fauke.'

Sindre laughed.

'You're no killer, Gudbrand. I'm off now. Give me fifty metres before you sound the alarm, so that you're in the clear.'

They eyed each other. Small, feather-light snowflakes had begun to fall between them. Sindre smiled: 'Moonlight and snow at the same time. That's a rare sight, isn't it?'

Leningrad. 2 January 1943.

The trench the four men were standing in was two kilometres north of their own section of the front, at the point where the trench doubled back, almost forming a loop. The captain stood in front of Gudbrand and was stamping his feet. It was snowing and there was already a thin layer of fine snow on the top of the captain's cap. Edvard Mosken stood next to the captain and observed Gudbrand with one eye wide open, the other almost closed.

'So,' the captain said. 'Er ist hinuber zu den Russen geflohen? He's gone over to the Russians, has he?'

'Ja' Gudbrand said.

'Warum?

'Das weifs ich nicht!

The captain gazed into the distance, sucked his teeth and stamped his feet. Then he nodded to Edvard, mumbled a few words to his Rottenfuhrer, the German corporal accompanying him, then they saluted. The snow crunched as they left.

'That was that,' Edvard said. He was still watching Gudbrand.

'Yes,' Gudbrand said.

'Not much of an investigation.'

'No.'

'Who would have thought it?' The one wide-open eye stared lifelessly at Gudbrand.

'Men desert all the time here,' Gudbrand said. 'They can't investigate all of-'

'I mean, who would have thought it of Sindre? Who would have thought he would do something like that?'

'Yes, you could say that,' Gudbrand said.

'On the spur of the moment. Just got up and made a run for it.'

'Right.'

'Shame about the machine gun.' Edvard's voice was cold with sarcasm. 'Yes.'

'And you couldn't call the Dutch guards, either?'

'I shouted, but it was too late. It was dark.'

'The moon was shining.'

They squared up to each other.

'Do you know what I think?' Edvard said.

'No.'

'Yes, you do. I can see it in your face. Why, Gudbrand?'

'I didn't kill him.' Gudbrand's gaze was firmly fixed on Edvard's cyclops eye. 'I tried to talk to him. He didn't want to listen to me. Then he just ran off. What could I have done?'

Both of them were breathing heavily, hunched in the wind which tore at the vapour from their mouths.

'I remember the last time you had the same expression, Gudbrand. That was the night you killed the Russian in the bunker.'

Gudbrand shrugged. Edvard laid an icy mitten on Gudbrand's arm.

'Listen. Sindre was not a good soldier, perhaps he wasn't even a good person, but we're moral individuals and we have to try to maintain a certain standard and dignity in all this. Do you understand?'

'Can I go now?'

Edvard looked at Gudbrand. The rumours about Hitler no longer triumphing on all fronts had begun to reach them now. Nevertheless, the stream of Norwegian volunteers kept growing, and Daniel and Sindre had already been replaced by two boys from Tynset. New young faces the whole time. Some you remembered, some you forgot as soon as they were gone. Daniel was one that Edvard would remember, he knew that. Just as he knew that, before long, Sindre's face would be erased from his memory. Rubbed away. Edvard Junior would be two in a few days. He didn't proceed with this line of thought.

'Yes, go,' he said. 'And keep your head down.'

'Yes, of course,' Gudbrand said. 'I'll be sure to keep my head down.'

'Do you remember what Daniel said?' Edvard asked with a sort of smile. 'He said we walked so much of the time with a stoop that we would be hunchbacks by the time we returned home.'

A machine gun cackled in the distance.

Leningrad. 3 January 1943.

Gudbrand awoke with a start. He blinked a couple of times and saw only the outline of the row of planks in the bunk above him. There was a smell of sour wood and earth. Had he screamed? The other men insisted they were no longer kept awake by his screams. He lay there, feeling his pulse slowly calm down. He scratched his side-the lice never slept.

It was the same dream as always that woke him. He could still feel the paws on his chest, see the yellow eyes in the dark, the white predator's teeth with the stench of blood on them and the saliva that ran and ran. And hear the terrified heaving for breath. Was it his or the predator's? The dream was like that: he was asleep and awake at the same time, but he couldn't move. The animal's jaws were about to close around his throat when the chatter of a machine gun over by the door woke him, and he saw the animal being lifted off the blanket and flung against the earthen wall of the bunker as it was torn to pieces by the bullets. Then it was quiet, and on the floor lay a blood-strewn, amorphous mass of fur. A polecat. And then the man in the doorway stepped out of the dark and into the narrow strip of moonlight, so narrow that it only lit up half of his face. But something in the dream that night had been different. The muzzle of the gun smoked as it should and the man smiled as always, but he had a large black crater in his forehead. Gudbrand could see the moon through the hole in his skull when he turned to face him.

Gudbrand felt the cold draught of air from the open door, turned his head and froze when he saw the dark figure filling the doorway. Was he still dreaming? The figure strode into the room, but it was too dark for Gudbrand to see who it was.

The figure stopped abruptly.

'Are you awake, Gudbrand?' The voice was loud and clear. It was Edvard Mosken. A displeased mumble came from the other bunks. Edvard came right up to Gudbrand's bunk.

'You've got to get up,' he said.

Gudbrand groaned. 'You haven't read the list properly. I've just come off watch. It's Dale's -'

'He's back.'

'What do you mean?'

'Dale just came and woke me. Daniel's back.'

'What are you talking about?'

In the dark, Gudbrand saw only Edvard's white breath. Then he swung his legs off the bunk and took his boots out from under the blanket. He usually kept them there when he was asleep so the damp soles wouldn't freeze. He put on his coat, which had been lying on top of the thin woollen blanket, and followed Edvard outside. The stars twinkled above them, but the night sky was growing paler in the east. Somewhere he could hear terrible sobbing. Otherwise it was strangely still.

'New Dutch recruits,' Edvard said. 'They arrived yesterday and are just back from their first trip to no man's land.'

Dale stood in the middle of the trench in an odd pose, his head tilted to one side and his arms away from his body. He had tied his scarf round his chin and his emaciated face with closed eyes in deep sockets made him look like a beggar.

'Dale!' came the sharp command from Edvard. Dale woke up.

'Show us.'

Dale led the way. Gudbrand could feel his heart pumping faster. The cold bit into his cheeks; he still hadn't managed to freeze out the warm, dreamlike feeling he had brought with him from his bunk. The trench was so narrow that they had to walk in single file, and he could feel Edvard's eyes in his back.

'Here,' Dale said, pointing.

The wind whistled a hoarse tune under the rim of the helmet. On the ammunition boxes was a body with its limbs splayed stiffly out to the sides. The snow which had drifted into the trench had left a thin layer on top of the uniform. Sacking was tied round the head of the corpse.