Dan Smith - The Child Thief

Dimitri called to me with a weak voice. He spoke through his own exhaustion, his chest wheezing, the blood frothing at his mouth as he tried to form the words. I watched him struggle, his mouth biting at the deep red snow.

‘Why is he making that noise?’ Petro said. ‘Why is he—’

‘He’s trying to talk,’ I said.

‘What’s he saying?’

‘I don’t know,’ I looked away from him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

And then Dimitri began to moan, as if he had managed to draw some of that escaped life back into his body. Louder than before. Gurgling and moaning. He even mustered the strength to move his arm, his broken hand fractured and useless at the end of it. ‘Please,’ he groaned. ‘Please.’

‘Make him stop,’ Petro said. ‘Make him stop.’

Dimitri’s voice grew louder and I half expected another shot to come, but none did. The child thief would be waiting.

‘Make him stop.’

‘Shut up,’ Viktor told his brother.

Dimitri called again. ‘Please.’ The last strength of his voice calling through the blood and into the snow. ‘Please.’

I didn’t know what he was pleading for. Forgiveness? Life? Or perhaps he was asking us to find his daughter and keep her safe.

‘Make him stop.’ Petro put his hands to his ears.

I looked across at Dimitri, our eyes meeting for the last time. ‘I’ll find her,’ I said. ‘And I’ll kill this man.’

Dimitri nodded, the tiniest movement of his head. He allowed his mouth to relax, the words to die, and he continued his laboured breathing. No more calling now, no more pleading, just the rasping and the wheezing. As if he were breathing water into his lungs, sucking it down and exhaling it.

‘He’ll die soon,’ I said to Petro. ‘Then he’ll be quiet.’

I began to shuffle back, aware that to get to the dip I would have to move higher, into shallower snow, and there was a chance I would be exposed. The only alternative was to wait for the sky to darken, but there were still a few hours until that would happen, and if we stayed still for that long, we might freeze to death. During the war men had succumbed to the cold that way. Strong soldiers, made weak. Sometimes we’d find them when the watch changed, frozen in position at their posts.

I inched backwards, pushing with my hands, sliding my body through the snow, making sure I scraped the dirt beneath the snow as I moved.

‘What are you doing?’ Petro asked.

‘Quiet.’

I continued back until I felt my boots come to the ridge and hang in the air, not touching the ground. I turned sideways on to the dip, then took a deep breath and rolled quickly to the side, dropping down. Another shot thumped into the ridge, in the place I’d been only a second ago.

Out of sight, I scrambled along the depression so I was in line with the place where my sons were hiding.

I spoke quietly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Right behind you. Are you both all right ?’

‘Yes. I think so.’ It was Viktor who spoke.

‘Is he still there?’ asked Petro.

‘Don’t be afraid. I know what you’re feeling, but you need to stay calm. If we stay calm we’ll be fine. We’ll find a way to get out of this. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Petro said.

‘You need to get back here,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got to draw his attention away from you. He’ll be watching for any movement. Any movement at all.’ And I remembered how many times I had waited like the child thief was waiting now. How many times I had remained motionless, my cheek pressed to the stock of my rifle, the smell of its oil and its powder in my nostrils, my eye focused on the iron sight. Waiting for the sun to arc behind me; waiting for the slightest movement in the distance.

In Galicia there were times when we’d lived like rats in flooded holes in the ground, the enemy not more than a few yards across the wasteland that lay between us. As a sharpshooter, I had shot soldiers who made the mistake of lifting their heads above the parapet of their trench on the other side of that corpse-strewn landscape. I wondered if the child thief had been in similar places, learned his patience and skill in similar circumstances. If that were so, then I would know how to confuse him; how to draw his attention and force him to expose his position.

I stayed flat and took the rifle from my shoulder. Keeping low, I moved it in front of me and pulled back the bolt, bringing a cartridge into the chamber. I looked at the brass casing lying in the open port, then pushed the bolt forward.

‘Viktor,’ I said. ‘Take off your hat.’

‘What?’

‘Take off your hat. I want you to be ready to hold it up. Put it on the end of your rifle and hold it away from you. You too, Petro.’

I thought about what the shooter would be expecting to see. The child thief knew there were three of us, perhaps only two if he’d hit his mark with one of the probing shots.

‘When I call, I want you to lift your hat, Viktor. Just enough to make a movement.’ It was a weak trick, but it was one that had worked for me before and was all we had to draw the man’s fire. If my sons had been more skilled, I might have offered myself as a target, but if something happened to me, they would be left alone with the child thief. I had to try this first.

‘And you Petro, I want you to count to six and do the same thing. Remember to hold it out and away from you, though. He will shoot.’

‘What about you?’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Viktor asked.

‘I’m going to see where he is. And then I’m going to shoot him. Be ready to move, though. When I say so, I want you to get back here as quickly as you can. Bring only your rifles.’

‘What about Dimitri?’

‘Leave him,’ I said. ‘He was dead the moment the bullet hit him. If we try to help him, we’ll die too.’

‘Can we do something to make him stop that noise?’

‘We can’t do anything that will give away our position – not until we want to give it away. Don’t worry about Dimitri,’ I said. ‘He will die soon, and then he won’t make any more noise.’

It was their first taste of violent death. They were too young to remember the losses of the civil war with any clarity, even though it had touched their lives, and Vyriv had been spared much of the violence and suffering. They had never been this close to the horror, and although both understood my intent, they were shocked by my coldness.

‘You know what you’re doing?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Good, then there’s no need to be afraid. We’ll get out of this.’ But I couldn’t be sure we wouldn’t all die here on the steppe with snow in our mouths and holes in our hearts.

I took a deep breath and moved beyond the place where my sons were pinned down. I wanted to move further south, follow the curve of the ridge so I was at a better angle and in a place where I wouldn’t be expected. My enemy had positioned himself well, but the sky was darkening now, a thick blanket of grey cloud blocking the sun, and I was thankful for that. The child thief had no advantage of light.

When I was far enough away from my sons, I stopped and opened my satchel. I took out one of the bundles Natalia had wrapped for us and opened it out in front of me. I put the bread and the sausage back into the satchel and, using my teeth, made a rip in the white cloth, tearing it lengthways into two pieces. The first piece I wrapped over my rifle scope, turning it from black to white. Then I took off my hat and tied the second piece around the top of my head. When I rested the rifle on the ridge and aimed down the sight, these were the two things that would be most visible. The telescopic sight provided magnification, but it also meant I had to raise my head a little higher to take a shot. The cloth was by no means perfect camouflage, but it would help reduce the impact of my movement on the stark white horizon the child thief would be watching.