Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

Oh, how terrified they all were at the thought of the moment when the lost souls would return and be washed up on to their beach, bringing with them all the recriminations of the dead faced with those who had been saved at their expense: what would happen then? The sea never reclaimed its dead, it wasn’t like throwing a stone out to sea in the knowledge that it would sink and never be heard of again; you couldn’t just throw dead bodies back where they came from, the way back would be barred, and you couldn’t escape the stinking accusations in the shallows off the beach, that threat, that eternal reminder of your own imminent death.

Then the white object swung slowly round in a series of circles and was lit up brilliantly and briefly as the green light died away, and he could see it was a white bird drifting into land with the tide. Then there were those steps he was frantically trying to defend himself against, but there they were even so; it wasn’t just the smoke tickling his nose, it was heavy footsteps crunching in the grass, beating through the undergrowth, padding over the hard rock, pausing for a moment as if in doubt. He crept back behind the bulwark, desperately trying to protect himself from this new threat, but after what seemed an eternity of agonizing waiting, they continued up towards him, apparently hesitant, but never in doubt about their goal. And all the things he’d tried to run away from by leaving the camp and the six people on the beach and everything they symbolized in the way of executioners and nagging certainties and constant doubts about himself and all the rest of it leapt over the bulwark and stabbed him viciously in the back of the neck till he lay gasping, outstretched on the naked rock, himself more naked than ever, and of course Loel’s hands were more attractive than his and everybody made fun of him because he was so sensitive, his ears were always burning and always seemed to be trembling in some secret draught and then he said the last night, that last night before it all happened, and they were all pulling his leg as friends do because he couldn’t stop brushing his teeth, no matter what was happening or what was going to happen: I have to brush my teeth, just think if I dream of my fiancee and I’m going to kiss her; and then when he lay slumped behind his machine gun and the life was draining out of him and maybe, or maybe not, but maybe something could have been done if only somebody had been as brave as people afterwards suggested he should have been, but he was dead when they got back to the airfield and two or three of them lifted him out, he was so still and his lips had parted and showed his lovely white teeth which weren’t really as white as you might have expected.

Then there was this obedience business, was it really possible as people said to be brave at the same time as you tried to obey all the orders you were given, all instructions and company orders and tables dealing in all aspects of life, because the fact is that if you don’t obey you don’t dare to live properly, it was so ridiculously easy to make a mistake every time you tried to do something off your own bat and so you didn’t dare to do anything people might think was idiotic, the fact is that right from the start you’d learnt how necessary it was to have doubts about yourself and rely on somebody who was right, who knew more than you did and could tell you and would tell you what to do and if anybody had killed Loel, it wasn’t him, if Preses who was Loel’s best friend shouted that Boy killed Loel, that wasn’t fair and Boy had the right to cry as he did do in fact, and to roll around on the mess carpet with pain surging through his body in a series of convulsions.

And he himself, he’d loved Loel so much, liked Loel so much for his sensitivity, a sensitivity Loel dared to display, and which Boy also had but never dared to display, and that last night before it all happened, and everybody was pulling Loel’s leg because as always, no matter what had happened and no matter what might happen, Loel had said with that innocent sincerity of his that was always so frank and so sincere: I must brush my teeth in case I dream about my fiancee and have to kiss her, she’s so particular about things like that, and later when they lifted him out of the aeroplane and everything inside Boy was so numb and silent, he’d noticed Loel’s teeth weren’t as white as he’d always thought, but all yellow like in people who smoke a lot, and in the midst of his indifference he’d felt a noticeable pang of satisfaction.

Yet, the footsteps were getting closer, the stranger took hold of the top of the bulwark and then that wheezing which suddenly wafted over him and when he accepted he’d been found out and looked up, the captain put his other hand on the bulwark and wheezed again after the strain of it all. He pulled himself up with great difficulty, he’d picked a particularly difficult place to climb over in fact, and he sat astride the bulwark for a moment with his shiny jackboot on the right side; he had about him a little of the twilight which was almost over as it was squeezed more and more by the darkness, he had a little of that pale green light on half his forehead, his deep-set eyes, his cheek covered in stubble and on one side of his neck a vein had swollen up and looked as if it might burst at the slightest provocation.

The captain dangled his boot on the plateau, kicking slowly as he’d got plenty of time, and in a way designed to calm Boy Larus’s nerves. Boy rose to his feet in confusion and suddenly felt the wounds in his groin flare up but before he had time to show any pain the fear that had just shot through him disappeared and he turned to the captain, calm and without giving anything away, and said, ‘Aha, the captain’s also taking a look at the world I see.’

And he looked round, round the plateau, out over the dark grass and the sea which was still streaked with a few narrow, painfully extended, deep green stripes, and the sky looming darkly over the sea, threatening to suffocate it, as if it were the whole world, and a few stars twinkling here and there like little red fireflies in the night over the black rushes.

‘Larus,’ said the captain, still kicking away at the rocky ground, the iron clinking regularly if somewhat nonchalantly against the stones, ‘Larus, you’re keeping something back from us.’

‘But captain, I can assure you, please let me assure you. .’

‘I didn’t want to say anything before. I thought: well, we’ve all got our own little ways, perhaps one can’t expect everybody to submit themselves to the organization, although I’ve always been absolutely convinced that an efficient organization demands the submission of all concerned, everybody must do his bit. So, I’ve been tolerant, I’ve told myself there may perhaps be something in his tale about a stone he’s looking for, perhaps it’s an innocent enough hobby that no one can begrudge him, although I must say, Mr Larus, that the situation is extremely worrying. Indeed, I have to say I’ve been turning a blind eye on your tendency to go your own way.’

Boy Larus looked down on the man balancing on his bulwark, his own bulwark, which he’d discovered with his own eyes. He was tall, but not so tall that you’d remember him for his tallness; his body was thickset on the whole and his specific weight seemed to be quite considerable, his shoulders could have been borrowed from a marble statue, so brutal and so well formed and so cold; and then that face, used to giving commands but with a constant hint of worry from the corners of his mouth and down towards his chin and the same tendency around his eyebrows and that line running from the root of his nose before losing its way in the network of lines around his mouth. But none of this was what he feared most, those haggard faces which had conceded defeat to hunger and allowed all previously hidden secrets to seep through. Already he felt drawn to him by a remarkable feeling of sympathy, no, not all that remarkable because the only person he might possibly still be able to tolerate had come to seek him out, a person who may well have had wounds of his own but kept them hidden, a person he would be glad to obey, the only person who still wanted him to obey, the person who could still rescue him.