Red Moth

With the fires

With the fires of the burning farmhouses roaring on either side of them, Churikova and the two men made their way down the muddy cart track. Ash fell from the sky like a dusting of dirty snow.

Pekkala thought about the clothes he had left behind to be consumed in that inferno: his unofficial uniform of heavy corduroy trousers, double-soled boots and the thick wool coat, all made for him by a tailor named Linsky, whose shop was on the Ulitsa Varvarka. Those garments had become his second skin, his armour against the chaos of the world. Since his return from the gulag at Borodok, Pekkala had lived his life like someone who, at any moment, might be given half an hour’s notice to leave his home, his friends and everything he owned except the contents of his pockets, and to vanish forever to the other side of the earth. Only Linsky made the clothes for such a journey.

But Pekkala had not left everything behind, in spite of Leontev’s instructions to bring only his pass book. Strapped against his chest was the Webley in its holster and beneath the rough wool collar of his tunic, Pekkala had pinned the gold disc of the Emerald Eye. Those things he refused to do without.

The white walls of the farmhouse had soon faded into the night and the sounds of the gunfire grew faint. When Pekkala turned to look back, all he could see of the fighting were the lazy arcs of flares — reds, yellows, blues — rising and falling over the battlefield.

Glavpur had done its job. They were now behind enemy lines. Everything that happened from now until they crossed back into Russian territory was his responsibility. Even if there had been time to map out each detail of the task which lay ahead, Pekkala knew from experience that few operations ever went according to schedule. More often than not, it was decisions made on the spur of the moment which determined the final result. Those decisions‚ and their outcome‚ would rest upon his shoulders.

As the three of them pressed on into the darkness, each alone with their thoughts, the sound of their hobnailed boots thumped out a rhythm like a heartbeat upon the old dirt road.

Walking at the head of the line, Stefanov squinted into the darkness before him, the German sub-machine gun hugged against his chest. He had never handled a Schmeisser before, and hoped that when the time came, he would know how to use it. The only time he’d ever fired a sub-machine gun was in basic training, when he and the other recruits were handed Russian PPD-40s and told to shoot at paper targets nailed to telegraph poles at a distance of thirty paces. The instructor showed him how to bang the round drum magazine hard against the front of his helmet to settle the bullets inside before clipping it into the gun. When Stefanov pulled the trigger for the first time, the deafening shudder of the gun seemed to pull him forward instead of rocking him back the way he had expected. When the last cartridge ejected with a metallic ping, he realised that the instructor had been shouting at him to cease fire — shouting right in his ear — but he had not heard and had emptied the entire magazine.

Stefanov had forgotten how heavy such weapons were, and this German gun was no exception. The weight of the spare magazines in their canvas and leather pouch dragged on his hip bones. The gunsling rubbed at his neck. Before long, in spite of the cool night air, Stefanov’s shirt was soaked through with sweat.

After an hour’s walk, just as Leontev had said, they came to the ruins of a house which was perched at the edge of a river. But there was no sign of any bridge or anyone to meet them.

‘Perhaps we followed the wrong path,’ said Churikova.

‘Maybe we should double back,’ Stefanov suggested.

‘There’s no time for that,’ Pekkala told him. Holding his rifle above his head, he made his way down the steep bank to the water’s edge. Carefully, he stepped out into the current, winced as the cold water poured in over the tops of his boots. He hoped that the river might be shallow enough to cross on foot, and the current weak enough that it would not carry them off. There was no way to know except to try it for himself. Pekkala was up to his thighs when the bottom dropped away sharply and he lost his footing. The current was stronger than he’d thought, and it swept him a short distance downstream before he managed to regain his footing. Shivering and soaked, Pekkala had just got back on the path when he noticed a movement in the darkness.

He raised the rifle to his shoulder and squinted down the sight.

Water dripped from the barrel‚ like pearls spilled from a broken necklace‚ as he squinted down the rifle sight. Seconds passed. Just as he was beginning to wonder if he was imagining things, the darkness took shape and a man stepped out on to the path, empty hands raised above his shoulders. ‘Pekkala?’

With a sigh, he lowered the gun. ‘Yes.’

‘I am Corporal Gorinov. Major Leontev ordered me to wait here and make sure you got across the bridge.’

‘But there is no bridge!’

The man grinned at Pekkala, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. ‘That’s where you are wrong, Inspector.’

Returning to where the others waited on the path, Gorinov stepped in amongst the ruins of the house.

‘He says there is a bridge,’ Pekkala whispered to them.

‘Then he has lost his mind,’ muttered Churikova.

Pekkala followed the man into the house, his steel-shod heels sinking into the rotten wooden boards.

Just ahead, a torch blinked on. Covering the light with his hand so that only a faint pink glow showed through his fingers, Gorinov bent down and lifted a trap door.

‘Where is this bridge?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Come see for yourself.’

Beneath the trap door lay a waist-deep hole, in which Pekkala could see a thing like a large truck wheel with a piece of metal welded vertically on to the rim. Gorinov took hold of the wheel and began to turn it slowly.

Accompanied by a clattering of metal cogs, two cables snaked out of the mud by the water’s edge, just in front of the house. Moustaches of river grass hung from the twisted metal line. Now the glassy surface of the river began to tremble. Gorinov spun the wheel faster. The sound of the cogs became a constant metallic buzz.

Churikova breathed in sharply. ‘Look!’ A narrow footbridge appeared from the black and hung suspended above the water, swaying gently in the moonlight.

‘Who built this contraption?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Before the invasion, there were many such projects under way. There were many who believed the treaty with Germany would not last. They ordered the construction of hidden bunkers, tunnel systems and bridges. This is one of the few that we actually finished. I’m glad it wasn’t built for nothing.’

One by one, Stefanov and Churikova crossed the river, holding tightly to the cables as they inched their way along. The planks of the footbridge were slippery, but nails had been hammered into the underside so that their feet could grip the points. Beneath them, the river slid by like an unfurling banner of silk.

Pekkala was the last to go.

Behind him, Gorinov stood ready with a large set of bolt cutters.

‘What are you doing with those?’ asked Pekkala.

‘My orders are to cut the cables as soon as you’re across.’

When Pekkala reached the middle of the bridge, he paused and looked out over the river. Mist clung to the banks. The long, ungainly body of a heron lifted from the shadows and took flight, passing so close over Pekkala’s head that he felt the air stirred by the beating of its wings.

As Pekkala set foot on the far bank, he turned and waved to Gorinov.

Gorinov raised one hand, his silhouetted fingers black as crow’s feathers. Seconds later came the grinding, snapping sound of the bolt cutters as they gnawed through the cables of the bridge.