The Redbreast

13

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.

'Fucking hell,' Dale said. He shook his head and stamped his feet.

Edvard didn't say a word. Gudbrand reckoned he was waiting for him.

'Why haven't the corpse-bearers collected him?' Gudbrand asked finally.

'They did collect him,' Edvard said. 'They were here yesterday afternoon.'

'So why did they bring him back?' Gudbrand noticed that Edvard was eyeing him.

'No one on the general staff knows of any orders to bring him back.'

'A misunderstanding?' Gudbrand said.

'Maybe.' Edvard flicked a thin, half-smoked cigarette out of a packet, turned away from the wind and lit it with a cupped match. He passed it on after a couple of drags.

'The men who took him maintain he was put in one of the mass graves in the Northern Sector.'

'If that's true, shouldn't he be buried?'

Edvard shook his head.

'They aren't buried until they've been burned. And they only burn during the day so that the Russians can't take advantage of the light. And at night the new mass graves are open and unguarded. Someone must have taken Daniel from there.'

'Fucking hell,' Dale said again, taking the cigarette and inhaling greedily.

'So it's really true that they burn the bodies,' Gudbrand said. "What for? In this cold?'

I know that,' Dale said. 'It's because the ground is frozen. When the temperature rises in springtime, the earth pushes bodies upwards.' He reluctantly passed on the cigarette. 'Last winter we buried Vorpenes a long way behind our lines. In the spring we stumbled across him again. Well, what the foxes had left of him at any rate.'

'The question is,' Edvard said. 'How did Daniel end up here?'

Gudbrand shrugged.

'You had the last watch, Gudbrand.' Edvard had screwed up one eye and turned the cyclops eye on him. Gudbrand took his time with the cigarette. Dale coughed.

'I walked past here four times,' Gudbrand said, sending on the cigarette. 'He wasn't here then.'

'You could have gone up to the Northern Sector during your watch. And there are sledge tracks over here in the snow.'

'Could have been left by the corpse-bearers,' Gudbrand said.

'The tracks are over the last boot prints. And you say you walked past here four times.'

'Hell, Edvard, I can see it's Daniel over there too!' Gudbrand exploded. 'Of course someone put him there, and probably using a sledge. But if you're listening to what I'm saying you must be able to see that someone brought him here after I passed for the last time.'

Edvard didn't answer; instead, visibly annoyed, he ripped the final couple of centimetres of the cigarette out of Dale's pursed mouth and stared disapprovingly at the wet marks on the cigarette paper. Dale picked the shreds of tobacco off his tongue and scowled.

'Why in God's name would I bother with something like this?' Gudbrand asked. 'And how could I possibly drag a body from the Northern Sector over here without being stopped by patrols?'

'You could have gone through no man's land.'

Gudbrand shook his head in disbelief. 'Do you think I've gone mad, Edvard? What would I want with Daniel's body?'

Edvard took the last two drags of the cigarette, dropped the end in the snow and trod it in with his boot. He always did that, he didn't know why, but he couldn't stand the sight of smoking cigarette ends. The snow gave with a groan as he twisted his heel.

'No, I don't think you dragged Daniel here,' Edvard said. 'Because I don't think it's Daniel.'

Dale and Gudbrand recoiled.

'Of course it's Daniel,' Gudbrand said.

'Or someone with the same build,' Edvard said. 'And the same unit insignia on the uniform.'

'The sacking…'

'So you can see a difference in the sacking, can you?' Edvard jeered, but it was Gudbrand he was watching.

'It's Daniel,' Gudbrand said with a swallow. 'I recognise the boots.'

'So you think we should just call the corpse-bearers and ask them to take him away again, do you?' Edvard asked. 'Without taking a closer look. That was what you were counting on, wasn't it?'

'Go to hell, Edvard!'

'I'm not so sure it's my turn this time, Gudbrand. Take off the sacking, Dale.'

Dale gaped at the other two, who were glowering at each other like two rampant bulls.

'Do you hear me?' Edvard shouted. 'Cut away the sacking!'

'I'd prefer not to -'

'It's an order. This minute!'

Dale continued to hesitate. He looked from one to the other and at the rigid corpse on the ammunition chests. Then he shrugged his shoulders, unbuttoned his jacket and put his hand inside.

'Wait!' Edvard shouted. Ask if you can borrow Gudbrand's bayonet.'

Now Dale really was at sea. He looked quizzically at Gudbrand, who was shaking his head.

'What do you mean?' Edvard asked, still face to face with Gudbrand. 'Your standing orders are that you must always carry a bayonet, and you don't have one on you?'

Gudbrand didn't answer.

'You, the ultimate killing machine with a bayonet, Gudbrand. You haven't simply lost it, have you?' Gudbrand still didn't answer.

'In that case, yes, you'll have to use your own, Dale.'

Gudbrand felt an irrepressible urge to tear the large staring eye out of the section leader's head. Rottenfuhrer, that's what he was! Or rather a 'Rat-fuhrer'. A rat with a rat's eyes and a rat's brain. Didn't he understand anything?

They heard a ripping noise behind them as the bayonet cut through the sacking, then a gasp from Dale. Both men whirled round. There, in the red light of the dawning day, a white face with a hideous grin stared up at them with a third black gaping eye in the forehead. It was Daniel alright, no question about it.