The Redbreast (7 page)

‘Get under cover, Gudeson,’ the section leader said.

But Daniel simply smiled and the next moment he was gone; the frost smoke from his mouth was left hanging over them for a tiny second. Then the flare behind the horizon sank and it was dark again.

‘Gudeson!’ Edvard shouted, clambering out of the trench. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘Can you see him?’ Gudbrand asked.

‘Vanished.’

‘What did the nutter want with the spade?’ Sindre asked, looking at Gudbrand.

‘Don’t know,’ Gudbrand said. ‘To shift barbed wire maybe?’

‘Why would he want to shift barbed wire?’

‘Don’t know.’ Gudbrand didn’t like Sindre’s wild eyes. They reminded him of another country boy who had been there. He had gone crazy in the end, pissed in his shoes one night before going on duty and all his toes had had to be amputated afterwards. But he was back home in Norway now, so maybe he hadn’t been so crazy after all. At any rate, he’d had the same wild eyes.

‘Perhaps he’s going for a walk in no man’s land,’ Gudbrand said. ‘I know what’s on the other side of the barbed wire. I wonder what he’s doing there.’

‘Perhaps the shell hit him on the head,’ Hallgrim Dale said. ‘Perhaps he’s gone ga-ga.’

Hallgrim was the youngest in the section, only eighteen years old. No one really knew why he had enlisted. Adventure, Gudbrand thought. Dale maintained that he admired Hitler, but he knew nothing about politics. Daniel thought that he had left a girl in the family way.

‘If the Russian is still alive, Gudeson will be shot before he gets fifty metres,’ Edvard Mosken said.

‘Daniel got him,’ Gudbrand whispered.

‘In that case one of the others will shoot Gudeson,’ Edvard said, sticking his hand inside his camouflage jacket and pulling out a thin cigarette from his breast pocket. ‘It’s crawling with them out there tonight.’

He held the match in a cupped hand as he struck it hard against the crude matchbox. The sulphur ignited at second attempt and Edvard lit his cigarette, took a drag and passed it round without saying a word. All the men inhaled slowly and passed the cigarette on to their neigh-bour. No one said a word; they all seemed to have sunk into their own thoughts. But Gudbrand knew that, like him, they were listening.

Ten minutes passed without a sound. ‘They say planes are going to bomb Lake Ladoga,’ Hallgrim Dale said.

They had all heard the rumours about the Russians fleeing from Leningrad across the frozen lake. What was worse, though, was that the ice also meant that General Tsjukov could get supplies into the besieged town.

‘They’re supposed to be fainting in the streets from hunger over there,’ Dale said, indicating the east.

But Gudbrand had been hearing that ever since he had been sent there, almost a year ago, and still they were out there shooting at you as soon as you stuck your head out of the trench. Last winter the Russian deserters – who’d had enough and chose to change sides for a little food and warmth – had come over to the trenches with their hands behind their heads. But the deserters were few and far between now, and the two hollow-eyed soldiers Gudbrand had seen coming over last week had looked at them in disbelief when they saw that the Norwegians were just as skinny as they were.

‘Twenty minutes. He’s not coming back,’ Sindre said. ‘He’s had it. A goner.’

‘Shut it!’ Gudbrand took a step towards Sindre, who immediately stood up. Even though Sindre was a good head taller, it was obvious that he had no stomach for a fight. He probably remembered the Russian Gudbrand had killed some months ago. Who would have thought that nice, gentle Gudbrand had such ferocity in him? The Russian had sneaked unseen into their trench between two listening posts and had slaughtered all those sleeping in the two nearest bunkers, one full of Dutch soldiers and the other Australians, before he had got into their bunker. The lice had saved them.

They had lice everywhere, but particularly in warm places, such as under the arms, under the belt, around the crotch and ankles. Gud-brand, who lay nearest to the door, hadn’t been able to sleep because of what they called louse sores on his legs – open sores which could be the size of a small coin, the edges of which were thick with lice feeding. Gudbrand had taken out his bayonet in a futile attempt to scrape them away when the Russian stood in the doorway to let loose with his gun. Gudbrand had only seen his silhouette, but knew instantly it was an enemy when he saw the outline of a Mosin–Nagant rifle being raised. With just the blunt bayonet Gudbrand had sliced the Russian’s neck so expertly that he was drained of blood when they carried him out into the snow afterwards.

‘Calm down, boys,’ Edvard said, pulling Gudbrand to one side. ‘You should go and get some sleep, Gudbrand. You were relieved an hour ago.’

‘I’ll go out and look for him,’ Gudbrand said.

‘No, you won’t,’ Edvard said.

‘Yes, I will, I —’

‘That’s an order!’ Edvard shook his shoulder. Gudbrand tried to break free, but the section leader held him in a tight grip.

Gudbrand’s voice went higher and quivered with desperation; ‘Perhaps he’s wounded! Perhaps he’s caught on the barbed wire!’

Edvard patted him on the shoulder. ‘It’ll soon be light,’ he said. ‘Then we can find out what happened.’

He shot a quick glance at the others, who had followed the scene in silence. They began to stamp their feet in the snow and mutter to each other. Gudbrand saw Edvard go over to Hallgrim Dale and whisper a few words in his ear. Dale listened and glowered at Gudbrand. Gudbrand knew very well what it meant. It was an order to keep an eye on him. A while ago now, someone had spread a rumour that he and Daniel were more than simply good friends. And that they couldn’t be trusted. Mosken had asked straight out if they were planning to desert together. Of course they had denied this, but Mosken probably thought now that Daniel had used the opportunity to make a run for it. And that Gudbrand would ‘look for’ his comrade as part of the plan to go over to the other side together. It made Gudbrand laugh. True enough, dreaming about the wonderful promise of food, warmth and women the Russian loudspeakers spewed out over the barren battlefield in ingratiating German was attractive, but to
believe
it?

‘Shall we take a bet on whether he comes back?’ That was Sindre. ‘Three food rations. What do you say?’

Gudbrand put his arms down by his sides and could feel the bayonet hanging from the belt inside his camouflage uniform.

‘
Nicht schießen, bitte!
’

Gudbrand spun round and there, right above his head, he saw a ruddy face beneath a Russian cap smiling down at him from the edge of the trench. Then the man swung down over the edge and performed a soft Telemark landing on the ice.

‘Daniel!’ Gudbrand shouted.

‘Da da da dum!’ Daniel sang, doffing the Russian cap. ‘
Dobry vyecher
.’ The men stood rooted to the spot, staring at him. ‘Hey, Edvard,’ Daniel shouted. ‘You’d better tighten things up with our Dutch friends. They’ve got at least fifty metres between the listening posts over there.’

Edvard was as silent and stunned as the others.

‘Did you bury the Russian, Daniel?’ Gudbrand’s face was shiny with excitement.

‘Bury him?’ Daniel said. ‘I even read the Lord’s Prayer and sang to him. Are you hard of hearing or something? I’m sure they heard it on the other side.’

Then he jumped up on to the top edge of the trench, sat with his arms raised in the air and began to sing in a deep, warm voice: ‘A mighty fortress is our God . . .’

The men cheered and Gudbrand laughed so much he had tears in his eyes.

‘You devil, Daniel!’ Dale exclaimed. ‘Not Daniel . . . Call me . . .’ Daniel took off the Russian cap and read the name on the inside of the lining. ‘Uriah. He could bloody write as well. Well, well, but he was still a Bolshevik.’

He jumped down from the edge and looked around him. ‘No one has any objections to a common Jewish name, I hope?’

Total silence followed for a moment before the outburst of laughter came. Then the first of the men went over to slap him on the back.

10
Leningrad. 31 December 1942.

I
T WAS COLD IN THE MACHINE-GUN POST
. G
UDBRAND WAS
wearing all the clothes he possessed. Nevertheless, his teeth were still chattering and he had lost the sensation in his fingers and toes. The worst was his legs. He had bound new rags around his feet, but that didn’t help much.

He stared out into the dark. They hadn’t heard much from the Ivans that evening. Perhaps they were celebrating New Year’s Eve. Perhaps they were eating well. Lamb stew. Or ribs of lamb. Gudbrand knew, of course, that the Russians didn’t have any meat, but he couldn’t stop thinking about food nevertheless. As for themselves, they hadn’t had much more than the usual lentil soup and bread. The bread had a green sheen to it, but they had become accustomed to that. And if it became so mouldy that it crumbled, they just boiled the soup with the bread in it.

‘At least we got a sausage on Christmas Eve,’ Gudbrand said.

‘Shh,’ Daniel said.

‘There’s no one out there this evening, Daniel. They’re sitting eating medallions of venison. With a thick, light brown game sauce and bil-berries. And almond potatoes.’

‘Don’t start talking about food again. Be quiet and see if you can spot anything.’

‘I can’t see a thing, Daniel. Nothing.’

They huddled together, keeping their heads down. Daniel was wearing the Russian cap. The steel helmet with the Waffen SS badge lay beside him. Gudbrand knew why. There was something about the shape of the helmet which caused the eternally ice-cold snow to pass under the rim and create a continual, nerve-grinding whistling sound inside the helmet, which was particularly unfortunate if you were on duty at the listening post.

‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ Daniel asked.

‘Nothing. I just have quite bad night vision.’

‘Is that all?’

‘And then I’m a little colour blind.’

‘A
little
colour blind?’

‘Red and green. I can’t tell the difference. The colours seem the same. I never saw any berries, for example, when we went into the forest to pick cranberries for the Sunday joint . . .’

‘No more talk about food, I said!’

They were quiet. In the distance a machine gun chattered. The thermometer showed minus twenty-five. Last winter they’d had minus forty-five several nights in a row. Gudbrand consoled himself with the thought that the lice were less active in this cold. He wouldn’t start itching until he went off duty and crept under the woollen blanket in his bunk. But they tolerated the cold better than he did, the beasts. Once he had carried out an experiment: he had left his vest out in the snow in the biting cold for three consecutive days. When he took the vest into the bunker again, it was a sheet of ice. But when he thawed it out in front of the stove, a teeming, crawling mass came to life and he threw it into the flames out of sheer disgust.

Daniel cleared his throat.

‘How did you go about eating your Sunday joint then?’

Gudbrand needed no second bidding.

‘First of all, Dad carved the joint, solemnly, like a priest, while we boys sat completely still, watching. Then Mum put two slices on each plate and poured on gravy, which was so thick that she had to take care she stirred it enough so that it didn’t set. And there were loads of fresh, crisp Brussels sprouts. You should put your helmet on Daniel. What if you got shrapnel in your cap?’

‘Imagine if a shell hit my cap. Carry on.’

Gudbrand closed his eyes and a smile played around his mouth.

‘For dessert we had stewed prunes. Or brownies. That wasn’t such usual fare. Mum had brought that tradition from Brooklyn.’

Daniel spat in the snow. As a rule, watch was an hour during the winter, but both Sindre Fauke and Hallgrim Dale were in bed with temperatures, so Edvard Mosken had decided to increase it to two hours until the section was back to full strength.

Daniel put a hand on Gudbrand’s shoulder.

‘You miss her, don’t you? Your mother.’

Gudbrand laughed, spat in the same place in the snow as Daniel and gazed up at the frozen stars in the sky. There was a rustling sound in the snow and Daniel raised his head.

‘Fox,’ he said.

It was unbelievable, but even here, where every square metre had been bombed and mines were closer than the cobblestones in Karl Johans gate, there was animal life. Not much, but they had both seen hares and foxes. And the odd polecat. Obviously they tried to shoot whatever they saw. Everything was welcome in the pot. But after one of the Germans had been shot while he was out catching a hare, the top brass had got it into their heads that the Russians were releasing hares in front of the trenches to tempt men out into no man’s land. As if the Russians would voluntarily give away a hare!

Gudbrand fingered his sore lips and looked at his watch. One hour left to the next watch. He suspected that Sindre had been shoving tobacco up his rectum to give himself a temperature; he was the sort who would do that.

‘Why did you move home from the US?’ Daniel asked.

‘Wall Street Crash. My father lost his job at the shipyard.’

‘There you are,’ Daniel said. ‘That’s capitalism for you. The small guys slog away while the rich get fatter whether it’s boom time or a slump.’

‘Well, that’s the way it is.’

‘That’s how it’s been so far, but there’ll be changes now. When we win the war, Hitler’s got a little surprise up his sleeve for the people. And your father won’t need to worry any more about being unemployed. You should join the
Nasjonal Samling
.’

‘Do you really believe in all that?’

‘Don’t you?’

Gudbrand didn’t like to contradict Daniel so he answered with a shrug of his shoulders, but Daniel repeated the question.

‘Of course I believe in it,’ Gudbrand said. ‘But most of all I think about Norway. About not having to have Bolsheviks in the country. If they come, we’ll definitely go back to America.’

‘To a capitalist country?’ Daniel’s voice had become a little sharper now. ‘A democracy in the hands of the wealthy, left to chance and corrupt leaders?’