before. He brought the Russian’s cap back with
him as a trophy. Afterwards he was in his usual
high spirits and sang and entertained everyone
(apart from a few envious killjoys). I am
extremely proud to have such a resolute,
courageous person as my friend. Even though
some days it seems as if this war will never end
and the sacrifices for our home country are
great, a man like Daniel Gudeson gives us all
hope that we will stop the Bolsheviks and return
to a safe, free Norway.
Harry checked his watch and read on.
Leningrad. New Year’s Eve 1942.
. . . when I saw the fear in Sindre Fauke’s eyes I
had to say a few reassuring words to him to relax
his vigilance. It was just us two out there at the
machine-gun post; the others had gone to their
bunks, and Daniel’s body lay rigid on top of the
ammunition boxes. Then I scratched more of
Daniel’s blood off the cartridge belt. The moon
was shining and it was snowing, an extraordinary
night, and I thought that now I would collect the
remains of Daniel and put him together again,
make him whole so that he could stand up and
lead us. Sindre Fauke didn’t understand this. He
was a hanger-on, an opportunist and an informer
who only followed those he thought would win.
And the day things looked darkest for me, for us,
for Daniel, he would also betray us. I took a swift
pace back, so that I was behind him, seized his
forehead and swung the bayonet. You have to be
fairly deft to get a deep, clean cut. I let go as
soon as I had sliced him for I knew the job was
done. He turned round slowly and stared at me
with those small piggy eyes of his; he seemed to
want to scream but the bayonet had severed his
windpipe and only a whistling sound came from
the gaping wound. And blood. He grabbed his
throat with both hands to prevent his life running
out, but that only made the blood squirt out in
fine jets between his fingers. I fell and had to
scrabble backwards in the snow not to get it on
my uniform. Fresh bloodstains would not look
good if they decided to investigate Sindre
Fauke’s ‘desertion’.
When he no longer moved, I turned him on his
back and dragged him over to the ammunition
boxes on which Daniel was lying. Fortunately,
they had a similar build. I found Sindre Fauke’s
ID papers. (We always keep them on us, day and
night, because if we are stopped and have no
papers on us saying who we are and what our
orders are (infantry, Northern Front, date, stamp
and so on) we risk being shot on the spot as
deserters.) I rolled up Sindre’s papers and
stuffed them into the canteen attached to my
cartridge belt. Then I took the sack off Daniel’s
head and wrapped it round Sindre’s. Next I put
Daniel on my back and carried him out into no
man’s land. And there I buried him in the snow,
as Daniel had buried Uriah, the Russian. I kept
Daniel’s Russian cap. Sang a psalm. ‘A mighty
fortress is our God’. And ‘Join the circle of men
round the fire’.
Leningrad. 3 January 1943.
A mild winter. Everything has gone according to
plan. Early in the morning of 1 January the
corpse-bearers came and took away the body
from the ammunition boxes as they had been
instructed. Naturally, they believed it to be
Daniel Gudeson they were dragging on the
sledge to the Northern Sector. I still have to
laugh whenever I think about it. I don’t know if
they took the sacking off the head before dumping
him into the mass pit; it would not have bothered
me anyway as the corpse-bearers knew neither
Daniel nor Sindre Fauke.
The only thing that bothers me is that Edvard
Mosken seems to suspect Fauke did not desert
and that I killed him. There is not a great deal he
can do. Sindre Fauke’s body is lying with
hundreds of others, burned (may his soul burn for
ever) and unrecognisable.
But last night when I was on watch I had to
undertake the boldest operation so far. Gradually
I had come to realise that I couldn’t leave
Daniel’s body buried in the snow. With the mild
winter there was a good chance the body could
become exposed at any moment and reveal the
switch. And when I began to dream at night about
what foxes and polecats would do with Daniel’s
body as the snow melted in spring, I decided to
dig up the body and have it put in the mass grave
– after all, that was consecrated ground.
Of course, I was more frightened by our own
sentry posts than by the Russians, but fortunately
it was Hallgrim Dale, Fauke’s slow-witted
comrade, sitting in the machine-gun nest. On top
of that, it was a cloudy night and, even more
important, I felt that Daniel was with me, yes,
that he was in me. And when I had finally