The Redbreast(21)

metallic. The consistency was thick, probably

because of the cold, Gudbrand thought, and he

opened his eyes again. He couldn’t see Daniel

from the trench. He must have dived behind the

machine gun when he knew that he had been seen,

Gudbrand guessed, but he could feel his heart

racing.

‘Daniel?’

No answer.

‘Daniel?’

Gudbrand got to his feet and crawled out of the

trench. Daniel was on his back with his cartridge

belt under his head and the Russian cap over his

face. The snow was spattered with brandy and

blood. Gudbrand took the cap in his hand. Daniel

was staring with wide eyes up at the starry sky. He

had a large, black, gaping hole in the middle of his

forehead. Gudbrand still had the sweet metallic

taste in his mouth and felt nauseous.

‘Daniel.’

It was barely a whisper between his dry lips.

Gudbrand thought Daniel looked like a little boy

who wanted to draw angels in the snow but had

fallen asleep. With a sob he lurched towards the

siren and pulled the crank handle. As the flares

sank into their hiding places, the piercing wail of

the siren rose towards the heavens.

‘That wasn’t how it was supposed to be,’ was all

Gudbrand managed to say.

oooooooo-OOOOOOOO . . . !

Edvard and the others had come out and stood

behind him. Someone shouted Gudbrand’s name,

but he didn’t hear. He just wound the handle round

and round. In the end Edvard went over and held

the handle. Gudbrand let go, but didn’t turn round;

he remained where he was, staring at the trench

and the sky as the tears froze solid on his cheeks.

The lament of the siren subsided.

‘That wasn’t how it was supposed to be,’ he

whispered.

11

Leningrad. 1 January 1943.

DANIEL ALREADY HAD ICE CRYSTALS UNDER HIS

NOSE AND in the corners of his eyes and mouth

when they carried him away. Often they used to

leave them until they went stiff so they would be

easier to carry, but Daniel was in the way of the

machine gun. So two men had dragged him to a

branch off the main trench where they laid him on

two ammunition boxes kept for burning. Hallgrim

Dale had tied sacking around his head so they

didn’t have to see the death mask with its ugly grin.

Edvard had rung the mass grave in the Northern

Sector and explained where Daniel was. They had

promised to send two corpse-bearers at some point

during the night. Then Mosken had ordered Sindre

out of his sick bed to take the rest of the watch with

Gudbrand. The first thing they had to do was clean

the spattered machine gun.

‘They’ve bombed Cologne to smithereens,’

Sindre said.

They lay side by side on the edge of the trench, in

the narrow hollow where they had a view over no

man’s land. Gudbrand didn’t like being so close to

Sindre.

‘And Stalingrad is going down the drain.’

Gudbrand couldn’t feel the cold; it was as if his

head and body were filled with cotton and nothing

bothered him any longer. All he felt was the ice-

cold metal burning against his skin and the numb





fingers which would not obey. He tried again. The

stock and the trigger mechanism already lay on the

woollen rug beside him in the snow, but it was

harder undoing the final piece. In Sennheim they

had been trained to dismantle and reassemble a

machine gun blindfold. Sennheim, in beautiful,

warm, German Elsass. It was different when you

couldn’t feel what your fingers were doing.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Sindre said. ‘The Russians

will get us. Just as they got Gudeson.’

Gudbrand remembered the German Wehrmacht

captain who had been so amused when Sindre said

he came from a farm on the outskirts of a place

called Toten.

‘ Toten. Wie im Totenreich?’ the captain had

laughed.

He lost his grip on the bolt.

‘Fuck it!’ Gudbrand’s voice quivered. ‘It’s all the

blood sticking the parts together.’

He placed the top of the little tube of gun oil

against the bolt and squeezed. The cold had made

the yellowish liquid thick and sluggish; he knew

that oil dissolved blood. He had used gun oil when

his ear had been inflamed.

Sindre leaned over and fiddled with one of the

cartridges.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. He looked up and grinned,

showing the brown stains between his teeth. His

pale, unshaven face was so close that Gudbrand

could smell the foul breath they all had here after a

while. Sindre held up a finger.

‘Who’d have thought Daniel had so much brain,

eh?’

Gudbrand turned away.

Sindre studied the tip of his finger. ‘But he didn’t

use it much. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come

back from no man’s land that night. I heard you