letter.
Gudbrand didn’t know, because he and Edvard
hadn’t spoken much since last winter. It was odd,
but even here, under these conditions, two people
could easily manage to avoid each other if they
wanted to enough. Not that Gudbrand disliked
Edvard; on the contrary, he respected the Mjøndal
man whom he considered a clever person, a brave
soldier and supportive to the new, young men in
the section. In the autumn they had promoted
Edvard to Scharführer, which corresponded to the
rank of sergeant in the Norwegian army, but his
responsibilities had remained the same. Edvard
joked that he had been promoted because all the
others were dead, so they had a lot of sergeants’
caps left over.
Gudbrand had often thought that in different
circumstances the two of them might have been
good friends. However, events the previous winter
– Sindre’s desertion and the mysterious
reappearance of Daniel’s corpse – had remained
an issue between them.
The dull thud of a distant explosion broke the
silence, followed by the chatter of machine guns.
‘Opposition’s stiffening,’ Gudbrand said, more as
a question than a statement.
‘Yes,’ Edvard said. ‘It’s this damned mild
weather. Our supplies lorries are getting stuck in
the mud.’
‘Will we have to retreat?’
Edvard hunched his shoulders. ‘A few kilometres
perhaps. But we’ll be back.’
Gudbrand shielded his eyes with his hand and
looked towards the south. He had no desire to
come back. He wanted to return home and see if
there was still a life for him there.
‘Have you seen the Norwegian road sign at the
crossing outside the field hospital, the one with the
sun cross?’ he asked. ‘With one arm pointing down
the road to the east, showing: Leningrad five
kilometres?’
Edvard nodded.
‘Do you remember what’s on the arm pointing
west?’
‘Oslo,’ Edvard said. ‘2,611 kilometres.’
‘It’s a long way.’
‘Yes, it is a long way.’
Dale had allowed Edvard to keep the rifle and sat
on the ground with his hands buried in the snow in
front of him. His head hung like a snapped
dandelion between his narrow shoulders. They
heard another explosion, closer this time.
‘Thank you very much for —’
‘Not at all,’ Gudbrand said quickly.
‘I saw Olaf Lindvig in the hospital,’ Edvard said.
He didn’t know why he had said that. Maybe
because Gudbrand was the only person in the
section, apart from Dale, who had been there as
long as he had.
‘Was he . . . ?’
‘Just a minor wound, I believe. I saw his white
uniform.’
‘He’s a good man, I hear.’
‘Yes, we have many good men.’
They stood facing each other in silence.
Edvard coughed and thrust a hand in his pocket. ‘I
got a couple of Russian cigarettes from the
Northern Sector. If you’ve got a light . . .’
Gudbrand nodded, unbuttoned his camouflage
jacket, found his matches and struck one against the
sandpaper. When he looked up, the first thing he
saw was Edvard’s enlarged cyclops eye. It was
staring over his shoulder. Then he heard the whine.
‘Down!’ Edvard shrieked.
The next moment they were lying on the ice and
the sky burst above them with a tearing sound.
Gudbrand caught a glimpse of the rudder of a
Russian fighter plane flying so low over the
trenches that snow whirled up from the ground
beneath. Then they were gone and it was quiet
again.
‘Well, I’m . . .’ Gudbrand whispered.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Edvard groaned, turning on to his
side and smiling at Gudbrand.
‘I could see the pilot. He pulled back the glass
and leaned out of the cockpit. The Ivans have gone
mad.’ He was panting with laughter. ‘This is
turning into a right old day, this is.’
Gudbrand stared at the broken match he still held
in his hand. Then he began to laugh too.
‘Ha, ha,’ Dale went, looking at the other two from
where he sat in the snow at the side of the trench.
‘Hee, hee.’
Gudbrand caught Edvard’s eye and they both
began to roar with laughter. They laughed so much
they were gasping for breath and at first they didn’t
hear the peculiar sound, coming ever closer.
Clink . . . clink . . .
It sounded like someone patiently hitting the ice
with a hoe.
Clink . . .
Then came a sound of metal against metal and
Gudbrand and Edvard turned to see Dale slowly
keel over in the snow.
‘What the hell —’ Gudbrand started to say.
‘Grenade!’ screamed Edvard.