Free The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø

before long, Sindre’s face would be erased from his memory. Rubbed away. Edvard Junior would be two in a few days. He didn’t proceed with this line of thought.
    ‘Yes, go,’ he said. ‘And keep your head down.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Gudbrand said. ‘I’ll be sure to keep my head down.’
    ‘Do you remember what Daniel said?’ Edvard asked with a sort of smile. ‘He said we walked so much of the time with a stoop that we would be hunchbacks by the time we returned home.’
    A machine gun cackled in the distance.

13
Leningrad. 3 January 1943.
    G UDBRAND AWOKE WITH A START . H E 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