Free Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen Page B

pennants swaggering on the front fenders. An officer stepped out of the group and beckoned the guards from the nearest building over towards him. On receiving their orders they ran the hundred feet over to the assembly, guns erect and coats flapping, to pass on the commands.
    When they began moving this time, the stretchers were at the head of the procession. A few of the silent figures kept standing about apathetically and had to be egged on by the soldiers with threats and shoves. Apart from the dry crunching of hundreds of feet on the frosty snow and the sound of lorries in the distance, the panting of the porters was all that could be heard. From where Bryan was, he could see nine or ten buildings all in all, several of them connected in pairs by white-painted wooden corridors. It was one of these complexes they were heading for, the furthest of the twin blocks.
    Apart from a single wall lamp shining faintly over the entrance, the building lay black and lifeless.
    A nurse wearing a cap stepped through the door, shuddered slightly in the wind and indicated that the procession should turn and follow her over towards two wooden barrack buildings that lay immediately to their left. The porters protested, but did they were told.
     
     
    The barrack buildings were tall, single-storey wooden buildings with golden, frost-rimmed windows under the eaves. Shutters and heavy curtains shielded the windows from the glare of the towering floodlights outside.
    The main door led directly into a room in which dozens of thin, striped mattresses lay side by side in the middle of the floor. The walls were lined with support beams. Weak light bulbs, hoisted-up parallel bars, rings and trapezes hung from theceiling. The far wall of the gymnasium was bare. A single door led into the adjacent building. Four buckets served as latrines. Dark, shabby-looking chairs, each encircled by a small canvas booth, stood at the end where they had entered
    The porters slid Bryan off onto a mattress halfway down the room, stuck his case file underneath it and disappeared with the stretcher without having made sure their patient was lying properly.
    The stream of shuffling, empty eyed figures into the barrack ceased. James lay only a few mattresses away, following the last arrivals with his eyes. When all of them were either sitting down or lying flat on their backs on the hard beds, a nurse clapped her hands and strode down between the rows, repeating the same sentence over and over again. Although Bryan couldn’t understand her, he understood his fellow patients’ confusion and clumsy attempts to get undressed and pile their clothes beside the mattress. Not all of them did as they had been told and had to be helped roughly by the porters who had been watching the scene, making subdued comments. Neither James nor Bryan reacted, but let porters haul their shirts up over their heads, making their ears smart. Bryan noted with relief that James was not wearing Jill’s scarf.
    One of the naked men got up, arms hanging limply by his sides, and began peeing mechanically over both the mattress and his neighbour, who made a feeble evasive attempt. The nurse rushed forward and struck him on the neck, instantly interrupting the stream, and led him over to the buckets at the far end of the room.
    Bryan counted himself lucky not to have had anything to eat or drink for several days.
    The door leading to the back building opened and a trolley was wheeled inside, loaded with blankets.
    It remained there for some time.
    The floor wasn’t cold, but the draught from the entrance gave them goose flesh. Bryan curled up in order to keep warm.
    After a while someone started groaning. Several of the naked men were trembling visibly. The two nurses who had been ordered to watch over them shook their heads in irritation and pointed towards the trolley. Apparently they were supposed to fetch their own blankets. A couple of thin, gnarled men jumped over the mattresses with no sign of