The Ice War

by Anders Blixt

  “If we meet again, we’ll meet there.” We who danced with the Grim Reaper – regardless whether we were conscripted Russian peasants or aristocratic Swedish volunteers – would not be able to dodge his scythe forever. Cats have nine lives, the proverb says, but men don’t; Paul and I would probably never meet again.

  I took the pump-action gun and the ammunition and walked slowly down the swaying gangway to the stone-paved quay. The halftrack, a worn blue Hercule Autochenille from Fabrique Royale des Camions in Lyons, waited tall as a house in front of me. A stylized black monster head glared at me from above the windshield. On the flatbed a tarpaulin covered our barrel together with half a dozen fuel barrels. The diesel engine thudded and vertical exhaust pipes behind the cab puffed stinking smoke.

  Yitzchak, who had assisted the teamsters when the Nereid’s crane transferred the barrel, stood next to the cab and chatted with Victor Szenes who leaned out of the window. Their Yiddish was so colloquial that I barely understood a word.

  I looked back at the ship. Linda walked down the gangway, dressed in a navy blue sailor’s jacket, a black turtleneck sweater and a brown knitted cap. Someone had cut her hair so short that not a strand was visible. All pieces of clothing were too big, so she looked like a schoolboy dressed in his father’s work clothes. She carried the same type of sailor’s sack as I did. “Call me Connor,” she said in a light tone. “Sometimes it’s better to be a bloke.”

  “For sure,” I said.

  A quick farewell to Yitzchak and then we climbed into the cab, six feet above the ground, through the right door. I saw the vehicle’s name painted in blackletter script above it: Behemoth.

  The cab seat was a sofa wide enough for four adult males. With two slim people in the middle, nobody would feel cramped. I put our luggage behind the seat. There I found a gun rack with a twin-barrelled shotgun and an old French army rifle. A sleeper with a narrow bunk bed at the cab’s rear would provide rest at stops in the wilderness.

  Victor Szenes disregarded Linda’s new clothes, saying merely: “Are you ready?” as he put a checked cloth cap on his bald pate. I nodded and handed him the first instalment of his fee. He put away the coin rolls without counting.

  Jacob Szenes, on the other hand, paid a lot of attention to Linda, but he said nothing. A pimple-faced teenage boy in a brown leather jacket and black denim trousers next to an oddly dressed woman – well, I had been a youngster, too, before the rebellion.

  The teamster made a thumbs-up gesture at Yitzchak, closed the window to his left and moved the gear stick. Behemoth rumbled forward, its tracks scratching white scars in the stone pavement.

  Thus the last stage of our Alban odyssey began. I glimpsed the journey’s end but did not feel relieved. Too much had gone wrong already.

  Chapter 17

  One hour after departure the mercury barometer on Behemoth’s dashboard had fallen one inch. The sun vanished behind a thick layer of grey clouds. The wind turned to the southwest and gained in force. The cab was poorly insulated so we had to put on extra clothes to stay warm. Victor Szenes passed around a thermos flask with coffee. The crackling radio tuned to Radio Austria International was barely audible above the engine noise.

  Acheron is a bowl in Alba’s surface, but it is so gigantic that you cannot perceive its curvature with the naked eye. The halftrack rumbled across a plain divided in broad fields. The local crop resembled sweet corn, but it was black like most native plants: acre after acre of six-foot swaying stalks extending on both sides of the gravel track, creating a scene more appropriate for Hades than for Earth. The low brown farmhouses were the sole contrast to the ever-present black. The ursines’ farming technology was old-fashioned with bremmuts harnessed to most heavy machinery. The quadruped farmhands looked at us when Behemoth rumbled by, but resumed working almost at once.

  During the afternoon the rain increased from occasional splashes to a downpour. Victor Szenes switched on a strong headlight, whose cone of light penetrated ten-fifteen yards into the rain, and drove on without much concern. After all, this was his home turf and he probably knew every inch of the route.

  After six hours on the road and in pitch darkness Behemoth drove into a yard next to a broad building and stopped. There was not a person to be seen: everyone had taken refuge indoors from the weather. The headlight illuminated a metal signboard in the traditional English style above the entrance: a white five-pointed star on a green background. The White Star Inn had been designed by humans for humans, even though its builders had used the local black wood and brown stone. I saw a stable to the left and a broad carport with three walls to the right. The halftrack was too tall to fit under its roof.

  “Good food.” I put down the knife and fork on the plate in front of me. The belly was filled by well-spiced beef and mediocre beer and I felt ready to doze off.

  “We often stay here during long hauls,” said Victor and exhaled a cloud of acrid cigarillo smoke. “Good food and the beds are comfortable.”

  The dining room was almost empty. My eyes wandered among the prints of English hunting scenes on the light green wall panels, an enlivening contrast against the black wooden furniture and the black firewood in the hearth. I guessed that the innkeeper aspired to the ambience of a European inn, but with little success. There were few guests here for the night, and the receptionist had offered me a discount when I requested three rooms instead of the two he had expected.

  Someone opened the inn’s front door with excessive force. I glanced at the door to the reception. It swung open and three soldiers entered, two privates and one corporal in Imperial grey. The uniforms were unkempt and the boots mud-splattered. They tossed their rifles on a bench.

  “Fräulein, bitte essen,” the corporal called at the serving maid. His voice was slurred from alcohol and he spoke German with an accent I could not place. After all, emperor Otto ruled over a score Central European peoples. The trio sat down at a table while the serving maid approached with the menu. The men discussed it in lively voices.

  “They’re Poles,” whispered Linda.

  “Do you understand what they say?” I asked.

  “Not much. But they’re drunk,” she said.

  “Drunk on duty. I wonder how their sergeant will deal with that,” I said.

  One of the privates got up and walked toward us in a reasonably steady gait. He glared at Victor, who stared back with a firm gaze.

  “Who’re you?” the soldier said in poor German. His furrowed face was pale with shadows around the eyes. This teenager had seen more than a youngster should.

  “Travellers,” I said in the same language.

  “I didn’t speak to you, garçon. I spoke to the old man there.”

  “Travellers,” said Victor. His face showed no feelings, no thoughts.

  “So that’s your truck ou’ there?” said the soldier?

  Victor nodded.

  “It’s wa’ now. The Emperor’s army needs it, old man.” The soldier leaned over us. His breath reeked of cheap vodka.

  Victor shook his head slowly. “The army doesn’t do requisitions in that way.”

  “Listen here, żyd. We need your truck and we don’t give a fuck what you think.” The soldier raised his right hand. Victor rose out of his chair in one swift movement that sent plates, wineglasses and cutlery tumbling over the white tablecloth. He caught the soldier's descending arm at the wrist and twisted it sidewise downward. The soldier groaned with pain while bending forward. His buddies got up and grabbed their rifles. The waitress fled screaming into the kitchen.

  “Old man, let go!” shouted the corporal. Victor obeyed; no sane person argues with a raised gun barrel.

  The private staggered backwards. Jacob sat completely still and watched the other Poles.

  “Fucking troublemakers,” said the corporal. He gave an order in Polish. The quarrelsome private returned to his seat, but before he had arrived, the corporal stepped forward and punched him hard in solar plexus. The private collapsed in a moaning
heap on the floor.

  The innkeeper, a thin elderly man in a black suit, came out from the kitchen and stopped. He looked amiss at the situation.

  The corporal put his rifle on the table next to him. “Gentlemen, I apologize for my man’s loutish behaviour. The Imperial army does not requisition civilian possessions in this manner,” he said.

  Victor responded by a reserved nod. “I know. Apology accepted.”

  The fallen soldier got back on his feet.

  The innkeeper headed for our table. “Gentlemen, this is embarrassing.” His face was pale and the mouth a tense narrow line.

  “Not your fault, Herr Lothari. The times are bad,” said Victor.

  “Herr Szenes, you have often been a welcome guest.” Lothari rubbed his palms together.

  “Considering the food Johann and Erika serve at every visit, I’ll keep on staying here when my job takes me this way.” During our meal Victor Szenes had joked with the middle-aged waitress in a manner that showed that he was a regular customer.

  “We’ll retire now,” I said.

  Linda walked near me when we exited the dining room and I glimpsed in the corner of my eye how the quarrelsome soldier made a lewd gesture at us.

  When we passed through the hallway, a maid walked by, her arms burdened by bed linen.

  I addressed her: “Fräulein, those three soldiers. How did they arrive?”

  “They came on foot, sir.”

  Her answer confirmed my suspicions. “Thank you, Fräulein.” Now we had to act swiftly before matters got out hand. I followed Linda up the stair to the second floor and entered her room. After closing the door, I said: “Those soldiers, they’re probably deserters.”

  “Why do you think so?” said Linda.

  “Soldiers don’t move around in civilian areas in small teams without an NCO. If they had been ten or twenty privates with a sergeant in charge, I wouldn’t be suspicious. Also, they’re drunk and unkempt. I think they’re planning to steal the halftrack tonight. They want to leave Imperial territory as fast as possible. You and I must stop them,” I said.

  Linda nodded.

  I continued: “If the barrel hadn’t been on the flatbed, I wouldn’t have bothered with them.”

  “You’re right. Now let’s get moving,” said Linda and opened the tiny room’s sole window. It looked out over the inn’s rear side. The only illumination came from kerosene lamps inside the main building’s room facing this way. Linda pulled a waterproof poncho and a torchlight from her bag. I had to endure the rain without protection.

  The ground was ten feet away so it was an easy task lowering Linda. I climbed down and then we walked between garbage bins, shed and a henhouse across the backyard.

  When we arrived at Behemoth’s left front wheel next to the empty carport, I took the auto-picklock from my jacket pocket and used it to open the door and sneak into the rear of the cab. I broke open the carton of buckshot and crammed several cartridges into my pockets. Then I took Paul’s Beretta and handed the other shotgun to Linda.

  We climbed on top of the carport to wait in the pouring rain: minute after minute of cold misery on its corrugated tin roof. Clouds covered the night sky, so the passage of time could not be determined by the movements of the moon and the stars.

  The inn’s main entrance opened and I saw three people silhouetted against the interior lights. One carried a kerosene lamp. They walked in the unsteady gait of men that had fortified their courage with vodka and beer. Even if they managed to steal the halftrack, they would have trouble keeping a steady course along the local dirt tracks.

  Two soldiers entered the carport to seek protection from the rain. None checked the roof where Linda and I huddled. The third soldier approached the halftrack, put the lantern on the ground next to the cab door facing us and leaned his rifle against the vehicle. Metal croaked when he tried to pry the door open with his bayonet.

  I hardened my mind, entering a killer mode. War is dishonourable business – one prefers to ambush unprepared opponents. Without a sound I slid down in the cover of the carport’s rear wall, out of sight from the halftrack behind a corner. Four quick steps took me to the prospective burglar. He turned toward me during the dash, fumbling for his rifle. My rifle butt struck his groin and he toppled with a scream.

  I retreated halfway around the corner and raised the Beretta in firing position. The two soldiers came around the corner into the lantern light, their rifles ready with bayonets in place.

  Linda fired; two dry sharp cracks from the carport roof. Two shotgun blasts tore through the chests of two young men. Death took them before they realized who had shot. The transuranium bomb reaped new victims.

  The surviving Pole screamed wordlessly into the dark. He tried to get back on his feet but failed.

  “Are you going to kill him?” said Linda in English from somewhere above my head.

  “No. Let him live. He won’t understand anything,” I said.

  I walked into the lantern light with my shotgun aimed at the survivor’s face and kicked his rifle out of his reach. He crawled backward to the halftrack and used it as support when getting up on his feet.

  “Flee!” I said in German. “You live.”

  Crying and snivelling he staggered into the rain and the darkness. I did not see in what direction he fled and I never found out what became of him.

  I hobbled in under the carport’s roof and sat down on its earth floor. My hands trembled. Linda soon joined me. Someone called from the main building and I responded by shouting: “Help us!”

  Victor Szenes and a handyman came after a while. They carried kerosene lanterns that partially dispersed darkness but that also made them excellent targets. Their questions turned into meaningless noise, but they guided us back into light and warmth.

  Lothari’s staff put us in easy chairs in front of the open fire in the tap room and fetched dry clothes and hot cocoa. The innkeeper hovered at the edge of my field of vision with a shotgun in his hands. He and Victor talked with one another, but I ignored them. My inner eye showed only the death of two young Poles again and again.

  “Herr Bornewald, two policemen have come to talk to you.” Lothari’s voice dispelled the shadows in my mind for a moment.

  My watch said that two and a half hour had passed since the firefight. I had not moved from my easy chair. “I’m coming.”

  Linda looked at me, but did not move.

  “I’ll send for you if need be,” I said.

  “I don’t want to talk to the police.” Her voice was weak and flat.

  Lothari guided me to a small office, where two sombre men waited, one in a grey business suit and one in a blue field uniform.

  The civilian shook my hand with a firm grip. “Good evening, I am detective sergeant Conti of the Criminal Investigation Service and this is lieutenant Schreiber of the Imperial Gendarmerie.” His dialect indicated that he was born in Vienna. Schreiber raised his hand in a military salute.

  “I’m Johnny Bornewald.” I focused my mind on the ordeal ahead of me. During the past hour I had rehearsed in my mind what to say in a police interrogation.

  “Let’s sit down and talk this through this matter.” Conti gestured at three simple chairs and turned to Lothari. “Thanks for the help. We will call for you if we need further assistance.”

  Lothari left, closing the door gently behind him.

  “Well, Herr Bornewald, who are you?” Conti’s voice was calm, a professional doing his job.

  “I’m a travelling agent for the cloudship Cassiopeia, which currently is undergoing repairs in Fredriksborg’s cloudport. Miss Connor is my guide. We have been looking around for trade goods that the captain could sell in Magalhana for a profit.”

  Schreiber jotted down every word I said in his notebook.

  “Why do you travel in an empty halftrack?” said Conti.

  “The trip has been unsuccessful. In Port Francis, we heard the news of the Imperial mobilization. I decided to return to Fredriksborg at once
to avoid getting stranded in the wilderness in case of a full-scale war. I charted Victor Szenes to take us there,” I said.

  “What happened when the two men died?” said Conti.

  I let my inner darkness tint my voice: “I got suspicious when I saw the men enter the dining room. Drunken louts in uniform. One of them threatened Herr Szenes, demanding to ‘requisition’ the halftrack. I assumed the soldiers were deserters on the run. We had some valuables in the halftrack, so after our meal I decided to go and get them so that they would not be stolen during the night. Miss Connor came along. When we were at the halftrack, the soldiers left the inn. They seemed to be more intoxicated so I worried what they might be up to. I grabbed a shotgun from the halftrack to protect Miss Connor. The soldiers came up to us and behaved like pigs. When they started fumbling with the rifles, I fired two rounds because I was convinced they intended to bayonet me and rape Miss Connor. Two fell, while the third escaped into the darkness. I have no idea what happened to him.”

  “Did you consider any less violent course of action?” asked Conti.

  “Three drunken aggressive soldiers with rifles? No, I did not. I wanted to protect us,” I said.

  “Do you think Miss Connor has anything to add to your statement?” asked Conti.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Your account matches statements made by Herr Lothari and Herr Szenes. I will write a report on the event tomorrow where I will explain that the killings are to be considered justified self-defence. And you made the right assumption, Herr Bornewald. Those men were deserters from the Imperial army.” Conti rose from the chair and his neutral facial expression changed to a look of genuine concern. “We will leave you now. May your continued journey to Fredriksborg be spared of more misery.”

  I shook the policemen’s hands and walked back to Linda in the tap room.

  Just after dawn Behemoth took us away from the White Star Inn. The rain had stopped, but clouds still covered the sky. My eyes felt like they were full of grit. I hadn’t slept much, because whenever I dozed off, nightmares appeared. Linda looked like she had had a similar night and now she slumbered uneasily next to me. I gazed through the windshield at the never-ending black fields.