rucksacks and made a hole through the ice with his knife. It was fourteen centimetres thick. It would not crack under his weight.
He walked at twenty-five metres per minute. He did not want to run the risk of sweating and then freezing. He paused at Höga Svedsholmen and broke off a branch to use as a walking stick. He drank some water and ate some of the sandwiches provided by the guest house. Then he rested for twenty minutes.
When he left Höga Svedsholmen he tried pulling his rucksacks behind him, as if they were on runners. He fastened a rope around his waist and started pulling. The rucksacks slid easily on the ice and thin snow. But before he was even halfway to Gråholmarna the small of his back started to ache. He stopped and tried to think of another way of doing it. He made a harness out of the rope, so that the weight was shared by his back and shoulders. When he began walking again he could feel that there was less of a strain.
At Gråholmarna he made a fire between some stones. Nowhere could he see any smoke rising above the tree-tops, nowhere was there any sign of human life. A whole world had disappeared from view.
While he was waiting for the coffee water to boil he stood on a rock and shouted over the ice-covered bay. The sound was tossed about, returned as a distant echo, then all was silent again. From there he could see Kråkmarö and Armnö through his telescope.
He found an unlocked boathouse by the Armnö Sound. There was a fireplace inside, and no sign of any footprints around the building. There were nets, decoys and a strong smell of tar in the boathouse. He opened a tin of American meat and snuggled down in his sleeping bag. He fell asleep with a feeling of being inaccessible.
CHAPTER 90
The next day he walked ten kilometres.
That took him over Bockskärsdjupet and as far as Hökbådan, where he set up camp.
He had intended to head straight for Halsskär, but a channel had opened up near Harstena and so he was forced to make a detour to the north. Hökbådan proved to be no more than a collection of bare rocks with no boathouses. Before darkness fell he managed to make a shelter of branches and moss over a crack in the rocks where he intended to spend the night. He made a fire and opened another tin of American meat. The wind was still no more than a gentle breeze when he eased himself into his sleeping bag. It had grown noticeably less cold during the day. He estimated the temperature at minus three degrees. When darkness fell and his fire died he lay listening to the sea. Was that open water he could hear lapping against the ice? Or would the thick ice stretch as far as Halsskär? He could not make up his mind what he could hear, whether it was the sea or the silence inside his head.
Several times he thought he could hear gunfire, first a distant thud and then a shock wave passing through the darkness.
Nobody knows where I am, he thought. In the middle of winter, in the cold world of the ice, I have found a hiding place that nobody could possibly imagine.
CHAPTER 91
He lit a fire as day broke. The wind was still no more than a breeze, the temperature minus one. He ate his remaining sandwiches, drank coffee, then prepared to walk the ten kilometres to Halsskär. The clouds were motionless above his head, the ice with its thin covering of snow was no longer broken by rocks and skerries. Now he was heading towards the open sea. He could see Halsskär and the Sandsänkan lighthouse through his telescope. He could still not see whether the ice stretched all the way, though.
He pulled his rucksacks behind him, the harness had chafed his left shoulder, but it was not painful enough to stop him walking for one more day.
He saw no animal tracks. He was walking eastwards and gave himself no time to rest. Every half-hour he scanned the horizon with his telescope.
He had passed Krokbåden to his right before he could be confident that there was ice all the way. There was no open water forming a barrier between him and the island. The ice extended as far as Halsskär and perhaps even to the Sandsänkan lighthouse.
He scanned Halsskär with his telescope. Eventually he was able