Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,63

like I did.'

He paused and drew a deep breath. Tobiasson-Svartman thought for a moment that someone else was going to drop dead at his feet. But Dorflinger continued, as if he had fought his way up to the surface and was able to breathe normally again.

'I was on the cruiser Weinshorn. On Christmas Eve in the morning, north-east of Rügen, we spotted two Russian troop carriers. The sea was calm, but it was very cold, steam was coming from the water, making it look as if cold can also reach boiling point.

'I was on a team looking after one of the heavy guns amidships. It was a 254-millimetre gun and could fire salvos at targets more than ten kilometres away pretty accurately. We were given the command "Battle stations!" and we raced to our positions. I was on the lower section of the magazine, and my job was to load powder cartridges into the hoist that took them to the loading ramp on the deck above.

'We shot nineteen shells from my gun, it was an inferno, I couldn't see if we hit the target, couldn't see what we were aiming at, every shot sent us sprawling against the walls. Some people had blood coming from their eyes and noses, and the first shot burst my eardrum.

'I didn't realise when we'd stopped firing, the lad in charge of the other hoist had to come and shake me and point. The guns were silent, we had to go back on deck. I couldn't hear a thing, it was like being behind thick panes of glass. You discover a different kind of reality when you only have your eyes to help you. When there are no sounds or voices, reality is different.

'The Weinshorn closed in on the troopships. They were sinking now. The water was covered in burning oil. Hundreds of men were struggling to escape drowning, the fire, the oil. But the Weinshorn did nothing. Not one lifeboat was launched, not a single lifebuoy was thrown into the sea, not a single rope, nothing.

'I looked at the rest of the crew. Just like me they were staring in horror at all those dying men, and nobody could understand why we did nothing to save them. We were at war with Russia, OK, but these people were already beaten. We watched them dying, I can remember how our knuckles turned white as we grasped the rail. We looked at the officers up on deck, watched them laughing and pointing.

'I couldn't hear the screams, nor the laughter. I could only watch the horrific deaths in the freezing water and the burning oil. In the end there was nobody left, they were all dead, most of them had sunk, one or two bodies were still floating, some of them so badly burned that you could see only their craniums sticking out of their tattered uniform.

'Then the Weinshorn moved away. That was probably the most awful part. We didn't even stay. We sailed southwest, and in the afternoon Christmas trees were raised on the afterdeck, and carols were sung. I still couldn't hear anything, I could only see my comrades jumping and dancing round the tree and I felt I had to join them.

'Two days after New Year's Eve, late at night, I cleared off. The rating on guard duty realised what I was doing. He wanted to come with me, but didn't dare. He was frightened of being shot as a deserter and upsetting his parents. I rowed away and a week later I ended up here. I clambered on to this island and let the boat drift away. I can't stay here, of course, but I don't know where to go. I have tried to explain that to the woman, but we can't understand each other.'

Tobiasson-Svartman translated for her. Not everything, only what he thought was appropriate. The storyteller owns the story. He adapted it, made no mention of the Russian ships that had been sunk, but instead made Dorflinger desert after killing one of the officers in cold blood.

'You have to understand his dilemma,' he said in conclusion. 'Military law is hard, there is no mercy, no sympathy, just a rope or an execution squad. In circumstances like that you run away. I would have done the same thing.'

'Why did he kill a man? Who was it?'

'I'll ask him.'

Dorflinger was watching him uneasily.

He still has all those images in his mind's eye, Tobiasson-Svartman thought. Those silent images, the jerky movements of war, with