Tin Sky Read Free Page A

towards them. Infantrymen, which put him at ease. Here was where one could just as likely find men of the 161st ID or SS belonging to Das Reich , whose area of control extended behind the infantry sector and west to the city of Kharkov.
    The infantrymen saluted. Two had taken off their summer tunics and were drinking from their canteens. Another wasputting away a folding shovel. The non-com among them came closer. “Going into the Yar, Herr Major? Flies’ll eat you alive,” he commented drily. “We just buried another.”
    Bora rolled down his shirtsleeves, buttoning the cuffs to reduce the surface available to insects. “Who was it this time?”
    “An old Russki peasant as far as we can tell, Herr Major. The head was missing – badly chopped off, too.”
    The patrol belonged to the 241st Reconnaissance Company of the 161st ID, newly strung out from north to south on a strip of land that ran with a slight elevation from north-west to south-east. The non-com showed Bora the fresh burial, and related the rumours about the “weird deaths” that circulated among the troops. “Comrades from other patrols report stuff disappearing around here. Shirts, socks, cans of boot grease, all in full daylight. And inside the Yar you orient yourself by dead reckoning, because compasses malfunction. The Russkis claim the place is haunted. Not that I believe any of this nonsense, Herr Major, ’cause the Russkis will try to spook us if they can’t do anything else. Fact is, the Russkis don’t like it at Krasny Yar either.”
    “Tell me more about the man you buried.”
    “Peasant clothes, barefooted, with the long hanging-out shirt they wear out here, hands tied behind his back with an old piece of wire, half rusted through. We could have left him where he was, but my sister’s a nun; I thought we ought to bury him even if he’s a Red.” The non-com gladly accepted a cigarette (Bora did not smoke these days, but carried a pack to offer occasionally). “In the rotten farms around here there’s just old folks and kids, Herr Major. The farm boys come begging, but the old cross themselves if you mention Krasny Yar. Some of us end up doing it on purpose, to see them react – it’s pretty funny. In the woods, nothing worth reporting other than the dead man. Coming back we saw one of the farm boys had followed us, and fired into the air to make him stay away. That scared him off, which is better than ending up dead, too. Seems the Russkishave been telling stories about this place for years. They go a long way to avoid it and have done so forever; the old folks say it was already this way when they were children.”
    Bora glanced back at the line of trees. “I’m going in. Keep an eye on my vehicle, will you?”
    “Yessir. We won’t be on our way for another hour and a half.”
    “Good.” Bora checked his watch. “It’s 16.00 hours now; I’ll be back before 17.00.”
    The non-com squashed the cigarette butt against the breech of his rifle. “By the way, sir, after the burial the priest trekked in there.”
    “Which priest?”
    “The batty one: the Russian.”
    “Father Victor?”
    “The one from Losukovka.”
    “Victor Nitichenko, that’s him.” Bora turned, heading for the Yar.
    The small woods rose up suddenly out of the grassy expanse. Here there were none, and there they were, trees that grew thick at once, disorderly as they’d surfaced from among the stumps of the old ones, cut years before. Bora had thus far kept away on purpose, pushing this place and the events that had occurred here to the edge of his mind, because he had other things to worry about. But Krasny Yar and the Krasny Yar dead did not quite go away; their presence remained perceptible.
    “Keep straight ahead,” the non-com had indicated, even if “straight” in the woods does not mean much. In a few minutes, however, following what seemed to be a trail left by small animals – or by elves, if the woods had been enchanted – Bora realized