Ratlines by Stuart Neville Read Free Book Online Page A

small bedrooms, one disused, the other filled with neatly arranged personal bric-a-brac. Rolled socks and underwear lay on the unmade bed, the items Krauss had chosen not to take on his trip to Salthill.
    An open letter lay on a bedside table. Ryan reached for the lamp beside it, flicked it on so that he could make out the text in the thickening darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed and examined the single sheet of paper. German, handwritten in a neat script. Ryan understood little, but he recognised the name of Johan Hambro, and that of the churchyard near Galway he had been buried at a few days ago.
    Given the mild disarray of the room, Ryan guessed that Krauss had left in a hurry, not taking time to tidy away the rejected clothes or make his bed. Krauss seemed to have been a man of order and discipline. Ryan imagined the German would be embarrassed to know a stranger now observed the mess in his home, however minor.
    A chest of drawers stood facing the foot of the bed. Ryan opened the first drawer and searched through the folded shirts with their frayed cuffs and replacement buttons. The second held more socks and underwear, and the third revealed more of the same. But underneath them, a bed of photographs, postcards and letters.
    Ryan lifted them out, one-by-one. The letters were mostly in German, and after a few, he gave up trying to distinguish recognisable names from the tangles of words. Instead, he focused on the photographs.
    Many were family portraits, stern mothers and fathers, round-faced children, the occasional horse or dog. A few showed rows of uniformed men, tall men, strong men, peaked caps on their heads, lightning bolts on their collars. Some were formal portraits, the men standing upright or sitting with their hands clamped to their knees, staring hard at the camera. Others showed them eating and drinking, collars loosened, laughter almost audible from the heavy paper.
    When Ryan thought of his time on the Continent, back when he was a boy pretending to be a man, these were the scenes he wished he could isolate in his memory. Officers lined up at long tables, mugs of beer, voices raised so high it made his eardrums hurt. But when he tried to focus on such sounds and images, others crept in, the burned and bloodied things, the howls and screams.
    Yet he could not leave that life behind.
    The only place that felt like a home was a barracks. The town or country didn’t matter, whether he slept in his room at Gormanston Camp, or some tin hut in a foreign field. Ryan might have understood this to be unhealthy had he ever given it thought.
    In truth, he wasn’t sure if he missed having what most men would consider a home. A wife and children. Walls to contain them all. He had grown accustomed to eating in mess halls, sleeping on thin mattresses, living by the orders of his superiors. Only occasionally did he awake in the night, terrified by the advancing years and what his future life would be when the surrogate family he had chosen had no more use for him.
    Ryan leafed through the photographs until he found one, a formal portrait of a young man, his cap worn with pride, his buttons shining in the studio’s lights. He recognised the handsome face of Helmut Krauss, twenty years before he lay dissected on a mortuary table. Such confidence, the surety held in the eyes, the subtle smile on the lips.
    You never thought you could lose, Ryan thought. At one time, Helmut Krauss and his kind were certain they would possess the earth and every soul who dwelled upon it. Now Krauss burned in whatever hell had been set aside for him. Ryan searched his soul for pity and found none.
    He returned the photographs and letters to the drawer before dropping to his knees and peering underneath the bed. A box lay within arm’s reach. A trail through the dust showed that the Guards had already dragged it out and examined its contents. Ryan grabbed the box’s edge and pulled, hoisted it up onto the bed, folded back the lid.
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