‘Christ!’ he swore. ‘They’re beginning to bomb the harbour installations. Gentlemen, I suggest you do what you can to protect your ships.’
The captains and other officers began to run from the office, hastening back to their ships. Sweeny turned to Tenvig.
‘You’d better get back aboard the Gunnlöd, Uncle, and get the engine warmed up. We’ll take the old tub across the fjord through the islands to Nedstrand. I’ll go and find Erik and Freya …’ he hesitated. ‘I think Freya will be safer with us than remaining in the town.’
Tenvig nodded approval.
‘Don’t be long. If things get hot I might have to move the Gunnlöd. If I do I’ll try to stand off in the East Harbour and wait for you there.’
Sweeny gave a wave of his hand and turned to hurry towards the Torget, the old market place that stood at the foot of the quays. People were everywhere now, some running, others simply standing in bewilderment.
*
As he hurried along, his rubber seaboots clumping on the cobbles, Sweeny thought, inconsequentially, that he would have to apologize to Freya now. Freya had been continually warning about the possibility of an invasion and the dangers from Norway’s own Fascist Party, the Nasjonal Samling. For Sweeny, the Nasjonal Samling, and their ridiculous, egocentric leader, Major Vidkun Quisling, were merely a joke — a minority which no one took seriously. Yet Freya should have been taken seriously, he reflected. After all, she was now a reporter on one of Oslo’s leading newspapers, the Dagbladet, and was in a position to know such things. But for Sweeny, Freya was too close, too much a part of the family, to be taken seriously. On more than one occasion she had lost her temper with him when he laughed at the idea of danger emanating from the comically uniformed Hird, the Norwegian fascist storm troopers, named after the royal bodyguard of Viking times.
‘They are the enemy within and could betray Norway, given half a chance!’ she had stormed. ‘Behind their comic parades and utterances are powerful, influential people.’
‘Betray?’ Sweeny had chuckled. ‘To whom? Are you still claiming that Hitler means to invade Norway? That’s nonsense. Why, Norway is neutral. Hitler wouldn’t dare invade.’
‘Tell that to the Czechoslovaks and the Poles.’
‘Norway is different.’
Sweeny bit his lip, embarrassed by his stupidity, as he hurried along the streets to where Freya and Erik had their apartment. Norway wasn’t different. The mocking sounds of explosions and gunfire told him that now. He should have taken Frey a seriously.
It would have taken a discerning eye to spot the firming of the muscles in Sweeny’s face. Sweeny had been in love with Freya, was still in love with her. It had been a bitter shock when she had married Erik Hartvig during the previous year. Not that Freya had ever suspected the depth of feeling which Sweeny had for her. He had never been able to fully explain it to her. True, he had tried to tell her of his love some years before. That was when she had been nineteen.
Freya had laughed. Of course Lars Sweeny loved her. Why not? After all, weren’t they practically brother and sister? Blushing, Sweeny had not pushed the matter further, hiding his emotions and worshipping the girl from afar. When she had left school and gone to work on the local newspaper, the Stavanger Aftenblad, he had shared his uncle’s enormous sense of pride. Then, last year, when she had gone to Oslo to join the famous Dagbladet, he had rejoiced in her success.
The shock had come soon after, when she had gaily announced that she would marry Erik Hartvig, a local seaman. In spite of the fact that Erik was a likeable, although slightly impecunious man, Sweeny had found it difficult to control the unreasonable hatred he felt for him. Yet he had suffered the marriage in silence, hiding his feelings behind a mask. Suffered in silence, even when old Tenvig had taken Erik onto the Gunnlöd as the third member of their crew.
Freya and Erik had a small apartment in a narrow side street. Freya spent most of her time in Oslo but came down to Stavanger for long weekends, especially when she knew that the Gunnlöd would be in harbour. The apartment which she and Erik rented was a couple of rooms on the top floor of an ancient building, up four flights of bare wooden stairs.
Sweeny clambered up them as fast as he could, hoping that Erik had not already left to find the Gunnlöd. He was slightly out of breath by the time he reached the top landing. The door of the apartment was marked with the number 9, but the top of the number was loose, and as a result it hung upside down, making it look like a 6. Sweeny banged on the door and found, to his surprise, that it swung inwards at his touch.
‘Freya!’ he called as he pushed in.
The apartment seemed oppressively silent. It felt as if no one was there. The door opened directly into a small kitchen. Freya kept it very tidy, with a neat red-chequered tablecloth on the small wooden dining table, a pattern which matched the curtains at the window.
‘Freya! Erik! It’s me, Lars!’ shouted Sweeny as he stepped inside.
There was still no answer. He took a step towards the door which he knew opened into the lounge, hesitated before it and then thrust it open. His eyes widened.
The first thing he saw inside was the body of Erik Hartvig. Erik lay on his back, his head was resting awkwardly against the corner of the settee. The eyes were slightly open, with a curious expression as if in disbelief at the last sight which had met them. Blood had trickled into the corner of his mouth and coagulated. There was a reddish-black round mark in the centre of the forehead and a stain on the young man’s blue jersey above the heart.
‘Erik!’ whispered Sweeny, standing for a moment in shock before kneeling and searching for a pulse. There was none and the flesh was already cold.
‘Freya?’ A panic seized Sweeny as he peered round. There was no sign of the girl. He moved across to the half-open door which led into the bedroom and pushed it open.
He closed his eyes momentarily and a low animal noise came rumbling from his throat.
Freya was sprawled across the chintz cover of the bed. The bed was unmade and she was still clad in her nightdress and gown. They were both red with blood. The girl’s lips were pale and parted as if in surprise, but her eyes were shut tight. One hand was flung backwards while the other seemed to be reaching out, almost imploring.
‘Freya!’ The word was a choking sob.
Even as he moved forward, catching sight of the mass of red congealing blood around the girl’s neck and shoulders, Sweeny knew that the girl was dead. That her throat had been cut.
CHAPTER TWO
How long he stood by her body, swaying and groaning like an animal in pain, Sweeny did not know. He stood there murmuring her name over and over again. It was only the wail of the dive-bombers and the crashing of breaking glass in the bedroom window that jolted him back to reality.
He wiped his eyes and stared down, trying to control his facial muscles. Who could have done this? What was the reason behind these pointless killings? Erik had been shot. Shot twice. Once through the head and once through the heart. But Freya … Freya’s throat had been cut; she had been slaughtered like some animal. But by whom? And why?
He realized that he must get the police. He turned and clattered down the stairs, out into the cobbled street. He knew there was a cafe on the corner which had a telephone. The glass of the front window of the cafe had been blown out by the blast of an explosion. The door was also open but there seemed to be no one about. He hurried in, went to the counter on which the telephone stood and took up the receiver. It seemed an age before the frightened voice of the operator answered him.
‘Only priority calls allowed,’ she began.
‘This is an emergency,’ snapped Sweeny. ‘Get me the police.’
There was a hesitation and then a clicking sound.
‘Police!’ came a harassed voice.
‘There’s been a murder …’ Sweeny began.
The voice cut him short, irritably.
‘There’s been thousands of murders! Clear the line at once. We need all tel
ephone lines open for purposes of national defence. Don’t you realize that the Germans are invading?’
‘But you don’t understand,’ yelled Sweeny. ‘There’s been …’
‘Clear the line!’ snapped the voice before a silence told Sweeny that the policeman had hung up.
Swearing under his breath, Sweeny turned and ran back to the apartment, pushing his way through panic-stricken groups of people who were scurrying this way and that to escape the thunderous explosions. Yet the invasion seemed somehow unimportant to Sweeny as he stood in the apartment gazing at the bodies of Freya and Erik.
He wondered if he should put Freya’s body into a more dignified position. No; no, the police would want to investigate later, later when they had time. He should touch nothing. Then the thought crossed his mind. What if the police never investigated the crime? What if the Germans succeeded in occupying Stavanger? Why would they bother to investigate the murders?
He hovered in indecision. Even with his mind in such a turmoil, some small voice of sanity in its deep recesses reminded him that he should get back to the Gunnlöd. Uncle Tenvig was waiting for him. He had to help the old man get the ship and its dangerous cargo across the fjord to a safer anchorage. Uncle Tenvig! How could he tell Tenvig that his daughter had been murdered? That his son-in-law had been killed? He couldn’t. Not yet. He would tell him later. There was nothing Tenvig nor he could do. Nothing until this madness stopped.
He was about to turn away from the terrible scene in the bedroom when he noticed something clutched in the fingers of Freya’s left hand. Frowning, he bent forward. It was a small piece of cloth, a piece of blue serge, frayed where it had been torn away. He compressed his mouth and carefully prised it gently from the dead girl’s grasp. There was something small and metallic attached to the cloth. A button-hole badge. He peered at it curiously. It was a Nasjonal Samling badge. He turned it over in his hands. There was a stamp on the back; small markings which were almost a blur to the naked eye but Sweeny had fairly good eyesight. 5684 PL. What did that mean? Had Freya torn it from the lapel of the person who had killed her? His fist hardened around the piece of metal.
Another explosion caused the entire building to sway crazily, sending Sweeny crashing back into a doorpost, almost losing his grip on the tiny badge. He thrust it into his jacket pocket. He must go — go to join Uncle Tenvig. He moved forward decisively to the bed and bent down, brushing the dead girl’s forehead with his lips.
‘I’ll find the swine who did this, Freya,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll make them pay.’
He turned, dry-eyed, and moved from the apartment like a man in a dream.
The Gunnlöd was still waiting at the quayside as Sweeny came running up. Tenvig peered from the wheelhouse with a worried expression.
‘Where’s Erik? Where’s Freya?’
‘I couldn’t find them,’ lied Sweeny. He had formulated the lie as he hurried back through the cobbled streets to the harbour. ‘There was no sign of them.’ There was no point in telling old Tenvig now, not until they had placed the Gunnlöd out of danger. ‘They must be taking shelter with some friends. I thought it best to get back and get the old tub across the fjord to safety.’
Tenvig nodded reluctantly. ‘We’ll come back for them when the air raid is over.’
Sweeny was already casting off the bow line.
‘You get the stern line, uncle,’ he yelled. ‘I’ll take the wheel.’
Several large ships were still getting steam-up as they left the quayside. Sweeny opened the throttle and swung hard at the wheel. The single-cylinder engine began to chug furiously as they swung out into the Vågen, the harbour inlet, dodging a freighter and rocking furiously in its wake.
Tenvig was lighting his pipe. He always lit his pipe when they left harbour. It was a ritual. Sweeny felt strangely comforted by the fact that the old man could still perform the ritual in these exceptional circumstances.
‘Easy on the wheel, Lars,’ the old man admonished him as he came into the wheel house. ‘You’re gripping it like you were drowning and it was a life buoy.’
Sweeny grimaced and forced himself to relax. His mind was still a whirlpool of thoughts, none of which he felt able to articulate to the old man.
They rounded the Holmen Peninsula which separated the old harbour from the east harbour. Sweeny realized suddenly that the grey shape of the destroyer was missing from its station at the harbour entrance.
‘Where’s the Sleipner?’ he asked.
Tenvig leant out of the side window of the wheelhouse and spat.
‘About half-an-hour ago she set off for the entrance to the fjord. We heard some gunfire from that direction and she hasn’t been back since.’
Sweeny shook his head, wondering how he could have gone to sleep in his bunk a few hours ago and awoken to this nightmare world. He kept seeing the bloodstained form of Freya in front of his eyes and found himself swallowing hard to prevent his face dissolving into a mask of anguish.
‘Where are you heading her, Lars?’
Tenvig must have asked the question more than once because his voice was now raised and he was frowning.
‘Due north.’ Sweeny tried to bring his mind back to focus on the immediate problems. ‘I’ll take her through the islands and across the fjord to Nedstrand. We can put in there and wait to see what happens.’
Tenvig nodded, puffing slowly at his pipe.
‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ he said. ‘I could do with some bread and cheese. How about you?’
They had not eaten anything that morning, but Sweeny felt revolted at the idea of food. The image of Freya was too sharp in his mind.
‘Just coffee,’ he forced himself to say.
A light mist was rolling back from the waters of the fiord where it had risen as soon as the sun began to shed its warmth on the cold waters. Soon the growing strength of the sun would chase the mist away. Visibility was already moderately good. Sweeny tried to coax the throttle to push the Gunnlöd towards her maximum speed of eight knots. Then he reached forward, opened the nearest side window and stood letting the bloom of sea spray settle on his face. He felt nauseated but was able to control himself.
Tenvig came back into the wheelhouse with two tin mugs of coffee.
Neither of them said anything. They could still hear the distant boom of explosions and the rattle of machine-gun fire from the direction of Stavanger. They were passing through the little group of islands that lay in the Boknafiord just north of the harbour. Beyond the islands stood Nedstrand and the hills and mountains of the northern shore of the Boknafiord.
Tenvig suddenly extended his arm to port. ‘Look!’ Sweeny swung his gaze round and felt himself growing cold.
A long grey shape was ploughing through the sea towards them, its bow high like that of a speedboat. There was no mistaking the Swastika flag fluttering from its jackstaff.
‘It’s a German Motor Torpedo Boat,’ muttered Tenvig unnecessarily.
Sweeny was already swinging the wheel to starboard, knowing even as he did so that it was ridiculous to think that the sluggish and ancient Gunnlöd could avoid the faster warship which was capable of three or four times her speed. The sleek dart of the gunboat came roaring across her path, its stern Spandau machine gun firing a warning shot across her bows.
‘Bastards!’ swore Tenvig, dropping his mug of coffee and scrabbling at the chart locker. He took out an old Smith and Wesson revolver and broke it open. It was a relic from his days on the South American run.
‘What the hell do you think you can do with that?’ yelled Sweeny as he spun the wheel to port, watching the MTB as it circled lazily around. The German skipper was obviously manoeuvring to come up alongside. Sweeny sighed and eased back on the throttle. There was no escape. They were about five hundred yards offshore, a little to the west of Nedstrand. There was no way of avoiding the attentions of the German ship.
‘You’re not going to let them take the Gunnlöd?’ Tenvig shouted.
‘Not mu
ch else we can do,’ Sweeny replied resignedly.
Before he realized it, old Tenvig had moved out on the deck and fired two shots at the closing gunboat.
A machine gun rattled in reply.
Sweeny felt a moment of shock and then he was screaming something incomprehensible as the old man was flung against the wheelhouse bulwarks.
The shots fired by Tenvig had evidently frightened the gunboat skipper momentarily, for the MTB veered away. Some instinct took over in Sweeny’s mind, and he threw the throttle forward, sending the old smack towards the distant shore. His sane mind would have recognized the futility of trying to escape but he was no longer capable of quiet, rational thinking. He pushed out of the wheelhouse and dropped to one knee by Tenvig. The machine-gun bullets had formed a bloody pattern across the old man’s chest. Now he would not have the burden of telling the old man about the death of Freya. Now they were together. Sweeny grabbed the old man’s Smith and Wesson and thrust it into his belt.
He heard the gunboat edging closer. A voice echoed across the water. ‘ Übergeben!’ Then in Norwegian: ‘Surrender yourselves!’
Sweeny felt as if his movements were compelled by someone other than himself. It was as if he were standing watching another person in his body. He ran to the stern hatch and kicked it open. Below were the boxes of dynamite which he and Tenvig were to have delivered to the mines at Hammerfest. He plunged inside and, using the butt of Tenvig’s revolver, he knocked open the nearest box. The explosive was primitive, porous silica saturated with nitro-glycerine. He searched desperately among the boxes and found some lengths of fuse wire. Thrusting the revolver into his waistband, he took out his seaman’s clasp-knife, cut a short length and twisted it into the explosive. Sweeny had worked with primitive explosives during his years with the whaling fleet where explosive harpoons had often been used. It took him only a moment to ready the charge and light the fuse, pausing a second to see it spluttering fiercely before clambering out of the hold.
He felt no emotion, no sense of urgency as he stood on the afterdeck and watched the gunboat edging closer towards the Gunnlöd. He simply kicked off his seaboots, almost casually, knotted the string to hang them together around his neck, then mentally measured the distance towards the shoreline. About two hundred yards now. Ignoring the shouts from the German MTB, he moved swiftly forward and dove into the cold waters, plunging down deeply before striking out for the surface.
The Valkyrie Directive Page 2
