North Strike

by North Strike (retail) (epub)

  Peering anxiously into the fog Magnusson’s brows were down and he was listening nervously. As the ship lifted gently, the rigging dripping water to the deck, it was like swaying inside an opaque ball. From time to time he heard the thump of a propeller and the low boom of a siren. The water looked darker ahead than astern and a dim shape moved through the gloom which he studied closely. He caught Campbell watching him, his narrow face bleak and puzzled, as if he found it hard to understand that a non-naval man could be so concerned. All at once, Magnusson felt like the Old Man of the Sea.

  The fog lasted only a day; then a breeze got up and the fjord cleared. Many of the ships had gone, but already others were arriving to take their places. Narvik was busy, the air filled with the roar of winches and donkey engines.

  Soon after breakfast, they saw a boat leave the side of Cuxhaven and head towards them.

  ‘Nobody but the Finns on deck,’ Magnusson said. ‘Get the rest aloft, Campbell. Get ’em rigging ratlines and greasing the braces and halyards.’

  The Germans were Smart, erect and friendly, and they looked round Oulu with only the faintest sign of contempt on their faces.

  ‘Cuxhaven,’ the older of the two said. ‘We are carrying nitrates from South America and the war caught us far from home. We had to take the northabout passage to Narvik. I am Johannes Boch, master. This is Erich Wolff, first mate.’

  Magnusson decided he didn’t like the Germans. They had hard faces and cold eyes, and Boch looked like one of the picture-book Prussians he’d seen so often as a boy in magazines illustrating the other war, with a thick neck, blond hair, even a duelling scar on his cheek. The bastard only needed a monocle, he thought, and to speak like Erich von Stroheim – ‘Zo! Ve meet a-gain!’

  ‘Magnusson,’ he said. ‘First mate. The captain died in New York.’

  The story came out pat now and the Germans seemed to accept it, but Magnusson noticed their eyes were all over the vessel, studying the rigging with special care.

  He took them below into the Cafe Royal atmosphere of the saloon with its red plush and brass and offered them akvavit. Only Boch accepted, Wolff saying he didn’t drink.

  ‘Here’s to us,’ Boch said, as he lifted his glass. ‘We sailing ship men are all brothers of the sea.’

  ‘Skål!’

  ‘There aren’t many of us about these days,’ Boch went on. ‘Perhaps we are lucky. Cuxhaven was a training ship before the war but I think sail training ships are out of favour since Admiral Karpfanger disappeared last year. They say she struck an iceberg. Now, since the Reich badly needs nitrates, Cuxhaven’s naval officers have left her and she, too, has been pressed into service.’

  Despite his words, Magnusson guessed he was a naval officer himself. He had the same self-possessed air that Campbell and Admiral Cockayne had.

  Boch smiled. ‘Your countrymen in Finland are putting up a splendid fight,’ he said. ‘Especially since there are only a few of them and there are so many Russians. It is the old Russian steam-roller again.’

  Wolff laughed. ‘Trust the Russians to attack in winter,’ he said. ‘You’d think they’d have learned something from Napoleon’s campaign of 1812. The Führer would have more sense.’ He gestured towards the men in the rigging. ‘I think you had a difficult time with the weather. It does not deter us, of course. Like all ex-training ships, Cuxhaven has an auxiliary.’

  ‘I thought you had a lot of men aboard,’ Magnusson said cheerfully. ‘You’ll need them for shovelling all that coal.’

  Boch’s face stiffened. ‘It is diesel-driven,’ he said.

  ‘Must take up a lot of space in the hold which could have been better filled with cargo.’ Magnusson sniffed. ‘Auxiliaries don’t really belong in sailing ships, do they? No auxiliary ever came within striking distance of a record passage.’

  Boch’s face was like granite. ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded coldly.

  Magnusson smiled, suddenly enjoying himself. ‘Nearest landfall for the Baltic,’ he pointed out. ‘We had to keep out of the way of the British destroyers.’

  The Germans glanced at each other. ‘There are three of us here,’ Boch said. ‘It is most unusual. But I think we are all orphans of the war. It is bad to be so far north at this time of the year. With ice about, here is no place for a sailing ship. We’re going south when spring comes. And you?’

  Magnusson shrugged. ‘Different ships, different long-splices. We go as soon as we’ve finished our repairs.’

  The Germans were smiling as they left, but when Magnusson suggested returning their call Boch’s face stiffened again.

  ‘It will be difficult’ he said firmly. ‘We have much gear on board from the training ship days.’

  Campbell stared, narrow-eyed and bleak-faced, as the boat headed back to Cuxhaven. I’d sell you a hundred of that bastard any day,’ he said. ‘Cheap, too. They didn’t want you aboard.’

  * * *

  Though it was unlikely they were being watched from the shore, Magnusson kept everybody at work. He had two of the younger Finns, slung in bosun’s chairs, smearing the wire braces and halyards with tar, graphite grease and paint, and two more scraping the masts. Several others were chipping paint from the iron deck and pulling up old planking for the carpenter to renew. It was bone dry and smelled of pine in a way that made Magnusson itch for the land.

  They waited for a boat from Kosciuszko to arrive, but the Poles were keeping to themselves, making their plans and nursing their hatred, and when another launch appeared during the afternoon, they almost fell into the sea in astonishment at the sight of the girl standing by the engine hatch. She was tall and blonde with the same opal eyes that Magnusson had, and even from the deck it was clear she was a beauty. She wore trousers and heavy boots and gloves; perched on her blonde hair was a red woollen cap and she was huddled in a heavy sheepskin-lined jacket.

  As the boat bumped against the ship’s side, she reached for the ladder and climbed up it nimbly and expertly as though she had done it thousands of times before.

  Magnusson met her as she stepped on deck and she gave him a smile that made his day. ‘God dag. Hvordan star det til.’

  ‘Bare bra, takk. I am Magnusson, förste styrman.’

  ‘You are Norwegian?’

  ‘No. Finnish.’

  ‘You have a Norwegian name.’

  He shrugged and she dumped a pile of magazines on the hatch. A few were French with girls on the cover. Country Life, he also noticed, and Feld Krigs Röpet, Officielt organ for Frälsningsarmén i Finland. Good old Salvation Army, he thought. You could always bank on The War Cry with its mixture of godliness and honest kindliness.

  ‘I will send more,’ she said. ‘Also warm clothing. î expect you have heard of me. I visit all ships that are new to Narvik. If you have any Norwegians on board or any who have been in here before they will know our hut. It isn’t much but we organize dances and provide food. Sometimes it is fish balls or fish puddings made with eggs, but usually it is labskaus. And good labskaus, too. I don’t recommend it in small restaurants where it’s made with old sausages and potatoes, but ours is excellent.’

  A wild fantasy was growing on Magnusson. It couldn’t be, he thought wildly. It couldn’t possibly!

  ‘You couldn’t be—?’ he began and she gave him a brisk, no-nonsense smile.

  ‘Ja,’ she said. ‘Jeg heter Annie Egge. I am Annie Egge, Missions to Seamen.’

  7

  For a while Magnusson couldn’t think of anything to say. For weeks he had had in his mind a picture of a tough old battle-axe big enough to flatten any drunken sailor who argued, and here she was, a Nordic goddess with bright eyes, a winning smile and legs that seemed to end somewhere under her armpits.

  ‘You’re not what I expected,’ he managed.

  Her smile grew wider. ‘I never am, I find,’ she admitted. ‘We provide food, cater for homesickness and try to prevent the Poles from Kosciuszko murdering the Germans. We have to watch them all the time because the one thing
they would like is to catch a few down the dark alleys near the harbour. You are very welcome to visit our mission hut.’

  Studying her, Magnusson considered it might be a very good idea and hurriedly suggested a drink in the saloon.

  ‘It’s cold,’ he said. ‘A glass of akvavit wouldn’t come amiss.’

  She dazzled him with another brisk smile and agreed that it would be a very good idea.

  Campbell and Willie John had appeared alongside with remarkable speed, Willie John beaming all over his ugly, ravaged face and making signs that he wished to be introduced. As they settled themselves in the saloon Campbell began pouring drinks. For once his naval reserve had slipped and he was staring goggle-eyed at the girl as he handed round the glasses.

  As they drank, she looked at them all. ‘Are you all the officers there are?’ she asked. ‘I expected someone more senior.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how experienced I am,’ Magnusson said.

  ‘With girls, no doubt,’ she said, suddenly frosty. ‘I was thinking about ships.’

  ‘I know the job.’

  ‘I hope you also know the responsibilities of what you’re here for.’ Her smile had vanished with her friendly manner and she had become sharp-edged and efficient.

  ‘I have a list here of shipping movements,’ she went on. ‘We have a contact in the office of the harbourmaster and director of shipping, as we also have in the office of the fish oil factory and at the ore jetty.’ She tapped the list. ‘It has all the names of ships, nationalities, cargoes and destinations. Six of them are British and two of them, Mabel Eccleston and Clydebank, are due to sail.’

  She placed a chart on the table. ‘You will have seen the patrol boats opposite Djupvik,’ she said. ‘They are both old and armed with 50-mm guns. There are numerous gun emplacements about the harbour –’ her finger stabbed at the map – ‘here and here and here, but many of the fortifications marked on the chart don’t in fact exist. The intention is to provide guns, but so far they haven’t arrived. We are also expecting the Coastal defence ships, Eidsvold and Norge. Norge is the flagship of Commodore Askim, the senior naval officer in the north. They are both ironclads but they mount two 8.2-inch guns and six 5.9-inch guns.’ She smiled. ‘That is quite substantial, so if your ships have to come, they had better make sure they don’t get in the way. Norge will be in telephone touch, through shore headquarters, with our Naval High Command. There is also an infantry depot at Elvegårdsmoen here on Herjangsfjord. It contains the stores and reserve ammunition for four infantry battalions, as well as engineering and bridging material for the northern forces. They were mobilized when the Finnish war started. The depot is unoccupied except for a token guard, and if the Germans come, they must be prevented from capturing it.’

  Magnusson was watching her carefully. He felt she ought to be someone’s wife or girl friend, waiting ashore with a big smile and a warm room, perhaps even a warm bed, not behaving like a business executive dispensing facts. Even Wren Dowsonby-Smith, efficient as she was, had had more warmth and femininity than this. Though Admiral Cockayne had been wildly wrong in his picture of her, he had been dead right about her efficiency. Even her smile belonged in a boardroom or at a conference table, brilliant, beautiful, but curiously devoid of warmth.

  ‘Norwegians are very pro-British,’ she went on briskly. ‘And very anti-German, but they don’t wish to be brought into the war. However, we are under no delusions but that the Germans will invade us if they feel it necessary. The British and French, too, for that matter, if it suits them.

  ‘We have strong cultural links with the Germans.’ Her voice was sharp now, and she sounded increasingly like a schoolmistress lecturing a particularly dull class. ‘In the nineteen-twenties, when there was famine in Germany after the first war, their children were sent to live with us. In the thirties, their wandervögeln tramped and sang their way through the country, taking photographs and making sketches. They said it was their love of nature but their love of nature was of a curious variety. The sketches they made were of bridges and crossroads, and the picture postcards of the harbour that they brought probably went into files at Army Headquarters, because they were mostly young men with straight backs and fine telescopes. When they came in 1939, they were no longer poor either. They had money – doubtless government money – and they swarmed ashore from the ferry boats. It was only after Poland that we remembered.’

  ‘And now?’

  She frowned. ‘Norway has practically no military forces. Our fortifications face not Germany but Sweden – because Sweden has always been the traditional enemy – and they were built in the last century. Our Coastal defence ships are mostly old whalers armed with popguns and there is no standing army – only a permanent cadre of around two thousand officers and NCOs whose job is not to fight but to train the boys who come every year for their military service. We have built a good home in Norway but we have neglected to put a fence round it to keep out the trespassers.’

  She picked up the glass of akvavit, then put it down again. ‘The respect for law and order has always been too great. In Norway we spent our time concentrating on good manners. Everybody says “please” and “thank you” and greets you by raising the hat. Great God, how they greet you with the hat up here! Sometimes, the self-satisfaction is too much to bear.’

  Magnusson was curiously impressed by her tempestuous truthfulness, but she seemed to see some criticism in his expression and continued angrily. ‘You think we are moronic idealists, no doubt! But the Norwegians peopled Normandy and much of England, as well as Iceland and probably even America. Norway has always produced virile people.’

  Willie John lifted an eyebrow and she swung round on him. ‘You laugh at me! But we are proud of our country and I don’t see much pride in England just now! The only casualties you have suffered so far in the war are from the blackout! Your troops are short of weapons, the top age limit for conscription is as low as twenty-six and it is impossible to volunteer. All you do is sing about hanging out your washing on the Siegfried Line. Even the Finns regard your promise to help as overblown!’

  She pushed the akvavit aside. ‘Ta det bort! Take it away,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it. I never did.’ She bent over the chart again. ‘I have counted nine ore ships in the last month. We have also heard that the German whaling-factory ship, Jan Willem, is due, and we also expect other German merchant ships.’

  ‘Is that significant?’ Campbell asked.

  She gave him a contemptuous glance. ‘Of course it is significant,’ she said. ‘The Germans are given to boasting and sometimes, when they have had too much akvavit, they say what they shouldn’t. One of them told me that these merchant ships carry arms. Why arms? We are not at war with them! And why should a whaling-factory ship come in here? She is big enough to cope with any weather that exists and she does not carry iron ore.’ She paused. ‘I have some other news for you, too: Graf Spee’s prison ship, Altmark, has been reported near the Faeroes.’

  Suddenly they were interested. ‘Coming here?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Does she have Graf Spee’s prisoners on board?’

  ‘The Germans think so.’

  Magnusson exchanged glances with Campbell.

  ‘Can we get advance information when she’s due to arrive?’

  ‘I shall give it to you as soon as I get it. Come to my hut in three days’ time. By then –’ she smiled, her eyes suddenly mischievous – ‘like so many other seamen, you will probably be anxious to see me again and it will give you the excuse you need.’

  * * *

  The fog disappeared and the sun returned. The weather was still bitterly cold, however, and the water black in the windless fjord, the atmosphere crystal clear and only slightly warmed by the brilliant sunshine during the day. The snow was dazzling and crunched metallically on the deck under the feet, and the birches and pines were motionless and silent as if afraid to break the strings of diamonds with which the hoar frost had sprinkled thei
r boughs. The buildings of the town had thick caps of snow and, in the sunshine, their façades were ablaze with the glitter of hundreds of icicles.

  Ashore there was a strange atmosphere of tension as though everybody was sitting on a time bomb. The Norwegians were nervous and the sailors from the German ships were arrogant. The French and British kept to themselves, avoiding the trouble that the Germans seemed eager to stir up, and occasionally Magnusson met men from Kosciuszko with agony and loathing for the Germans in their eyes. There had been a few brawls, he heard, but the Norwegian police, determined to keep the peace, had set up a squad of men for no other reason than to watch the Poles and keep them apart. The Germans were not watched, he noticed, and they appeared to be taking things easy. Little work was being done aboard Cuxhaven and, as Campbell had said, there seemed an enormous number of men in her.

  The telegraphists kept up their listening watch all the time. By some means known only to himself Willie John was managing to get a supply of akvavit on board from the shore.

  ‘’Tis cold in yon hold, boy,’ he complained. ‘A feller hass to keep warm just.’

  It wasn’t long before they caught the German ship transmitting and Willie John reported eagerly, his accent thickening, as it always did when he was excited. ‘In code,’ he said. ‘And, poy, ’tis a plutty powerful set, yon!’

  After three days, Magnusson hailed a passing launch and begged a lift ashore. Narvik was an attractive place flanked by the waters of two smaller fjords. The grey rocks and windswept plateaux, cold and forbidding at any time, were covered with a blanket of snow. Both inside and outside the town, great pathways had been cut by snow-ploughs through drifts eight feet deep and the snow was piled in the streets and against the sides of houses, while tall spirals of blue smoke stood straight up in the still air against the white hillside.