CHAPTER 15
A sudden gaping black hole. A man’s face. Black-gloved hands clawing at the snow.
Jørgen took great gasps of icy air.
‘Hang on there,’ Karl said. ‘I’m going to get you out.’
The sight of the sky brought tears to his eyes . I’m alive, he thought. Thank Christ.
‘Your pole was sticking out,’ Karl said, through the muffle of snow, ‘or I’d never have found you. I have to get you out in case there’s another.’
He coughed, still trying to get enough air into his lungs to speak. The world looked grainy and he wasn’t sure if it was lack of oxygen or relief that made him light-headed. Finally he managed to free his other arm as Karl dug and scraped at the snow to try to free his pack and get him out.
After about fifteen minutes he was able to grapple his way to the top of the pile, and collapse breathless on the surface.
‘Anything broken?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t think so. A bit battered maybe.’ Jørgen didn’t say that his knee was aching like the devil.
‘Lucky there were no trees.’
‘Or rocks.’
‘I thought you were a goner,’ Karl said, puffing. He was rubbing at Jørgen’s legs to get the circulation moving. ‘Rub your arms,’ he said. ‘Keep moving. Hypothermia sets in real quick.’
‘Christ. I would have been dead, but for you. I could never have dug myself out.’
Karl paused in his rubbing. ‘I’ve got to get you to the coast,’ he said.
Jørgen looked up at the big man working away on his frozen legs. The blood returning hurt with the pain of a thousand needles. ‘Karl?’ He looked up at the use of his Christian name. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t thank me.’ He sounded angry. ‘But I need to know if you can walk, and where your skis are. We’ll get nowhere without them.’
More digging unearthed one ski, but the other was nowhere to be found. Probably buried under six foot of snow.
‘You take mine,’ Karl said. ‘I’ll ski on one. It will be slower, but it’s the only way. And we’ll have to take the risk and try for the village I showed you. You’ll need to rest, get seen by a medic.’
‘What if there are Germans there?’ But when he stood up, shock had made his legs weak as cotton. He almost stumbled, but Karl held him up. Suddenly enormously grateful he tried to give Karl a hug.
Karl moved away from his embrace. ‘Pass me your ski.’
Soon he was equipped with Karl’s skis and poles, whilst Karl managed with one ski and one pole, alternating, like punting down a river. After they’d gone a couple of miles Karl found a group of pines and managed to fashion another improvised pole.
Jørgen watched in awe. He’d thought he was fit, but this man was a machine. He barely slowed, even though one foot was taking all the pressure.
It was dusk by the time they reached the village. There was little snow on the slopes downward, so they had to take off skis and walk. By now Jørgen was barely awake on his feet, everything ached, his legs were trembling, his feet like lumps of lead.
Karl explained to a middle-aged woman in an apron that they had been caught in an avalanche and Jørgen had lost a ski. His handsome face and polite manner smoothed the way, and she took them inside and made them sit before the fire.
‘You can have the spare bedroom,’ she said, smiling kindly. ‘My son is away from home.’ She didn’t ask questions; but she called on an older neighbour to come and look them over. He made a face, said something about ‘young fools’, but he soon went away again.
The next few hours were a blur as Karl insisted he should go upstairs and rest. The bed felt so soft after so many nights on the mountain that it must have been only moments before he fell asleep.
When Jørgen woke it was already light, and at first he heard what he thought was a ticking clock. Too irregular for that. A soft tap, tap. He sat up in bed to see Karl, headphones on, cross-legged on the floor sending a message through the transmitter by morse code. Unable to resist, Jørgen couldn’t help trying to translate what he was hearing. Damn. In code, so he could make out nothing. Only the name of this village, Bøverdalen. A notebook was by his side with some words written down. He craned to see what was written. All of a sudden Karl turned and, startled, slapped the notebook shut.
‘You’re awake,’ he said. He didn’t look pleased.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Just sending a message.’ His good humour had returned.
‘I thought you weren’t in contact with anyone at Milorg yet?’
‘Just a friend. A friend from Sivorg. He can get word to someone in Milorg. At least I hope he can. Thought I’d better tell him where we are.’
‘Did you tell them about us meeting up, or about the avalanche?’
‘No. Too complicated.’
‘I’d like to get word to my op at the SOE,’ Jørgen said. ‘I left Oslo in rather a hurry and haven’t radioed since. They won’t know where I am.’
‘There’s a lot of interference. It was hard enough to even hear a signal. Like listening through static. And that’s with the aerial up that tree out there.’ Karl rose to his feet and indicated a pine standing close to the window.
‘You’d better get that back inside. If anyone sees it, we’ll be done for.’
‘Relax,’ Karl said. ‘No-one can see. Give it a go; try to reach your contact. But you have to persist through the static. And while you’re at it, you’ll need to send a message to arrange for our pick up. We’re only a few days away now. You can do it now, whilst the transmitter’s out.’
‘Could be a risk. We were always told to make our messages short — to stop them finding our location.’
‘Don’t sweat it. I was on for less than a minute.’
Jørgen crouched down to put on the headphones. ‘Jesus, you’re right about the signal. It’s like soup.’ He fiddled to try to find the frequency and finally managed to tap out a signal.
He waited, but he was signalling at the wrong time of day, and no-one would be listening out for him. Since he’d been on the run, he’d had no contact and they must all fear the worst. After a while he shook his head and pulled off the phones. ‘No joy,’ he said. ‘Best if I try at 1400 hours. That’s when they expect me.’
Karl frowned. Reluctantly, he climbed out of the window anyway and began to reel in the wire.
Jørgen stood up to help, but winced. He stretched. ‘Gosh, I’m stiff.’
‘You got pretty bashed up, but we won’t need to ski from now on,’ Karl said, still winding. ‘I’ve arranged for us to get a lift.’
‘How? Who with?’
‘Turns out that neighbour who came in yesterday has a pony and trap.’
‘What? You’re not serious.’
‘I buttered him up a bit and he’s offered to take us down to the coast. We’ll be able to get passage on a boat. That Shetland Bus you were talking about.’
‘Sounds good. How the heck did you get him to agree?’
‘Oh, I’m very persuasive.’ He grinned.
I bet you are, Jørgen thought. Though Karl Brevik had rescued him from certain death, there was still something about him he couldn’t quite warm to. He pondered it in his mind. Was it just that he was jealous because he was such an impressive athlete? Was it something about the lack of small-talk? He hardly knew anything about him. He decided he must make an effort to get to know him better.
‘What will you do in England, Karl? Have you thought?’
The question seemed to take him aback. ‘No. I didn’t think further than getting out. But I’d like to go back to Norway, be of some help against the Nazis. Work the boats. If the Resistance will take me.’
‘They’ll take you. You’re fit enough.’ A pause. ‘Did you leave anyone at home when you had to run?’
‘No. No-one. Professional sport doesn’t leave time for dating.’.
Again Karl had closed off the conversation. Yet something was itching at the back of Jørgen�
�s mind. Hadn’t he read somewhere in the papers about Karl Brevik’s girlfriend? He wracked his brains but couldn’t bring it back.
Falk was in his office when Selma, his secretary knocked. ‘Come,’ he said.
‘Intelligence has picked up a message on Brevik’s frequency,’ she said, handing him the typewritten sheet.
She waited expectantly.
‘All right, Selma.’ It was a dismissal.
He scanned it quickly. A few random letters, and his tag, but then two coherent sentences. ‘The salmon has been caught. Salmon is on my line. Taking to market now.’
It could only mean one thing. Brevik had caught up with Nystrøm and was following him somehow to the Shetland Bus. Falk sat back in his chair, and rubbed a hand over his brow. He was sweating. He hadn’t been this excited since his first boy had been born. ‘Salmon is on my line.’ What did that mean?
Of course. ‘On my line’. Nystrøm would be sending from the same location.
He pulled open the door. ‘Selma! Get that location tracked. Where Brevik was sending from. Pull in any messages from the same location, track who they’re sending to.’
Where were they now, he wondered? Of course there’d been reports a week ago of two men killed at that farm where Nystrøm had first been seen. When the reports had come in, he hadn’t been sure if it was Nystrøm or his man who was responsible, so he hadn’t claimed responsibility. Besides, the Stapo were annoyed because they should have been questioned before they were killed. He took it as a good sign. It meant Brevik was on Nystrøm’s tail, and their information was worth the sacrifice.
Besides, what could those farmers know, stuck out there? Whereas he was aiming for the whole network. He had bigger fish to fry. This thought, in combination with Brevik’s message made him laugh out loud. Salmon. Fish. He guffawed, but stifled it with a hand over his mouth, in case anyone should hear him and wonder at such odd behaviour.
This called for a celebration. Unable to remain still, he stood up and took out a flask from his drawer. With relish, he unscrewed it, took a large gulp and felt the brandy wash down his throat in a warming stream. ‘Ahh.’
He had the insane desire to tell everybody, but he knew he couldn’t. It was imperative to keep a lid on this if he was to keep the final success of it himself.
Instead, he sat down to write a confidential report. He tried hard not to gloat at the thought that his agent was now privy to all the secrets of the Shetland Bus operation. But he couldn’t help feeling smug, and it was such an unusual feeling for him, that he rang up his wife. ‘I’ll take you out for dinner,’ he said, expansively. ‘Anywhere you like. The best.’
CHAPTER 16
Astrid struggled on, teaching like the rest of her colleagues, with the least possible adherence to the Nazi line. She missed Ulf, and the school was sadly diminished with the best of its male staff missing. Early one morning before school began, and careful not to be followed, she took the address Ulf had given her and went to see his friend, Herman — the one with the printing press. She wanted to know if he’d heard any news of Ulf.
Herman almost seemed to be expecting her, for when she gave her name he beckoned her in without a word, and pointed to a collapsed-looking sofa, where she took a seat. Herman was a short, skinny man with thin blond hair and eyes that were never still. He moved from place to place like a nervous cat, never settling anywhere, even though his apartment was a one-roomed basement flat, very cramped, with barely room for the printing press beside his single bed. The walls were plastered with printed poems, and playbills for plays popular before the Nazi invasion. He smoked incessantly and the room stank of cheap Russian cigarettes.
‘So you heard it too,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Isn’t that why you’ve come? The news about the teachers?’
‘No. What? I came to see if you’ve heard from Ulf.’
‘That’s just it. It’s not good news. They’re moving some of the prisoners on,’ he said. ‘The teachers. I’m worried Ulf’s amongst them.’ He took another drag on his cigarette. The long stick of ash dropped onto the carpet and he scrubbed at it with his shoe. ‘If you ask me, the move’s been leaked to the papers on purpose — a deliberate act, meant to horrify the schools and make all the rest of teachers think again.’
‘Well we won’t budge, that’s the whole point. Where are they moving them to?’
‘A concentration camp near Kirkenes, in the arctic. It’ll be minus thirty. Inhumane conditions, and they’ll be put to hard labour.’ He stabbed out the words, as he paced.
‘My God,’ Astrid said. ‘Ulf won’t survive that; he’s not built for it.’
‘Crap. He might be skinny, but he’s tougher than you think,’ he flashed. ‘But I don’t know what to do. I feel so useless. And I can’t bear to think of it.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘About nine months. We met at a bar. We just sort of hit it off. We’ve seen each other most days since.’
He was talking as if he was his … oh. Wait a minute. She felt herself grow crimson.
He saw her discomfort, but stuck up his chin. ‘He’s the best thing that happened to me. The only good thing about this bloody occupation is that I met Ulf.’
She waited for her face to cool, and for him to stub out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray before speaking again. ‘When are they taking them?’
‘Not until next week. They’re allowing time for the news to spread, hoping it will make teachers everywhere cave in.’
‘It would be a betrayal if we did, you know that. So what else can we do?’
‘Not a damn thing. We can’t blow up the train; too risky, and all the teachers I’ve spoken to insist all protests must be peaceful, or it undermines their entire message. Ulf would agree, I know he would.’
‘We could get some support for them though, couldn’t we? The Church?’
He shook his head moodily. ‘God no. Ulf hates the church; calls them all hypocrites. And anyway, the bishops who support the Resistance have all been sacked.’
‘Can’t we get up some sort of petition or demonstration? Come out in solidarity?’
‘If we gather together, they’ll shoot us. You know gatherings aren’t allowed.’
‘How about if we line the track? Stay a few miles apart? If you were being sent somewhere, wouldn’t you want to know you’re not on your own? Men like Ulf shouldn’t think we’ve forgotten about them. Maybe we can give them some cheer, as they pass, make them realise we are all behind them?’
Herman stared at her. ‘You know what, you might be on to something. We won’t actually be a gathering if we keep our distance. It will give our men a boost, and enrage the Nazis.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘If Ulf’s on that train, I’m going to be there. To tell him we’re fighting for him; not to give up. Now, pass me that map.’
On the day the train carrying the teachers was due to leave Oslo, Astrid caught a tram out to the suburbs. On the same tram were Mrs Bakke and Karen Baum. They were all dressed warmly against the spring wind which cut like a knife, despite the pale sun. What would Mr Pedersen do when he found they were all missing? Of course he’d suspect something, and there would be recriminations. The thought of it made her grip the handle of her string bag tighter, winding it round her fingers. She caught sight of herself in the window of the tram, her pale distorted face looked a hundred years old.
Mrs Bakke got off a few stops before her. ‘Alt for Norge!’ she whispered to Astrid as she passed, her red knitted bobble hat pulled down to keep her ears warm. Astrid felt a surge of affection for this little mole-like woman who had backed her all the way.
Fifteen minutes after it was the turn of Karen Baum. Karen made a grave sort of smile and gave Astrid the thumbs up. Astrid hoped Bo, her husband, was not on the train. Karen had got thinner and more lacklustre over the past few weeks, and the strain was obviously taking its toll. Karen had a basket of home-cooked food over her arm covered in a cloth. Astrid had
spent the long dark evenings in the last week knitting socks and gloves, and these were sewn together in pairs, in her string bag.
Not until she got off the tram and walked out of the suburbs to the train line, did she realise that there were hundreds of teachers lining the route. Small groups of people stretched for a mile down the line, little blobs of colour against the grey. A few wild flowers poked through the few remaining inches of snow-melt.
Where she was, near a road crossing, there were two other men, who grinned at her and asked her which school she was from, before moving further down the track. They were suited, but in warm jackets and one of them had a wolfskin hat with earflaps tied under his chin. She kept glancing their way, as they waited.
She thought of Herman, who would be waiting even further down the line, for a glimpse of Ulf, and how Ulf had once told her to let Herman know if anything ever happened to him.
Half an hour passed but no train appeared. An hour. Just as her feet were turning numb, one of the men returned to speak to her. She looked down at her watch. An hour and twenty minutes late.
‘What d’you think’s happening?’ the man in the wolfskin hat asked her. ‘D’you think the Germans have changed their mind?’
‘Who knows? But I’ll wait a little longer. One of my friends was arrested. He might be on that train, and I owe it to him.’
‘They took five from our school. Bastards.’ He looked up the track again. ‘Maybe the schedule’s changed,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Someone must have told them we were here. What a bloody stupid idea. Whoever arranged this needs his head examining.’ He stomped off down the track, back to his friend.
Astrid felt immediately guilty. What if he was right? All these people would have had a wasted journey. She stamped her feet and rubbed her arms against the wind which bit through her coat and whipped strands of hair round her face.
Just when she was losing hope, there was a sound. Faint, from up the line.
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