At the head of the fjord there is a little mound, covered with small birch trees. Behind it the hills rise steeply for about two hundred feet. A shallow gully divides them. Within the gully the snow lies deeply, a smooth steep slope only broken by two large boulders. The patrol came floundering down the hill, pausing to kneel in the snow and snipe at Jan with rifles. Caught between them and the fire from the ship he could find no cover. But to reach him the patrol had to cross the little dip behind the mound, and there for a moment they were out of sight. He got up and ran towards them. He could not tell whether they would come over the mound, through the birches, or skirt round it to the left. He crept round it to the right. He had been wearing rubber sea-boots, but had lost one of them when he was swimming, and one of his feet was bare. He heard the soldiers crashing through the brittle bushes. Soon, as he and the patrol each circled round the mound, he come upon their tracks and crossed them. It could only be seconds before they came to his. But now the foot of the gully was near, and he broke cover and ran towards it.
They saw him at once, and they were even closer than before. An officer called on him to halt. He struggled up the first part of the gully, through the soft sliding snow. The officer fired at him with a revolver and missed, and he got to cover behind the first boulder in the gully and drew his automatic.
Looking back down the snow slope, he watched the officer climbing up towards him with the three soldiers following close behind. The officer was in Gestapo uniform. They came on with confidence, and Jan remembered that so far he had not fired a shot, so they possibly did not know that he was armed. He waited, not to waste his fire. Beyond the four figures close below him, he was aware of uproar and confusion, shouting and stray shots in the fjord. As he climbed, the officer called to Jan to surrender. He was out of breath. Jan fixed on a spot in the snow six yards below him. When they reached there, he would shoot.
The officer reached it first. Jan squeezed the trigger. The pistol clicked. It was full of ice. Twice more he tried, but it would not work, and the men were within three paces. He ejected to cartridges and it fired. He shot the Gestapo officer twice and he fell dead in the snow and his body rolled down the slope over and over towards the feet of his men. Jan fired again and the next man went down, wounded. The last two turned and ran, sliding down the snow to find cover. Jan jumped to his feet and began the long climb up the gully.
For a little while, it was strangely quiet. He was hidden from the fjord by one side of the gully. The snow was soft and deep and difficult, and he often slipped with his rubber boot. With all his strength, he could only climb slowly.
Above the second boulder, for the last hundred feet, the gully opened out into a wide snow slope, perfectly clean and white and smooth, and as soon as he set foot on it he came into sight of the German ship behind him.
In his dark naval uniform against the gleaming snow up there he was exposed as a perfect target for every gun on the warship and the rifles of the soldiers on the beaches. He struggled in desperation with the powdery snow, climbing a yard and slipping back, clawing frantically with his hands at the yielding surface which offered no hold.
The virgin slope was torn to chaos by the storm of bullets from behind him. Three-pounder shells exploding in it blew clouds of snow powder in the air. He could feel with sickening expectation the thud and the searing pain in his back which would be the end of it all. The impulse to hide, to seek any refuge from this horror, was overwhelming. But there was nowhere to hide, no help, no escape from the dreadful thing that was happening to him. He could only go on and on and on, choking as his lungs filled with ice crystals, sobbing with weariness and rage and self-pity, kicking steps which crumbled away beneath him, climbing and falling, exhausting the last of his strength against the soft deep cushion of the snow.
He got to the top. There were rocks again, hard windswept snow, the crest of the hill, and shelter just beyond it. He dropped in his tracks, and for the first time he dared to look behind him. The firing died. There below him he could see the whole panorama of the fjord.
Smoke hung above it in the sky. The German ship was at the spot where Brattholm had been anchored. On the far shore, a knot of soldiers were gathered around the crew. Nearer, where he had landed, his companions were lying on the beach, not moving, and he thought they were all dead. All round the fjord there were parties of Germans, some staring towards him at the spot where he had reached the ridge and disappeared, and others beginning to move in his direction. In his own tracks before his eyes the snow was red, and that brought him to full awareness of a pain in his foot, and he looked at it. His only injury was almost ludicrous. It was his right foot, the bare one, and half of his big toe had been shot away. It was not bleeding much, because the foot was frozen. He got up and turned his back on Toftefjord and began to try to run. It was not much more then ten minutes since he had been sleeping in the cabin with his friends, and now he was alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Trojan Horse
By Virgil
The Grecian leaders, now disheartened by the war, and baffled by the Fates, after a revolution of so many years, build a horse to the size of a mountain, and interweave its ribs with planks of fir. This they pretend to be an offering, in order to procure a safe return; which report spread. Hither having secretly conveyed a select band, chosen by lot, they shut them up into the dark sides, and fill its capacious caverns and womb with armed soldiers. In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island well known by fame, and flourishing while Priam’s kingdom stood: now only a bay, and a station unfaithful for ships. Having made this island, they conceal themselves in that desolate shore. We imagined they were gone, and that they had set sail for Mycenae. In consequence of this, all Troy is released from its long distress: the gates are thrown open; with joy we issue forth, and view the Grecian camp, the deserted plains, and the abandoned shore. Some view with amazement that baleful offering of the virgin Minerva, and wonder at the stupendous bulk of the horse; and Thymoetes first advises that it be dragged within the walls and lodged in the tower, whether with treacherous design, or that the destiny of Troy now would have it so. But Capys, and all whose minds had wiser sentiments, strenuously urge either to throw into the sea the treacherous snare and suspected oblation of the Greeks; or by applying flames consume it to ashes; or to lay open and ransack the recesses of the hollow womb. The fickle populace is split into opposite inclinations. Upon this, Laocoön, accompanied with numerous troop, first before all, with ardour hastens down from the top of the citadel; and while yet a great way off cries out, “O, wretched countrymen, what desperate infatuation is this? Do you believe the enemy gone? or think you any gifts of the Greeks can be free from deceit? Is Ulysses thus known to you? Either the Greeks lie concealed within this wood, or it is an engine framed against our walls, to overlook our houses, and to come down upon our city; or some mischievous design lurks beneath it. Trojans, put no faith in this horse. Whatever it be, I dread the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.” Thus said, with valiant strength he hurled his massive spear against the sides and belly of the monster, where it swelled out with its jointed timbers; the weapon stood quivering, and the womb being shaken, the hollow caverns rang, and sent forth a groan. And had not the decrees of heaven been adverse, if our minds had not been infatuated, he had prevailed on us to mutilate with the sword this dark recess of the Greeks; and thou, Troy, should still have stood, and thou, lofty tower of Priam, now remained!
In the meantime, behold, Trojan shepherds, with loud acclamations, came dragging to the king a youth, whose hands were bound behind him; who, to them a mere stranger, had voluntarily thrown himself in the way, to promote this same design, and open Troy to the Greeks; a resolute soul, and prepared for either event, whether to execute his perfidious purpose, or submit to inevitable death. The Trojan youth pour tumultuously around from every quarter, from eagerness to see him, and they vie with one another in insulting the captive. Now lear
n the treachery of the Greeks, and from one crime take a specimen of the whole nation. For as he stood among the gazing crowds perplexed, defenceless, and threw his eyes around the Trojan bans, “Ah!” says he, “what land, what seas can now receive me? or to what further extremity can I, a forlorn wretch, be reduced, for whom there is no shelter anywhere among the Greeks? and to complete my misery the Trojans too, incensed against me, sue for satisfaction with my blood.” By which mournful accents our affections at once were moved towards him, and all our resentment suppressed.
At these tears we grant him his life, and pity him from our hearts. Priam himself first gives orders that the manacles and strait bonds be loosened from the man, then thus addresses him in the language of a friend: “Whoever you are, now henceforth forget the Greeks you have lost; ours you shall be: and give me an ingenuous reply to these questions: To what purpose raised they this stupendous bulk of a horse? Who was the contriver? or what do they intend? what was the religious motive? or what warlike engine is it?” he said. The other, practised in fraud and Grecian artifice, lifted up to heaven his hands, loosed from the bonds: “Troy can never be razed by the Grecian sword, unless they repent the omens at Argos, and carry back the goddess whom they had conveyed in their curved ships. And now, that they have sailed for their native Mycenae with the wind, they are providing themselves with arms; and, they will come upon you unexpected.” For he declared that “if your hands should violate this offering sacred to Minerva, then signal ruin awaited Priam’s empire and the Trojans. But, if by your hands it mounted into the city, that Asia, without further provocation given, would advance with a formidable war to the very walls, and our posterity be doomed to the same fate.” By such treachery and artifice of perjured Sinon, the story was believed: and we, whom neither Diomede, nor Achilles, nor a siege of ten years, nor a thousand ships, had subdued, were ensnared by guile and constrained tears.
Meanwhile they urge with general voice to convey the statue to its proper seat, and implore the favour of the goddess. We make a breach in the walls, and lay open the bulwarks of the city. All keenly ply the work; and under the feet apply smooth-rolling wheels; stretch hempen ropes from the neck. The fatal machine passes over our walls, pregnant with arms. It advances, and with menacing aspect slides into the heart of the city. O country, O Ilium, the habitation of gods, and ye walls of Troy by war renowned! Four times it stopped in the very threshold of the gate, and four times the arms resounded in its womb: yet we, heedless, and blind with frantic zeal, urge on, and plant the baneful monster in the sacred citadel. Unhappy we, to whom that day was to be the last, adorn the temples of the gods throughout the city with festive boughs. Meanwhile, the heavens change, and night advances rapidly from the ocean, wrapping in her extended shade both earth and heaven, and the wiles of the Myrmidons. The Trojans, dispersed about the walls, were hushed: deep sleep fast binds them weary in his embraces. And now the Grecian host, in their equipped vessels, set out for Tenedos, making towards the well-known shore, by the friendly silence of the quiet moonshine, as soon as the royal galley stern had exhibited the signal fire; and Sinon, preserved by the will of the adverse gods, in a stolen hour unlocks the wooden prison to the Greeks shut up in its tomb: the horse, from his expanded caverns, pours them forth to the open air. They assault the city buried in sleep, and wine. The sentinels are beaten down; and with opened gates they receive all their friends, and join the conquering bands.
Meanwhile the city is filled with mingled scenes of woe; and though my father’s house stood retired and enclosed with trees, louder and louder the sounds rise on the ear, and the horrid din of arms assails. I start from sleep and, by hasty steps, gain the highest battlement of the palace, and stand with erect ears: as when a flame is driven by the furious south winds on standing corn; or as a torrent impetuously bursting in a mountain-flood desolates the fields, desolates the rich crops of corn and the labours of the ox.
Then, indeed, the truth is confirmed and the treachery of the Greeks disclosed. Now Deiphosus’ spacious house tumbles down, overpowered by the conflagration; now, next to him, Ucalegon blazes: the straits of Sigaeum shine far and wide with the flames. The shouts of men and clangour of trumpets arise. My arms I snatch in mad haste: nor is there in arms enough of reason: but all my soul burns to collect a troop for the war and rush into the citadel with my fellows: fury and rage hurry on my mind, and it occurs to me how glorious it is to die in arms.
The towering horse, planted in the midst of our streets, pours forth armed troops; and Sinon victorious, with insolent triumph scatters the flames. Others are pressing at our wide-opened gates, as many thousands as ever came from populous Mycenae: others with arms have blocked up the lanes to oppose our passage; the edged sword, with glittering point, stands unsheathed, ready for dealing death: hardly the foremost wardens of the gates make an effort to fight and resist in the blind encounter. By the impulse of the gods, I hurry away into flames and arms, whither the grim Fury, whither the din and shrieks that rend the skies, urge me on. Ripheus and Iphitus, mighty in arms, join me; Hypanis and Dymas come up with us by the light of the moon, and closely adhere to my side. Whom, close united, soon as I saw resolute to engage, to animate them the more I thus begin: “Youths, souls magnanimous in vain! If it is your determined purpose to follow me in this last attempt, you see what is the situation of our affairs. All the gods, by whom this empire stood, have deserted their shrines and altars to the enemy: you come to the relief of the city in flames: let us meet death, and rush into the thickest of our armed foes. The only safety for the vanquished is to throw away all hopes of safety.” Thus the courage of each youth is kindled into fury. Then, like ravenous wolves in a gloomy fog, whom the fell rage of hunger hath driven forth, blind to danger, and whose whelps left behind long for their return with thirsting jaws; through arms; through enemies, we march up to imminent death, and advance through the middle of the city: sable Night hovers around us with her hollow shade.
Who can describe in words the havoc, who the death of that night? or who can furnish tears equal to the disasters? Our ancient city, having borne sway for many years, falls to the ground: great numbers of sluggish carcasses are strewn up and down, both in the streets, in the houses, and the sacred thresholds of the gods. Nor do the Trojans alone pay the penalty with their blood: the vanquished too at times resume courage in their hearts, and the victorious Grecians fall: everywhere is cruel sorrow, everywhere terror and death in a thousand shapes.
We march on, mingling with the Greeks, but not with heaven on our side; and in many a skirmish we engage during the dark night: many of the Greeks we send down to Hades. Some fly to the ships, and hasten to the trusty shore; some through dishonest fear, scale once more the bulky horse, and lurk within the well-known womb.
Ye ashes of Troy, ye expiring flames of my country! witness, that in your fall I shunned neither darts nor any deadly chances of the Greeks. Thence we are forced away, forthwith to Priam’s palace called by the outcries. Here, indeed, we beheld a dreadful fight, as though this had been the only seat of the war, as though none had been dying in all the city besides; with such ungoverned fury we see Mars raging and the Greeks rushing forward to the palace, and the gates besieged by an advancing testudo. Scaling ladders are fixed against the walls, and by their steps they mount to the very door-posts, and protecting themselves by their left arms, oppose their bucklers to the darts, while with their right hands they grasp the battlements. On the other hand, the Trojans tear down the turrets and roofs of their houses; with these weapons, since they see the extremity, they seek to defend themselves now in their last death-struggle, and tumble down the gilded rafters; others with drawn swords beset the gates below; these they guard in a firm, compact body . . . I mount up to the roof of the highest battlement, whence the distressed Trojans were hurling unavailing darts. With our swords assailing all around a turret, situated on a precipice, and shooting up its towering top to the stars (whence we were wont to survey all Troy,
the fleet of Greece, and all the Grecian camp), where the topmost story made the joints more apt to give way, we tear it from its deep foundation, and push it on our foes. Suddenly tumbling down, it brings thundering desolation with it, and falls with wide havoc on the Grecian troops. But others succeed: meanwhile, neither stones, nor any sort of missile weapons, cease to fly. Just before the vestibule, and at the outer gate, Pyrrhus exults, glittering in arms and gleamy brass. At the same time, all the youth from Scyros advance to the wall, and toss brands to the roof. Pyrrhus himself in the front, snatching up a battleaxe, beats through the stubborn gates, and labours to tear the brazen posts from the hinges; and now, having hewn away the bars, he dug through the firm boards, and made a large, wide-mouthed breach. The palace within is exposed to view, and the long galleries are discovered: the sacred recesses of Priam and the ancient kings are exposed to view; and they see armed men standing at the gate.
As for the inner palace, it is filled with mingled groans and doleful uproar, and the hollow rooms all throughout howl with female yells: their shrieks strike the golden stars. Then the trembling matrons roam through the spacious halls, and in embraces hug the door-posts, and cling to them with their lips. Pyrrhus presses on with all his father’s violence: nor bolts, nor guards themselves, are able to sustain. The gate, by repeated battering blows, gives way, and the door-posts, torn from their hinges, tumble to the ground. The Greeks make their way by force, burst a passage, and, being admitted, butcher the first they meet, and fill the places all about with their troops. Those fifty bedchambers, those doors, that proudly shone with barbaric gold and spoils, were leveled to the ground: where the flames relent, the Greeks take their place.
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