This Shining Land

by Rosalind Laker

  When Johanna came downstairs an hour later the table had been cleared, the used crockery and cutlery had been washed and put away. Gina, feeding the cat, exchanged morning greetings with her daughter, who went through the back door to an outbuilding where milking clothes and gumboots were kept. As yet Gina was unable to tell of Erik’s going to anyone. Her stoicism was being tested to the full. She would not speak until she could be sure of not breaking down.

  The moment of disclosure came when Karen, who was up later than usual, set a place for Erik at the breakfast table. Johanna, bathed and changed out of her milking clothes, had just come into the kitchen and was in time to see her mother lay a hand gently across Karen’s to still the placing of a knife.

  “Erik has already left.”

  Karen showed disbelief, shaking her head with a half smile. “That’s not possible. I expect he’s overslept and that’s why he hasn’t come down yet. I’ll give him a call.” As she went towards the door Gina moved to block her way.

  “I saw him off. He’s escaping. He did not say, but I’m certain he’s going to England.”

  Karen stared and then her anguished cry came as if torn from her. “Dear God! I would have gone with him!”

  “No, no. The danger!”

  “I don’t care about that!” Karen became frantic. “How long has he been gone? Did he say which way he was taking from here?”

  “He said nothing at all.” Gina’s face was full of compassion.

  “I must go after him!” In her distraught state Karen looked as if she was prepared to rush from the house without further thought. Johanna darted to her.

  “Go and get your coat. Grab a few things. I’ll hitch Nils-Arne to the wagonette. I expect Erik will start his journey by taking the ferry along to one of the fishing coves. We’ll catch up with him at the jetty if we don’t overtake him on the way.”

  They set off a few minutes later. The horse was driven at a speed to which he was not accustomed. Johanna slowed him down when they went through the hamlet where a number of soldiers were billeted, not wanting to draw any unwelcome attention. Once through it and past the church, she urged the horse on again. When they approached the brow of the road they could see the ferry from across the fjord drawing near the distant jetty.

  “That must be the one he’s catching!” Karen exclaimed as they went bowling over the brow and down the other side in the direction of the jetty. “There’s no other leaving earlier than this one. We’ve about a minute left. Oh, be quick!”

  As the road levelled out they were brought within a few metres of the jetty just as the ferry lowered a ramp to allow two army trucks and a dispatch rider on a motor-bike ashore. Only three people were waiting to go on board and Erik was not among them. Johanna, aware of Karen’s shudder of disappointment, gave her arm an encouraging press.

  “Get out of the wagonette now. There are two sentries there, but they don’t usually check identification papers at local ferries unless there’s any kind of alert on. Go past them and wait on the jetty ready to go aboard in case Erik is planning to make a dash to the ferry at the last second.”

  Karen obeyed. She took the step down from the wagonette and strolled forward while a few passengers disembarked in the wake of the vehicles. The sentries eyed her and one ventured a smile. She turned her gaze away. The three people who had been waiting went past her to embark. A ferry hand, ready to manipulate the mechanism for raising the ramp again, looked at her inquiringly. “Are you coming aboard, frøken?”

  He saw her turn a frantically searching gaze back at the road and the hillside before she looked again at him, her eyes such wells of despair that he could guess something had gone seriously amiss for her.

  “No,” she said with stiff lips as if keeping tears at bay. “Not now.”

  When she returned to the wagonette, Johanna asked her if she wanted to wait for two hours until the next ferry came in, but Karen shook her head. She knew as Johanna did that Erik would never have left home at such an hour except for a specially early start which would not have included hanging around pointlessly at a ferry point. “I should think he’s gone over the mountains,” Johanna concluded.

  Karen said nothing. She spoke only once on the drive home and then fervently. “I hope I’m pregnant. I want to have Erik’s child.”

  Erik had not gone to the ferry. Before reaching the hamlet he had branched away to one of the farmsteads lower down the valley. A young man of his own age, a friend with whom he had grown up, was waiting by the water-mill. They greeted each other quietly and enthusiastically.

  “Hey, there! Ingvar!”

  “What a day to set off for England, eh, Erik?”

  Falling into step they reached a narrow bridge and crossed the river. On the other side they were joined by twin brothers, bakers by trade with a good supply of bread in their rucksacks. Named Oivind and Olav, they were as thin as rakes and the best ski-jumpers in the county.

  “This is like a school reunion,” Olav joked. “Ryendal is on the march.”

  His brother raised a fist in the sportsmen’s gesture of triumph. “Winston Churchill, your troubles are over! Here we come!”

  The four of them laughed and continued on together into the mountains that each knew like the back of his own hand. Towards noon they came down in sight of a small town on the fjord where a large number of fishing boats were moored. While the others settled down to wait, Erik went into the town and made for an address. One of his fellow officers, clothed similarly to himself, opened the door and let him in. They grinned at each other. “You’re right on time, Erik.”

  “You know me, Jon. Never late for duty.”

  It was the apartment of Jon’s girl-friend, who was away. In the sitting-room Erik was introduced to Jon’s brother, Martin, who was seventeen and escaping with them. There was another youth, Arvid, who was the same age and three others who, like the rest of the group that was gathering, were in their early twenties. A map was spread out on the table and Jon took him to it.

  “It’s a cod-fishing trawler we’re taking. It’s moored conveniently at the west end of the quay, which means we are out of the town and have nothing to fear until we reach this island where there are searchlights.” From the site of the trawler his fingertip moved to tap the point of danger. “After that we’ll go through the mouth of the fjord into the open sea.”

  “Why hasn’t the trawler left with the deep-sea fishing fleet for Arctic waters?”

  “The owner has been arrested, poor devil. Nobody knows what has happened to him and we’re taking the chance to get the boat before it’s requisitioned. As soon as it’s dark your party will come down the mountainside to meet us by these warehouses where the oil drums are stored. Luckily for us we have a locksmith among our number.” He nodded across to one of the men who gestured a circle of finger and thumb to show the padlocks would present no barrier to him.

  “What about sentries?”

  “There are two of them on the quay. They patrol once every hour. Martin and Arvid will be look-outs. You and I will be helping to get the oil drums on board.”

  Erik returned to his companions in the mountains. It seemed a long wait until nightfall. It was a moonless night and a windy one, for the weather had changed during the afternoon and there had been some rain. With eyes accustomed to the dark, they made their way easily to the meeting place. Each knew his allotted task and they worked in silence, heaving the drums on board and stowing them. When they were almost finished there came a sharp clatter, not from the direction in which the sentries might be expected to come, but from the rear. Everyone froze, hearts beating, each fearing a German ambush. Then a Norwegian voice came from the darkness, “It’s all right. I only dropped my tooth-mug. We’re coming with you.”

  “The hell you are!”

  They moved in a body to seize the three youths who had come upon them unawares, threatening their plans and their safety. Erik, jerking one by the neck, judged him to be no more than sixteen. “What right have
you to come demanding a passage with us?”

  The lad glared. “Every damn right! You’re stealing our father’s boat!”

  With difficulty they all stifled their laughter. The three brothers, whose surname was Berge, became nicknamed from that moment as Berge One, Two and Three, the third being the youngest whom Erik had seized. They showed their willingness to be active members of the crew by helping to load the last of the oil drums. Then the padlocks were clicked back into place on the shed doors and everyone went on board. The engine was started up. This was a moment of suspense, but the rough wind was their friend, carrying the sound away. Without lights the trawler moved out from the quayside. Erik was on his own in the wheelhouse, everyone else out of sight in the cabin obeying the rule of silence imposed on them until they were out to sea.

  The island with the German bunkers appeared ahead. At present it was in darkness but searchlights spasmodically fanned the surrounding waters if anything alerted the guards. When Erik judged the moment was right, the engine was switched off. Silently they drifted while the island loomed up on the portside and seemed to keep level with them like some ship of the night. In the cabin, Berge Three doubled over with stomach pains caused by nerves. Then gradually the island drew away. When the engine came to life again those in the cabin cheered.

  Ahead was the open sea.

  The Germans allowed an allotted fishing limit. This applied to the entire coast from the south of Norway to the deep-sea fishing grounds in the Arctic Circle. Beyond that limit any fishing vessel was assumed to be attempting to make contact with Britain and was open to attack from the Luftwaffe and the German Navy. Under cover of night, Erik aimed to take the trawler as far out from the limit as was possible. When dawn came they had to trust that their luck would hold and they would achieve their aim of reaching the Shetland Islands where a British refuge would await them. He and Jon would be automatically accepted into the Free Norwegian Navy and the three friends who had left the valley with him that morning planned to join the Free Norwegian Air Force as air crew, the twins having shared an interest in flying since boyhood.

  Jon came in sou’wester and waterproofs to relieve Erik at the wheel near midnight. “What do you think of the weather?” Jon asked, peering ahead through the rain-lashed glass.

  Erik gave his opinion. “It’s going to get worse, no doubt of that, but this trawler is used to some of the roughest waters in the world, as we are.”

  Jon chuckled. The Arctic waters in winter caused many a hazardous moment, but the coastal steamers kept to a close schedule and were rarely delayed. They were both confident the trawler could be handled in the same way. “Get to the cabin. They have some hot soup there for you.”

  The scalding soup was welcome. As Erik sat sipping it, the mug cupped between his hands, he took a mental count of the numbers on board: some sleeping, four violently seasick, two playing cards and another placidly rolling some cigarettes out of home-grown tobacco, a pungent and quite peculiar aroma coming from the one he was smoking. Since tobacco had disappeared from the shops, several farmers had planted a crop. Then Erik hoped for the sake of general morale that no one else had done a reckoning. With Jon in the wheelhouse they were thirteen altogether. Thirteen. Normally he was not in the least superstitious but at this particular time some primitive, atavistic sense of warning stirred and troubled him.

  The morning brought low clouds, giving protection from aircraft sightings as well as a much rougher sea. The waves carried the trawler high onto their crests and then smacked her down into deep, running troughs while walls of dark green water surged by. Erik and Jon, being the only seamen on board, took turns at the wheel with Berge One, who was a fisherman like his brothers and experienced enough to share the duty as he had done with his father. Before long the westerly wind had reached gale force, howling as it lashed spray from the waves, which were gaining mountainous proportions. Water poured over the bow and gushed past the wheelhouse to drain away as once again the trawler rose on a swell. It was no longer safe to cook anything in the galley. Those still able to eat made do with bread and cheese or whatever else was available. The night brought no respite. When Erik was off duty he slept before his head reached the pillow.

  He did not see the wave that hit them in the early morning light. The first he knew was that he had been thrown to the floor from his bunk and there was a roar past the portholes and overhead as if the whole trawler were being swallowed by the sea. In the cabin there were shouts and groans, somebody obviously having suffered an injury. He threw on his waterproofs and fought his way along to the wheelhouse, clambering over rigging from a broken mizzen-mast, Berge One following him. Jon, white-faced and grim, shouted at them as they entered.

  “The engine has cut out! We’re drifting!”

  When Erik and Berge One reached the engine room they saw the worst had happened. The huge sea had broken through and the place was awash with its own tossing waves. Berge One swore violently. “The bilge pump won’t work until we get the engine going!”

  There followed a nightmare time with everyone bailing out, only Arvid with a fractured arm remaining in the cabin, while the drifting trawler, perilously low in the water, was battered without respite. When finally hand pumping and bailing were lifted, the storm had eased, but neither Erik nor Berge One could get the engine going again. It had completely seized. The danger of sinking had been eliminated only to be replaced by another danger. The lessening sea showed them the grey line of the Shetlands on the horizon while the still forcible wind was beginning to carry them back to Norway. With no engine power and snapped masts, they were completely helpless.

  For five days they drifted. Miraculously they escaped enemy observation from the air and when their homeland loomed into sight again they were many miles south of the place from which they had left. They held a conference in the cabin; it was decided that they should scatter, those who wished going in trios or pairs, and it was the natural choice of the twins that they should be together. They had all been long enough away from Norway for the Germans to have discovered that the trawler was missing and to have received a report that two officers of the coastal service had failed to return to their ships. Local inquiries would have established who else was missing from work in the area. By now a list would have been compiled of those most likely to be on board. The storm would have put the Germans on special alert. It would not be the first time that a boat of escapees had been beaten back by bad weather and those aboard taken into custody and shot.

  In hope of gaining more time in which to get away, Erik organised the hanging out of the nets over the smashed bulwarks to make it appear as if they had been on a fishing trip. Close to the shore they were overtaken by a fishing boat whose skipper gave them a tow into a small cove and provided vital information about the terrain and the defences there.

  “Get going as quickly as you can,” he urged. “The Germans in town were asking about a missing trawler like yours only yesterday. From here you’ll have a better chance of getting unnoticed into the countryside.”

  Erik and his friend Ingvar had decided to get back to their own district, a decision that the others had also made, for on familiar ground there was a better chance of getting another boat and they would know whom to trust. In a strange place it was a different matter. Only the Berge brothers decided to remain in the area, having relatives there who would shelter them. They were taking Arvid with them since he was in no state for a long walk, suspected broken ribs being added to his other injury.

  They all bade each other good luck. When Erik and Ingvar had helped the injured youth ashore and into the care of the Berge brothers, who hastened him away, they joined those who had leaped from the boat onto the rocks and sped off into the woods like fleeing hares. Once there, they scattered in different directions. Luckily daylight was fading. Once Erik and Ingvar thought they heard submachine-gun fire in the distance but could not be sure. It was midnight by the time they reached the slopes. When they had climbed high eno
ugh to be safe, they flung themselves down on dry leaves and slept.

  It took them two days to get back to Ryendal. When they arrived they remained on the high pastures, at the saeter cabin where not long before Erik had been with Karen. In the same cabin the two escapees took shelter. Erik found Karen’s tortoiseshell barrette and pocketed it as a keepsake for luck. After resting for twenty-four hours, they ate the last of the food they had been given at an isolated mountain farm they had passed the day before. In the clear air, Erik saw Karen from the distance several times. It was almost as if she sensed his presence for each time she came out of the farmhouse she paused to look up in the direction of the saeter, making him wish he could call her to him, but he would not risk involving her in any danger. It gave him peace of mind to know no harm could come to her at the farm.

  At the conference on the trawler it had been arranged that the twins should meet up with Erik and Ingvar at the saeter, but if they did not come at the specified time it was to be concluded they had been delayed or caught and there was to be no waiting. When there was no sign of them just before dawn, the cabin was closed and the key replaced above the door. Both men were remembering the gunfire they had heard, but neither mentioned it, each keeping his despondency to himself. They descended to the hamlet taking a route that bypassed Ingvar’s home, for he had no wish to be sighted by anyone there. Their new escape plan was without organisation and based on taking one hazardous chance. Some of the Ryendal fishing boats went out at dawn and some at night. They were going to take one already home and unloaded. Once on board they would follow in the wake of those setting out for the day with their nets, which should get them out to sea without being challenged. The danger of being sighted by the Luftwaffe would be greater this time, for they would be heading for the fishing limits by daylight whereas previously they had been protected by the night.