In the dawn light catches of fish were being loaded onto the jetty and carted away. Farther on were three boats tied up for the day, their owners and the night’s catch already gone. Nobody took any notice of the two men as they strolled towards it. Sentries had just changed and had no reason to be suspicious when they went past or took notice when the twin brothers caught up with them and went on board the same boat, explaining quietly they had been forced to make a detour by seeing a truckload of German soldiers parked on their road.
The engine started up its tonk-tonk sound and Erik was at the wheel. There was no need for the other three to conceal themselves this time since to all intents and purposes they were the crew preparing their nets for the fishing ahead. Erik’s face was grief-stricken at the news the brothers had brought. Berge One and Two, seeing Germans coming out of the woods, had remained with their injured friend and had been arrested. They had urged Berge Three to run for it. The lad had been gunned down. The twins had seen it all, hiding in the undergrowth. That night a farmer had hidden them in his barn, but before they left he brought the news that five more escapees had been shot by the Germans. Local information was that they had come from a wrecked trawler. It was a terrible toll: six deaths and three arrests with the same fate awaiting. A great groan broke from Erik’s throat.
He did not know that the owner of the fishing boat he was steering had returned for a forgotten pipe and tobacco pouch and was standing on the shore, watching his means of livelihood depart. The man guessed where his property was bound. It never entered his mind to shout or raise any alarm that would have brought patrol boats out to intercept the errant vessel. If he had been twenty years younger he would have escaped too. Two thoughts came to him. One was that he hoped the insurance against loss wouldn’t keep him shore-bound for too long, the companies often tardy in these cases since they had the Germans looking over their shoulders. The second thought was that he wished he had been in time to get his tobacco pouch. There had been some real tobacco in it.
Thirty-six hours later, after a relatively trouble-free crossing, Erik sailed the boat into the harbour of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. British soldiers came on board and escorted the four of them to a public building where they were interrogated by British and Norwegian officials. It was a stiff cross-examination, for the Germans were attempting to pass spies in by the North Sea escape route. It was some time before they were accepted as genuine escapees and issued identity cards, their German-issued papers already surrendered to the British authorities.
The next day, still under escort, although it was a policeman in plainclothes this time, they were taken by ferry to the mainland and then by train to London, which gave them a glimpse of the country that had become a gathering place for so many of their countrymen. They arrived at night in an air raid, the sky blasted by flames from burning buildings, with the droning of enemy aircraft overhead and the exploding of bombs shaking the ground like an earthquake.
For two weeks the four of them kicked their heels in a camp where there was more interrogation in the hopes of gleaning any scraps of information that might prove to be helpful to the Allied cause. After that had taken place, Erik’s three companions were enrolled in the Free Norwegian Air Force, Ingvar to be flown to Canada for pilot training at the “Little Norway” centre established there, the twins posted to a destination in England to train as air gunners. More time of increasingly impatient waiting passed for Erik before he was called for an interview. It was not to complete finalities before posting him to a Norwegian ship as he had expected. One of his fellow countrymen in naval uniform with a stern countenance and gimlet eyes faced him across a polished table.
“I’m offering you the chance to volunteer for special work. We need men who know every inlet and cove in their own west coast district of Norway where special agents and supplies can be landed secretly and others brought away. This service means winter crossings from the Shetland Islands in small fishing boats that will blend in with the local shipping upon arrival. What do you say?”
“When do I start?”
Erik left the office well pleased. He was to leave London by train that night to reach the centre from which operations took place. The special branch he was to join had already earned its own highly respected nickname for its regular and undaunted secret crossings: the Shetland Bus.
On his way into Kings Cross station some dramatic placards caught his eye. Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbour. He bought a newspaper and scanned the details. The United States had entered the war.
At Scalloway in the Shetlands that Christmas of 1941, Erik’s name had already been listed with every other serviceman in the Free Norwegian Forces to receive an annual gift from King Haakon with whom they were sharing exile from their homeland. Included with the King’s personal letter of greetings, the warm socks, knitted scarf, cigarettes and chocolate bars, there was an additional gift for the woman in the serviceman’s life. It was labelled “For her.” This year it was a lipstick. Erik smiled, tossing it lightly in his hand. He would save it for Karen. His decision was like a vow of faithfulness. Oddly for him, he intended to keep it.
Chapter 7
Johanna went up the stairs to the café above a grocery shop. The windows looked out over the cobbled street below and the wintry Ålesund waters to the bridged island opposite where the wooden warehouses stood shoulder to shoulder in their sea-faded hues, the roofs thick with snow. Most of the tables were occupied. Some soldiers were present and four sailors from a U-boat in the harbour were making a cloud of cigarette smoke at a window table. She made her way to a wall seat at a table in the least popular section of the café to wait for Steffen. The message to meet him had come the day before. She had not seen him since the night of the parachute jump or had any word from him about further resistance work, but there had been plenty to keep her occupied at home. Not long after Erik’s departure her father had had a complete collapse. It was just as if all strength had finally evaporated from his body. The old doctor had come to see him willingly enough, had prescribed whatever was still available in the chemist’s shop for his patient’s heart trouble brought on by the brutal German attack, and left again, grumbling about his own aches and pains and saying he would not be able to turn out when the snows came.
Edvard was still mentally aware of what was going on, able to take some nourishment and to receive visitors, but nursing was constant. Karen, who was a born nurse, took on the duties tirelessly, and reluctantly let Gina and Johanna take turns relieving her while still determinedly shouldering the main portion of the tasks. Johanna believed Karen had dedicated herself to compelling Edvard back to health against all odds. Previously his condition had not warranted full-time attention, and the girl had been kept at bay by Gina’s solicitous care of him. But now fate, as if to compensate for dashing her hopes of being pregnant, had given her a chance to do something worthwhile in Erik’s absence. If it lay in her power she would get Edvard back on his feet to see his son come home again.
It had been a bleak Christmas with Edvard in bed and all of them anxious about Erik and wondering where he might be. They had heard King Haakon speak on the BBC and Johanna knew a little more than the others about the monarch’s Christmas in London. During a routine delivery of underground news-sheets, which she had taken on in the valley, she had met again the schoolteacher who had organised her being in the mountains for Delia’s drop by parachute.
“This year,” he had told her, “as with the first Christmas of the Occupation, the King will have a tree from Norway. When our secret agents returned to England from a recent sortie here, a small fir tree was dug up and taken back with them as a link for the King from his own land.”
The story had touched Johanna. A Norwegian Christmas tree going all the way to London in the midst of war.
Apart from her father’s illness, there had been other things to keep her busy. The Third Reich, engaged in a winter campaign in Russia, must have found itself short of essentials. Demands were
issued for all Norwegians except farmers and fishermen to hand in adults’ gum-boots, blankets, tents, rucksacks and men’s warm clothing of every description. She and some of the women in the valley had been called in by the Germans to help sort the goods that came in from Ryendal. Everybody had to find what they could, or else face three years’ imprisonment or a fine up to one hundred thousand kroner.
The New Year of 1942 had come in with a comical situation to ease the tension. Not that the Germans thought it funny. With the savage suppression of the paper clip with heavy fines and imprisonment, people had found another way to demonstrate. Suddenly everyone—men, women and children—had begun to wear scarlet knitted caps, the colour of the forbidden national flag. From the south to far north of the Arctic Circle the whole land had bobbed with scarlet pompons and tassels like a virulent outbreak of measles. It had taken the Germans a while to see what was happening. Then the inevitable notices appeared solemnly on billboards and in the press. Warning! Red knitted caps. The wearing of this headgear is strictly forbidden under pain of severe punishment …
Watching the door for Steffen to arrive, Johanna felt sick with anxiety as to how it would be when she saw him again. She had tried to reconcile herself to the rift between them, to accept that what had begun so gloriously had been no more than a brief affair given momentum by the hazards of war. Yet the truth was that her love was totally unchanged. She had loved him from the moment he had kissed her in Oslo’s market square and she would go on loving him. There seemed no cure for it.
The café door opened again to admit another customer. A woman. It was Delia. For a few angry and painful seconds Johanna thought that Steffen had sent Delia in his place, but she took a seat in another part of the café without so much as a glance around.
Almost immediately afterwards Steffen entered. Upon seeing Johanna he went to the counter to collect two cups of coffee and brought them across to where she was seated. His expression was taut and guarded, not against the presence of enemy soldiers and sailors at the other tables, but against her. She realised it was a reflection of her own expression as she looked across the table at him.
“Sorry I’m late.” He had his back to the rest of the L-shaped room.
“You chose a busy place to meet.”
He glanced over his shoulder before returning his gaze to her where she sat at his right. Nobody could read anything from his lips or hers at that angle. “That’s why. I knew it would be possible to talk here in low voices without being overheard. I have to keep an eye on Delia at the same time.”
“Has she been here ever since I last saw you?” It was a question she could not hold back.
He nodded. “Transmitter work. She’s leaving tonight under cover of darkness. There’s a chance the Gestapo are following up information that might lead to her. We can’t take the risk. She won’t be back.”
Was it her imagination or had he put special emphasis on his final words? Either way it was of no consequence now. “I wish her a safe journey.”
He had taken a swig of the ersatz coffee and grimaced over it. “This stuff gets worse!” Leaning both arms on the table, he thrust his face towards her. “How are you? What’s been happening?”
She told him about Erik’s going to England. Then she talked of Rolf. With the reopening of the schools after the Christmas vacation he, together with teachers throughout the country, had become extremely anxious over rumours that Quisling was working on plans to interfere with their freedom.
“I heard about that,” he said grimly. “It could be an explosive situation. I haven’t told you yet what a good job you did in Oslo. Congratulations.” His nod was approving and he studied her keenly. “I heard most of the details, but not how you managed to avoid questioning by the Gestapo who had entered the apartment block before you could be forewarned.” When she told him what took place, he nodded again. “Luck was certainly with you that day and that’s not to belittle your initiative in any way. You had a couple of narrow escapes.”
“I did? A couple? How?”
“The first came when you were in a batch of train passengers about to be siphoned off at random by the Hird storm-troopers in a general rounding up for a spot check. It was just one of the risks of the business. Our contact deliberately created a diversion by pushing you off the train and making a dash away himself.”
“He was caught and arrested,” she exclaimed. “What happened to him?”
“Not much, thank God. He pleaded panic at having mislaid his travel pass and it was discovered in his coat lining after supposedly slipping through a hole in his pocket. They weren’t pleased with him, but he got away with a month in a labour camp.” He saw how distressed she looked. “Don’t worry about it. He was on the train for that sole purpose. What you were carrying was far too important for you to be alone, and it was not because it was your first sortie. We would have done the same for an experienced courier.”
She inclined her head in acceptance of his reassurance on that point. “When shall I be sent again?”
“The time will come for more assignments. In the meanwhile you will stop delivering underground news-sheets. We can’t risk your being picked up for doing that. There is much more important work ahead for you.”
She was no longer surprised by the Resistance’s extensive knowledge of what went on in its name and who played a part. “I’ll look forward to that.”
“There’s something special I have to tell you now,” he continued sombrely. “Not good news, I’m afraid. I took this chance of meeting you today while I’m back in Ålesund to see Delia on her way. First of all, the truth is that things have gone tragically wrong for the Resistance since that general onslaught by the Gestapo at the time of the trade union strike. What’s more, Reichskommissar Terboven is not going to give up until he thinks the entire underground movement has been eliminated. The German invasion of Russia brought Norway that much nearer the battle area and he dare not risk losing his grip in any way.”
“How wrong did things go?”
He shook his head to show how bad it had been. “All the networks were virtually smashed. Contacts that had been carefully built up were almost completely wiped out.”
“How did it happen?”
“Terrible tortures were inflicted on Resistance members betrayed by quisling informers. Inevitably secret information was extracted which led to more arrests and more torture. It carried on and on like ripples in a pool, each disclosure bringing in more victims. After torture, for many there was also the firing squad.” His face showed the strain of what he was telling her. “There’s a small courtyard that the Germans have set aside at Akershus Castle as a permanent site where executions of patriots are carried out.”
She received what she was being told with anguish. He guessed that she, knowing Oslo well, would be remembering the picturesque castle as a peaceful place of interest with cobbled courtyards and ancient cannons and grassy lawns from which a wide view of the busy harbour could be enjoyed on warm summer days.
“What else have you to tell me?” she asked with apprehension in her eyes.
He thought she looked pale. “Shall we get out of here first?”
“What about Delia?”
“She’ll follow us after a minute or two.”
Together they left the café. Outside, snowflakes were swirling lightly in the air. He raised his arm as if to put it about her, but thought better of it. Side by side they walked along until they came to some railings looking out to sea, lapping silver and grey between the buildings like a canal through a wooden Venice, the colours mellow even on this winter’s day. Sea gulls hovered and screeched and the moored fishing boats bobbed gently, some with layers of snow on the wheelhouse roofs not yet brushed away, each one bright with the green glass balls that kept the nets afloat. The breathing space Steffen had given her after preparing her through the general bad news of the Resistance had helped her to summon up courage for whatever was linked with it. She spoke what she feared to be most l
ikely.
“Has Leif Moen been arrested?” Her arms were resting on the top rail as were his.
He turned his head to look at her. “No. It concerns your friend at the fur shop. Sonja Holm. There was a Gestapo raid on a secret printing press. She and others who were there made an attempt to get away. In the melee she was mortally wounded.”
She covered her face with her hands in deepest grief. He drew her to him and held her. His act of comfort was interrupted almost at once by the harsh voice of a sentry who had just stamped into view.
“Achtung! Get moving. You know it’s not allowed for anyone to stand about in conversation. Keep walking. Schnell! Schnell!” He gestured fiercely with his bayoneted rifle.
This time Steffen did put an arm around her as they moved on, having no choice, for the guards were often nervous and trigger-happy. She was crying silently. At a distance from them Delia followed. Keeping them within sight, she sauntered slowly until they stopped to say goodbye within the shelter of an archway, momentarily out of the sight of any guards.
“We’ll part here, Jo,” he said to her, his hands cupping her shoulders. “You can go one way and I’ll go the other. I wish I hadn’t had to be the bearer of such sad news for you.”
Johanna’s eyes flooded again and she wiped them quickly. “I had to know and it helped to hear it from you.” Her glance went to Delia on the opposite side of the road before she looked back at him. “I mustn’t keep you any longer. It’s not safe. Goodbye.”
She hurried away through the snowflakes. Her grief renewed itself. It was rare for her to shed tears and these tore out of her. She wept for Sonja and for everything that had been lost through the enemy occupation.
It was a week later when, from the farmhouse, Johanna sighted a German army truck coming up the valley between the banks of snow on either side of the lane. She was filled with trepidation when it stopped outside the farmhouse. The helmeted soldiers jumped out, some peeling off to guard the rear of the house against any escape, the rest approaching the front door. Her mother was upstairs at her father’s bedside and Karen had gone to call on a neighbour at the next farm. As the hammering of a fist came on the door, she opened it reluctantly. A sergeant stood there, backed by three soldiers with rifles. He had a young, bold face with jutting cheekbones, his expression stern, a truculent set to his mouth.
This Shining Land Page 17
