'Well, I'll be jiggered! If it isn't my old friend, Gregory Sallust!'
As Gregory was in civilian clothes there was nothing whatever about him to indicate that he was posing as the Colonel Baron von Lutz, and the tall man's recognition was so convincingly confident that Gregory knew that he would never be able to persuade von Ziegler that any mistake had been made. At that second he caught the German's eye; in it amazement was struggling with sudden comprehension and the dawn of fanatical hatred.
CHAPTER 9
When Greek Meets Greek
Gregory could almost see the thoughts racing through the German's brain. He was putting two and two together with extraordinary rapidity. He had been too wrapped up in his own plan to kidnap or kill King Haakon to wonder why a German staff-colonel should, within five hours of the invasion, have completed any work he had to do and be at liberty to set off into the blue as a casual helper in this wild chase. Here was the explanation. His companion for the last twenty-seven hours was not a German officer at all, but a British spy. The Rolls-Royce car had a diplomatic number-plate, so evidently its owner was an Englishman who had escaped from the British Legation in Oslo, and he had given away this old friend of his, Mr. Gregory Sallust, without realising what he was doing.
It must have been this spy who had somehow managed to warn King Haakon to leave his Palace at a moment's notice. It was this wolf in sheep's clothing who on the previous night had suggested that instead of remaining in the police-station to be bombed they should give warning of the air-raid; so he had managed to save the King again on the specious excuse that if they saved themselves they could always capture or kill him the following day. Now it was this snake that he had been nurturing in his bosom who had proposed that they should go ahead of the column to make quite certain that Lillehammer was undefended; but evidently his intention had been to get yet one more warning to the King so that he could leave the town before the German troops came up. Von Ziegler was an ambitious man and he had counted upon receiving signal honours from his Fuehrer for the capture of King Haakon; now he saw how step by step his plan had been foiled by the British agent whom he had been fool enough to take as his companion and confidant.
With a roar of rage he sprang; but Gregory side-stepped and put out a foot to trip him. For once Gregory had met his match. Von Ziegler was still much too concerned for the preservation of his own plans to be willing to risk sabotaging them further for the joy of injuring the man who had tricked him. The thing uppermost in his mind at that moment was the urgent necessity of escaping from the two Englishmen, who might try to hold him prisoner, and of getting back to his troops round the bend of the road. He had leapt at Gregory only in order to drive him out of the way. Swerving suddenly, he jumped into the driving-seat of the Rolls. Its tall owner grabbed at him but he fended him off with one hand while releasing the brake with the other. Next minute the big car slid away in a cloud of dust.
Gregory could not help admiring the tactics by which von Ziegler had made his get-away and he smiled at the Englishman. 'Well, Gussy, old friend, I'm afraid that's good-bye to your Rolls.'
The Honourable Augustus Langdon-Forbes stared after four thousand pounds' worth of the world's most excellent machinery, which was now streaking southward. Then he looked ruefully at Gregory.
'Who's your ill-mannered friend? I seem to know his face.'
'You should,' Gregory replied. 'He's the Air Attache at the German Legation in Oslo and he rejoices in the name of Captain Kurt von Ziegler.'
'Of course. Still, damn'd unsporting of him, I think, to make off with my car like that without so much as
"by your leave".'
'There is a war on, Gussy, old thing,' Gregory remarked quietly.
The other's eyes suddenly flickered with amusement. 'So I gather. In recent months we've even had one or two dispatches about it from London.'
'I should have thought you might also have seen something of it yourself in the last few hours. Did you by any chance pass through Hamar early this morning?'
'Yes; and I found it a most regrettable sight—most regrettable. I see no reason at all why we and the Germans shouldn't kill one another, if we feel that way, without burning up the houses of a lot of unfortunate Norwegians.'
'The Germans considered that they had an excellent reason. They were out to capture King Haakon—and they'll get him yet if we don't do something about it. Do you by any chance speak Norwegian?'
'A word or two. I've been en poste here for over two years you know.'
'Enough to make yourself understood over a telephone?'
Augustus Langdon-Forbes' brown eyes twinkled again. 'I might succeed in that.'
'Come on, then; you must get on to the police—or, better still, to the Sandvig's house, where the King is staying, and warn him to get out at once. There's a column of German troops lurking round the corner up there all ready to come racing into the town, and another lot are making their way up through the trees on the other side of the water.'
'God bless my soul! D'you really mean that, Gregory? I know the German motor-cyclists are pretty swift movers but I never thought that they'd get here as quickly as this.'
Gregory had turned and was striding towards a long, low building just beside the petrol station, as he replied grimly: 'They didn't come on motor-cycles; they dropped straight out of the sky like a lot of lovely fairies who had been cursed by a wicked witch and turned into sausage-eating hoodlums with two-ton boots.'
'Parachute troops, eh?' Augustus said lazily.
'How did you guess, Gussy dear?'
'Oh, we are not altogether without our sources of information,' the diplomat shrugged, 'and I had a sort of idea that they might try out their new technique if they decided to go for Scandinavia.'
'Then why the hell didn't you pass on your "sort of idea" to the War House?'
'We did, old fellah—we did; but the wallah who received this epic testimony to our foresight and care for our country's weal probably thought we were pulling his leg. After all, it's asking a bit too much to expect a British general to believe in fairies.'
As they hurried into the low building Gregory realised that it was not, as he had supposed, the rather spacious bungalow of the owner of the petrol pumps, but some sort of club. There was a man behind a desk in the hallway, which opened into a broad lounge-room where a number of Norwegians with worried faces were earnestly talking together in little groups.
Langdon-Forbes stepped forward and proceeded to air his word or two of Norwegian. This proved to be a complete and rapid command of the language, without any attempt to speak it as it was spoken by the Norwegians, and his rather high, clipped accent still branded him as Winchester and Balliol although he was speaking in a foreign tongue. What he said to the man behind the desk Gregory did not know, but the man was galvanised into instant activity and two minutes later Gussy was speaking swiftly and clearly on the telephone. As he hung up the receiver he said to Gregory:
'Well, that's that. Dr. Koht, the Foreign Minister, is with the King and I spoke to his secretary, whom I know personally, so they will be on their way in half an hour.'
'Half an hour?' exclaimed Gregory. 'That's no good; the Boche are only just round the corner; once they start they'll be in the town inside ten minutes—and they may start at any moment.'
'Sorry; but the King is in his bath. He's had rather a trying time, poor old chap, and he thought a bath and a bit of massage would restore him. They'll tell him at once, of course, but it's bound to take him a quarter of an hour or so to get dried and dressed.'
'Has he any troops out there to defend him?'
'No. I asked about that, but Lillehammer is not a garrison town and so he hasn't even an acting unpaid bombardier for escort—only a few policemen with those funny old revolvers.'
Gregory groaned. 'We must try and gain him a flying start somehow. I know! We can't stop the troops across the water but what we can do is to stop the motorised column by making a road barrier. We'll have
to be darned snappy about it, though. Go and talk to those chaps in there; tell them as quickly as you can what's happening and get them to lend a hand dragging out the furniture.'
Langdon-Forbes advanced into the open doorway of the lounge and raised his high-pitched voice.
There was instant silence, and after he had spoken for a moment a fat man stepped forward and said something to him; upon which he turned to Gregory.
'Our luck's in. This place is the Lillehammer Rifle Club and our friend here, who is its President, suggests that all the members should get their rifles.'
'Splendid!' Gregory nodded to the fat man and added: 'But for God's sake tell them to be quick!'
The President called loudly to his friends and a stampede to the gun-room ensued. Two minutes later the first members of the club to reach it came hurrying back with rifles and boxes of ammunition. As they started to run out on to the road Gregory spoke quickly again to Gussy.
'Tell them that I'm a British officer and that they'd better let me take charge while you act as my interpreter. They won't stand an earthly if they line up out there in the open. The Germans have got tommy-guns and will simply shoot them to ribbons. The thing to do is to man the windows of the club and lie in wait until the Germans come down the road.'
Gregory's suggestion was adopted and under his directions the clubmen began to smash the long line of windows; afterwards removing the fragments of glass to prevent their flying when the Germans fired at the place. They then sorted themselves out inside the building while Gregory stood in the doorway watching the curve of the road half a mile away. Word was passed round that not a shot was to be fired until he gave the Norwegian word of command, with which Langdon-Forbes furnished him.
The preparations for the ambush were only just completed in time. A moment later he saw the Rolls suddenly shoot round the corner, and it was followed by a string of about sixteen other cars containing the parachute troops.
He stepped back a little in case he was spotted and von Ziegler took a flying shot at him when the Rolls drew level. Unconsciously holding his breath, he waited until the first four cars had passed him; then with all the strength of his lungs he-roared the word for 'Fire!'
There was a deafening crash as the thirty-odd rifles of the clubmen flashed at the German column. The cars were a bare twenty yards away, the attack was totally unexpected and the fusillade created absolute havoc among them. It was as though the drivers of the first eight cars had suddenly been struck with madness. From an orderly, fast-moving procession the leading half of the column was instantly thrown into the utmost confusion. Cars swerved, skidded and crashed into one another. Two of them plunged headlong down the bank on the far side of the road; one was caught sideways-on by a tree, while the other, rocketing from side to side, plunged into the water. A third came roaring towards the club-house but hit a telegraph-pole, which it tried to climb and became stuck with its front wheels eight feet in the air.
A fourth charged a petrol pump and, turning over, burst into flames.
Above the din could be heard the screaming of brakes as the drivers in the latter half of the column tried to pull up. They bunched in an almost solid jam, swivelled in all directions across the roadway, and the Norwegians sent a second volley into them. Gregory took in the general scene with grim satisfaction, then his glance ran swiftly along to the leading car— the Rolls—and remained fixed there. One of the back tyres had been exploded by a bullet and the car had run up the bank about fifty yards past the club-house.
As he watched he saw von Ziegler, Major Helder and another German officer climb out of it. Helder staggered a few paces then fell, either dead or wounded. The other officer turned and sent a stream of bullets out of his automatic towards the clubhouse, but von Ziegler, with his head low, was running hard towards the town. Suddenly he halted and shouted an order to the officer. The officer yelled something to two other men, who had just scrambled from the third car, and all three of them abandoned the fight to pelt after von Ziegler.
Somebody in the club-house drew a bead on one of the men and he was hit in the back as he ran.
Flinging up his arms he pitched forward on his face, but von Ziegler, the officer and the other man managed to reach cover before the marksman could fire again.
Gregory cursed softly to himself. It was the German Air Attache who was the brains of the party and he had got away with two armed comrades. He was not the sort of man to have fled from the fight on account of cowardice, and the fact that he had drawn two others off with him showed that, although he might consider the ambush into which his party had fallen as an infuriating setback, he was still unshaken in his determination to capture or kill King Haakon.
However, von Ziegler was without a car for the moment, and even with two armed men to help him, both of whom were in uniform and so likely to prove a target for the revolvers of the Norwegian police or the brickbats of the population, he would probably have considerable difficulty in getting another; so Gregory did not feel that he was called on to risk his life by giving chase immediately.
To have left the shelter of the club-house would certainly have been to do so, for, in spite of the devastating surprise attack, the Germans were now fighting back with determination and ferocity. Those who had escaped death or serious injury had climbed out of their cars and taken refuge behind them or in the ditch at the far side of the road and were blazing away with their tommy-guns at the club-house windows.
The Germans lost over thirty men before the Norwegians sustained a single casualty, but after that it became more or less tit-for-tat. Allowing for the many casualties which the Germans had suffered in the first few minutes after the attack opened, their numbers were now about even with those of the Norwegians; and although the soldiers had enormous fire superiority, that was largely offset by the fact that every one of the clubmen was a trained marksman.
Drum after drum of machine-gun bullets spattered into the club-house, annihilating any marksman who was rash enough to expose himself for more than a quarter of a minute, but every German who showed a limb was an instant target for half a dozen well-aimed rifles. Several of the Germans attempted to throw hand-grenades, but two of them were shot down in the act so that the grenades rolled away and exploded near them, causing further casualties, after which the others desisted, as they could not lob the bombs far enough while lying down.
Gregory and Langdon-Forbes had had no time to get rifles before the attack but immediately it had been launched and Gregory had had a chance to assess its results they dashed inside and collected a couple of weapons from the armoury; then for the next ten minutes they did their share by firing alternately out of the narrow window of the wash-place.
It was Gussy who spotted three Germans behind an overturned car who were fitting together the parts of one of their miniature howitzers. Gregory popped up his head for a second to get a glimpse of them and he knew that if once the gun were allowed to come into action the club-house would very soon be rendered untenable by shell-fire. With a swift word he sent Gussy along a passage to tell the others what was happening, so that the gun's crew might be put out of action, by fire from different angles.
Gussy returned to say that he had found a Norwegian ex-Army Colonel who had volunteered to take half a dozen good men out through the back of the premises; they were to make their way along behind the rifle butts, which would give them cover from the road until they reached a point where they could enfilade the men with the howitzer. For another five minutes the battle raged with undiminished fury. The air was now thick with smoke and the acrid smell of cordite, but the Germans had not gained & foot of ground and as the clubmen were now exercising greater care they were sustaining fewer casualties.
Suddenly there was a blinding flash from behind the overturned car; it was followed instantly by the roar of an explosion. The first miniature shell had fallen just behind the clubhouse and the tinkling of glass could be heard as the panes fell from the shattered windows. There was anoth
er flash and the club-house seemed to rock as a second shell pierced its low roof and exploded there, making a gaping hole in the ceiling above the lounge. A third shell followed, pitching right into the long room and causing many casualties; but at that moment the party that the Norwegian ex-Colonel had taken out came into action.
Seven good men and true, all first-class shots, emptied the magazines of their rifles into the crouching group of Germans and the gun's crew was annihilated.
A second later a whistle blew and the fire of the Germans slackened. The officer who was commanding what remained of the enemy force evidently considered that they had had enough and was drawing his men off. In several cases as the Germans retreated they had to expose themselves for a few seconds while wriggling back from one piece of cover to another, and during the process the Norwegians got four more of them; so Gregory estimated that there could be only about twenty Germans now left uninjured out of the seventy-odd who had 'made up the original force. Soon afterwards the firing ceased altogether and the Norwegians were able to assess their own casualties. They had lost five dead and nine wounded; half that number having been accounted for by the single shell which had burst in the lounge. Gregory, Langdon-Forbes, the President of the club and the ex-Colonel then held a brief council of war.
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