The Black Baroness gs-4

by Dennis Wheatley

  He was amazed to see Gregory and hear of his narrow escape from death, as when he had come-to and found both Gregory and von Ziegler gone he had naturally assumed that the German had succeeded in getting away and that Gregory had gone after him, so he had imagined that by this time they were probably miles away up the Gudbrandsdal Valley. To his delight, Gregory learnt that the young Norwegian farmer was not dead but also in the hospital, although he was still in danger as one of von Ziegler's bullets had penetrated his throat.

  In a low voice Gregory told Gussy of his understanding with von Ziegler, and Gussy agreed that as the German was now rendered harmless by a broken leg it would be rather an unsporting business to take any steps which would result in his being shot. By this time Gregory's ten minutes were up, so he retired to his own room and went back to bed; but later he had a talk with von Ziegler, who at once acquiesced in the suggestion that he and Gussy should swap beds so that the diplomat could share the little room with Gregory, and the arrangement was carried out the following morning.

  That day the news seemed better, as the British had occupied the Faroe Islands and were guarding Iceland, while the R.A.F. had made some large-scale attacks on the German-occupied Norwegian ports, and on the Friday the Navy had sealed the Baltic with vast minefields; but there was no news yet of any Allied troop-landings.

  On Sunday they heard that there had been a second action at Narvik. The 31,000-ton battleship Warspite had accomplished a brilliant feat of navigation and led the way up the long narrow fjord with another destroyer flotilla. The squadron had silenced the land-batteries which the Germans had established on the shore and had destroyed every one of the six remaining German destroyers stationed there. The Admiralty also announced that the Admiral Scheer had been torpedoed and the Karlsruhe sunk; but there was still no news of any Allied Expeditionary Force, although both the British and the French Governments had announced days before that they would render Norway every possible assistance against the common enemy.

  As Gregory talked it over with Gussy he was almost in despair. He simply could not understand what the military were up to. The crossing from British to Norwegian ports could be accomplished in some thirty hours and even if they had not had troops ready to sail at once, as it was reasonable to assume that they would have, twenty-four hours seemed ample to embark light elements for a first force which could seize all sorts of small places and strategic points along the coast before the Germans could get to them.

  Tanks and heavy guns could come later, but even a few companies pushed in here and there would have made later operations on a larger scale infinitely easier.

  Neither Gregory nor Gussy could see why the Allies had not had a considerable number of small units in Norway within three days of the German invasion. Such scattered bands could have penetrated inland without waiting for transports, other than their ammunition carriers, since they were operating in a friendly country and so could live on the land. They could have made contact with the Norwegian troops, blown up bridges, seized railway junctions and done all sorts of things to hamper the Germans. Yet a whole week had been allowed to go by in which nothing had been done. Meanwhile, the Germans were not losing a moment but, according to all reports, were constantly reinforcing their Army by air, despatching flying columns upcountry in all directions and digging themselves in. at their bases so that they would be ten times as difficult to dislodge when at last the Allies arrived on the scene.

  By Monday the 15th Gregory was allowed to get up, but his shoulder still required daily massage. As there had been no further fighting in the Lillehammer district his bed was not required immediately so it was agreed that he should retain it for the time being in order that he could remain with Gussy, whose wound was progressing well but who it was expected would be confined to bed for another fortnight at least.

  Now he was well on the road to recovery again Gregory was naturally anxious to get home. Without any definite plan to follow and no knowledge as to the Allies' intentions it did not seem that he could serve any useful purpose by remaining in Norway a day longer than he had to, and during the time that he had been laid up he had been thinking a great deal about Erika. The sooner he could get back to England the sooner he would be able to rejoin her and Kuporovitch in Holland and he was convinced that now that Hitler had really started the war in earnest he would not be content with the conquest of Norway. The next act would almost certainly be an invasion of the Low Countries; then, whether the Allies went to their assistance or not, the big scene of the war was due to open, as there would either be a terrific pitched battle in Flanders or, if the Germans were allowed to march through it, on the Franco-Belgian frontier between the end of the Maginot Line proper and the sea.

  If he could get into Holland before that opened he felt certain that Erika and Kuporovitch would already have prepared the ground for him to do further useful work, and he was eager to play another hand against the Nazis as he was to have Erika in his arms again, but the devil of it was that first he had to get out of Norway.

  To begin with he had assumed that that would be fairly easy, as he had counted on British landings, upon which, by contacting the British he would be able to get back to England via one of their bases; but the Allies had not as yet established any bases and as the days went by the Germans were extending their control from all the principal ports over larger and larger stretches of the Norwegian coast. Their moves were so swift that no one in Lillehammer knew from day to day which new point they would seize next; so to make for any port now meant running the risk of walking straight into them. He knew that by once more posing as a German he could evade capture, but that would not help him to get back to England, as each port that the Germans occupied would automatically be sealed to any but their own coastal sea-traffic. It seemed, therefore, that the only thing he could do was to remain where he was until the situation clarified a little.

  On the Wednesday, the 17th, they heard that Allied troops were operating in the region north of Trondheim, and on that following day it was definitely confirmed that the British at long last had landed at Namsos the previous Tuesday. The only ways to get to Namsos were by road up the Gudbrandsdal Valley or to go south again to Hamar, then east to Elverum, where the Norwegian Government had now established their headquarters, and thence up the Osterdal Valley. But both these great parallel valleys ended south of Trondheim and Trondheim was in German hands, so it looked as though there might be considerable difficulty in getting through to the British base.

  On consideration it seemed to Gregory that since the Allies had at last come to the assistance of the Norwegians and committed themselves to sending an Expeditionary Force they would have to make other landings further south, otherwise they would virtually be wasting troops to little purpose; and another two days of inactivity proved him to be correct.

  On Friday the 19th news came through that a second Allied force had landed at Andalsnes, some distance south-west of Trondheim, and it became clear that the first intention of the Allied General Staff was to execute a pincer movement from north and south with a view to defeating the isolated German forces at Trondheim and recapturing Norway's ancient capital. It still seemed to Gregory, however, that they would yet have to make a third landing, still further south, if they wished to establish themselves in Norway before the Germans had dominated two-thirds of the country, including all its principal industrial and agricultural centres, so he decided to sit tight for another day or two.

  One good thing which seemed to have come out of Hitler's assault on Norway was that it had put new life into the French. Daladier had seemed a good man, yet there was no doubt about it, from their almost total inactivity during the whole of the winter, that the French were not really bringing a fighting spirit to the war; but the shock of Hitler's coup now appeared to have shaken them up. The Daladier Government had been replaced by a new ministry under Paul Reynaud, who had come to office, just before the invasion, with such a dubious reception that it looked as i
f he would not be able to stay the course for more than a few weeks; yet by a magnificent fighting speech delivered at the time of the Allied landings Reynaud had suddenly swung the whole French nation behind him.

  The British, it now transpired, had also landed troops near Narvik earlier in the week, although they had not yet succeeded in forcing their way into the town. They were carrying out terrific aerial attacks night after night on the German-occupied Norwegian seaplane-base at Stavanger, while the Germans were apparently employing enormous numbers of their aircraft for attacks on Allied shipping. In the meantime the Norwegian Army had established several ragged fronts in Central Norway and was endeavouring to confine the Germans to the areas they had already occupied; but the Germans were reinforcing their armies by air-borne troops each day and it was now said that General Count von Falkenhorst had over 60,000 troops at his disposal. The Germans, too, had succeeded in bringing over large numbers of light tanks and armoured vehicles, against which the Norwegians had no adequate protection; so the enemy was spreading out fanwise from Oslo and constantly pushing further north.

  On Tuesday the 23rd Gregory learnt that two battles had taken place on the previous day in the Trondheim area. The British had taken Stoeren, thirty miles south of the city, while their Northern Force was advancing along the shore down the inland end of the Trondheim Fjord. However, the Germans had sent warships up the Fjord, which had not only severely shelled the British columns as they pressed forward but had landed troops in their rear, thereby cutting off their advance detachments. The result had been a nasty check for the Allies and they were reported to have sustained many casualties.

  On Wednesday, however, he received better tidings. British troops had actually been seen coming down the Gudbrandsdal Valley, so it looked as though sufficient forces had now been landed to take care of Trondheim and also justify an advance to the south. A few more days at most and they should reach Lillehammer, so he could remain there now with a quiet mind and, as soon as they put in an appearance, go down their line of communication to their base, and so home.

  It was now a fortnight since the affray on the mountain road in which Gussy had been wounded, and as his injury had received expert medical attention within a few hours it was healing well. It would be several weeks yet before he could use his arm again but he had recovered from the loss of blood and was able to get up for an hour or two every day. Gregory played chess with him and they spent many interesting sessions discussing the war and the international situation, as although Gussy appeared at first sight to be a fool he was actually an extremely knowledgeable man. Both of them were of the opinion that as the Allies held the seas they could put more troops into Norway by water than Germany could possibly send by air; so that although the Germans had the enormous advantage that they had been given so long to consolidate their positions in the south the Allies would easily be able to establish a front in Central Norway which would contain them there and gradually wear them down.

  It was on the evening of Thursday the 25th that they heard the sounds of cheering and Gregory went out at once to see what was happening. He found that the excitement was caused by a company of the Leicester Regiment which was marching into the town. They looked fit and well and were evidently the advance guard of the British Army, so they were receiving a great ovation from the Norwegian inhabitants. As he stood watching them with a pleased smile on his face he felt a touch on his elbow and turned to see that von Ziegler was standing beside him.

  He had seen the German from time to time during the last fortnight, and for the past few days von Ziegler had been hobbling about on crutches, but while they had maintained their armistice, by an unspoken mutual consent, they had refrained from any form of fraternisation.

  'Well, what d'you think of them?' asked the airman.

  'They look pretty good to me,' said Gregory guardedly.

  The German grinned. 'Yes—the men look all right. But I was thinking of their equipment. I see that your officers still carry those clumsy old-fashioned revolvers of the same pattern that they used in the Boer War; while the men are armed only with rifles and have the air of being about to take part in an act at the Aldershot Tattoo.'

  'True,' Gregory agreed. 'But there are their Bren-gun carriers coming along behind them and I imagine that they're marching in column of threes like this only to make a semi-formal entrance to the town.'

  'Oh, quite. But they have no motor-cyclist scouts, no armoured cars, no tanks, no flame-throwers, no anti-aircraft guns, not a tommy-gun between them and no aerial protection; so how do they propose to operate against a German armoured column when it puts in an appearance?'

  The question was an awkward one but Gregory replied quietly: 'I don't doubt they'll make out all right.

  This is only the advance guard and you can be quite certain that they have plenty of tanks in support on their way down the valley.'

  'You think so?' von Ziegler drew slowly on his cigarette. 'Of course, even poorly-armed flying columns like this could have done an immense amount for you if you had had them here a fortnight ago, but now that we have a fully-mechanised army established in the south, is it wise to send infantry against it? I should have thought that the tanks would have provided the advance guard.'

  "They probably will when contact is established with the enemy.'

  Von Ziegler grinned again. 'Now, look here, Sallust, you saved my life and I want to repay that. I'm going to tell you something and you can take my word for it that my information is correct. As you know, I have any number of reliable agents in this country and I have naturally been keeping myself well-informed as to what is going on.

  'Our Air Force has been playing the very devil with your bases at Namsos and Andalsnes, so you're having very great difficulty in getting your heavy equipment ashore. Your trouble is that, for some reason best known to yourselves, you allowed us to seize every air-base in Norway; so while we can operate from close at hand your people are having to rely almost entirely upon their Fleet Air Arm, and that was not intended to support large-scale military operations.

  'You may have some tanks up the valley, but there can't be very many of them, so these poor devils are in for a thin time. We have an armoured column advancing north by this road, and it's only a few miles away, so before dawn at the latest we shall take Lillehammer and any of your men that are left will be driven back up the valley. I say "any of them that are left" because our aircraft will be letting go twenty tons of bombs on this place in about half an hour, and that's really what I came out to tell you. If you want to save your necks, you and that flowing-moustached friend of yours had better get out of here while the going's good.'

  CHAPTER 11

  'He Who Fights and Runs Away . . .'

  'Thanks,' said Gregory quickly. 'That's very decent of you. As you made no stipulation that I should keep this to myself I take it that you don't intend trying to prevent my passing it on?'

  Von Ziegler shrugged. 'I could hardly expect you to do otherwise, and I have no objection at all, since I feel sure that I can rely on you not to have me arrested as the source of your information.

  'You see, the fact of your warning the officer in command of these troops will not materially affect the military situation. In addition to the armoured column which is now approaching Lillehammer, a second armoured column captured Elverum last night, so King Haakon and his Government are on the run again, and the way is now open to us up the Osterdal Valley. In consequence, this British force is already outflanked, and hour by hour its situation will become more precarious as our Eastern column moves north. Still, that needn't worry you as it will be destroyed or driven back by our Western column which is moving direct on Lillehammer. With these two armoured divisions advancing up the parallel valleys we'll have you out of Stoeren and Dombaas inside a week, so nothing you can do now will prevent us relieving Trondheim.'

  Gregory gave a wry grin. 'We'll see about that, but for the moment you've certainly got the whip-hand of us and I must get
busy. Anyhow, I'm very grateful and, personally, I wish you the best of luck.'

  'The same to you,' called von Ziegler as Gregory hurried away into the hospital.

  Gussy was sitting up in bed reading a ten-days-old copy of The Times which had somehow found its way into Sweden and then across the border. In a few swift words Gregory told him what was happening, asked him to warn the doctor so that the hospital could be evacuated and said that immediately he had done so he had better get the nurse to help him dress. He then dashed out again and ran down the street to the central square of the town where the British troops had now formed up.

  A freckled-faced young Captain in a fur jerkin was standing in front of the men with several other officers, a Norwegian interpreter and the Mayor of Lillehammer, with whom they were arranging the matter of temporary billets for the troops. Without wasting a second Gregory barged in amongst them and addressed the Captain.

  'My name is Sallust. That won't convey anything to you, but I'm an Englishman and I've been in Norway since the latter part of March, on special duties. I've just received reliable information that a German armoured column is approaching the town and that the German Air Force is going to bomb it in about twenty minutes; so you'd better withdraw your men and tell the Norwegians to get into their air-raid shelters.'