North Strike

by John Harris

  The roar was followed by another, and as the mist turned scarlet they knew that in Narvik ship after ship was being hit. Gunfire was rolling round the narrow confines of the fjord, echoing and re-echoing down to where Oulu sped along close to the shore. Silhouetted against the distant trees they could make out anchored ships and faint shapes moving swiftly in front of them that they guessed were the British warships.

  ‘Whatever they’re up to, they seem to be making a good job of it,’ Campbell said excitedly, his eyes alight. ‘That’s the Navy in action – the real Navy!’

  Oulu continued to pick up speed, the water hissing along the side of the ship as she leaned to the wind. The gunfire still rolled behind them from the direction of the town and every now and again Magnusson saw the mist leap, as though the atmosphere had emptied and filled again as the shells exploded.

  Willie John clambered out of the hold, his hang-dog face grinning. ‘They’re comin’ out, boy,’ he yelled. ‘They’ve finished! They’ve just made “I am withdrawin’ westwards.”’

  As they swung south-west towards the Lofotens, they were losing a little wind so that Magnusson edged to starboard in the hope of picking it up again to carry them clear into the open sea where they could use their radio to call for help. With Willie John’s transmitter blasting out its appeal, he felt the destroyers couldn’t fail to escort them to safety.

  Turning to watch for the British ships returning, he was still congratulating himself that their luck had changed when he heard a shout from forward and saw a merchant ship heading straight towards them. She was only two hundred yards away, bursting through the mist that swirled about her blunt bow. There were men on her bridge, shouting and pointing at the white ensign and the heavy bow started to swing to starboard even as Magnusson grabbed the wheel and began to push with Myers.

  ‘Hard-a-starboard,’ he yelled. ‘Campbell, get everybody out from below! She’s going to hit us!’

  He could read the name, Rauenfels, on the freighter’s bow as it swung, and see the German flag at her stern. Then the ship was thundering past them, big as a cliff face, her port side scraping the length of Oulu’s hull. As her flying bridge caught the foresail, the yards were wrenched, round with a crash and the splintering of timber and the screech of steel. Wire stays twanged and parted and the topmast teetered.

  The collision had dragged Oulu close against the other ship, crushing her starboard rail, so that she was shouldered aside like matchwood. Boats swung out on davits caught the mizzen yards, wrenching them free, tearing the canvas and hooking in the shrouds to break rigging screws. Because she had been swinging as she had struck them, the freighter’s blunt bows carved deep into Oulu’s hull by the foredeck and for a moment the two ships lay locked together, the barque dragged backwards by the inertia of the heavier vessel. Then Rauenfels’ siren went in three long blasts and she began to back away.

  As she went astern, her projecting upperworks wrenched again at Oulu’s tortured shrouds. The barque seemed to shriek with agony and spars leapt as the masts jerked and heaved. There was a violent twanging sound and the topgallant masts began to bend as if made of whalebone. Amidst the crash of falling spars, Magnusson saw sails flogging, chain sheets knocking sparks out of steel yards; then everything started to come down by the run as the lifts and ties were carried away.

  He heard Annie Egge cry out and saw her bolt for the shelter of the poop, the men running after her enveloped in the folds of the spanker as the mizzen topmast collapsed and brought the gaff with it. Vinje, the harbourmaster, lay groaning in the scuppers. He had been struck by a falling block and had crashed against the donkey engine.

  Rauenfels had drawn clear now and she disappeared into the mist even as Campbell was fighting to get off a rocket.

  ‘Save your breath,’ Magnusson panted. ‘She’ll not turn back to help us. She’s carrying ammunition for the Germans in Narvik and, judging by what’s been happening, they’ll be needing it.’ He swung round, his eyes everywhere, assessing the damage, all too aware there was little he could do. ‘Leave it, Myers,’ he yelled to the wheel. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  The ship was already listing and the deck was becoming increasingly dangerous with flying chains and writhing wires. Annie was about to run to the groaning Vinje by the donkey engine but Magnusson caught her as she passed and, with his hand on her shoulder, pushed her roughly back to the shelter of the poop.

  ‘Get back!’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Be quiet!’ he roared. ‘Stay there where it’s safe!’

  At that moment the main topmast, topgallant and royal backstays came crashing down across the port davits, where they had hoisted Annie Egge’s boat, binding it to the skids. Marques was struggling among the wreckage, finding a new and unprintable name for every one of the stout wires and many of the smaller ones. He remained full of fight but his vocabulary seemed to be almost exhausted.

  By now Oulu was wallowing lopsidedly in the water. With most of her starboard shrouds and stays carried away, the masts hung crookedly to port, pulling the ship over at an angle. All round her, wreckage floated on the water, grinding up and down in the swell, threatening to smash the hull plates and break the vessel up altogether. The main topmast, which had snapped off at the cap, was now acting like a great battering ram in the lurch of Rauenfels’ wake. Already it had crunched a hole and if this was enlarged into a gash the ship would go at once, tilting to port to bring down what was left standing and swamp the only boat they had left.

  It was clear that Oulu was finished. Magnusson looked up the fjord, hoping against hope that the Navy was returning, but the whole wide stretch of water seemed to be filled with thick rolling black smoke as though someone had laid a smoke screen. Above the sounds of Oulu’s torment he could still hear the thud of guns and could see grey ships manoeuvring at speed in and out of the murk. It was impossible to tell whether they were British or German, and he realised it was up to them to save themselves.

  ‘Get the boat launched,’ he said to Campbell. ‘This bloody ship isn’t going to last much longer and if we leave it too late, we’ll have to swim for it.’

  Marques was trying to shove the folds of canvas, which had fallen to the deck, over the ship’s side to form a fender against the assaults of the topmast. As Magnusson picked his way along the deck, he saw that the bulwarks were gone on both sides of the mainmast forward, allowing the sea to sweep in unhindered. There was a wire entanglement in front of him and, up to his knees in water, he began to pull it away.

  Campbell reported that they had freed the boat.

  ‘Get her in the water,’ Magnusson said. ‘Myers, get the girl from the poop and bring anybody else forward you can find.’

  The ship was leaning further and further to port now, the boat against her side, held close by the men in her.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, hurry,’ Magnusson yelled.

  He glanced upwards and saw the wrecked masts towering over him, at an even greater angle than they had been. Once she started going, there would be no holding her, and if they wanted to escape they had to get the boat away.

  Myers appeared, pushing Annie Egge in front of him and followed by two of the Norwegians.

  ‘Get aboard,’ Magnusson yelled.

  He could hear ominous creaking now and he almost flung her into the boat. The others began to follow.

  ‘Take her away!’

  ‘There are more to come!’

  ‘Take her away! If we wait, we shan’t have a boat.’

  Instinct told him there were only seconds left. As the boat was released it drifted from the side of the ship, and as the oars splashed into the water, Campbell took her to a safe distance. One of the Norwegians, Wolszcka and Petty Officer Marques were throwing gratings into the sea for the men left aboard.

  ‘Get in the water,’ Magnusson yelled. ‘She’s going!’

  He could hear deck planks splitting and iron plates twisting and groaning. More rigging came crashing down, narrow
ly missing his head. He splashed his way aft to yell at Marques, who nodded and headed for the break in the side of the ship. As Magnusson scrambled over the wreckage of the gaff topsail and its spar, he saw the white ensign they had run up lying under the tangle of ropes and blocks and, without thinking, he retrieved it and tied it round his waist.

  Vinje was still lying in the scuppers near the donkey engine, swilled about with water in which splinters of wood washed backwards and forwards. As he tried to pick him up, the harbourmaster screamed and fainted. Without attempting to be gentle, Magnusson hoisted him to his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. Stumbling among the ropes and wires, he was aware of frantic splashings, oaths and shouts from men in the sea, and felt the deck tilting, more and more.

  As he reached the side where the water lapped against the ship, he heard the thud of gunfire again. Then he felt the air about him expand and contract and saw the mist where Rauenfels had disappeared turn crimson. The gunfire had stopped but the air was filled with the roar of a vast explosion. The mist had been torn into swirling tendrils and an enormous cloud of brown smoke was lifting out of the grey veil over the sky. Something there had met a violent end.

  Flinging the Norwegian into the water, he flopped in after him. Coming to the surface, shocked and breathless at the cold, he spluttered and blinked until he had his breath back then, reaching out began to drag Vinje after him towards the boat.

  ‘Hurry,’ Campbell was shouting. ‘She’s going!’

  He felt hands grab him and was hauled aboard, sprawling on his face in the bilges among feet which trod on his hands as they tried to make room for him to sit up.

  ‘Where’s the bloody Navy?’ he demanded.

  ‘Myers said they went past five minutes ago,’ Campbell announced with a faint trace of bitterness. ‘Only three of them, two in bad shape, one with its bows bashed in.’

  ‘No more?’

  ‘That’s all. They must have been too busy to pick up Willie John’s SOS.’

  Magnusson spat out seawater and stared about him, recognising Marques, Wolszcka and Willie John. Hoisting himself upright, he saw the boat was packed. One or two of the men in it had blood on their faces from head wounds, and Vinje was lying at his feet looking as if he were dead. He began to count noses, noticing as he did so that Annie Egge was crouched, white-faced, next to Myers.

  ‘Where are your telegraphists, Willie John?’

  Willie John lifted his head wearily. ‘They didnae make it,’ he said. ‘I saw them goin’ intae the forecastle. I havenae seen them since.’

  Magnusson frowned, finding it hard to take in. The two telegraphists had both been mere boys, keen, easy-going and certain of their luck. What had they thought in that moment of terror when the inhuman cold of the rushing water had choked the life out of them and they had realised at last that their luck had failed?

  It had been undiluted disaster. At least two of his party had been lost and some of them had been injured, two of them badly enough to need hospital. He had lost his ship, his radio equipment, which was the sole reason for his being there, and almost his self-respect.

  He turned stiffly. Oulu was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees now and rigging kept falling into the water where a few moments before he had been swimming. He stared at her, a tremendous sadness overwhelming him. First Kosciuszko and now Oulu. It seemed the end of all sailing ships. In another five years there would be no high sails left, nothing but their ghosts moving before the westerly winds, nothing but the shapes of dead vessels littering iron shores. They had often been cursed by the men who sailed them but they had been things of beauty and individuality, and he wouldn’t have believed it possible to see the death of two of them in so short a time.

  Then, as he watched, Oulu lay over on her side as if she were tired. The bow went down and she slowly slid beneath the black water to leave only a lifting mat of spars and wreckage. That bad luck which had dogged her all her life had claimed her at last.

  Five

  Magnusson, stared grey-faced towards the land.

  They had sorted themselves out and were making slow progress towards the shore. The men at the oars, warmed by their exertion, had handed over their outer garments to the men who had been in the water, and these and the press of bodies in the boat helped to keep them from freezing.

  Magnusson was cold and furious, and suddenly anxious – not to escape, but to do somebody some damage. They had decided it was pointless heading for the island of Baröy, and instead had turned south towards a dimly visible cluster of houses.

  ‘I think he’s dead,’ Marques said suddenly and Magnusson turned his head slowly to see he was bending over the injured harbourmaster. Vinje’s head had fallen sideways and his face looked grey, while his eyes seemed to have become disconnected and were staring in different directions.

  ‘Leave him,’ he said. ‘We’ll bury him ashore.’

  ‘What happens now?’ Campbell asked as the land drew nearer.

  ‘Christ knows,’ Magnusson said.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ Campbell said. ‘Not with the Germans all round Narvik.’

  ‘Your bloody intellect dazzles me!’

  Campbell frowned, suddenly stiff and naval again. ‘Well, have you got any ideas?’ he asked.

  They landed on a rocky shore that lifted rapidly to the hills where the fir trees hung over them, making the day dark with their gloom. Magnusson could feel his wet clothes stiffening in the frost. Several of the men were shivering uncontrollably, their teeth chattering, and he saw Annie Egge strip off her heavy lumber-jacket and slip it over an injured seaman’s shoulders. They had to find some shelter from the biting wind before they all died of cold. Dragging the boat up the beach and turning it upside down, they wedged it on a group of rocks to make a roof. It was hard work; their fingers were numb and the rocks they stood on were covered with snow and ice and slimy with weed.

  Sending off Campbell and Myers to find help, Magnusson got the others pushing more rocks up to the boat to form a windbreak, and they placed the five injured – four Norwegians and one of the naval ratings in its lee. Annie, her blonde hair blowing about her face, was trying to make them comfortable and had begged handkerchiefs and shirt tails to bind up their wounds.

  ‘It will suffice until we can get help,’ she said. She looked at Magnusson. ‘I am sorry your ship is sunk.’

  ‘Not half as sorry as I am,’ Magnusson said angrily. ‘What do we do now?’

  She shrugged. ‘We cannot go back to Narvik. The Germans will be looking for me and the other Norwegians and, by this time, perhaps for you also.’

  ‘Can’t we take the railway south?’

  ‘There is no railway to the south. From Narvik it runs only to Sweden and on into Finland.’

  ‘What about the roads?’

  ‘In April there is too much snow and they are impassable.’

  ‘Couldn’t we get across into Sweden? It can’t be more than thirty miles away.’

  ‘Twenty along the railway line. But the Germans control that. Otherwise, it is a climb over the mountains and at this time of the year that would be impossible.’

  He looked at her to see if she were being sarcastic but she was deadly serious.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘A bus runs from Bognes and Ulsvåg. There is a ferry at Bognes and the bus then follows the road to Lønsdal. From there we could take the train to Trondheim and catch a connection into Storlien, fifty miles away, in Sweden.’

  ‘How about money?’

  ‘I can find it. In Narvik.’

  ‘That means going back there.’

  ‘I know Narvik better than the Germans. And if I don’t go, nobody will escape.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  She smiled. ‘You are beginning to think at last of everything.’

  He frowned. ‘I want to get home.’

  ‘To rest on your laurels?’

  ‘No,’ he growled. ‘To get hold of the biggest gun I can
find and use it to blow some bloody German’s head off!’

  Three freezing hours later, Campbell and Myers reappeared, bringing with them five men from a farm they had found, all of them wearing coats and heavy sweaters against the icy wind.

  ‘Come,’ one of them said. ‘You will be warmer in the barn. We have not a big house, but the barn is dry. There is a hayloft with cattle below. It does not always smell nice but it is warm from the cows. The wounded we will put in the house.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Perhaps we must put two in each bed, but they will be safe, and we can find clothes from our friends. I think you are lucky. It is lonely here and you will not be found.’

  They covered the dead harbourmaster with stones and stuck up a crude cross; one of the Norwegians conducted a short service. The British joined in with the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘Hvil i fred,’ Annie said. ‘May he rest in peace.’

  ‘It is a good way to die,’ one of the Norwegian officers said. ‘For the glory of one’s country.’

  She turned angrily. ‘To ascribe glory to the violent death of anybody loving life,’ she snapped, ‘is nonsense and a failing of human wisdom.’

  ‘God ordains our end.’

  ‘Perhaps God is merely something man invented to reassure himself when he comes to face death!’

  Her face was pink with anger and Magnusson watched her approvingly. There was an incandescent spirit about her, a fearlessness that was heart-warming.

  They began to climb the slope, stumbling through the snow and the close-growing pines above the frozen shoreline, helping the five injured between them. The snow was deep but the Norwegians knew where to tread and they avoided the worst of it. At the top of the slope, they reached a road where the snow was packed as if vehicles moved along it.

  ‘The road to Korsnes,’ Annie said. ‘It is no more than twenty kilometres away.’

  ‘Sailors aren’t good walkers,’ Magnusson said. ‘Like piles, bad feet are an occupational hazard among them.’