Enemies and Traitors: The Norsemen's War: Book One - Teigen and Selby (The Hansen Series 1)

by Kris Tualla

  Dahl gave her a patient smile. “Even if we could, by the time we reached Trondheim again, the teachers would be gone.”

  “What about when we get to Oslo?” Selby ventured. “Weren’t most of the arrested teachers from that area?”

  Dahl’s gaze was intense. “Do we really want to risk angering the Nazis—and Quisling—by celebrating the men who successfully defied them all right under their noses?”

  Selby felt as if a bucket of glacier water had been poured over her. She shook her head slowly. “No. Of course not. You’re right.”

  Dahl’s expression softened. “I wish I wasn’t. I really do.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Bennett asked.

  Dahl’s lips pressed together briefly and his brow furrowed. “As individuals, yes you can, though I don’t know what. But as a troupe which caters to Nazi officers and sympathizers with Quisling’s protection and encouragement, no.”

  Trondheim, Norway

  Teigen moved like an automaton through the crowd, stunned by the raucous reaction of his countrymen. Men grabbed his hand and pumped it wildly. Women handed him packets of sweets. Children stared at him, wide-eyed with alarm.

  “Pardon me, sir?” A man grabbed his arm. “What’s the first thing that you want to do on this day of freedom?”

  Teigen glanced at the children around him holding tightly to their parents and realized what he must look like. “Shave and a haircut,” he said, much to the man’s amusement.

  Some of the teachers were herded into a nearby hotel and asked about their health. Those who didn’t require any medical attention were given room keys.

  Teigen handed it back to the clerk. “I can’t. I don’t have any money.”

  The man grinned. “There is no charge for any of you.”

  Teigen stared at the key, trying to understand what was going on. “Really?”

  “Yes sir. Now, your next stop is that ballroom to your right. In there you’ll find clean clothing. Take whatever you need.”

  The clerk indicated Teigen’s now-shabby wool sweater and trousers. “Leave these outside your door and we’ll have them laundered.”

  Teigen snorted. As if I would ever in my lifetime choose to wear them again. “I believe they’re beyond repair.”

  The clerk gave him a sympathetic look. “In that case, we’ll dispose of them for you. Just put them in your trash can and set it in the hall when you come down for supper.’

  Teigen blinked. “Supper?”

  “Your supper tonight is on the house, as well as breakfast in the morning.” The man’s grin grew impossibly wider. “And please let me know if you need anything else. Anything at all.”

  Teigen caught a glimpse of his overgrown reflection in a glass case behind the reception desk. “A barber?”

  The clerk bounced a nod. “I’ll send one up.”

  “Hansen!” Falko appeared at his side. “Do you have a roommate yet?”

  Teigen glanced questioningly at the clerk.

  “No, not yet.” He lifted his fountain pen. “And your name is?”

  “Falko Jensen.” The clerk wrote the name down and handed Falko his own key. “Would you like the barber to service you as well?”

  Falko shrugged and gave Teigen a why not look. “Sure!”

  *****

  When Teigen saw himself in the hotel room’s tall mirror he was shocked by the transformation of his body over the last eight months. Every ounce of fat was gone from his frame, leaving him leaner than he had ever been, even as a growing teenager.

  The absence of subcutaneous padding, however, made his hard-worked muscles stand out in stark, ropy relief. He moved and flexed a little as the light from the wall lamps carved shifting, shadowed valleys over his bony frame.

  I need to gain some weight back.

  Jensen was taking his turn in the shower while Teigen slowly donned the new-to-him clothes. The townspeople who helped him had thought of everything—from a warm coat, down to underwear and socks.

  “We just want you all to know that we support you in your triumph,” one woman not much older than Teigen said to him. “It’s the least we’re able to do for you.”

  “We don’t feel triumphant,” Teigen muttered as he folded his new clothes into a wad. “We’re just glad to be out of there.”

  “No matter what you feel,” she demurred with a shy smile. “You and the others are national heroes.”

  National heroes?

  Teigen shook his head at her assertion and concentrated on the long-missed feel of clean cotton against clean skin. His discarded and admittedly pungent clothing was already stuffed into the little trash can and waiting in the hall, as was Falko’s.

  “Good riddance,” his friend grunted as he tossed the clothes out the bathroom door.

  The polite knock at the room door proved to be the barber. After plugging in a steamer full of wet towels and spreading his shears, combs, and razors on the dresser, he had Teigen sit on a chair in the middle of the room and draped a sheet over him.

  “How short do you want it?” he asked as he worked a comb through Teigen’s shoulder-length tangles.

  “I don’t care.”

  The man stepped around and looked him in the eye. “I could use clippers and take it all off.”

  “Um… no.” Teigen worked his fingers through his wet hair. “Leave the top longer.”

  “Sides and back clipped?”

  “Yeah.”

  Falko came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and collected his clean clothes from his bed. He paused and considered Teigen as hanks of hair fell into his lap.

  “You’re going to clean up pretty well, Hansen.”

  Teigen, whose mood was lifting higher than it had for the entire past year, looked at Falko from under his brows. “Well I’ve given him a lot to work with, haven’t I?’

  Falko laughed and went back into the bathroom to change, leaving the door open. “You just wait and see what I’ve been hiding under here,” he called out merrily. “I’ll be fighting off the ladies with both hands!”

  The barber chuckled. “You both will. All you teachers are famous.”

  Teigen huffed. “So they say.”

  When the barber finished with both men and left, Teigen and Falko stood side by side and stared at each other in the tall mirror. Their shared transformation was nothing less than startling. Not only were they now sporting fresh haircuts, but their faces were clean-shaven for the first time since they met.

  Teigen rubbed his jaw, amazed at how smooth the hot towel and after-shave lotion had left his skin. “I hardly recognized myself earlier,” he admitted. “It was like looking at a stranger.”

  “And I hardly recognize you now.”

  Teigen understood that. If he had met Falko on the street looking as he did now, he probably would have walked right by the man he had spent the last seven months with.

  “I feel human again,” Teigen murmured.

  “I feel like a hungry human,” Falko countered. “Let’s go eat.”

  *****

  The dining room was filled with at least five dozen showered and newly dressed teachers. Some had only washed, some had taken scissors to their beards, and others had obviously been visited by the barber.

  Teigen moved from table to table, greeting the laughing and teasing men who didn’t recognize either him or Falko. Their jubilant mood as a whole reflected a shared and soul-deep relief that they had survived the camp and were finally free.

  “Free and being recognized as heroes,” Teigen said, still unable to wrap his head around the concept. “At least here in Trondheim.”

  “I telephoned my wife in Bergen,” one man said. “She says the entire country feels the same.”

  Falko tugged on his arm. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

  The food was simple but delicious, and served right under the Nazis’ noses.

  Hot and delicious soup thick with chunks of fresh fish provided by local fishermen, and reindeer steaks provided by
local hunters, baked potatoes, rough bread and—somehow—butter. Beer poured from pitchers to refill emptied glasses. Some men cried openly, overwhelmed by their vastly improved situation.

  Teigen leaned back in his chair and listened to the rumble of euphoric voices around him.

  I have never been this happy.

  “I have to go see a man,” Falko said when they had stuffed themselves with as much food as their shrunken bellies would hold.

  Teigen felt the sudden urge to walk freely around the city. “Would you mind company?” he asked. “I need to be outdoors for a while.”

  Falko leaned closer and gave him an apologetic look. “I can’t take you with me.”

  Teigen opened his mouth to argue when realization waved its hands. “I—oh! …You have contacts here.”

  “I did,” Falko clarified. “Before all of this.”

  “And you need to—okay.” Teigen glanced around but no one was listening to them. “Can I at least walk out with you?”

  “Of course.” Falko placed his napkin beside his plate and stood. “Let’s get our coats.”

  *****

  The cold here in Trondheim was different from Kirkenes. The tropical stream flowing north and east through the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean kept the air wetter and marginally warmer.

  Teigen breathed deeply as the men walked through the dark, pre-curfew streets. He made note of the streets they turned on so he could find his way back to the hotel once he and Falko parted ways.

  “It’s because I don’t know if the same men are working here,” Falko explained. “If they aren’t, I’ll have to explain my own status and prove myself trustworthy to whoever is in charge of this group.”

  He looked over at Teigen. “You, of course, have no status as yet.”

  “But I’ll have you to vouch for me,” Teigen clarified. “Once you are vetted.”

  “Exactly.”

  Teigen drew another cold, clear breath of freedom, filling his lungs until he thought they might burst. God in heaven, it was a wonderful sensation.

  “Hopefully your friends are still there,” he said. “That would simplify things considerably.”

  “Agreed.” Falko stopped at a corner. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

  He turned around and walked back in the direction they had just come from.

  Teigen noted the tactic and filed it away with the rest of Falko’s training while he stared at the tavern across the street. A shot of aquavit sounded so good that his mouth watered, but he had no money.

  A smile curled the edges of his mouth.

  I guess it’s time to check out this ‘hero’ stuff.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  November 21, 1942

  Trondheim, Norway

  Teigen sat at breakfast with Falko, nursing an aching head. The ‘hero stuff’ was clearly true, as proven by the men in the tavern who bought him countless shots of aquavit.

  He stopped accepting them before he reached a point where he couldn’t find his way back to the hotel, though two of his new friends walked with him to make sure he reached his temporary home safely.

  “It wasn’t that I drank so much,” Teigen explained. “It’s because I haven’t had any alcohol at all for so long, and I’m so much thinner than I was.”

  “Spoken like a chemistry teacher.” Falko grinned and took a bite of Teigen’s as yet uneaten eggs. “Have you thought about what you’ll do now?”

  Teigen drained his coffee cup and looked for the waiter. “I think it depends on what you found last night.”

  “So you are ready to join us?”

  Teigen waited to answer, needing to be certain of his choice.

  What was pulling him back to Oslo, anyway? By now his teaching position would have been filled. And as much as he hoped Elsa regretted her decision to break with him, he no longer wanted to start up with her again. His own harsh experiences had forced him to open his eyes and begin to fight back—a stance neither Elsa nor her parents would approve of.

  It’s time to start over.

  With everything.

  Teigen thanked the man who refilled his coffee mug before he answered Falko. “I am. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I have more reason to fight the brown bastards than to return to my life in Oslo.”

  “Excellent.” Falko’s fist hit the table softly. “We’ll go upstairs when we finish and I’ll tell you everything.”

  *****

  While the Trondheim group’s previous leader had moved on to another assignment, Falko still found friends working in the Resistance pod in Trondheim.

  “And they’re excited about you,” he said while they lounged on the two beds in their room. “Especially because you know about chemicals.”

  Teigen chuckled. He knew where this was going—the same direction as his students. “Bombs?”

  “Yep.”

  He shrugged. “I’m happy to do what I can.”

  “Good.” Falko’s expression turned serious. “Now I need to tell you what happened four weeks ago. It isn’t good.”

  Teigen sat up on the bed, steeling himself for whatever came next. “Go on.”

  “On October twenty-fourth the Nazis ordered the arrest of all Norwegian Jewish males, age fifteen and older.”

  Teigen was stunned. The racism which Hitler was forcing on the rest of Europe had not been a concern in the Scandinavian countries who claimed neutrality. Until now.

  “So occupied isn’t neutral when it comes to the Jews,” Teigen murmured. “They aren’t safe here anymore.”

  “No.” Falko scrubbed his smooth cheeks. “But the Resistance alerted the Jews as soon as they heard about it. They think several hundred families were able to escape into Sweden, and the Shetland Bus has been transporting others to Britain.”

  Teigen nodded, thinking. “And the rest?”

  “Gone into hiding.” Falko sat up and faced Teigen. “That’s where I—well, we if they accept you—come in.”

  “Okay… What do we do?”

  “Can’t tell you yet, I’m afraid.” Falko flashed an apologetic expression. “But we leave tomorrow.”

  Teigen nodded again, his mind still processing what he had heard. “Where are we going? Can you tell me that?”

  Falko chuckled a little. “Yes. We’re sailing to Bergen.”

  “Good.” Teigen jumped to his feet.

  Falko looked surprised. “What are you doing?”

  Teigen stared down at his friend. “I had three Jewish men in my sub-group at camp. I’m going to find them and warn them, if they don’t already know.”

  Falko clambered to his feet as well. “I had two. I’ll go with you.”

  November 26, 1942

  Bergen, Norway

  Teigen and Falko were welcomed in the hotel in Bergen with the same celebratory hospitality which was offered them in Trondheim. They accepted because, as Teigen pointed out, they only had the small amount of cash that the Trondheim Resistance group had given Falko, and their future income was uncertain at this point.

  Falko accepted, albeit reluctantly. “We aren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves,” he grumbled as he dropped his backpack on the bed.

  “Look at it this way,” Teigen countered as he pulled his two spare shirts and one extra pair of trousers from his own backpack. “If we are cashing in on being heroes, how could we be covert Resistance members?”

  Falko gave a one-shouldered shrug as he hung up his own meager wardrobe. “You have a point.”

  Falko set two small, flat, brown-wrapped parcels on his bed.

  Teigen halted his walk to the bathroom, razor and soap in his hands. “What are those?”

  “Our reason to be here.”

  Teigen met his friend’s eyes. “What are they?”

  It was obvious that Falko wanted to tell him, but he held back. “I… It’s not safe for me to tell you.”

  “Don’t you know me by now?” Teigen’s temper rumbled unpleasantly. “What more do I need
to do to gain your trust?”

  “It’s not my trust you need to earn.” Falko scuttled his fingers through his short, dark hair making it stand up. “But I was told to introduce you to the Milorg major here and he’ll interview you. He’s the one who decides if and where you’ll be assigned.”

  Teigen reversed his path and approached Falko. “Milorg?”

  “It seems that while we were away on our northern holiday,” Falko’s lips quirked, “the Resistance and the Norwegian army began working together. The new name for the Resistance is Milorg—short for military organization.”

  “Huh.” Teigen pondered that while he went to the bathroom and set his razor and soap by the sink. “So now the leaders are called by military ranks?”

  “I guess.”

  Teigen stepped back into the room. “What’s your rank?”

  His friend’s face reddened. “I’m only a lieutenant. I’ve been gone since March.”

  Teigen narrowed his eyes, assuming the answer. “And what would I be?”

  Falko’s face flushed further. “Soldier. No rank. At least not until you have a few successful operations under your belt.”

  “Huh,” he said again. “So, when do I meet this guy—Major…?”

  “Helgesen.” Falko pointed at the parcels. “I’ll set it up when I meet him this afternoon to deliver one of those.”

  Teigen nodded, struggling to squelch his curiosity. “And the other?”

  “There is a traveling troupe of Resist—I mean Milorg actors performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the National Theater tonight.” Falko put up a hand. “Before you ask, no, we don’t get to attend the play. We are supposed to meet the actors at the stage door afterwards and pass this to their captain.”

  Teigen’s mood brightened at that. “We?”

  “Yep.” Falko grinned. “I have permission to take you on this hand-off.”

  Teigen’s gaze shifted to the small packages and spoke his thought processes aloud. “Can’t use the postal system, of course. Personal delivery is the only way if the contents are… incriminating.”