by Andrew Gross
Sweat inched down his temple. He was trapped.
He slumped as low as he could so that his eyes were the height of the dashboard. The two soldiers were now about halfway down the street. Larsen cracked the window. He was suffocating. His undershirt was soaked with sweat. They swung their lanterns, trying to see down the block. Thank God the car they’d borrowed was black.
“Anything down there?” he heard one of them ask the other. Over the past two years he’d become fluent in German.
Larsen’s throat went dry and he didn’t move a muscle.
The Germans just stood there, following the trail of light.
“Nothing I can see,” the other said.
“Fuck it,” the first said. “We’ve got a dozen more streets to clear and it’s cold as shit out here. Let’s go on.”
“Your call.” His partner seemed to agree.
Larsen’s heart leapt with hope.
He heard their boots on the snow and pavement retreating, suddenly heading away from him. Larsen slowly let out an exhale. His neck was covered in sweat. He looked at the gun and put it back on the seat.
An hour and ten minutes now. He knew he couldn’t take much more of this. He wasn’t meant for this type of work. He rolled the window down, letting much-needed cold air into the car, then threw his head back and took a big gulp into his lungs. Gradually, his heart regained its normal rhythm.
He checked his watch again. How much longer?
* * *
Inside the bilge, Nordstrum and Gutterson taped the alarm clocks and batteries to the hull. They found a spot above the water line that was dry and where the tape would stick and nestled them inside one of the wooden girders.
Then Nordstrum unwrapped the nine-foot sausage of plastic and molded it to the ship’s skin in the form of a circle just above the waterline. Working quickly, but still carefully as possible, Gutterson handed him the four detonator fuses one by one—tubes filled with gunpowder—and Nordstrum tied two to each end of the mound of plastic. The loose ends of the fuses he let rest for a moment on the tops of the alarm clocks. Then he set each clock to the prescribed time they had determined was best, when the ferry would be over the deepest part of the lake:
Allowing for a few minutes’ delay on the dock—10:45 A.M.
Twenty minutes had passed since they came aboard. Nordstrum wondered what the watchman must be thinking upstairs. They continued to hear voices above them from what Nordstrum remembered was the ship’s bar. Hopefully Ox was keeping him occupied, either with whisky or some stories.
Now the more dangerous part began.
Diseth had warned him that this was a most delicate thing: wires, fuse ends, and battery terminals would break if too much pressure was applied, and here they were, in a bilge half full of water, mindful of a crew that would surely turn them in if they even had an inkling of what was going on, and only a limited time more to keep their suspicions at bay. Nordstrum’s heart beat heavily; he felt a bead of sweat roll down his face.
Asking Gutterson to hold the detonators well away from the fuses, which were attached to the bomb, Nordstrum connected the battery terminals to one of the alarm clocks, doing his best to keep his breathing steady and ignore the rising drumbeat of his heart. In his mind he went over Diseth’s warning of just what would result if the hammer of the clock’s bell—merely a third of an inch away—came in contact with the live circuit once it was connected. It would all be over. Nordstrum had to pull away and take a deep breath.
“Steady, Kurt,” Gutterson urged. “I’d like my grave to be in one place, not a hundred,” he said with a crooked smile.
Nordstrum nodded back with a small smile of his own. “Yes, mine too.”
He went back at it a second time. With steady hands this time, and a deep, calm exhale, he managed to connect the batteries.
It didn’t blow.
They both looked at each other with a smile of relief. Hopefully, the only time it would ring would be 10:45 A.M., a little over seven hours from now.
Then there was the last, but most dangerous step in the process—connecting the electric detonators to the fuses.
Nordstrum calmed himself and drew in a few deep breaths. His hands were steady yet he couldn’t deny an inner nervousness. Who wouldn’t be? A sudden jerk, the wrong movement, and they’d all be blown to kingdom come. Carefully, he wrapped the wire of the fuse to the terminal Diseth had made on the clock.
“Eric, above my right eye, please…” A bead of sweat had made its way there. Gutterson took the burlap and brushed it away. “Thanks.”
His hands firm, Nordstrum made the final, delicate connection. Then he took his hands away. He looked at Eric with a relieved smile. Everything held. The clock was ticking. All the wires were in place. When the alarm rang and the hammer touched the fuse contact, the plastic charges would blow. By that time, they’d be on the vidda, miles away.
“I think that’s it,” Nordstrum said, exhaling.
Gutterson nodded resolutely. “Let’s agree not to make any sudden movements on our way out.”
“Fine with me.”
With caution, they crawled aft and climbed out of the bilge compartment. Their shoes and pants were soaked with oily water, their undershirts wet with perspiration. Once out, they hurried upstairs. The watchman and Ox were in a heated debate about politics.
“Thanks for allowing us a bit more time,” Nordstrum said. “It would seem that things have passed now.”
“Watch out when you get off,” the crewman said. “The Germans are all over the wharf tonight.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Nordstrum said.
“So are you on watch for the night?” Ox asked the man. He’d taken a risk for them and the last thing they wanted for him was to be blown up or go down with the ferry. Yet they dared not tell him, as his bigger loyalty would be to his crewmates.
“Yes, but I go off when the train arrives at eight A.M.”
“Train…?”
“Something important is coming down from Norsk Hydro, we’ve been told.”
“Is that so?” The saboteurs looked at each other. It was comforting to know the watchman wouldn’t be anywhere near the ship when the charges blew. Ox grinned. “Lucky man.”
“I guess I am lucky,” the watchman said with a conspiratorial wink, “what with the likes of guys like you around.”
They all shook hands and then the three saboteurs headed back up on deck. It was two fifteen. An hour and a half had passed since they had left Larsen. The night was cold but moonless, which gave them cover. The closest guard was halfway down the dock, continuing his rounds. On the wharf, a switch engine was being turned into position, the engine that would likely load the disengaged rail cars carrying the heavy water onto the ferry. They waited, crouched by the gangway, until the guard turned around again. The switch engine made its share of noise, hissing steam and gears in motion.
“Go!” Nordstrum tapped Eric on the back. The American darted across the dock in a low crouch and deftly hurtled the fence. “Okay, Ox, you’re next.”
The commotion by the dock was covering any sound, so Ox lumbered across while the pacing guard watched the large switch engine being put into position. He waited by the fence, and Nordstrum, realizing the covering distraction was still in place, sprinted after him.
They still had twenty minutes to make their way back to Larsen in the car.
“Give me a hand over the fence,” Ox said. “Never my sport, I’m afraid.” The big man put his boot on a link halfway up the six-foot chain-link fence and tried to drag the other leg over.
Then, from his fur jacket pocket, a beer bottle tumbled out. It rolled around a bit, making a conspicuous rattling sound on the dock.
Just as the switch engine went silent.
“Shit.” Ox exhaled under his breath, one leg straddling the fence.
The bottle rattled for a while and then came to a stop in plain view.
The guard turned around.
“Come on!
” Nordstrum said under his breath. “Let’s go!” He hurtled the fence and waited to lend Ox a hand. It was a steep embankment through the bushes back up the hill, and if they ran, they would certainly be heard. And anyway, his friend was in trouble.
“My jacket’s caught,” said Ox. It was snagged on the top link.
“Rip the fucking thing off,” Nordstrum said. “Come quick. We have to hide. Let me help.”
The guard came toward them. They stood still. He stood over the beer bottle, kneeled and picked it up, then quickly looked toward the woods. “Wer ist da,” he yelled, his gun extended.
Who is there?
Ox remained as still as a church mouse in the range of a cat, concealed by the brush. But that would only aid him so long. He didn’t want to jump. He couldn’t. He’d be heard. He just remained still, holding his breath, praying the guard would grow disinterested and go away.
“Wer ist da, sage ich? Raus, raus!” The German raised his weapon. “Come out, or I’ll shoot.”
Caught on the fence, Ox looked at Nordstrum. His face displayed a sinking look of resignation. I’m afraid it’s up for me. If the guard came any further, they could all be caught. Go on, go … He motioned to Nordstrum with his chin. Get out of here. He gave him a helpless smile. “Damn, and I was really looking forward to that beer.…”
“Whoever’s there, come out now!” the German shouted.
We could kill him. Nordstrum ran through the wisdom in his head. They could wait for the guard to appear and do it silently with a knife. But any shout or gunfire would alert the rest. That would signal immediately that something was up and they would surely ask the crew and search the boat. Ox’s expression as he hung there seemed to contain all that. Nordstrum met his friend’s eyes.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Ox called out with resignation. “Don’t shoot.”
He extricated his coat and jumped down from the fence with his hands up and stepped out from the bushes.
“Why do you get so all excited for a fucking bottle of beer,” he said to his captor in Norwegian with his hands in the air.
“Unten! Unten!” The guard screamed at him in German, and forced him down to his knees.
“Kurt, we have to get out of here.” Gutterson tugged on Nordstrum’s collar.
Nordstrum went through the ways he could possibly save his friend. One man, they might just believe him, that he snuck onboard to steal some beer. To save his own skin, the watchman might even vouch for him as a friend. Any more of them, the Germans would surely suspect something. And to shoot now would only bring a dozen guards on their tails.
If Ox could do one thing for sure he could talk himself out of a mess, maybe even this one.
“Kurt, now!” Gutterson said in a sharp whisper. “There’s only fifteen minutes, or we’ll all be left here. Ox is a capable man. He’ll find a way out. We all faced that chance. We have to go!”
Reluctantly, Nordstrum let Gutterson pull him by the jacket back up the slope.
It ached in every bone and took every bit of restraint Nordstrum had to leave Ox. But to save him was to risk the whole mission. He would certainly be interrogated. But he could stand up to that with the best. He could play as innocent as an altar boy when he had to. An altar boy who had merely snuck aboard the ferry to pilfer a few beers. The two of them quietly climbed up the embankment, treading silently over the ice. They could hear Ox trying to talk his way out of it, the guard commanding him to move, pushing him along with his rifle. It was now only fifteen minutes until a quarter of two, when they’d told Larsen to leave. They hurried back along the road, quickly putting as much distance between themselves and the ferry as they could, jogging the last quarter mile.
Finally they came through the brush and saw their car.
Larsen looked at them with an expression of utter relief when they came out of the woods and opened the doors. “It’s a quarter of,” he said. “I was sure something had gone wrong. I was just about to leave. How did it go?”
“It went fine. Perfectly according to plan.” Nordstrum climbed in the front.
“So where’s Ox?” The engineer looked around, expecting him to climb into the backseat.
“Ox won’t be coming.”
“Won’t be coming…?” Larsen stared, not comprehending.
“No. Start the engine. It’s just us now.”
73
The rest of the night they spent watching the clock back at Diseth’s. Gutterson and Larsen dozed. Nordstrum just sat with his eyes open. He went over who he was.
A soldier. A saboteur.
A killer—for however he had tried to limit the number of those he had hurt, through his actions many innocent people had died. Still, it was all in service of the king. Of that he had remained constant. After the charges blew on the ferry, he would head to Sweden. Perhaps the war would be over for him for a while. Perhaps he would be back. As the night ticked slowly away, he went through the faces of the losses he had borne. Anna-Lisette. Hella. His father. Maybe Ox now. Tomorrow, possibly Natalie and her grandfather too. He knew everyone had such lists. All compiled in the name of doing the right things. Still, they were dead and he went on, and each, in their own manner, he’d had the chance to save. “I know you, Kurt, you won’t be there. You’ll stay and fight,” Anna-Lisette had told him. And he had.
How many more would be on that list tomorrow?
One day, he told himself, all anyone would remember was what they did—those who fought. Not the costs.
He was a saboteur.
He drifted in his half-awake state to the last conversation he’d had with Natalie. He was glad he was able to say the things he had to her. Tomorrow she would know exactly what he meant. “In war, we all do things for which we have no choice,” she’d said.
Still, how could she understand?
In his heart he always knew there was only the most farfetched hope for them. What would he do, go to Vienna after the war, if he was lucky enough to survive. And she would be there for him? They were not of the same class or station in life. She probably would not even remember his name. By tomorrow, life would have torn them apart anyway—one wind going east, the other west—for good. Whether he set off the charges on the Hydro or not. He closed his eyes and tried to drive her face from his mind. To other things.
He prayed that Ox would be all right.
When it was finally light they all put on their skis and headed up the mountain. After a two-hour climb, they made it to a perch that offered a wide vista of Mael and the lake. The sky was a deep blue, the sun shone brightly. The water reflected a beautiful opal light.
At 8:00 A.M., the blast of a whistle reached them and they saw the train with the heavy water on it chug down the narrow valley into the town. In his binoculars Nordstrum could see red Nazi flags waving on the front grille and soldiers standing guard and watching out on the cars. It steamed through the small town right to the lake’s edge, where what looked like a division of soldiers was gathered along the wharf and in the square. The Hydro was preparing to depart, its cargo ramp down, people climbing aboard. A trail of smoke wafted from its fore smokestack as its coal engine fired up. Some early birds went down the pier and boarded.
He, the Yank, and Larsen watched as the train came to rest in front of the pier. Two open flatcars carrying the thirty-nine drums of heavy water marked POTASH LYE. Troops jumped off. The engine car was disengaged. A switch engine was wheeled in and attached to the two flatcars, which were swung around and into position in front of the open cargo ramp. High up where Nordstrum was, he could not hear, but there clearly was much commotion about. The ferry’s cargo deck was emptied. The switch engine was positioned behind the two railway cars. Slowly, in a ritual the dock crew had likely performed a thousand times with other Norsk Hydro cargo, they loaded the flatcars up the ramp with at least two dozen soldiers onto the ferry. Who would have guessed the import of what the old ship was carrying? Passengers climbed aboard as well. Old folk, saying good-bye to family. Mother
s holding the hands of their children.
By 9:00 A.M. it was all complete.
“We should get going,” Gutterson said, digging the snow out from his skis with his poles. “We can watch from a higher perch. We’re going to need all the head start we can get once the charges blow.”
Their route had been worked out. Larsen would hold them back a little, but together Nordstrum knew he and the Yank would get him through. Even if they had to carry him half the way. It was February. Winter was in full force. The traveling would be tough. Still, the vidda was his friend. It always had been. He was sure they’d make it.
“Yes.” Nordstrum finally put down the binoculars. “Let’s go.”
He gathered his poles and put his arms through the pack on his back. While Gutterson and Larsen readied their own gear, he allowed himself one last look—willing his heart into a dull, protected state; reminding himself again that it was war with whom blame lay, not him, and that such things happened, things you couldn’t hope to control, things you must put out of your heart, as Einar had said, and not take the blame onto your shoulders—when he noticed a black sedan drive up on the wharf, red Nazi flags flying. His blood started to race. From the front, two Germans in black uniforms hopped out, snapping their fingers at nearby porters to assist with the luggage. Then from the rear, August Ritter emerged, and a moment later, Natalie—too far away to see her face, but …
A throbbing started to build in Nordstrum’s chest.
Gutterson called out, “Kurt, we have to go. In two hours we can be in the mountains.”
“Yes, I’ll be there,” Nordstrum answered, but continued to watch. Natalie and her grandfather made their way through the crowd toward the ferry, their bags on ahead, and exchanged good-byes with their fawning German hosts, likely senior officers in the cultural legation. The old man clutched his instrument case. They were escorted to the gangway and stepped aboard the ferry.
