The Unlikely Allies

by Gilbert, Morris

  Now as he sped along the narrow mountain road, guiding his motorcycle around potholes amid the gathering darkness, he was completely frustrated with himself.

  Why can’t I forget her? he thought. The October wind was cold, and the Norwegian winter lurked just over the mountaintops, ready to descend and kill every living blade of grass in one lethal moment. Derek’s mind was not on the weather, however. He was thinking about how Mallory had embraced him and held him as if he were a child when he had broken down. His mother had been gentle like that, but that had been long years ago. It was the first moment of genuine tenderness he had known from anyone, and it seemed to be burned into his memory. Night after night he would lie awake thinking about it, and he knew he would never forget it as long as he lived.

  I should have been ashamed, but I wasn’t. I just felt the love flowing out of her, and it seemed to soak into my soul.

  He sped on, driving the motorcycle as fast as he could go safely, and finally he realized that the night had indeed fallen. “It’ll be two o’clock in the morning, at least, before I get back to Oslo.” He found that that didn’t matter to him, for his mind was still preoccupied with his grief at not being able to see Mallory anymore.

  ****

  “Come along, girls. We’re going to take a trip.”

  Thora and Abigail both looked scared. They had learned to live with fear, but now as Mallory bundled them into warm coats, she kept up a cheerful stream of conversation. “It’s going to be fun. You get to go on an airplane. Have you ever been in an airplane before?”

  “No,” Abigail whimpered. “I’m afraid.”

  “A big girl like you mustn’t be afraid,” Mallory said. She hugged the girl and kissed her cheek, trying to sound as confident as she could. “We’re going to leave here in a truck with Mr. St. Cloud and Mr. Bjelland, and we’re going to go to the mountains. A plane is going to come out of the sky, and you and your mother and father are going to get in it, and they’re going to take you to a place where you’ll be safe forever.”

  “Really?” Thora said. “We won’t have to hide anymore?”

  “No, darling. You won’t have to hide anymore. Come along now.”

  Mallory led the girls out and found that Abraham and Leah had already carried out their meager belongings. “The girls are all ready,” she said. “I’ve told them that they’re going to have an airplane ride and at the end of it they’ll be safe.”

  “That’s right. Miss Mallory is right,” Abraham said cheerfully. He picked up the two girls, holding one in each arm, and then shook his head. “You’re getting to be such big girls. I won’t be able to do this much longer.”

  “I guess we’re all ready.” Rolf appeared out of the darkness, and the Goldsteins noticed that he had a revolver in a holster on his hip.

  Then James arrived, also armed with a revolver in a holster and looking tense. “We’re all ready. We’re taking the strong radio, aren’t we, Mallory?”

  “Yes. I’ll be able to contact the pilot well before he gets overhead. That way I can guide him in.”

  “Well, let’s get on our way,” Rolf said. “It will take at least two hours to get there.”

  The truck was crowded. Rolf drove, and the two women, each holding a girl on their laps, sat in the front seat. James and Abraham sat in the back, bundled up as best they could against the chilly air.

  “It’s going to be all right. You’ll see, girls,” Leah said. She reached over and took Mallory’s hand. “You’ve done so much for us, Mallory. Abraham and I will never forget it.”

  “I’ll never forget it either,” Thora said.

  “Neither will I,” Abigail echoed. “Tell us a story while we’re going, Miss Mallory.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you the story of King David and how he killed a lion and a bear. . . .”

  ****

  “We ought to be hearing from them soon,” James said nervously. He was walking back and forth staring up into the clear night sky. The stars were glittering overhead, and the moon was bright. The pasture that lay beyond the grove of trees where they had parked the truck was level and flooded with the silver moonlight. “I think you can try to contact him now.”

  “What’s his code name?”

  “Condor.”

  Mallory had set up the radio, and now she began transmitting. “This is Byron calling Condor. This is Byron calling Condor. Do you read me?”

  For ten minutes Mallory tried fruitlessly and began to get nervous. “He should be close enough by now. What time is it?”

  “Almost five minutes after two,” Rolf said, holding a flashlight to his watch. “Try again.”

  “This is Byron calling Condor. This is—”

  “This is Condor. I read you, Byron.”

  “We are waiting. What is your ETA?”

  “Fifteen minutes.” The pilot’s voice crackled, and he said urgently, “Make the turn-around quick.”

  “We’ll be waiting, Condor.”

  “Well, everything looks good,” Rolf said. “But he’s going to need a signal. There are lots of pastures around here. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we go down to each end of that pasture, James, and when we hear the engine, we’ll turn our flashlights on. You’d better tell him about this, Mallory.”

  “All right.”

  The two men waited until finally Rolf said, “Listen. You hear that?”

  “I hear it. It’s the plane. Let’s go,” James said. “You’ll soon be safe,” he said to the Goldsteins, and then the two men left.

  “It won’t be long now,” Mallory assured the family. “You’ll be in England and won’t have a thing to worry about.”

  ****

  The road had gotten rougher, for Derek had taken a shortcut off the main road. He was weary now, and his wrists ached with the strain of keeping the cycle on the road. The night was bright enough that there was no danger of running off, and there was no traffic on this back way.

  He suddenly turned his head to one side, for he thought he heard something over the roar of the cycle. He stopped and pulled to one side, put the kickstand down, and killed the engine. He stepped off and stretched his weary legs and flexed his fingers.

  “There it is. It’s a plane,” he muttered. He searched the sky and couldn’t see a light, but he heard a plane. “What’s a plane doing down here, especially this low?” Suspicion coursed through him, and suddenly the roar of the plane became very clear. Something caught his eyes, and he turned to see two bright pinpoints of light down the side of the mountain in what appeared to be a valley.

  “Agents coming in,” he muttered. He pulled his Luger from his holster and began running down the mountainside. He half fell, half slid, scraping the skin off his knuckles, but when he reached the bottom, the moonlight was bright enough that he could see that a plane had landed. He wished he had help with him, but he of course had not anticipated this.

  “There can’t be that many of them,” he said grimly. He ran forward and soon he saw the outline of a truck and several figures. When he got closer, he shouted, “All right! Stop where you are!”

  One of the figures whirled, and he heard the explosion of a gun. He thought he heard a twig overhead fall from a tree, and he shot back, firing three times. He saw the man go down and then he threw the beam of his flashlight on the group. “Stand where you are or I’ll shoot you all!”

  Derek knew he was in a bad position. He saw someone bending over the fallen man, and another man with a gun in one hand was staring into his flashlight. “Drop that gun!” Derek ordered. “Throw it on the ground!” He waited until the man obeyed.

  Derek moved closer, keeping a wary eye out. At first he thought there were only two men, but then as he got closer, he saw two more figures. He threw the beam of light on them, expecting more men with guns. Instead he saw a couple, a man and a woman, both dressed in dark coats and each of them holding a child.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. They did not answer, but then he noticed the peculiar rou
nd hat of the man, and the truth dawned on him. “You’re Jewish.” The fear in the faces of the four Jews told him all he needed to know. He heard the plane’s engine revving up, and then the man who had thrown the gun on the ground said, “I’m sorry it has to end like this, Mallory.”

  Mallory!

  Derek whirled and turned the flashlight and found that it was a woman bent over the wounded man. When she turned to him, he recognized her instantly. It is Mallory! He did not speak the words aloud, but they echoed in his mind.

  Derek Grüber had never been so shocked in his life. Mallory did not rise. She was holding the wounded man in her arms.

  Derek walked over stiffly. “Is he dead?”

  “No, I’m not dead, you filthy Nazi!”

  “Be quiet, Rolf. You’re hurt,” Mallory said.

  “Where are you hit?” Derek asked roughly.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “He’s been shot in the leg, and he’s bleeding badly.”

  Mallory got to her feet. Derek lowered the flashlight and saw that the moonlight coated her face with silver. Her eyes were wide and her lips tremulous. Derek heard the noise of the airplane behind him. “Who are these people?” he asked.

  “They’re Jewish people, Derek. We’re trying to keep them alive.”

  Derek turned and looked at the four figures. He saw the terrible fear etched on the faces of the couple, and the children had turned and were clinging to their parents, unable to face him. He had seen it all before, and he knew well what would happen to them. He had seen the trains leaving for the concentration camps, and he was not blind to the terrible things that went on there.

  “Please, please have mercy on my children!” the woman cried.

  Derek saw that the woman’s lips were trembling, and in that moment, he realized that she closely resembled Rachel.

  Mallory saw Derek hesitate. He was standing with the pistol pointed at the ground, not moving. She wanted to beg for their lives but knew she could not. She held her head high and said nothing.

  James also saw that something was happening to the German. He recognized an opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and he crouched and prepared to launch himself. He knew he had little chance of success, but it was better than nothing.

  Derek saw the move and turned to face James, holding the man with his glance. Derek looked back at the woman and saw that she was crying, her shoulders heaving.

  Suddenly Derek Grüber turned to James and said, “Do you believe in God?”

  James hadn’t expected anything like this, but he answered honestly. “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re a dead man, you know that?”

  “Go on. You can kill us, but there’ll be others.”

  Derek walked over and leaned down to pick up James’s pistol. “You’d better get these people on that plane,” he told James and Mallory. The only sound was that of the engine of the plane, which revved again. “God is with you,” Derek said. Then he turned and walked away into the darkness.

  James was stunned. He could not believe what had just happened. As soon as Derek disappeared, he said hurriedly, “Let’s go. Mallory, get the medical supplies out of the truck and tend to Rolf. We’ve got to unload the plane and get these people on.”

  Mallory did as he asked and put a tourniquet on Rolf’s leg. He gritted his teeth against the pain, but Mallory held on to him. “You’re all right. We’ll get that bullet taken out.” The men helped her get Rolf into the truck, and then the rest of them climbed in.

  “This is one of your miracles,” Abraham told Mallory, “and I will never forget it.”

  The next moments were confusing. The pilot was angry because of the delay, but when he saw the wounded man, he became almost frantic. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded!” Leah and Abraham helped unload the supplies into the truck; then Abraham picked up Thora and Leah picked up Abigail. They stopped for a hasty good-bye, and Abraham said, “I will never forget you for this. God’s blessing be on you.”

  The pilot was impatient. When the door was shut he roared off, and Mallory stood looking up in the sky until the plane disappeared.

  “Why did he do it?” James asked Mallory.

  When she did not answer, he said slowly, “I think he did it for you, Mallory.”

  “No, it wasn’t for me. It was something he saw in Leah.”

  “In the Jewish woman?”

  “Yes. When he looked at her face, he couldn’t do it.”

  “What was it? What in the world made him do it?”

  “I think it was God.”

  James lifted his eyebrows and looked off in the direction Derek had gone. “Come on. We’ve got to get Rolf to a doctor.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Out of the Past

  As winter fell across the land, Derek came to know the country well. He was driven by a deep-seated and inexplicable unhappiness and volunteered to travel a great deal. He not only came to know the southern part of Norway, where Oslo was located, but traveled along the coast to the north and never ceased to be fascinated by the beautiful fjords. These vertical walls of rock, very steep in places, were impressive, and he became familiar with the small red barns perched on the steep slopes. His vivid imagination took him back in time to where he could almost see the fierce Viking pirates, setting forth from the jagged mountain creeks, called viks, to conquer and plunder new lands. More than once the thought crossed his mind, Once these people went out to conquer others, but now they’ve been invaded by men far more cruel than any Viking was.

  He learned that the country north of Trondheim was far more wild and desolate. The Arctic Circle cut straight across central Norway, and here began the Land of the Midnight Sun, where for two or three months in the summer the sun never set. The extreme northern section of Norway made up part of the area called Lapland, which included parts of three other countries: Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Lapland would be totally covered with ice and snow if it were not for the Gulf Stream. This ocean current carried the warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico right up to and across the Atlantic, and as a result the sea never froze. He discovered that Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world, was often warmer than Oslo due to the Gulf Stream.

  Many of the small villages and hamlets were little affected by the war, and Derek found that he was not greeted with the fear and terror he knew in Oslo. He formed the habit of stopping at small, isolated houses and found the people to be warmhearted and hospitable. But he also found out that in spite of its breathtaking beauty, life in Norway was hard, opportunities were few, and the people there were molded by the difficult conditions. The short summers of Norway drew people from cities into the mountains and to the sea, and most town dwellers got away to the secluded fjords and windswept mountains for vacations. During the brief summers, they enjoyed skiing, hiking, and swimming. Almost every man, woman, boy, and girl was good at all of these. Many of them lived in the furnished hyttes during their holidays, located on far-away islands or in remote valleys.

  But despite his interest in the country, Derek’s spiritual and emotional life became almost as frigid as the wild mountainous regions through which he traveled. He grew more silent and attended to his duties in a perfunctory fashion, but his nights were filled with disturbing dreams, and he slept little. Everywhere he went he took books with him, usually of poetry, and found himself reading from his German Bible more than he ever had in his life. From time to time he would stop and enter a small church. He always felt self-conscious, but for the most part he was ignored. He would listen to the sermon and leave, usually without speaking to a soul, but such visits seemed to make him even more despondent.

  One Sunday he arrived at a small village called Karasjok in the far northern section of the country. It was a stave church, beautifully constructed of wood. He knew that Christianity had established itself in Norway in about 1030 and that over the next three hundred years, a thousand stave churches were built. He had also learned that only about twenty-f
ive remained, the rest having been destroyed by fire or decay.

  The pastor of this church was a tall, broad-shouldered man with blond hair, looking very much, Derek supposed, like one of his Viking forebears. He did not single Derek out, for which Derek was grateful, but he preached a good sermon about the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. Derek listened intently as the pastor said, “During the history of the Christian church there have been many attempts to disprove that Jesus of Nazareth was divine. He himself distinctly claimed to be the Son of God. On many occasions He said such things as, ‘I and the Father are one.’

  “Naturally the enemies of the church would attack this doctrine, and theologians have defended it ably. And I say to you this morning that Jesus is the Son of the living God. The book of John tells us that all things are made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. So He is the great Creator. He is also the Sustainer. The book of Colossians tells us that it is Jesus’ power that keeps the universe running, and the entire New Testament points to the time when Jesus will come back and receive the living saints, and those who are dead will rise from their graves. So Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.”

  The pastor masterfully wove a texture of Scripture around the doctrine of the divinity, but only briefly. “I would have you know this morning,” he said, looking squarely at each individual in the sanctuary in turn, “that our Lord Jesus, although He was very God, was also born of the Virgin Mary, a very human woman indeed. The Gospels record that the coming of Jesus was announced by the angel to Mary, and when Mary could not understand how she could have a son, not having known a man, the angel simply told her that the child would be born of the Holy Spirit.

  “So Jesus came into the world, and we must never forget that He laid aside His divinity. He did not come in the form that He would later assume, but for thirty-three years He inhabited earth as a man. First as a child, a helpless baby nursing at his mother’s breast, as all of us did, then as a young boy, running, I would suppose, and playing in the streets of Nazareth, then as a young man growing up and learning the carpenter’s trade. The Bible teaches us that Jesus experienced and overcame every temptation we have, but it was not an easy thing, as some suppose. We must never say that because He was God He never knew temptation.”