Getting a grip with my boots looked impossible. I leaned out and seized a wire, giving it a tug. It seemed firmly attached to the roof. I reached up towards the ridge with my other hand and counted slowly to three. Then I launched myself skywards. Pulling on the wire and straining to grasp the apex of the roof, I swam with my legs, frantically trying to gain a little grip. My effort created a small avalanche. I paused and looked down, fearing snow would fall to the street below and give me away. It would have, had the slats and wires not done their job. The cascade of snow eventually halted. I was OK. I puffed out my cheeks and let out a huge sigh. My frozen fingers seized the ridge and I pulled myself up. Swinging my leg over, I lay flat for a moment, then sat up, straddling the roof. The street seemed a very long way down. I could hear German voices below and the yapping of their dogs, but thankfully I was out of sight.
‘Fiiiinn! Help me, Finn. I’m stuck.’
I looked down to see Loki peering up at me. He’d ventured out onto the roof and now clearly regretted it. He was frozen with fright. ‘I can’t move, Finn. I’m going to slip and fall. I’m going to die, Finn. I just know it,’ he whispered.
I leaned down and stretched out an arm. ‘You’ll be fine,’ I replied quietly. ‘Grab the top of the frame, then that wire over to your right, and lift yourself onto the top of the dormer.’
It was painful to watch. Loki was shaking but, digging deep, he found the courage to follow my instructions.
‘Brilliant. Well done. Now, grip my hand and I’ll pull you up.’
‘I can’t move, Finn. If I let go, I’m a dead man.’
‘Well, you can’t stay there for ever!’ I pointed out. ‘Just say a quick prayer and reach up.’
Reluctantly Loki let go with one hand and stretched out his arm. I reached down and our fingers interlaced. Then, with an extra bit of effort, we managed to seize each other’s wrists. I braced myself by gripping both sides of the ridge with my legs and then pulled with all my might. Scrambling frantically, Loki made it to the top.
‘Never, ever, ask me to do that again!’ he hissed.
‘This way,’ I said. ‘And don’t look down.’
We slid along the crest of the roof, pausing when we got to each chimney stack. ‘Finn, how are we going to get down from here?’
‘If we’re in luck, maybe there’ll be a fire escape we can drop down onto.’
‘This is the old town, Finn. Don’t think they ever got round to installing fire escapes.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something, Loki,’ I said. I hoped I could.
My hastily concocted plan depended on one crucial feature of the old town. The houses were huddled together, all joined up. The roof levels varied from building to building but not by much. It was possible to climb from one to the other. And the further we went along the street in the direction of the fjord, the lower the rooftops became. We headed for the end of the row. The last building was one of the oldest in town and looked in a poor state of repair. I wondered if the roof would hold our weight.
Crouching under the cover of a narrow chimney, we searched for the best way down. There were no attic dormer windows to head for on this particular building. Looking back, I saw that the Germans had reached about halfway along the street. We didn’t have much time if we were to stay ahead of them. Loki tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the far end of the building. In the darkness, all I could make out was something flat and grey below the roof. ‘I reckon that’s some sort of van or truck parked in the side street, Finn,’ he whispered. ‘If we slide, we can drop onto its flat roof and then climb down.’
‘OK. Sounds a good idea. You go first,’ I said.
Loki lifted his leg over the ridge and slid on his belly down towards the edge of the roof. I think he intended his boots to catch on the guttering to stop him before his final drop onto the vehicle below. But the gutter simply snapped away under his weight. ‘Finn!’ I looked on helplessly and in horror as my friend continued sliding and then disappeared from view.
I heard a crash, then silence, then a curse, and finally a loud, effort-filled grunt. What on earth was he doing? I wondered. I wanted to call out but didn’t dare. Having no choice but to follow my friend, I swung my leg over, took a deep breath and let go. I slid down the roof like a human toboggan. I tried using my boots and hands as brakes, but eventually the roof ended and I fell.
Chapter Nine
Breaking Glass
LANDING AGAINST SOMETHING mighty hard and with an almighty thud, I felt the air being driven from my lungs. Gasping, I rolled over and sprang up. I was a bit dizzy and disorientated. Loki was kneeling on one knee a few feet to my left. He was wrestling with something. ‘What the—?’
‘It’s no ordinary van, Finn. It’s a Funkpeilerwagen! I fell onto its blasted aerial. It bloody hurt too.’
A radio detection van. Parked in the narrow street. And Loki had hold of the aerial poking out the top. He brought his full weight to bear and let out another effort-filled groan. The aerial twisted and bent in his grasp. ‘Hah! That’ll stop them,’ he said. At that moment the rear doors of the van burst open and two soldiers tumbled out, brandishing pistols.
‘Gott im Himmel!’ one of them shouted.
We leaped off the roof and bundled into the two men, sending them sprawling to the ground. Their pistols flew from their grasp and scuttled into the gutter. We scrambled to our feet and ran for our lives.
Neither of us dared stop until we’d zigzagged through alleyways and narrow passages and were certain they’d not managed to follow us. When we paused to catch our breath, we could hear the distant barking of dogs. The house-to-house search was closing in. There wasn’t much time. ‘This way,’ I said, and we headed for the Lofoten bar near the waterfront.
A young woman answered our frantic knocking on the rear door.
‘I want to see my mother,’ I said. ‘Now! It’s a matter of life and death. Mrs Gunnersen. Frieda Gunnersen.’
The girl let us inside. Although we were at the back of the building, I could smell cigarette and cigar smoke, and got wafts of stale beer. Music and laughter filtered out from the bar at the front of the premises. ‘I’ll get Frieda,’ said the girl. ‘You two wait here.’
‘I can’t believe we made it, Finn,’ said Loki excitedly. ‘Over the rooftops as well. Father will never believe I did that. Not with me being so scared of heights. Let’s hope we’re in time.’
Before I could reply, a door further along the corridor swung open and a German officer stumbled out, his cap tilted at a precarious angle. He was fiddling awkwardly with the zip of his trousers. He’d emerged from the lavatories. Having done himself up, he stood upright, swayed a little, and then turned and gazed at us. My heart tripped. It was Colonel Hauptmann.
Appearing a little fuzzy-eyed, he raised a hand and pointed at me. ‘Du!’ he declared. ‘Last time I saw you it was in the Kristiansten Fortress,’ he added in Norwegian spoken with an appalling German accent.
I shook my head nervously. ‘No. You must be mistaken.’
He came closer, sliding a hand along the wall to steady his drunkenness. He leaned forward and peered into my face. His breath was foul. Then he straightened up. ‘Yes. It was you. I never forget a face.’
I said nothing.
‘Hmm. So what are you doing here?’
‘Working,’ replied Loki quickly. ‘We wash and clean.’
‘I see.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Working or up to no good?’ He grinned maliciously. ‘Because if you’re up to no good, I’ll have to shoot you both.’ He reached for his holster. I figured he was so drunk he wouldn’t be able to aim straight; if necessary, we could probably disarm him. But we had to avoid trouble at all costs. He removed his pistol and waved it in the air. ‘Well, shall I shoot you?’ he mocked. ‘Or will you beg for mercy?’
Another German emerged from the lavatories and spotted the colonel. We were in a hole, and it was getting deeper by the second.
‘Herr Oberst, was is
t los?’ asked the colonel’s comrade.
In Norwegian, the colonel replied, ‘Ah, Herr Schmidt, I need your advice. Do you think I should shoot these boys?’
‘I don’t know, Colonel. Why? What have they done?’
The colonel frowned. ‘I’m not sure. But this one here,’ he said, jabbing me in the belly with the barrel of his pistol, ‘has already spent time at the fortress.’
‘We’ve done nothing,’ I complained. ‘We just work here, washing and cleaning. And we work hard too.’
‘Come, Colonel, let’s not waste any more time on these boys. We have some serious drinking to do,’ said Herr Schmidt, slapping the colonel on the back.
The colonel lowered his pistol and returned it to its holster. ‘Ja. OK.’ Then he seized me roughly by my collar. ‘Back to work,’ he hissed.
Seconds after they disappeared into the bar, Mother appeared. From the look on her face she knew something terrible was happening. ‘What’s the matter, Finn?’
In whispers we told our story. ‘It won’t be long before they reach here. You must hide or destroy everything,’ I said.
Biting a fingernail, Mother thought for a moment. ‘This is disastrous. How long have we got?’
‘I don’t know. Five, maybe ten minutes.’
She stiffened her resolve and took command. ‘Right. Come with me. Both of you.’ Hurrying, she led us past the lavatories, through a door into a kitchen, and then through another door into a dark corridor. Midway along was a staircase leading to the basement. We followed her down into the musty darkness. At the bottom of the stairs lay another, heavily reinforced door. It was locked from the inside. I could hear faint noises and muffled voices coming from beyond it. Mother rapped her knuckles against it – three knocks – pause – four knocks – pause – then two knocks. I heard a key turn in the lock and two heavy bolts being slid to one side. The door opened a fraction. An eye peered out.
‘There’s trouble,’ said Mother.
The door swung open and we rushed inside. It was hot and stuffy and the room reeked of ink. Under the dim glow of a single naked bulb, a man dressed in overalls stooped over a tiny printing press. Startled, he looked up at us and frowned from behind wire-framed spectacles. Another man who’d been sorting the printed newsletters into piles stopped what he was doing too. In the corner I saw Ned Grimmo. He’d been stuffing wads of the newsletters into a small bag. Our eyes locked together.
‘We’re going to be raided,’ said Mother. ‘You’ve got five minutes to make all this disappear. We’ll help.’ Within seconds, we were all grabbing piles of the newsletters, the ink barely dry, and were frantically stuffing them into the furnace used to heat the whole building. Every scrap of paper had to be burned. The man in overalls then set about dismantling his printing press and we helped him hide the parts in secret places behind the furnace and beneath a concealed trapdoor in the basement’s floor. As we rushed, I told Ned that his mother had been arrested. He looked terrified and a little confused.
Five minutes later the transformation was complete.
‘Back upstairs,’ Mother barked.
By the time we reached the kitchen, soldiers had arrived at the front of the building, and I suspected that others would be watching the back door. We were trapped.
‘Go and collect all the dirty glasses, Mrs Gunnersen,’ said Loki. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Well, Finn, we told Hauptmann that we worked here, so I guess we should make ourselves useful. Come on, Ned, you can join in. After all, we’ve got to wash the ink off our hands.’
In the kitchen we were soon up to our elbows in soap suds. And as we washed, dried and polished, we waited for the soldiers to appear. And we kept on waiting. I told Ned how the evening had unfolded in more detail, and that we’d told his mother we’d help look for him. Ned said nothing but kept giving Loki and me strange looks. I could see in his face that he had a hundred questions for us, questions like why on earth would we help him? – but they were questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask. The Germans still hadn’t ventured out to the kitchen, but we could hear them in the bar. The music had stopped and there were just voices. Mother had gone to fetch more glasses but hadn’t returned. I hoped she was OK. I heard footsteps.
The kitchen door crashed open. Two soldiers peered in; one held the leash of a huge, panting, salivating Alsatian dog. It felt like my heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t breathe. They said nothing but simply stared at us for a moment. ‘What do you want?’ Loki asked.
‘Papers!’ one of the soldiers snapped.
We dried our hands and extracted our documents from our coats. The soldier peered at them and made a note of our names before handing them back.
I saw the other soldier’s eyes flash about the kitchen, eventually settling on the door on the other side of the room – the door that would lead them to the staircase down to the basement. They wouldn’t find any incriminating underground newsletters, and they’d have to search really hard to find the hidden equipment, so we were safe. Or were we? A horrible thought struck me. The smell of ink! The room was so poorly ventilated, the unmistakable odour undoubtedly still hung in the air. And if they recognized it, it would be enough to ring alarm bells in their heads. Craning his neck, the soldier was increasingly curious about what lay beyond the second door. The dog was straining on his leash too. I had an idea.
Quickly I piled up some clean glasses into a tower and waited for the exact moment when the soldier and his dog passed me. And as they did, I lifted the glasses, spun round and deliberately collided with them, getting myself all tangled up with the dog’s leash. I went down, let the glasses fall from my grasp and rejoiced the second they all shattered on striking the hard floor. There was glass everywhere. Millions of pieces. Millions of sharp edges. The soldier backed away. My plan was working. He knew his dog’s paws would get shredded by the broken glass. The second door wasn’t worth the hassle, was it? Probably nothing there. A waste of time. That’s what I wanted him to think. And as they turned to go, I knew my plan had worked.
Chapter Ten
Operation S-phone
IT WAS ALMOST midnight before we all got home. Anna had waited up for us and insisted on hearing our story. She’d learned from Dieter that something was happening in town, and had seen the troops on the streets. And when she’d got back and seen neither Mother nor me at home, she’d panicked but had been helpless. Mother brewed a huge pot of coffee on the stove, and no sooner was it ready than Mr Larson knocked gently on our back door. Entering, he kicked the snow from his boots and gave us all a long hard stare. ‘What the hell’s been happening?’
We’d had a lucky escape. However, I’d never seen Mr Larson looking so troubled. He was a small man with a kind face, quite unlike Loki. He lit a cigarette and drew on it nervously. ‘So Mrs Grimmo was tipped off, was she? Thank God for that, at least. That awful husband of hers has useful connections.’
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ I asked.
‘I expect so. After all, you saved Ned’s neck, and the search for the printing presses failed. So as long as Mrs Grimmo sticks to a simple story of fearing for her son walking the streets, they’ll have nothing to charge her with. Anyway, I’m sure Mr Grimmo will pull a few strings as usual.’
Mother and Anna drifted off to bed, leaving Loki and me alone with Mr Larson. He grabbed an old bottle of Father’s potato whisky and three glasses from a cupboard. ‘Figure it might help you two sleep. It’ll certainly help me.’ He grinned. ‘But don’t tell your mothers.’ He filled each of the small glasses.
Sparking up a second cigarette, he extinguished the match between his fingers and then snapped it in half. I saw him stare at my flying jacket resting over the back of a chair. He seemed lost in thought, and I guessed he was thinking of the old times, happier times. ‘Do you wish you’d gone too? To England, I mean?’ I asked.
‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘I think your father understood what was coming better than any of us, Finn. I su
ppose I shouldn’t have kept finding excuses not to follow in his steps. But then again, as things have turned out, there’s plenty of work for us to do here.’
‘The Resistance, you mean?’ I said.
Mr Larson nodded and exhaled streams of smoke from his nostrils like a dragon’s breath. ‘We must all do what we can.’
I leaned forward across the table. ‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I want to help.’
‘You have; you do,’ he replied, sitting back in his chair. ‘Tonight was a perfect example. And you and Loki took those messages across the fjord to Heimar. And don’t forget, you helped save Bald Eagle.’
‘Yes, but mostly they were spur-of-the-moment things. What I meant to say was that I really want to help. I want to do more. Much more. I want to hit back against the Nazis.’
Our eyes met. His gaze narrowed as he scrutinized me closely. ‘Is this just bravado, Finn?’ he asked. ‘Because if you do get more deeply involved, you’ll be risking everything. And I mean everything.’
‘I understand that,’ I replied. ‘At least, I do now. Before my arrest, I probably didn’t. But witnessing that firing squad changed everything. It’s as if it snapped me from some kind of dozy dream I’d been in ever since Father left. I feel like I’m awake to it all now, and I have to do something.’
Rocking back and forth in his chair, Mr Larson divided his stare between Loki and me. ‘You two are as bad as each other!’
‘I’ve been on at him for ages,’ said Loki, nodding towards his father.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘Don’t get me wrong, there’s certainly merit in the idea, Finn. The Germans will be less suspicious of boys your age. You can do and get away with things I, and others like me, can’t. Have you discussed this with your mother?’
‘Sort of,’ I replied, recalling my conversation with her beside the shore of the fjord earlier that afternoon. ‘Anyway, she’s doing her bit at the Lofoten. Anna is as well. She has that Dieter Braun eating out of her hand. So I reckon it’s time I did my share.’
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