Dogfight

by Craig Simpson

  ‘Too dangerous,’ Freya replied. ‘Now the fjord’s restricted, they’ve doubled the patrols. The only other option was to get him to the coast and out using the Shetland Bus, but there’s not one due for another month. And they want him back in London as soon as possible.’

  Mr Larson had talked of the Shetland Bus. A few brave sailors – ordinary Norwegian fishermen, willing to risk both their boats and their lives – ran the Nazis’ gauntlet of heavy coastal artillery in order to ferry supplies across the sea from the Scottish islands just a few hundred miles away.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Freya.

  We both nodded.

  She pulled down her goggles. ‘Follow me and stay close. If you drop back, I won’t slow down for you.’ She sounded just like Heimar. She lifted a ski, turned and sprang off, sliding past the ruin and outbuildings. Thrusting her poles alternately into the snow, she slid one ski forward after the other and headed north. Loki slung the S-phone across the back of his shoulders, and I fastened the hefty belt around my waist.

  Freya and Loki were born skiers. They glided effortlessly while I struggled to keep them in sight. I was all steaming puffs and gasps, sore muscles and aching bones. ‘You OK?’ Loki asked. All I could do was nod. Saying no simply wasn’t an option.

  It took about two hours to reach the cave. I’d never skied there by moonlight but recalled our trek just a few weeks earlier. How different everything seemed now winter had arrived. Before me lay curved blankets of pale whiteness, shadowy outlines of dark toothy outcrops and towering peaks like giants leaning over us, spying on us. And that’s the weirdest thing about this land – you know there’s nothing out there, yet somehow you always feel as though you’re being watched. Freya led us to the cave.

  I used to joke that the cave was the long-lost entrance to Svartalheim, the land of the evil elves. The entrance, a three-foot tall arrowhead-shaped crack, was hidden when approached from the south. In fact, unless you ventured into a deep crevice in the rock face, you’d miss it. I suppose that’s why Freya and Heimar had chosen it – hardly anyone knew it was there. And once through the narrow entrance, I recalled that it opened up into quite a cavern, easily double the height of a man and maybe forty feet deep.

  Having removed our skis, we each took our turn to scramble in on all fours. Inside, it smelled foul, a mix of smoke, mould, damp animal fur and stale sweat. A tiny fire glowed and crackled in the centre, its feeble light and flicker creating dancing shadows all about us. Above it hung a tin pot belching steam.

  ‘Jack,’ Freya called out. Her voice reverberated, sounding strangely deep and hollow. To my left I spotted a shadowy figure dart out from behind a boulder. It startled me. The figure shuffled towards us. I took a step back. It was hard to make out the fellow in the gloom but he was certainly tall, well built and completely bald. So utterly hairless, in fact, the firelight glinted off his shiny head as if it was a giant nugget of gold. I noticed the pistol in his hand. He stood pointing it at us, despite Freya’s reassuring words. I suppose he had to consider the possibility he might have been betrayed. After all, we weren’t part of his plan. We were a surprise – total strangers – and more often than not strangers equalled danger, which equalled capture and death.

  Eventually he reluctantly lowered his gun and crouched down over the fire, removing the pot’s lid and giving the contents a stir with a stick. He hadn’t said a word. ‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ said Freya. ‘These are my friends. They helped to rescue you when you first arrived.’

  He glanced up at her. ‘They’re just kids,’ he said.

  ‘Well, just remember you wouldn’t be alive without them. Let alone have any chance of getting back to London – they’ve brought the S-phone,’ she snapped.

  Jack grunted but said nothing else.

  Still smarting at his remark, she turned to us. ‘Make yourselves comfortable and get some rest. It’s still quite a hike to the pick-up point. I’m afraid we haven’t got much food but we’ll make it stretch. A hot drink, I think. Yes, that would be nice.’ She rummaged in a rucksack propped up against the cave’s wall, digging out some extra mugs and an empty tin.

  Loki crouched down next to Bald Jack or whatever his real name was, and offered his hand. ‘Loki Larson,’ he said. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

  The man looked up but otherwise ignored him. Freya handed me an empty tin. ‘Go outside and fill this with snow, would you?’ she asked. ‘I’ll finish preparing the food. It’s potato and venison stew, and we’ve got some biscuits and dried fish somewhere. Not great, but it’ll fill our bellies.’

  ‘I’ll lend you a hand,’ said Loki with unnatural enthusiasm. I very much doubted he’d ever said that to his mother at home. As they pottered and stumbled about, I collected some fresh snow and then warmed my hands over the fire. Jack gazed into the flames unblinkingly, as if he was in a trance. I saw sweat on his brow, and every few moments he shivered involuntarily. I figured he was in his mid twenties. It was hard to tell exactly because his skin had suffered from the effects of winter; it was dry, blotchy red and peeling. And he looked unwashed and unshaven. He seemed rather young to have lost all the hair off the top of his head but it kind of suited him. Freya spoke about what had happened to Heimar and his dogs as she bustled to and fro. Jack seemed unmoved by it all.

  When Freya finally fell silent, I decided to complete the day’s story. ‘And then there’s poor old Idur Svalbad,’ I said. I was still leaning over the fire, opposite Jack. He looked up and fixed his gaze on me. It was a cold, ruthless, calculating stare, quite disconcerting really. ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘when we bumped into his body, we initially thought he might have fallen overboard from his boat and drowned. But having seen everything else, I guess he must have been murdered by the Nazis.’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. He studied me intensely. It felt like he was trying to bore deep into my soul. ‘It’s a shame,’ Loki added. ‘Although he probably won’t be missed by many people.’

  ‘I’ll miss him,’ said Freya.

  Loki dropped down heavily next to me, crossed his legs and blew into clasped hands. ‘Don’t think much of your fire, Freya,’ he said. ‘Hardly enough heat to warm a cat’s bum.’

  ‘We can’t risk making too much smoke,’ she replied, handing out the mugs. ‘Jack, take these pills. They’ll make you feel better.’ She pressed a few red and white ones into his hand.

  ‘What I can’t figure out,’ I said, blowing the steam off the top of my mug, ‘is what Heimar was doing at Idur’s house anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Loki, ‘that crossed my mind too.’

  Freya knelt beside Jack and I caught her eye. ‘Any ideas, Freya?’

  ‘To get help. But he was obviously too late. I think soldiers were sweeping the whole shoreline. They must’ve got to Idur first.’

  ‘So what happened exactly?’

  ‘During the night the dogs heard the German patrol coming,’ she replied. ‘Gave us a bit of a head start. We decided it was best to split up and rendezvous here at the cave after dusk. I hid in the woods all day and then figured I’d return to the house just in case you’d made it across. Glad I did.’

  ‘With your house burned down, where are you going to live?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t had time to even think about it, Finn.’

  ‘You can stay at my house,’ Loki offered enthusiastically.

  Shaking her head, she sipped from her mug. ‘We’ll see, Loki.’

  She was suddenly lost in thought. I think the harsh, awful reality – that her father was in the hands of the Gestapo – had suddenly fallen on her like a tonne of bricks, and crushed her.

  We ate our food while catching up on all the events over the last few weeks. We had lots to talk about, including my time at the fortress and the raid in town. We also speculated as to who’d betrayed us. But it was just guesswork. We knew very little for certain. The stew was bland, and what little venison there was proved unusually tough and sinewy; most of it got wedged between my teeth. The dr
ied fish stank so much I could barely force chunks between my lips without retching. Still, I ate it all. We all did. Horrid though it was, having something in our bellies could prove the difference between life and death.

  Loki made small grunting noises as he scoffed his food. And he ground his teeth annoyingly like Anna often did. I was about to give him a shove when I saw the cause of his discomfort. Freya had placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Maybe nothing, I thought. Then again, it had a certain affection about it.

  ‘So,’ said Loki, throwing down his empty bowl, ‘tell me, Jack’ – I detected distinct hostility in his voice – ‘who or what are you? A soldier? British army? Norwegian freedom fighter? What?’

  Jack laughed. ‘A cartographer,’ he replied. His Norwegian was fluent. ‘I draw maps and charts.’

  His reply surprised both Loki and me. We pulled faces at each other. ‘So what have you been doing here? Just drawing stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Can’t say,’ he replied.

  ‘But it must be important work, I suppose,’ said Freya. ‘I mean, a lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to help you out.’

  He shrugged like he didn’t care. ‘Hey, I didn’t volunteer for it. I got my orders and five days later they dropped me in by parachute. I’ve done what they asked me to, and now I’m going home. Nothing more to it really. Just glad to be getting out of this godforsaken country. As to whether it’s important, well, they seem to think so.’

  ‘They?’ I asked.

  ‘Bigwigs in fancy bloody uniforms with rows of sparkling medals pinned to their chests – medals mostly awarded for hiding behind desks in their stuffy little Whitehall offices.’

  Ouch, I thought. I decided to change the subject. ‘I’ve been looking after Oslo for you,’ I said. ‘He’s doing fine. Thought you might like to know.’

  ‘Oslo?’ He looked confused.

  ‘Yes, your dog. I’ve been wondering, what’s his real name?’

  ‘Private Bob.’

  Loki burst out laughing. ‘You mean to tell me that bag of bones has an actual rank?’

  ‘Uh-huh. He’s officially a member of the British army. Highly trained too, apparently. Not that you’d know it. Never did anything I told him. More trouble than he’s worth. Tell you the truth, I’ve always hated dogs, and I think they can sense that. In fact, I think the feeling was mutual.’

  ‘What’s he trained to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Pull a sled, track scents, sniff out land mines, act as an early warning system should men or vehicles be heading my way. That kind of thing.’

  We ate and chatted a while. Along with the musty fug, the tension in the air grew so taut you could almost reach out and twang it like an out-of-tune guitar string. Loki kept flashing distrustful glances in Freya’s direction. And from the way she spoke and leaned towards Jack, I figured something had indeed developed between them. Of course, it might all have been entirely innocent. Just good friends. Somehow, though, I doubted Loki could be persuaded. I suspect he felt wounded, maybe a little cheated. I sensed him sizing Jack up. In truth, both looked like they could handle themselves in a brawl. I sighed and looked at my watch in the firelight – eight o’clock.

  ‘I suppose they’ll start worrying round about now,’ I said, referring to our families back home. Nobody said anything.

  Freya got up and fetched the S-phone. Placing it close to the fire, she unfastened the straps and lifted the canvas cover. ‘It looks very different from our other radio set,’ she declared, scratching her head. ‘And you really know how to use it, Finn?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘What? Now? Here?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t want any nasty last-minute surprises.’ She shoved it towards me. ‘Go on then, set it up.’

  Mr Larson had shown us the basics, not that Loki had displayed any great interest. Fortunately I had. I reached for the belt and took out the headphones from one of the pockets. ‘These plug in here.’ I demonstrated. ‘And the microphone goes there.’

  The microphone had a cup-shaped rubber shield round it, the idea being that you pressed the whole thing around your mouth when you spoke. That way it captured just your voice and kept out any external noise. ‘These are the batteries,’ I added, pulling one from its pocket. ‘They attach like this.’ I connected one up.

  ‘And the aerial?’

  ‘Just getting to that.’ I uncoiled the aerial and screwed it on. About six feet long, it waved and whipped wildly in the air, and looked the perfect sort of weapon to take out somebody’s eye. Then I held the unit up to my chest. ‘You wear it like this,’ I said. ‘See, the aerial’s pointing up and away from me. You point it towards the aircraft. That’s the important thing. You must keep pointing it towards the aircraft.’ I twisted through ninety degrees. ‘Move it out of line, like this, and you’ll be talking to the clouds.’

  ‘What’s its range?’ asked Freya.

  I tried to remember what Mr Larson had said. ‘It’s not very powerful. Less than one watt, I think.’

  She looked at Jack anxiously. ‘That’s pathetic. Is this going to work?’

  ‘The range depends on the aircraft’s altitude,’ said Loki with an unusual hint of authority in his voice.

  I turned and stared at him. So he’d been listening to his father after all. ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, its range is about fifteen miles at ten thousand feet. And that falls to about two and a half miles at five hundred feet. So by my reckoning, with the aircraft flying in low, and with all the mountains around us, you’ll not get through to the pilot until he’s almost on top of you.’

  ‘Switch it on and demonstrate it,’ said Freya. ‘Use Bald Eagle as our call sign.’

  I put on the headphones and flicked a switch. My ears filled with hiss and crackle. ‘This is stupid,’ I said. ‘And what language do I use, anyway?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that for now. Just do it!’ she snapped.

  I felt an idiot but gazed at the controls. All of a sudden my mind went blank. Which switch was which? Which did I press first? Then what? I felt all eyes upon me.

  Loki leaned over. ‘Here, you just have flick this up. That’s all. Right, now you talk and listen. Go on then, Finn.’

  I pressed the microphone against my mouth. I decided to try speaking in English. ‘This is Bald Eagle calling—’ I looked up at Freya. ‘What’s their call sign?’

  ‘Viper,’ she replied.

  ‘This is Bald Eagle calling Viper, Bald Eagle calling Viper. Do you read me? Over.’ I looked at Jack. ‘Did I get that right?’ He nodded.

  I listened for a moment to static crackle and then pulled off the headphones. ‘Well, it seems to be working OK.’

  Freya frowned. ‘You sure that’s right? On our other radio, you have to switch between transmitting and receiving. Isn’t there something else you need to press each time?’

  ‘No,’ said Loki decisively. ‘It uses a narrow bandwidth. Transmits on three hundred and thirty-seven megacycles and receives on three hundred and eighty megacycles. No switching is necessary. That’s one of its beauties.’

  Freya stared at him. We all did. I do believe she was genuinely taken aback. I don’t think she’d ever thought of him as clever. None of us had. I smiled to myself, and packed everything away as neatly as I could while Loki remained cross-legged, looking suitably smug.

  ‘Why do you need me to operate the radio, anyway?’ I asked. ‘Surely Jack could do it, couldn’t he?’

  She didn’t reply at first. Instead, she set about clearing away our bowls and mugs. Then she paused and said, ‘Yes, Finn, he could. But the truth is, we need your help to get Jack to the rendezvous. He can barely walk more than fifty yards. He fell and twisted his ankle on his way up here. I thought that if one of you could take care of the radio, the other could help me get Jack to the aircraft.’

  I looked up and saw Jack staring at me. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Glad to help.’ I smiled at him. He scowled and looked away.


  ‘Surely there’s one problem, isn’t there?’ said Loki. ‘Finn’s English isn’t bad but it might not be good enough to guide the pilot in.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t being horrible, Finn. But if there’s a lot of hiss and crackle, if the transmissions get broken up, then it could lead to a lot of confusion.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Freya replied. ‘It should be a Norwegian pilot. One who managed to get to England when the war broke out. The RAF uses them whenever possible because they know the lie of the land better than anyone else.’

  I thought of Father. He’d not been the only Norwegian to head to Britain to do his bit. And if he’d still been alive, maybe, just maybe, he might have been the pilot heading to meet us tonight. How fantastic that would have been. To have been able to see him again.

  Loki stretched out on his side beside the fire, propping his head up with his right hand. ‘Well, Jack,’ he said, ‘I figure that if we’re going to risk life and limb to help you, then we need to know a little bit more about what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘He can’t tell you anything, Loki,’ said Freya, ‘so don’t ask.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ he said. He twisted round and caught my eye. ‘Don’t you think, Finn? I mean, Fritz is crawling all over this place and we’ve no idea why. Heimar’s been snatched and Idur’s dead, and if Heimar breaks down under interrogation, we’re all in deep trouble. At the very least, I want to know why.’

  ‘He’s right, Freya,’ I said.

  She threw Jack a glance.

  ‘Too dangerous,’ he said bluntly.

  Loki snorted in disgust. ‘Too dangerous? Well, excuse me, Jack, but the way I see it, there’s more than enough danger to go round already. A little more ain’t going to make any difference.’

  I nudged Loki’s leg and pointed to a thin leather briefcase resting up against the cave wall next to Jack. ‘What’s in that, Jack?’ I asked. ‘Your maps? Your drawings?’