Authors: James Holland
A raised hand from Sykes provided him with the distraction he needed.
Tanner had sent the corporal and McAllister up ahead and the two were now
squatting fifty yards in front. Warning the rest of the patrol to halt, Tanner
moved in a crouch towards the two men. 'What is it?' he whispered, as he
reached them.
'I'm not sure,' said Sykes. 'I thought I saw someone up ahead. Behind
that rock.' He pointed to an outcrop, some fifteen foot high, emerging darkly
from the snow next to a young pine some hundred yards ahead. Silently, Tanner
signalled to the rest of the patrol to move forward, then holding his arm out
flat and with his open hand facing the ground, waved downwards to make sure
they, too, crouched as they came. The three men of the Bren group were the
first to reach them. 'Dan, get ready with the
Bren,' he said,
under his breath to Lance-Corporal Erwood. 'Mac,' he said softly to McAllister,
'you and I will move forward. Make a run for a tree, then cover me as I go to
the next. Then I'll cover you. All right? Dan, you cover us with the Bren. The
rest of you stay here, don't make a sound, and watch our backs.'
McAllister, clutching his rifle, took a deep breath, then set off,
making for a tree no more than ten yards away. Tanner followed. Whoever was
behind the rock - if anyone - made no attempt to move. They pushed forward
again until, as Tanner was leading, he spotted a line of blood and several
footprints in the snow. He beckoned McAllister to him and pointed to the trail.
'There's someone there, all right,' he whispered to McAllister.
'What do we do now, Sarge?'
'You wait here.'
Treading carefully, Tanner approached. Yards from the rock, he paused.
From the other side he could hear voices, faint and indecipherable. Slinging
his Enfield over his shoulder, he began to climb the rock. He had noticed that
the top was reasonably level, and having deftly scaled the southern side, he
crouched across the broad roof of the outcrop and unslung his rifle. Pulling
back the bolt as quietly and carefully as he could, he peered over the edge.
There were three men, two of them soldiers in blue- grey Norwegian
uniforms. On the right was a young officer, while on the left was a much older
man who, although clad in a Norwegian army greatcoat, wore civilian clothes. In
the middle, clutching his side, was another Norwegian army officer. A trail of
blood followed him round the side of the rock to where he now sat propped
against the dark stone.
'You look like
you're in trouble,' said Tanner. The three men flinched and looked up,
startled. 'Who are you?'
'I am Colonel
Peder Gulbrand of His Majesty the King's Guard,' gasped the man in the middle.
Jack Tanner
noticed another set of footprints leading away from the rock. 'Whose are
those?' he asked.
'Lieutenant
Larsen, also a member of His Majesty the King's Guard,' said the younger man,
in heavily accented English. 'He has gone to find somewhere for us to hole up.
Our colonel needs help.'
Tanner signalled
to his men, then clambered down from the rock. 'Me and my men are from the 5th
Battalion, the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers,' he told them. 'That makes us
allies. I'm Sergeant Tanner.'
'And I am
Lieutenant Nielssen,' replied the blond officer.
Tanner looked at
the colonel. 'Is it bad?'
'A splinter in his
side,' Nielssen told him. 'He's lost a lot of blood. We were attacked an hour
ago. The stupid German missed us, but a shard of wood from a tree struck the
colonel.'
'We saw the
attack,' said Tanner, kneeling beside Gulbrand and pulling out another twin
pack of field dressings. 'He was more successful firing at us. Two dead.'
'I'm sorry,' said Nielssen. Tanner was conscious of a tapping sound and
turned to see the civilian clicking together two small stones. The man looked
exhausted, with dark hollows around his spectacled eyes and an unkempt
moustache and grey stubble around his lined face. Seeing Tanner's glance, he
stopped tapping the stones, dropping them by his side into the snow.
'And who are you?' asked Tanner, as he tore open the cotton and ripped
off the waterproof covering around each of the dressings.
'Someone we are escorting,' said Gulbrand hoarsely before the other
could answer.
Tanner nodded.
You don't want to tell me. Fine.
It wasn't his business.
'Is the shard still inside?' he asked.
Gulbrand nodded. 'Yes.' He grimaced, then opened his coat and tunic.
His shirt was almost entirely red and glistened stickily. With clenched teeth,
he lifted it free. Tanner inspected the wound. The blood was bright crimson.
The tip of the shard protruded from the colonel's side. Tanner rubbed his face.
Tiredness. It was catching up with him again.
'What do you think?' asked Gulbrand, his English near flawless.
'That it's embedded in your liver, Colonel,' said Tanner.
'I think you're right.' He took a sudden sharp breath and winced.
'I can't pull it out,' said Tanner, still peering at the wound. 'Do
that and you'll bleed to death in about ten minutes.'
'He needs a hospital,' said Lieutenant Nielssen, 'an operation, and soon.'
'Easier said than done, mate,' said Corporal Sykes, now standing over
Tanner.
'What about Lillehammer?' said Nielssen. 'Two of your men could take
him.'
'Two of our men?' said Sykes. 'Are you having a laugh? Even if they
made it back down the mountain, they'd walk straight into Jerry hands.
Lillehammer's fallen, if you hadn't already noticed.'
'I know - we saw earlier ... But they would save the life of the
colonel.'
'If you're so bloody keen, why don't you two take him?'
'Shut your trap, Stan,' growled Tanner. 'You're not helping.' He turned
to Gulbrand. 'Colonel, it's a bad wound. I'm sorry. Your lieutenant's right.
You need a hospital.' He delved into his haversack again and produced a small
tube of gentian violet antiseptic ointment. 'I don't carry much first aid, but
this should help prevent infection.' He gingerly pasted the cream over the
wound, then placed the dressings over it. Gulbrand cried out, but Tanner took
another packet from Sykes, tore it open and wrapped more bandages round the colonel's
waist. 'Why can't your men take you to Lillehammer, Colonel?' he asked. 'The
fighting's going to be over soon. Better to live and fight another day, eh?'
'They can't,' Gulbrand gasped. 'It's impossible.'
'Why?'
Gulbrand stared hard at him, but did not answer.
Instead he said,
'Tell me, Sergeant, what are you doing up here?'
Tanner told him, then added, 'But now we need to get a move on. The
front's fallen back this afternoon. I'm damned if I'm going to let us get
stranded.'
'We're holding you up. I'm sorry.'
'But you're natives, sir. We help you, you can help us. We desperately
need a map, and someone who speaks Norwegian would be useful.' He noticed that
the sounds of battle from the valley had quietened. An occasional aircraft,
desultory shellfire, that was all. Had the Allies fallen back yet again? 'And
what about you, sir?' he asked Gulbrand. 'Why are you up here?'
Gulbrand closed his eyes. 'It's a long story.'
Tanner was about to ask him more when Lieutenant Larsen appeared. He
had found a
seter,
a mountain hut used by herdsmen and shepherds during the summer, not far away.
It would offer them shelter.
'We'll help get you there,' said Tanner, 'but then my men and I must
push on. Put your arm round my neck,' he told the colonel. He glanced once more
at the strange civilian. The man was gazing out through the trees, seemingly in
a world of his own. Tanner called over to Sykes. 'Here, Stan, give me a hand,
will you?' They lifted Gulbrand. 'Can you walk?' Tanner asked.
'With your help, I'm sure.'
The civilian now awkwardly got to his feet and with enormous effort,
slung his pack on to his back, and then staggered a pace or two, so that Tanner
thought he might fall over backwards. 'Does he speak English?' Tanner asked
Gulbrand, he was conscious he had not heard the man utter a word.
'Yes. Almost everyone does in Oslo and the coastal cities. It's only
inland that you will struggle to be understood.'
Tanner turned to the man. 'Carry the colonel's pack, will you? Come on,
we need all the help we can get.'
The man smiled
sheepishly then pulled it on to his shoulder, faltering as he did so.
Reichsamtsleiter
Hans-Wilhelm Scheidt sat at his desk in his rooms at the Continental Hotel, the
black telephone receiver to his ear. Anger surged through him as he listened to
Sturmbannfuhrer Paul Kurz's latest report - rage fuelled, he knew, by his
mounting fear of failure. Damn it, Terboven was not a man to mess with, and
only a couple of hours after his meeting with the new Reichskommissar, Kurz was
on the line telling him that the most important man in his life had narrowly
missed getting a 20mm cannon shell through his guts.
'For God's sake, Kurz, that's the second time one of those flyboys has
nearly killed him. We were fortunate he survived the last one. It might be third
time lucky for those idiots and then where will we be? We need him
alive,
Kurz, not spread over some bastard mountain.'
'Calm down, Scheidt,' said Kurz, from his newly requisitioned office in
Lillehammer. 'We've just heard. They got the colonel, and seriously too. Even
if he doesn't die of his wound - and the odds are that he will - he's out of
the picture, as far as they're concerned. Odin is as good as in our hands
already.'
'Only if the Allies haven't got him before you reach him,' snarled
Scheidt. 'Now, do what you're supposed to do, Kurz, and tell that idiot Geisler
to stop his pilots attacking those men.'
Scheidt had heard the panic in his voice and so had Kurz. 'Don't try to
tell me my job, Herr Schcidt.' Kurz told him flatly.
'Listen,' fumed Scheidt, 'you do your job and you won't hear me
complaining. But if anything happens to Odin before we've had the chance to get
the information from him neither you nor I will have a career, let alone a
life. Now, you're the SD man here - start using your influence and get
Geisler's boys to keep away from them.'
'Stop worrying,' said Kurz. 'We'll find them soon enough. They're not
going to get very far up there.'
'That's just not good enough!' Scheidt exploded. 'For Christ's sake, so
far you've let them slip through your hands once, and twice nearly had them
shot to smithereens by the Luftwaffe. Don't tell me to calm down - tell me what
you're doing to find Odin. What troops have you got for the operation? Tell me
they're already tracking them down. Damn it, Sturmbannfuhrer, why the hell am I
having to ask you all this? Tell me something that gives me confidence -
something that makes me believe you're actually trying to get to this man.'
'You politicians,' said Kurz, 'always the same. I'm sure it seems very
straightforward to you from where you're sitting on your arse in Oslo, but up
here Engelbrecht's division are facing the British and Norwegians - there's
been heavy fighting all day. The SD don't have the authority to tell generals
to hand over their troops for an operation they know nothing about.'
Scheidt pinched the bridge of his nose wearily.
Give me patience.
He'd always
thought the Sicherheitsdienst were an unintelligent and idle lot. 'Then tell
them Terboven orders it.'
There was a sigh at the other end of the line. 'Jesus, Scheidt, of
course. That's exactly what I have done, but the entire Army is not at our beck
and call. And you're forgetting that we only learnt of Odin's whereabouts this
morning, and that's pretty vague - and it was only earlier today that
Lillehammer fell. As it happens, I've got a company of reconnaissance troops
from Dietl's Gebirgsjager Division, and I've had to pull a lot of strings to
get them. They're attached to Engelbrecht's division. They're setting off to
hunt for them now.' He paused. 'And they'll get Odin because Gulbrand's out of
the picture and those Norwegians aren't going to get far, up on that mountain.
Tomorrow morning, Herr Reichsamtsleiter, we'll have an altogether more pleasant
conversation.'
It was Scheidt's turn to sigh. 'Just get him, Kurz. Get men up into
those mountains, find Odin and bring him to me in one piece.' He slammed down
the telephone and slumped back in his chair. A cigarette and a drink, that was
what he needed. He leant forward, opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a
bottle of cognac. Having poured himself a generous measure, he lit a cigarette.
The smoke danced in front of him, curling towards the ceiling. The brandy stung
his lips and tongue, then pleasurably burnt the back of his throat.
Argh, but that was good.
He stood up, walked to the window and gazed out over the city. It
seemed so quiet, so peaceful. Perhaps Kurz was right. Perhaps he
was
just sitting on his arse.
Was there really any need to remain in Oslo for the rest of the month?
Quisling's pride might have been wounded, but he was busy with his new role as
Commissioner for Demobilization and, in any case, still had Hagelin, Aall and
the other leading National Party members around him. Quisling, Scheidt
realized, could do without him for a few days.