Authors: James Holland
'I've been hit in the head!' Riggs shouted, but he was still upright.
'Can you keep going?' Tanner said, grabbing Riggs's greatcoat and, with
Sykes, propelling the lad forward.
'I think so,' he gasped.
Shots were still pinging through the trees, snapping branches and
ricocheting off rocks, but most were fizzing harmlessly above their heads. A
burr of intermittent machine-gun fire also cut through the mountain. 'Just keep
going, lads. Run,' Tanner urged, as they rejoined their tracks to slide and
stumble away from the enemy.
Only once the shots died out did they pause, bent double and gasping.
Tanner put an arm round Riggs's shoulders. 'You're still alive, then?'
'I think I must be in shock, Sarge.'
'Let's have a look at you.' Blood covered the side of Riggs's face and
neck. 'Under all this red stuff you look pretty intact,' said Tanner, as he
clutched Riggs's head and peered intently at it. Then he spotted a gash at the
side of his forehead and laughed. 'It's a bloody little nick! You've been
grazed by a bullet or a splinter or something. But you'll live. You'll be
fine.'
'It really hurts, though, Sarge.'
'Stop being such an old woman, Private,' said Sykes, pulling out a
field-dressing pack.
'No, hang on a minute with that, Stan,' said Tanner. 'Bit of blood in
the snow could be useful. Here, Harry, lean over a bit.' He pushed Riggs's head
forward. 'Good thing about a cut on the head - lots of blood. That's it, drip
there.'
'Bloody hell, Sarge, I'm draining away here!' Riggs was indignant.
'King and country, Riggs, think of that,' said Tanner. 'Right, now
iggery. Let's get a move on back to the others and, Harry, if you could lean
your head forward as we run, I'd be much obliged.' Sykes and Chambers grinned
at him. Tanner slapped Riggs on the back. 'Well, done, Harry,' he said. 'You're
a brave man - a very brave man.'
'How long do you reckon that'll hold them up, Sarge?' Sykes asked, as
Tanner unslung his rifle, quickly unscrewed the scope and placed it back in his
trouser pocket.
'Not long. But it'll make them more cautious, and that'll slow them.
Those Jerries'll be a bit on edge now, too, and that's what we want. And, of
course, there's a few less for us to worry about.'
'That was good shooting back there, Sarge,' said Chambers, as they
hurried onwards, following the tracks in the snow.
'Thanks, Punter. A bit wild, I'm afraid but, dead or wounded, I reckon
maybe ten won't be going any further today.'
'That was twenty shots in about half a minute.' Chambers was quite
animated. 'I've never seen anyone fire so fast.'
'Really?' said Tanner. 'I don't know who's been teaching you to shoot,
then. Any half-decent shot should be able to fire thirty well-aimed rounds a
minute. If you've got someone at hand with spare magazines, it's not hard to
fire forty a minute. Have you Territorial boys never been taught that?'
'No, Sarge,' admitted Chambers. 'We've done plenty of marksmanship but
we've never timed ourselves.'
'Well, get practising, then.'
Pausing frequently to glance behind them, they hurried on, following
the tracks of the rest of the column. Tanner conceded that Riggs now needed to
staunch the flow of blood so they stopped to wrap a bandage round his head.
Despite the hold-up, they had caught up with the others in half an hour.
Ignoring the questions of his men, Tanner reported to Chevannes straight away.
He told the Frenchman little, except to warn him that there were now about
thirty men pursuing them.
'We must keep going,' said Chevannes.
'And watch our flanks,' added Tanner. 'They'll still be in better shape
than us. They'll follow our tracks but they could probably outflank us and have
us surrounded if we're not careful.'
'Thank you, Sergeant,' said Chevannes. 'I do realize that.'
It was just after six o'clock. Tanner guessed they must be level with
Tretten, although he knew better than to ask Chevannes if he could have a look
at the map. From the valley, guns and shells could be heard clearly. How much
further was Chevannes going to take them before they cut down into the valley?
They were so close; tantalizingly so. The sound of battle told him the Allies
were still there. Another half-hour, and he reckoned they'd make it - thirty
minutes, that was all. He also knew that their pursuers would be upon them
sooner than that.
And then he heard the enemy mountain troops attacking from the flank.
They all heard it - the increase in shelling, the intensity of small-arms fire,
suddenly loud and echoing across the valley and up the mountain. Through the
trees they could see Stukas wheeling and diving, their manic sirens screaming
through the din of battle.
For a moment, no one said a word. No one needed to. After all, what was
there to say? The Allied positions in Tretten were about to be overrun. How
could it be otherwise with that weight of fire? All too soon they'd be back
where they'd started, high on a mountain, without food or rest, out of reach of
safety once more. Only now the enemy was stalking them.
Tanner tried desperately to think. Despair engulfed him. Despair,
frustration and, above all, anger.
Think! think!
he told himself. Then ahead, through the
trees, he saw something, and an idea entered his head.
It gave him a glimmer of hope.
Reichsamtsleiter
Hans-Wilhelm Scheidt had returned to Lillehammer in a better mood than when he
had walked into Kurz's office earlier that day. He had, he felt certain, been
right to leave Oslo. Kurz was clearly unreliable. Despite the SD officer's
words of assurance, Scheidt recognized in him a man who enjoyed the trappings
of power and authority but who was consumed by idleness and complacency.
Thank God I'm here
, he told
himself. Here in Lillehammer he could make sure people like Kurz got up off
their lazy arses. He could chivvy Kurz and badger Army men like Engelbrecht.
Keeping control was essential - he simply couldn't afford to allow others to
let Odin slip from his grasp.
A room in a hotel not two minutes' walk from Kurz's office was the
ideal place in which to make his temporary new base. The hotel owner had given
in without a word when Scheidt had announced he was requisitioning the best
room. Too frightened to refuse, Scheidt guessed, from the ashen expression on
the man's face.
His room was dark and not a little shabby - far removed from the
splendour of the Continental Hotel in Oslo. Indeed, up here in the central
interior of the country it felt like a different world. The villages were small
and sparsely populated; Lillehammer was more like a large village than a town.
There were few metalled roads, and despite the single railway line, the entire
area seemed little more than a vast expanse of mountain, water and forest -
perhaps a good place to hide, but not for long. All too soon, the harsh
conditions would flush out any man on the run.
Where was Sandvold? Perhaps already in the hands of the mountain
troops. Scheidt had been impressed by both von Poncets and Hauptmann Zellner.
Both had the kind of energy and determination that gave him confidence. The
Wehrmacht, he reflected, might be rigid and rather narrow-minded, but they were
straightforward to deal with - certainly a damn sight more so than the
Allgemeine-SS.
Scheidt lit a
cigarette and looked out of the dormer window of his room. In the streets
below, Lillehammer was quiet, almost slothful, but some miles to the north, he
could hear the dull thud and reverberation of battle. 'We're winning,' von
Poncets had told him. Now Reichsamtsleiter Scheidt had to win his personal
battle.
Despite
Reichsamtsleiter Scheldt's mounting confidence, Hauptmann Wolf Zellner had not
yet caught Odin.
Less than an hour earlier, however, when the tracks of about twenty men
had been spotted in the snow, he had been convinced they had found the group
they were looking for. With the thrill of the chase surging through him, he had
given the order to proceed with all speed. Success, he had felt sure, was just
round the corner. Soon, they would spot their quarry. Then they would inch
forward and surround them. Footsore and weary, the Tommies would gladly
surrender and Odin would be theirs. He had even played in his mind the scene at
von Poncets' HQ, as he handed over the Norwegian. 'Odin, sir, as requested.'
But then they had been ambushed - which, most definitely, had not been
part of his imaginary script. Eleven men, he'd lost. Eleven! Four were dead,
and another five probably would be soon if he didn't get them off the mountain.
Two were only lightly wounded and, of the more seriously hit, two would need to
be carried. And that caused him another headache. He couldn't let the wounded -
his
men - bleed to death in the
snow, but neither could he afford to leave any of the unharmed to tend them.
They had left one group from the platoon behind at the request of his
Battalion CO, who had wanted them for the company's part in the outflanking
operation at Tretten. At the time, he had agreed immediately, but he wished now
he had those ten men. Under the canopy of pines, staring at the bright blood
streaked across the snow, Zellner had quickly weighed his options. Common sense
suggested he should return. He now had twenty-eight fully fit men, of which at
least four would have to stay behind. That gave him only the slightest
numerical advantage. To make matters worse, the enemy had proved they would not
lie down quietly.
Zellner had pondered these factors for a few moments. He was
twenty-four, an Austrian from Innsbruck, and had been with the 3rd Gebirgsjager
Division since Austrian and German unification following the Anschluss two
years before, and with the Austrian 5th Gebirgsjager Division before that. He
had trained with unflinching dedication, proud not only to be part of such an
obviously elite unit but of his own performance. He understood the importance
of leading by example, and had been determined that he should be fitter than
any of his men; that he should be a better mountaineer; and that his survival
skills in sub-freezing conditions were second to none. In this he had succeeded
and he had arrived in Norway confident that he and his men would be a match
for any enemy troops they confronted.
So far, however, they had barely been tested. He had trained for years,
waiting for the chance to fight and test himself in battle, yet as far as he
could make out, the war in Norway had been won so far by the Luftwaffe and the
gunners. As infantry, it seemed that their role was merely to mop up. It
bothered him, too, that the only time he had been given a specific task -
namely the capture of the Norwegian King's men a few days before - he had
failed. Duped by a peasant farmer. The man had made a fool of him so Zellner
had killed him.
Nagging doubts entered his head again. That had been clever shooting by
the enemy. Two or more of them must have had sniper rifles and that in itself
had surprised him. Indeed, the shooting had caught them completely off-guard,
and had caused their first combat deaths since the beginning of the campaign.
His men, every bit as confident as he had been before the shooting, were
stunned, he could tell; good comrades were dead. Moreover, it had held them up,
stopping them in their tracks.
With sudden
clarity Zellner cast aside the doubts. Instinct told him that his enemy was not
well armed, despite the sniper rifles. His men, however, still had three MG30
machine-guns. Furthermore, if the streams of British and Norwegian prisoners he
had seen earlier that day were anything to go by, the enemy up ahead would be
ill-equipped for mountain operations, short of sleep and food. His men, in
contrast, were fit, healthy and, he was certain, a match for anyone. In any
case, failure a second time would be too bitter a pill to swallow. They would
go after those men and capture Odin. Then he would find the men with the sniper
rifles and kill them.
Sergeant Tanner
regarded the
seter
ahead. In appearance it was much like the one they had sheltered in the
previous evening - a rough wooden hut perhaps fifteen feet long. It was
slightly further up the mountain, in a clearing, and beyond it, a mountain
stream ran from a narrow ravine above into a shallower one below. Across the
brook, however, there were plenty of large stones, while yet more pines
overlooked the shallow ravine above the
seter
.
'Do you see what I see, Stan?' Tanner said to Sykes.
'Another hut, Sarge,' said Sykes.
'Correct,' said Tanner. 'And a stream.' He rubbed
his chin. 'Nice place to set up a juicy ambush, I
reckon.'
Sykes looked at him doubtfully. Like Chambers, he had been impressed by
Tanner's cool-headed shooting earlier. Indeed, his respect for his sergeant had
grown steadily, but he couldn't see how a run-down shack could be a good place
for an ambush. In fact, he wasn't sure any kind of ambush was a good idea.
'Not sure about that, Sarge,' he said. 'Wouldn't it be better if we
just hurried up a bit? Don't want to invite trouble, do we?'