Authors: James Holland
'You!' shouted the German. 'Come here!'
Stig walked towards him, praying Agnes and the boys had cleared away
the bowls and mugs and any sign of the five men. The officer stared at him,
watching his every step until Stig stopped a few yards away.
'Who lives
here?' the German asked, in fluent Norwegian.
'Myself and my
family. My wife and two boys.' Stig looked at the implacable face. The man had
a pistol by his side and behind him six men were armed with rifles. The
officer's pistol was pointed directly at Stig's stomach. 'We're looking for
soldiers,' said the officer. 'Have you seen any Norwegian troops?'
Stig shook his head.
He felt a bead of sweat run down his back.
'We've had
reports that troops were seen heading this way. You can show me around. If
you're telling the truth you have nothing to fear. The house first, I think.'
Stig led the
way, his heart thumping, to the back. He felt his hand close round the metal
latch, briefly closed his eyes, then opened the door. The officer brushed past
him, glanced around, then ordered his men to start their search.
'Where are your
family?' he asked.
'Probably in the
kitchen. It's where I left them.'
'What do you
mean?'
'After lunch,'
Stig said quickly.
The officer
studied him, eyes boring into him. 'You seem nervous,' the German said to him.
'We're not used
to having troops here. You're the first Germans I've seen. All these weapons...'
He let the sentence trail.
The officer eyed
him again. 'Continue the guided tour.'
Stig led him to the kitchen where Agnes and the two boys stood
anxiously at the far side of the table. Glancing around quickly to see that
they had removed all evidence of their guests, Stig walked over and stood
beside his family, waiting. The officer peered into a tall cupboard, then found
the door to the cellar. He shouted to his men, who were evidently checking
upstairs, the sound of heavy feet and the moving of furniture clunking loudly
through the timber boards. Two appeared soon after, ducking their helmeted
heads as they entered the low- beamed kitchen, then disappeared into the
cellar. They found nothing.
'Outside now,' the officer said, and Stig looked anxiously at his wife
and sons, then followed.
'I've a couple of sheds and a main barn,' said Stig. 'Nothing more.'
'You have a truck,' said the German. 'A Ford truck. We might need
that.'
Stig's heart sank, but the officer was now looking at the barn. A stone
and earth ramp led from the yard to the height of the first floor, and a wooden
bridge linked the ramp to two large doors at the front. Underneath the bridge
stood an old cart.
'Can you open those doors?' the officer asked him.
'Only from the
inside at the moment,' Stig explained. 'There's a wooden bolt across them.'
Instead he led them to the door at the side on the ground floor.
Above, Henrik
Larsen had his face pressed to the floorboards. There was the tiniest crack and
through it he could see Stig leading the German troops into the barn.
He, too, could
feel his heart pounding, so hard that he feared its movement would disturb some
of the dry dust and give away their position. A cow bellowed, then another, as
the soldiers roughly pushed them aside.
'And what have you got up there?' the German officer was asking Stig.
'A few stores. The remnants of last year's hay,' Stig replied.
Larsen watched as the officer pushed his way through the cows and
stared up at the floorboards above, so that it seemed to him that the German
was staring straight at him from under his peaked field cap with its curious
flower embroidered on the side. Dark eyes, square face and thin lips. Larsen
tensed as he watched the officer carefully unfasten his holster cover and
remove his pistol. And by God he felt hot under the hay, still in his shirt,
thick tunic and greatcoat. He could feel the sweat running down either side of
his face and he worried suddenly that a bead of it, rather than the dust, would
drip through the rafters. Fighting off a desperate urge to wipe his brow, he
remained still, hardly daring to blink or even breathe. Stig, he could see, was
terrified: his eyes were darting from one man to another, and he swallowed
repeatedly.
Come on, Stig,
he thought,
don't go and get
yourself killed.
As a boy, Larsen had always looked up to his
older cousin.
And now this.
The other
soldiers were also looking upwards, their rifles at the ready, as the officer
began slowly, purposefully, climbing the rungs on the ladder. Larsen watched
him, until all he could see were the German's boots and then, moments later, he
heard the man clamber out onto the floorboards beside them. His footsteps trod
carefully towards the two doors at the end. There was a clatter as he moved
something out of his way, and then he was walking back again towards the pile
of hay Larsen froze once more, then heard movement in the hay to his left.
Closing his eyes, he heard the German cock his pistol. An earth-shattering
crack jolted him as a shot rang out. But instead of feeling any searing pain or
hearing the cry of a comrade, he was aware of the German officer laughing. 'You
have one less rat in your barn,' the German called out to Stig.
After that the
Germans left, but it was not until the trucks and the car had moved on towards
the main part of the village and Stig had crept back up the ladder that any of
them dared speak.
'They're searching the rest of the village,' Stig told them, in a loud
whisper, and one by one they stood up, dusted themselves down and pulled the
wisps of hay from their collars and hair. 'They won't be able to see you -
there's a bend in the road between us, the church and the rest of the houses.'
Colonel Gulbrand clasped Stig's hands again. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I
shall make sure the King hears of what you have done for us.'
Stig smiled, his earlier terror receding. Extreme relief, mixed with a
surge of adrenalin, gave him an almost exultant feeling. 'Head back a couple of
hundred metres, then cross the bridge over the Glama,' he told Gulbrand. 'The
road along the valley leads north-west and it's clear of snow.'
The men hurried out of the barn to the open shed where the truck stood.
Throwing their packs into the back first, the younger guardsmen clambered in while
Gulbrand and the curious bespectacled man jumped into the cab. The engine
started immediately. Stig looked up at Larsen. 'Good luck,' he said. 'One day
you can come back and tell me all about it.'
'Stig, thank you,' Larsen replied. 'Take good care of yourself. Look
after your family.'
'I will.'
Larsen gripped
the wooden stock of his rifle with one hand and clenched the side of the truck
with the other as they cautiously rumbled across the yard, then turned out onto
the road. As Stig had assured them, there was no sign of the Germans. Larsen
glanced back to the farmhouse one last time and saw his cousin wave, then step
back into the house.
Gulbrand turned
the truck across the bridge, then right onto the valley road. On the other side
of the wide Glama river the village of Okset drifted into view between the
trees on the river's edge. Larsen could see, as the others could, the German
trucks by the church, and a dull ache churned once more in his belly. Surely,
he thought, they would be spotted. He could almost feel German field glasses
trained on them.
A sickening feeling washed over him as it dawned on him with sudden
clarity that his cousin would be in trouble. He couldn't believe he had been
so stupid. Why had it not occurred to him at the time? Of course the Germans
would return to the farm, find the truck gone and put two and two together.
Jesus
, he thought.
What have 1 done?
Sitting opposite him, Lieutenant Nielssen grinned. He had taken off his
cloth field cap so that his fair hair was blown across his forehead. 'What are
the odds on when our friends in the Luftwaffe will appear?'
'For Christ's sake,' muttered Stunde. He was the youngest of them, only
recently promoted to lieutenant.
'Two to one says it'll be less than an hour.'
In fact, it was half that time. They had not driven more than a dozen
miles when two Messerschmitt 110s were bearing down on them. No sooner had
Larsen seen two dots rapidly transform into wasp-like planes than rows of
bullets spat up lumps of soil behind them before catching up with the pick-up,
smashing one of the headlights from the front wings and puncturing the bonnet.
In seconds the aircraft were past, the two dark crosses on each wingtip vivid
against their pale, oil-streaked undersides. They watched the two fighters roar
onwards, then bank and turn.
'Christ, look at the bonnet!' yelled Stunde. Larsen stood up and peered
over the cab at the huge tear from which steam was hissing.
Gulbrand pulled the truck into the side of the road. 'Out, out, quick!'
he shouted.
Grabbing their rucksacks, they leapt out and ran into the dense pine
forest that rose high above the valley. This time Larsen heard the clatter of
machine-gun bullets before the roar of the aircrafts' twin engines. Pressing
his head into the snow he felt an explosion followed by a surge of bright heat
as the truck exploded in a ball of flame. Shards of glass and metal rained
through the trees, and branches crackled as those closest to the inferno caught
fire. Larsen glanced at the colonel and saw him almost smothering the civilian,
Hening Sandvold.
'Anyone hurt?' called Gulbrand. Miraculously, no one was. 'Good. Let's
get away from here.' He pulled out a map. 'We'll climb up into the mountains,
then cut across and join a road here.' He pointed.
Larsen hauled himself up beside the colonel. Drops of melting snow from
the pines were falling around them. 'You knew they'd come back for Stig.'
'It was inevitable,' he said. 'I'm sorry. He's a strong man, though.
I'm sure he'll come through.'
Larsen smiled weakly, then continued scrambling up into the mountains.
But Stig Andvard
was already dead. As Colonel Gulbrand had known all along - and Larsen and his
cousin had realized too late - the Germans had seen the truck speeding along
the far side of the valley with five men aboard. When they returned to the farm
and found the pick-up gone, Hauptmann Wolf Zellner, in his fury at being duped
by a mere farmer, had taken out his pistol and shot Stig in the head. As Larsen
scrabbled up out of the snow, Agnes lay over her prostrate husband, wailing
with grief while a pool of blood spread in an ever- widening circle across the
packed ice next to the empty shed.
More than two
hundred and fifty miles away, as the crow flies, a British Royal Navy light cruiser
steamed across the North Sea towards the Norwegian coast. There was a moderate
swell and grey clouds overhead, conditions enough to ensure that HMS
Pericles
pitched and rolled
with gusto as she carved her way through the grey-green sea. For the majority
of the infantrymen being given passage - and whose stomachs were used to a
steadier footing - this movement was too much. Below decks, soldiers lay in
their bunks, pallid and groaning. A few played cards or smoked, but despite the
smell of tobacco and oil, the stench of vomit was overwhelming.
It was why one soldier was on the main deck. An experienced sailor
compared with most of the novices on board, he'd had no seasickness and, now
that the rain had stopped, had stepped out into the bracing North Sea air.
Leaning against the railings to the port side of the forward six-inch
gun turret, he watched the bow pitching into the sea, arcs of white spray
pluming into the air. The wind brought tiny droplets of seawater across the
decks, and he found the thin spray refreshing against his face.
He stood a little over six foot tall, with broad shoulders and dark
skin from years of being baked in a hot sun, and bolstered during the past week
in Scotland by unusually warm, sunny weather. Dark brown hair and brows accentuated
his pale blue eyes, from which spread the lines of crow's feet. His nose was
narrow but slightly askew, broken several times over the years. Otherwise his
face was clean-shaven and as yet largely unlined - although he was still only
twenty-four, his demeanour and the overall impression he gave were those of
someone several years older.
Sergeant Jack Tanner glanced casually at a passing seaman, then
shuffled his shoulders. The thick serge still felt unfamiliar after years of
wearing cotton drill, and the unlined collar made his neck itch, but he was not
one of those mourning the demise of the old service dress, with its long tunic
and leggings. The RSM had been broken-hearted, but that was because he had
known no other uniform and because he liked his men to look immaculate on the
parade ground - all polished boots and shiny brass buttons, service caps down
over the eyes. Looking smart was all very well, but Tanner had come to learn
that practicality was more important when trying to kill the enemy, which was
why he approved of the new khaki battle dress, with its short blouse and
high-backed trousers, so completely different from anything that had come
before, and which had not yet reached either India or the Middle East. Indeed,
the battalion had only been issued with the new pattern a few weeks before.