Authors: James Holland
Tanner shook his head. 'Why are you saying this, sir?'
'Because I am not sure I know what to do.'
'Listen, sir, there's no road this side - other than
that in the valley - for more than twenty miles and that leads away from the
coast. Then there is nothing for a further fifty miles or more. Think about our
progress these past days. We have neither the time nor the strength to catch up
with the Allies. Our only chance is by finding transport and using roads as
much as we possibly can. That means we have to cross the valley.'
'Yes,' said Larsen. 'You are probably right. But it
feels as though we are heading into the lion's den, and I have my duty too: to
the King and the mission he entrusted to us. Sandvold cannot be taken by the
enemy.'
'He won't be,' said Tanner grimly. 'I won't let that
happen.' He flicked away his cigarette. 'Perhaps, sir, you should talk to
Chevannes. He's more likely to listen to you than me. And it would be useful to
have Anna Rostad with us too. It's about survival, not about honour and
decorum.'
Larsen smiled. 'All right, Sergeant. Yes, I will do
that.'
Tanner nodded, then turned towards the barn.
'And, Sergeant?'
Tanner stopped.
'I am glad we have had this talk.'
'Me too, sir,' said Tanner. But now, he thought, it was time to stop
worrying about people's feelings and get on with the bloody mission.
That morning, Tanner and Lieutenant Chevannes avoided each other as far
as possible. Certainly there was no need for Tanner further to argue his case
because, with the men roused, Chevannes stood at the entrance to the barn and
outlined the plan exactly as he and Anna Rostad had suggested the previous
evening. 'After careful thought,' he told them, 'I have devised a plan that I
believe gives us the best chance of success.' They would be crossing the valley
that night, he announced, and they were to spend the day resting and getting
ready for the continuation of their mission. The three wounded men were to be
taken into Tretten, he told them. 'It means they will become prisoners,' he
added solemnly, 'but they will also have a chance to live.' Neither did Chevannes
object to Tanner's suggestion that he accompany Anna and Erik Rostad part of
the way.
'He's hoping you'll get caught, Sarge,' said Sykes.
Tanner grinned. 'You might be right, Stan.'
First, however, Anna Rostad would lead them to the
cave, in the woods above the farm, where they would lie up until evening. It
proved to be ideal, no more than a quarter of a mile from the farm, approached
first through bare grey grassland, then through dense pine forest where there
were only patchy drifts of snow, enabling them to reach it without leaving a
trail of footprints. The entrance to the cave was further hidden by a jutting
rockface.
Tanner left Sykes in charge of the men and his own
packs. 'You know the drill, Stan,' he told him. 'And don't let Sandvold out of
your sight.' He hoped he would not be seen, but had left his jerkin and tin
helmet behind, instead taking the German wind jacket and field cap.
It was an old, creaking cart, led by a plodding mule.
Erik Rostad sat up front with his daughter, his foot resting on the flimsy
brake pedal, as they stuttered down the track. Saxby was awake and, sitting in
the back with the three men, Tanner saw him contort with pain at every jolting
stone the cart passed over. 'All right, Sax,' said Tanner. 'Not long now.'
'I don't want to die,' Saxby mumbled. 'I don't want
the Jerries to kill me.'
'They won't. They'll look after you. Make you better.'
Tanner watched tears run down his face. 'You've got to be strong,' he told him.
'You're a fighter, I know you are. Be brave and you'll get through this. One
day you can go home.' He knew he sounded trite. He was sending them to the
Germans in the hope that the enemy would show compassion but, really, he had no
idea whether they would or not.
Hell,
he thought, and moved away from
Saxby's misery to draw alongside Anna and her father. 'Thank you for doing
this,' he said.
'I only wish we could have looked after them ourselves,'
said Anna. 'I'm training to be a doctor, so I feel bad that I cannot help
more.'
'Where are you training, Miss?'
'In Oslo. Or, rather, I was. The war has interrupted
my studies. I'm afraid I've rather a long way to go, but in any case, I don't
have the equipment or medicines to help these men.' She tucked a loose strand
of hair behind her ear, then glanced at Tanner, a wistful expression - and
framed by such a lovely face, he thought. It was madness, but he wished he
could hold her and tell her all would be well: that her brother Jonny would
come home, that the Germans would go away and that one day she would be a
doctor. For the first time since the war had broken out, he began to realize
what a terrible thing it must be for the Norwegians. He tried to imagine how he
would feel if there were Germans swarming across England. It was
incomprehensible.
'I'm sorry, Miss,' he said. 'It must be a very
difficult time for you.'
'Yes - yes, it is. One minute I feel overcome with
grief, for Norway, for me, for Jonny; the next just very angry. It's one of the
reasons I want to come with you. I don't want to sit at home feeling sorry for
myself and wondering what will become of us all. I want to
do
something.'
'I had a word with Lieutenant Larsen this morning,
Miss,' he told her. 'He said he would speak to Lieutenant Chevannes again.' For
a brief moment, he held her gaze.
Those
eyes,
he
thought. 'And for what it's worth,' he added, 'I think you'd be a great help to
us.'
She smiled. 'Thank you for saying that.'
Tanner stayed with the cart until they had the first
glimpse of the valley road below. Pasture and forest jostled for space along
the lower slopes of the valley, but by weaving his way and keeping within the
treeline, Tanner was confident he could remain hidden.
'You won't have to go far along here,' Anna told him.
'You'll soon see Tretten below you.'
Tanner thanked her and wished them luck, then paused to take Saxby's
hand. The lad was only nineteen. 'You'll be all right,' Tanner told him. Saxby
looked at him, with resentment, deep sadness and resignation, then turned his
head away. The cart trundled on, and as Tanner watched it rumble down the
track, doubt and guilt flooded over him.
The telephone in his hotel room rang shrilly, shattering the silence in
which Reichsamtsleiter Scheidt had been lying for the past three hours. It was
Kurz, asking him to come over right away. Scheldt's spirits soared -
at last
! -
but then as he replaced the receiver he realized there
had been little euphoria in Kurz's voice, and pessimism filled him instead.
He looked at his watch. Seven forty, getting on for
twelve hours since news had arrived that Zellner's men had come under attack.
Yet there had been good news too: the mountain troops were closing in on Odin,
and his capture would surely follow soon.
Scheidt had waited, on tenterhooks, ever since, but
the call had never come. It had been a long night of little sleep. A night of
too many cigarettes, a half-bottle of brandy, and too much time in the armchair
by the window staring out at the cold starry night. With impatient fingers, he
put on his NSDAP jacket and cap once more, his long cavalry boots and black
breeches.
What
could possibly have gone wrong?
He left the room, door slamming behind him, hurried
through the hotel out into the crisp sunshine and almost ran to Kurz's office.
The SS major looked up as Scheidt entered, his face
grave.
'Good morning,' he said, stubbing out a cigarette in a
green marble ashtray. 'We need to go to Tretten. Come on, I've got the car
outside.'
'They haven't found Odin?'
'Worse,' said Kurz, brushing past him and heading for
the front door.
In the car - a requisitioned black Citroen from Oslo -
Kurz gave him the bad news. Hauptmann Zellner and just eight of his men had
reached von Poncets' new headquarters in Tretten a short while ago. Stripped to
their shirts, underclothes and trousers, mostly wearing British Army boots,
they had stumbled into the station house in a terrible state.
'Needless to say,' added Kurz, 'they did not bring
Odin.'
For a few moments, Scheidt was unable to speak. He
thought of the confidence of von Poncets the day before, the square-jawed
youthfulness and apparent professionalism of Hauptmann Zellner. It was
impossible to think that a platoon of mountain troops - supposedly elite troops
- had failed so spectacularly.
'However,' said Kurz at length, 'Engelbrecht's boys
did take Tretten and the bulk of von Poncets' troops performed admirably. The
British were crushed yesterday.'
'I don't give a damn about that,' snapped Scheidt.
'As
far as I'm concerned they should
damn well forget about the rest of the war until Odin has been captured. And no
contact?'
Kurz shook his head. 'Not yet, but we'll hear something
today, I'm sure.'
'Where the hell are they now?' Scheidt muttered, to
himself more than to Kurz.
'I've asked the Luftwaffe for more air
reconnaissance.'
'What would you do, Kurz, if you'd seen off your
pursuers?'
'I'd try to make as much ground as possible,
especially now that the snow's melting.'
'Not on the mountains, it's not.' Scheidt drummed a fist against his
leg. 'We have to find him, Kurz. We
have
to find him.'
Tretten was a hive of activity. A small place, like so many of the
valley settlements, it now heaved with troops, most of whom, however, were
loading up into carts, wagons, trucks and armoured vehicles ready for the
advance up the Gudbrandsdal valley. A short way off the road, above the
village, Scheidt watched a burial party lining up bodies of German dead in a
grey-looking field. By the side of the road the legs of two dead horses pointed
stiffly skywards. A burnt-out truck, stripped and skeletal, lay turned over in
a ditch, while opposite, a column of dishevelled British and Norwegian
prisoners were being ushered into trucks. Kurz drove slowly, weaving through
the bottleneck of troops and vehicles, passing bombed-out houses, piles of rubble
and charred timber. Even in the close confines of the Citroen, the smell of a
recently fought battle was pervasive.
Eventually Kurz turned off the road and down to the
station. Two guards presented arms as they entered the building. Inside, clerks
and staff officers were busy organizing the next German thrust down the valley.
Phones rang, typewriters clattered. Scheidt and Kurz were led upstairs to see
Major von Poncets, who greeted them with the affability he had shown the
previous day.
'Congratulations, Herr Major,' said Scheidt. 'Another
easy victory, just as you predicted.'
'More costly than I'd hoped, but thank you,' he
replied. 'And I'm sorry I don't have better news for you regarding Odin. Those
men the Norwegians are with clearly have more steel than we had appreciated.'
'Where is Hauptmann Zellner?' asked Scheidt.
'He'll be here any moment. I sent him to get a new
uniform.'
'And what now?' asked Scheidt. 'When will you mount
another search?'
Von Poncets smiled, and offered both men a cigar,
which Kurz accepted and Scheidt declined. 'The Tommies have fallen back a long
way, it seems. Our recce boys have been flying up and down the valley since
first light and there's little sign of them. It's one thing advancing a few
kilometres, but to shift our entire forces any distance takes time. We're
moving most of our men out today—'
'So we saw,' said Kurz.
'Yes, well, most will be gone by this evening. Nearly
all the men you saw were from the four battalions of the 324th and 345th Infantry
Regiments, but there is also Artillery Regiment 223 to move, a further
machine-gun battalion, a number of panzers and, of course, my own men. Then
there are all the accompanying equipment, ammunition, rations and so on, which
must be in place before we can attack again. It's easy for the defenders to
cover ground quickly because they only take what they can. We have to be better
prepared. So.' He clapped his hands together. 'What am I trying to say to you?
I'm saying we have something of a respite on our hands.'