We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance (11 page)

"Take it easy, take it easy," he said in alarm. "Everything's all
right." Jan looked round him and saw that the kitchen was empty,
and grinned and said he was sorry.

"You can't lie there all day," Lockertsen said. "The wife'll be wanting to cook. But I've made up my mind. You can go up in the loft and
have your sleep out, and then we'll see what's to be done with you."

Jan gratefully did as he told him; and when he woke again in the
middle of the day, refreshed and capable of explaining himself,
Lockertsen's distrust of him soon disappeared. Fru Lockertsen and
their daughter fed him and fussed over him and Lockertsen himself
grew amiable and asked him where he was going. Jan answered
vaguely, "Over the mountains," and Lockertsen offered to take him
part of his way in the motorboat if that would help him.

Jan's idea of where he was going was really rather vague. By that
time, by process of subconscious reasoning, he had decided to make
for Sweden. He knew he ought to tell London what had happened.
At headquarters they would soon be expecting signals from his
party's transmitter, and they would already be waiting for Brattholm
to get back to Shetland. In a week or two they would give her up as
lost, and when no signals were heard they would probably guess that
the whole party had been lost at sea. No one would ever know,
unless he told them, that he was alive, and sooner or later, in the
autumn perhaps, they would send another party. It would really be
stupid for him to try to work on alone when nobody in England
knew he was there. Any work he could do might clash with a second
party's plans. The proper thing for him to do, he could see, was to get into Sweden and fly back to England and join the second party
when it sailed.

To go to Sweden was a simple aim. If he kept moving south, he
would be bound to get there in the end. But nobody he had met had
had a map, even of the most misleading sort, and he could only plan
his route from recollection. He was now on the very end of one of the
promontories between the great fjords which run deep into the
northern mountains. To the west of him was Balsfjord, and to the
east Ullsfjord and then Lyngenfjord, the greatest of them all, fifty
miles long and three miles wide. All the promontories between these
fjords are high and steep. The one between Ullsfjord and Lyngenfjord
in particular is famous for its mountain scenery: it is a mass of jagged
peaks of fantastic beauty which rise steeply from the sea on either
side. Away from their shores, these promontories are not only uninhabited, they are deserted, never visited at all except in summer and
in peace time by a few mountaineers and by Lapps finding pasture
for their reindeer. Along the shores there are scattered houses, and
roads where there is room to build them.

Jan's choice of route was simplified by the fact that Tromso lay to
the west of him, and the farther he went that way the thicker the
German defences would become. Apart from that, he had to decide
whether to keep to the fjords and make use of roads when he could
find them, or to cut himself off from all chance of meeting either
friend or enemy by staying in the hills.

Lockertsen's advice was definite. On the shores of the fjords he
would run the risk of meeting Germans, which would be awkward;
but to cross the mountains alone at that time of year was, quite simply, impossible and suicidal, and nobody but a lunatic would try it.

They talked all round the subject several times. Jan listened to
everything that Lockertsen suggested, intending as usual to take the
advice which suited him and forget about the rest. In the upshot,
Lockertsen said he would take him in his motorboat that night as
far as he could up Ullsfjord, and land him on the far shore, the eastward side. There was a road there which ran up a side fjord
called Kjosen and crossed over to Lyngenfjord through a gap in the
mountains. Then it ran all the way to the head of Lyngenfjord; and
from there there was both a summer and winter road which led to
the frontier. It was true that the road itself might not be much use
to him. It ran through several small villages on the fjord, which
would be sure to have garrisons. Beyond the end of the fjord, the
summer road of course would be buried in snow and the winter
road, which crossed the frozen lakes, was certainly blocked and
watched by the Germans. But at least this was a line to follow, and
it skirted round the mountains.

Jan hated the thought of putting to sea again, but the lift he was
offered would put him twenty miles on his way, and he accepted it.
When it was dark, he said good-bye to Fru Lockertsen and her
daughter and went down to the shore again. Lockertsen rowed him
out to the motor-boat, which was lying at a buoy, and a neighbour
joined them. There was fishing gear on board, and Lockertsen and
the neighbour meant to use it, when they landed Jan, to give themselves a reason for the journey. They started her up and cast off, and
put out once more into the dangerous waters of the sound.

Jan made them keep close inshore, so that if they were suddenly
challenged by a German ship he could go over the side and swim to
land. So they crept up the sound under the shadow of the mountains.
But nothing happened; they slipped safely round the corner into
Ullsfjord, and in the early hours of the morning put Jan ashore on a
jetty at the mouth of Kjosen.

Neither Lockertsen's warning, nor the maps and photographs he
had studied, nor even the fame of the Lyngen Alps had quite prepared Jan for the sight which he saw when he landed at Kjosen. It was
still night, but ahead of him in the east the sky was pale; and there
were the mountains, a faint shadow on the sky where the rock was
naked, a faint gleam where it was clothed with snow. Peak upon peak
hung on the breathless air before the dawn, immaculate and sublime. Beneath their majesty, the enmity of Germans seemed something to
be despised.

He saw the road, beside the shining ribbon of the fjord; it was the
first road he had seen in all his journey. He put on his skis with a feeling of exaltation and turned towards the frontier. The crisp hiss of skis
on the crusted snow and the rush of the frosty air was the keenest of
all possible delight. He knew of the danger of garrisons in the villages
on the road, and he knew that the largest of them was only five miles
ahead, but at that time and in that place it seemed absurd to cower in
fear of Germans. He determined to push on and get through the village before the sun had risen or the people were awake.

The name of the village is Lyngseidet. It lies in the narrow gap
between Kjosen and Lyngenfjord. In peace, it is a place which cruising liners visit on their way to North Cape. From time to time in
summer they suddenly swamp it with their hordes of tourists; the
people of the village, it is said, hurriedly send lorries to Tromso for
stocks of furs and souvenirs, and the Lapps who spend the summer
there dress up in their best and pose for photographs. In war time it
was burdened with a garrison of more than normal size, because it is
the point at which the main road crosses Lyngenfjord by ferry.

Jan expected to find a road block on each side of it, and probably
sentries posted in the middle, but on skis he felt sure he could climb
above the road to circumvent a block, and to pass the sentries he
relied on his speed and the remaining darkness.

He came to the block, just as he had foreseen. It was a little way
short of the head of the fjord at Kjosen. There was a pole across the
road, and a hut beside it which presumably housed a guard. He
struck off the road up the steep hillside to the left. As he had thought,
on skis it was quite easy; but it took longer than he expected, because
there were barbed-wire fences which delayed him. One of his ski
bindings was loose as well, and he had to stop for some time to repair
it. When he got down to the road again a couple of hundred yards
beyond the block, it was fully daylight.

He pushed on at top speed along the road. He knew it could not
be more than two or three miles to the village, and he ought to be
through it in ten or fifteen minutes. It was getting risky, but it was
worth it; to have stopped and hidden where he was would have
wasted the whole of a day, and the thought of the distance he might
cover before the evening was irresistible. There was a little twist in the
road where it rounded a mass of rock, and beyond it he could already
see the roofs of houses. He turned the corner at a good speed.

Fifty yards ahead was a crowd of German soldiers. They straggled
across the road and filled it from side to side. There was not time to
stop or turn and no place to hide. He went on. More and more of
them came from a building on the left: twenty, thirty, forty. He hesitated for a fraction of a second but his own momentum carried him
on towards them, and no challenge came, no call to halt. They were
carrying mess tins and knives and forks. Their uniforms were unbuttoned. He shot in among them, and they stood back to right and left
to let him pass, and for a moment he looked full into their faces and
saw their sleepy eyes and smelled the frowsty, sweaty smell of early
morning. Then he was past, so acutely aware of the flag and the NORWAY on his sleeves that they seemed to hurt his shoulders. He fled up
the road, expecting second by second and yard by yard the shouts
and the hue and cry. At the turn of the road he glanced over his
shoulder, and they were still crossing the road and going into a house
on the other side, and not one of them looked his way. A second later,
he was out of sight.

The road went uphill through a wood of birch, and he pounded
up it without time to wonder. After a mile he came to the top of the
rise. The valley opened out, and ahead he saw the village itself, and
the spire of the church, and the wide water of Lyngenfjord beyond it,
and the road which wound downhill and vanished among the
houses. He thrust with his sticks once more, and began a twisting run
between the fences of the road. He knew he would come to a fork at
the bottom, in the middle of the village. The left-hand turning ran a little way down Lyngenfjord towards the sea and then came to and
end; it was the right-hand one which led to the head of the fjord and
then to the frontier. He passed the first of the houses, going fast. The
church was on the right of the road and close to the water's edge.
There was a wooden pier behind it, and down by the churchyard
fence where the road divided a knot of men was standing.

A moment passed before he took in what he saw. Two or three of
the men were soldiers, and one was a civilian who stood facing the
others. Behind them was another pole across the road, and one of the
soldiers was turning over some papers in his hand.

About five seconds more would have halted him among them at
the roadblock, but there was a gate on the right which led to a garage
in a garden and it was open. He checked and turned and rushed
through the gate and round the garage and up the steep garden and
headed for some birch scrub behind it. There were shouts from the
crossroad, and as he came out into view of it again beyond the garage
two or three rifle shots were fired, but he reached the bushes and set
himself to climb the mountainside.

In Toftefjord when the Germans were behind him, he had been
afraid, but now he was elated by the chase. With a Norwegian's pride
in his skill on skis, he knew they could not catch him. He climbed up
and up, exulting in the skis and his mastery of them, and hearing the
futile shouts grow distant in the valley down below. He looked back,
and saw a score of soldiers struggling far behind him up his trail. He
passed the treeline and went on, up onto the open snow above.

Up there, he met the sunshine. The sun was rising above the
hills on the far side of Lyngenfjord. The water below him sparkled
in its path, and in the frosty morning air the whole of the upper
part of the fjord was visible. On the eastern side and at the head he
could see the curious flat-topped hills which are the outliers of the
great plateau through which the frontier runs; and far up at the end
of the fjord, fifteen miles away, was the valley called Skibotten up
which the frontier road begins. To see his future route stretched out before him added to the joy he already felt at having left the valleys
and the shore: he was almost glad of the accident which had forced
him to grasp the danger of taking to the hills. And seeing the fjord
so beautifully displayed below him had brought back his recollection of the map. There had been a dotted line, he now remembered,
which ran parallel to the road and to the shore. This marked a summer track along the face of the mountains; and although it was the
same map as the one of Ringvassoy, the track had probably been
put in from hearsay and not surveyed, yet if it had ever been possible to walk that way in summer, it ought to be possible now to do
it on skis in snow. At least, there could not be any completely
impassable precipice, and so long as the fjord was in sight he could
not lose his way.

He stopped climbing after about 3000 feet, and rested and looked
around him. The pursuit had been given up, or fallen so far behind
that he could not see or hear it; and up there everything was beautiful and calm and peaceful. At that height he was almost level with the
distant plateau, and he could see glimpses here and there beyond the
fjord of mile upon mile of flat unbroken snow. But on his own side,
close above him, the mountains were much higher. He was on the
flank of a smooth conical hill with the Lappish name of Goalesvarre,
and its top was still 1500 feet above him; and behind it the main massif of the Lyngen Alps rose in a maze of peaks and glaciers to over
6000 feet.

It was not until he rested there that he had leisure to think of his
fantastic encounter with the platoon of soldiers. At first it had
seemed incredible that they should have taken no notice of him and
let him pass; but when he came to think it over, he saw that it was
typical of any army anywhere. It was like the search in Ribbenesoy:
one expected the German army to be more fiendishly efficient than
any other, but it was not; or at least, not always. He could imagine a
British or Norwegian platoon, or an American one for that matter,
shut away in a dreary post like that, with nothing whatever to do except guard a road and a ferry where nothing ever happened. With
one section on guard at the roadblock, the others, to say the least of
it, would never be very alert, and just after reveille they would not be
thinking of anything much except breakfast. If someone in a queer
uniform came down the road, the guard must have let him through,
they would say, and that was the guard's funeral. The officers would
know all about it, anyway, whoever he was. Nobody would want to
make a fool of himself by asking officious questions. And the uniform itself, Jan reflected, would have meant nothing to them in a foreign country. Probably none of them knew that the word NORWAY
was English, any more than you would expect an English soldier to
know the German word for Norway. For all they knew or cared, he
might have been a postman or a sanitary inspector on his rounds;
anything was more likely, far inland, than meeting an enemy sailor
on skis. Sooner or later, one of them might mention it to an n.c.o.,
who might pull the leg of the corporal of the guard next time he saw
him, and by the evening perhaps it would come to the ears of the platoon commander, who certainly would not want to report it and
would spend a lot of time questioning his men to prove to himself
that it was really nothing important.