The Valkyrie Directive

by Peter MacAlan

  ‘The glacier?’ queried Sweeny.

  ‘The Svabensverk glacier. We cut across it and we are in Sweden. It’s not difficult.’

  ‘We’ll take your word for it,’ Sweeny said without humour. ‘Just where do we find this kliev?

  ‘Not far from here. We head out along the road at the back of the hotel. About a mile out the path divides … the right-hand one goes off into the valley. That’s where we can pretend to the old couple that we are going in case the Germans arrive and question them. However, we’ll actually take the left-hand path up to the kliev. If we start at first light it shouldn’t be a difficult climb.’

  Woods sighed.

  ‘And we’ll soon be in Sweden and then … then England, home and beauty. Do you know that tomorrow is Saturday? We shall have been in Norway for a week. It seems like years since I tumbled out of that damned aircraft. Odin’s Moon. Remember? The luck of the Vikings. Let’s hope it continues to be with us.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hauptmann Eschig grabbed the telephone as it shrilled on his desk. He had only just entered his office.

  ‘Hauptmann Eschig? Feld Polizei commander at Kongsvinger here. The Herr Generalmajor’s compliments. He thought that you might like to know that a Sturmbannführer of the Gestapo arrived from Oslo first thing this morning with instructions from the Reichskommissar to take charge of the Stenersen fugitives.’

  Eschig swore loudly, cursing Knesebeck.

  ‘Herr Hauptmann?’ came the worried voice from Kongsvinger. ‘Would you remind the Herr Generalmajor that my orders come directly from Herr General von Falkenhorst who is in supreme command in Norway?’

  ‘The Herr Generalmajor is aware of that but finds himself in difficulty because he has also received a direct order from the Reichskommissar. The Gestapo are claiming jurisdiction over this matter.’

  Eschig stared angrily at the receiver for a moment and then placed his hand across the mouthpiece and yelled for Feldwebel Weiss. The sergeant opened the door a moment later.

  ‘Get through to Fornebu airfield,’ snapped Eschig. ‘I want an aircraft to take me to Kongsvinger immediately. At once! Do you hear?’

  ‘Zum Befehly Herr Hauptmann!’ Weiss hesitated on the threshold.

  ‘Does the Herr Hauptmann wish me to come with him?’

  Eschig replied savagely, ‘Yes, the Herr Hauptmann does!’

  ‘Jawohl!’ acknowledged Weiss stoically, his face still impassive. Eschig became aware of noises from the other end of the receiver.

  ‘Yes? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you for the moment. Tell me, have the mountain troops been sent in pursuit yet?’

  ‘No, Herr Hauptmann. It was too dark to send them out last night. However, we have a Storch spotting the area. As soon as we see any sign of the fugitives we have two companies of Gebirgsjäger standing by. We should be able to drop these near enough to pick them up without problems.’

  ‘Very well. I shall be in Kongsvinger as soon as I can.’

  He slammed down the telephone and strode to the door. Weiss was already waiting for him.

  ‘There is an aircraft ready at Fornebu, Herr Hauptmann.’

  ‘Then the sooner we get there the better,’ Eschig said between clenched teeth. ‘I don’t know what Knesebeck is playing at, but the Gestapo are not going to get their hands on Sweeny. He’s mine.’

  *

  Arne Branting led the ascent. Under his instructions they had roped themselves into three teams. Branting led the first one, followed by Doctor Birkenes, Inge and Professor Stenersen. The second team was to be led by Sweeny, with the recalcitrant Hersleb next, followed by the nurse Hilde and then by Trina Lanstrad. The third and last team was led by Woods, with the nurse Kristine next and Doctor Arendt bringing up the rear.

  As Branting scrambled up the rock face, Sweeny reflected that he appeared to be a man utterly at one with his surroundings. With slow methodical movements he moved upwards, feeling carefully each hold and surface before he eased forward, using his axe to make indentations bigger. He seemed catlike on the shelving rockface. When he was twenty feet up, Birkenes began climbing, then Inge and finally Stenersen. It had been arranged that the first team should pass the halfway mark up the rockface before Sweeny led the second team up. The face rose a sheer six hundred feet and the wait seemed endless before Sweeny judged that the halfway stage had been reached.

  It was a long while since he had done any real climbing, so Sweeny moved cautiously. As Branting had warned him, the first seventy feet were tough going. In fact Sweeny thought several times that he would have to stop and turn back, although Branting had assured him that after the initial stage the climb was fairly easy. He continued, but it was nightmarish. One thing he was thankful for was the fact that there was no wind to clutch with icy fingers at his precarious holds. He paused now and then to peer down. Below him was the gasping face of Hersleb, who had remained morose and monosyllabic ever since the incident at the warehouse. He obeyed when ordered but had withdrawn into himself. The little man was moaning with exertion. Sweeny wished he would shut up.

  Sweeny paused to rest his aching, exhausted limbs and leant out a little to see if he could catch a glimpse of the two nurses, Hilde and Trina. They seemed to be making good progress. He spared a moment to think about Trina Lanstrad. She was so calm and capable. Without pretensions. He wondered why he felt such an almost violent attraction towards her. Then he felt guilty when he thought of Freya. He bit his lip in perplexity. He had not thought of Freya for quite a while. Why was it that her memory no longer stirred him to the same sharp and bitter feeling of despair?

  Deliberately he forced his mind back to the task before him and tried to ignore the fact that his body was a mass of agonized pain-torn muscles. He began to move upwards again. He presumed that Branting must have reached the top already. There was surely no more than twenty or thirty feet now which separated him from the top of the climb. There was a slight overhang which obscured his forward vision.

  It was while he was reaching for a new hold that he felt the tug at his waist. A small tug, no more. Then came a high pitched scream which echoed away among the surrounding mountains. His blood went cold, his heart pounded and he clung trembling to the rock face, bracing himself for the jerk which would wrench him backwards into oblivion. He stayed still, eyes shut tight, for several seconds.

  It was only seconds, but it seemed hours before he opened them and peered down. Not far below him was the gibbering face of Hersleb, eyes round and white, mouth half open, moving and making strange animal sounds.

  ‘What the hell has happened?’ yelled Sweeny, his own fear making him angry.

  Hersleb was incapable of replying.

  Branting’s voice came down to him from above the overhang.

  ‘Sweeny? What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sweeny called. ‘Hilde? Trina?’

  ‘It’s Hilde!’ came Trina’s voice, tight with shock. ‘She … she fell. The rope came away from her safety belt …’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ swore Sweeny.

  ‘We must go back for her!’ Trina wailed.

  ‘It’s no use. It’s nearly six hundred feet down. Come on. We must get to the top before we freeze here.’

  Sweeny turned, rage and guilt surging through him at the loss of the young nurse. It was his fault. His fault. He had checked the rope, he had made sure it was connected. How could it have happened? He began to scramble upwards automatically but found that the rope at his waist was tight, holding him back. He turned down with a scowl.

  ‘Hersleb! Start climbing or else I’ll cut you loose myself.’

  He jerked on the rope, causing the pale-faced anaesthetist to start moving instinctively.

  Branting’s voice called from above: ‘Twenty feet, Sweeny. You’re coming to a crevice which will act like a chimney. You should be able to walk up it without any problems.’

  Sweeny grunted but did not reply. It took all his self-control to stop himself shivering and becomi
ng frozen with fear at the thought of the young girl falling off the rockface. Again he went over the preparations in his mind. He had ensured that they were all roped securely together, so how the hell had it happened? The equipment which they had taken from the hotel was good and fairly new. Branting had checked it as well. And Hilde had been roped between Hersleb and Trina. How could she have fallen? He climbed automatically now, hand over hand, his anger and fear driving him on so that he subconsciously called upon resources that he did not know he had.

  He was in the chimney now, placing his palms and back against the cold rock, his feet braced against the far side. Slowly he began to push upwards. Below him, Hersleb was sobbing in exertion and terror. He could hear Trina’s voice chiding him, pushing him. Long minutes passed until he finally saw Branting’s face above him. He reached forward, feeling with infinite caution for the edge of the rock face. Then he felt strong arms pulling him upwards and he was lying on a ledge with Branting and Birkenes beside him. Beyond them Inge Stenersen and her uncle were standing with pale, horrified expressions on their faces.

  Branting and Birkenes were swinging Hersleb over now, hauling him up, a frightened sobbing mess of a man. They pushed him none too gently along the ledge and then were reaching down for Trina Lanstrad. Sweeny bent to help them but was not needed. The girl came up the chimney and onto the ledge like a professional.

  ‘What happened?’ demanded Sweeny as soon as she had recovered her breath.

  ‘Her safety belt must have broken, I can’t think of any other explanation. One minute poor Hilde was climbing above me and then she slipped. The rope should have held her but there was a snapping sound and she was gone. Only the rope was there. It was over in a moment.’

  The girl shivered and Sweeny put his arm around her, drawing her away from the ledge toward shelter.

  She raised a tear-stained face to him.

  ‘We must go back to see if poor Hilde is alive. There must be a chance …’

  Sweeny patted her arm firmly.

  ‘There’s no way Hilde could have survived that fall. We have to go on, Trina.’

  ‘You mean just leave her?’ she gasped.

  ‘If there’s to be any meaning to her death, we must go on.’ Sweeny’s voice was adamant.

  ‘The others are coming up the chimney now,’ Branting called from the other side of the ledge.

  Sweeny moved to join him, and as he knelt down Branting pressed a small metal clasp into his hand.

  ‘It was still attached to the rope,’ he whispered. ‘The hooks were in place, but someone has taken the pin out of the clasp. Run a rope through the clasp and it looks fine. Put a sudden pressure on it and the clasp just flies off the safety belt.’

  Sweeny stared at Branting, trying to understand the import of what he was being told.

  ‘Are you saying that this was done on purpose?’

  Branting returned his gaze evenly.

  ‘I’m saying that the pin was taken out of the clasp so that it would not hold when a sudden weight was put on it.’

  ‘But who would do such a thing?’

  Branting momentarily glanced in the direction of Hersleb. Then he shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said, then reached forward to help Woods negotiate the end of the climb.

  Branting and Sweeny allowed the group half an hour to recover from the exhaustion of the climb and the shock of Hilde’s death. They were into the snow belt now, and the peaks all around them were capped with a fine powdery snow. Branting had ensured that each of them had carried from the hotel warm skiing clothes, boots, a rucksack with provisions and skis, sticks, ropes and axes. It was well to be prepared for any problem, although Branting felt that the most difficult part of the journey had been overcome with the climbing of the kliev. As soon as the rest period was up, he and Sweeny forced the party to move onwards. Branting took the lead, with Sweeny and Woods bringing up the rear. They trudged along a path which wound round the side of the mountain and across a narrow shoulder onto a white plain. Before them was a line of dark jagged peaks, the last obstacle which separated them from neutral Sweden.

  As Branting had foretold, the way was fairly easy. Only at one spot did they have to be extra careful, a place where a broad ribbon of icy-cold water cascaded over the path; a raging white torrent that fell from higher up the mountain. However, Branting knew the safe way past the waterfall. Without hesitation he stepped behind the curtain of water. It was cold, wet and fairly slippery, but the path continued behind the waterfall and rejoined the dry ledge a little further on.

  They turned sharply, went through a narrow pass and emerged on the far side of the peak overlooking a dal or softly curving valley of snow which was extremely wide, maybe a couple of miles across, with other high peaks all round it. Across the centre of this valley was a discernible path.

  ‘That’s the path we would have taken had we gone back along the lowlands,’ Branting observed, pointing with his ski-stick.

  ‘How far to the Swedish border?’ demanded Woods.

  ‘If we don’t have to make any detours, we’ll probably cross sometime tomorrow. There is a turisthytten up in the mountains where we can spend the night.’

  ‘Se op!’ Professor Stenersen suddenly yelled, throwing himself into the snow. The others heard the sound of an aero engine a few moments later and followed his example. A Storch, flying fairly high, swept down the valley.

  They picked themselves up self-consciously and began to brush themselves down.

  ‘Did it see us?’ asked Stenersen.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, Professor,’ Woods replied. ‘It would have circled back.’

  Sweeny’s face was grim.

  ‘Nevertheless, it’s better not to take chances. We’ll press on as quickly as possible.’

  Ahead he could see that the mountains were sentinels to a grey-white world obscured by mist. The air was cold and damp. They moved forward now in silence. There were no possibilities of using their skis yet, for the path Branting was taking was a narrow ledge of snow following the contours of the valley but keeping high above it. Hersleb was the only one who seemed to be suffering from the trek, moaning now and again so that Stenersen had to speak sharply to him more than once. Sweeny kept his eyes on the little man. He could not bring himself to accept Branting’s statement entirely. Surely the excitable little anaesthetist was not capable of such a cold-blooded murder? And for what? Simply to slow their pace? To force them to halt? That would be so cold and calculated that … he shivered involuntarily.

  At midday they stopped and ate a snack of flatbrod and goat’s cheese, with a mouthful of aquavit apiece to help keep out the cold. Trina Lanstrad brought Sweeny his ration and seated herself next to him. He sat a little apart from the others, keeping a watch on the valley.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  Sweeny smiled. ‘I should be asking you that.’

  ‘Poor Hilde,’ the girl bit her lip. ‘It is still a shock. I have never seen an accident happen like that.’

  Sweeny did not reply. He decided not to tell anyone else about the clasp Branting had taken from the rope. He was hoping that at some stage Hersleb would say or do something to incriminate himself.

  ‘Did you know her well?’ he asked after a few moments’ silence.

  It seemed a silly thing to say, but he was just making conversation.

  ‘Well? She joined the professor’s team two years ago. I suppose I knew her as well as anyone. She had a young man that she was going to marry in June. He was called up with the general mobilization. She hadn’t heard from him since then.’

  ‘This bloody war,’ Sweeny sighed.

  ‘Yes!’ The girl said fervently. ‘This bloody war!’

  Branting was looking at his wrist watch and signalled to Sweeny. They began moving again. The path grew steeper, winding upwards now, with broad zig-zags toward the hammer, the sharp shoulder of the mountain.

  Sweeny heard the noise without realizing what it was for several seconds. Then he
yelled: ‘Aircraft!’

  They were high on the white slopes of the mountainside, barren snow-painted slopes. He searched desperately for cover of any kind but there was none. The snow was not even thick enough to attempt to dig in and camouflage themselves.

  The grotesque, gigantic shape of an aircraft soared suddenly over the spur of the peak behind them and roared over them at no more than a few hundred feet. They all flung themselves down, expecting the rattle of machine guns. Then the aircraft was climbing away from them.

  Sweeny followed it with his eyes. It was a large aircraft, its metal fuselage oddly corrugated.

  ‘It’s a Junkers troop carrier,’ Branting called.

  The aircraft climbed in a lazy spiral and then moved back down the valley towards them. There was nothing they could do. Sweeny realized that they had been seen.

  Once again the large aircraft flew over them and once again they braced themselves for machine-gun fire. But the aircraft passed over them again without attacking and this time it climbed high into the cloudy sky and went along the line of the valley. Little black dots began to detach themselves from the rear of the aircraft, tumbling out one after the other. Sweeny stared in bewilderment, and then the black dots were suddenly halted and hung under gently swaying mushroom shapes.

  ‘Fallsschirmjäger!’ swore Branting.

  ‘What?’ frowned Stenersen.

  ‘Parachute troops,’ replied the young Norwegian officer.

  They watched as about twenty or thirty parachutes descended down to the valley floor below them. Branting had taken the pair of field glasses from their case and was focusing down the valley.

  ‘How far do you reckon they are?’ asked Sweeny, moving to Branting’s side.

  ‘Not far enough,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe five miles across the valley. At least the Junkers’s pilot was unable to put them down any closer to us.’

  ‘Will they be able to catch us up?’ asked Woods.

  ‘It depends on how well they know the terrain. If they move up-valley they may be able to pick up some time. If they attempt to come straight for us then we’ll have a good head start.’