The photographs for their identity cards had been taken of them in their disguises, which they would discard when they left the mountain hytte, thus making it far less likely that they would be apprehended on their eventual return to Oslo. Erik, who had lived in Grulvik all his life, was confident that every one of the occupants of the small fishing villages was prepared to swear that they had known Fru Nielsen’s nephew and niece since they were young children and it was their habit to visit her three times a year, so they could not possibly be imposters.
Kristoffer was far more nervous than Gerda when Erik announced that the detonation should take place the following lunchtime. Erik told the group gathered around him that God was definitely on the side of the Norwegians: that a German gefreiter had been sent to the village that morning to collect freshly harvested salmon as there were to be three extra guests from Berlin arriving for the weekend and the fish were required for the luncheon party the next day. This information enabled his men to get everything in place that night for the detonation the following day.
Gerda returned from the castle that evening announcing that she had been instructed to see that six extra bedrooms were prepared and that the cleaners were to pay special attention to all the reception rooms. Erik had already been informed that the eighteen-foot-long pine refectory table in the dining room had been polished until it shone and the visitors’ rooms had been readied for the occasion which, he had gathered, was by way of a celebration of the success of whatever enterprise the present occupants had all been working to achieve. They were not military personnel but men in civilian suits, with conventional collars and ties, and they were now gathered in the drawing room, smiling as they congratulated themselves on the successful outcome of their work.
Although most Norwegians had been taught German in school, it was wrongly considered by the boffins that the women from the small fishing village who worked at Estridborgen were uneducated and therefore unaware of the meaning of anything they overheard. The need for one hundred per cent secrecy had been impressed on the boffins but they were finding it difficult not to exult at the successful outcome of their hard work. Along with the promises of great honours from Herr Hitler if they were successful in their achievements, they were too exalted by the expected arrival of the Führer’s representatives the next day to concern themselves with caution.
As Erik now said, it was already obvious that something special was happening as the guard surrounding the castle had been doubled. The children in Grulvik had been given the day off school and flags with swastikas on them to wave as two big Mercedes cars arriving from Oslo military headquarters drove through the village and up the two-kilometre rough road to the castle.
However, at eleven o’clock next morning, there was not a single child to be seen. Their parents had by mutual agreement sent them all off for the day by ferry to Borre, where they could see the old Viking burial mounds and picnic in the woods. The German Oberstleutnant who was supposed to be overseeing the safe arrival of the visitors was incandescent with anger at the obvious insult but there was no way he could get the children back. He decided to order the villagers themselves to line up where the children should have been in order to wave the flags but, faced with smiling apologies, he was informed the children had insisted upon taking their flags with them so they could wave them on the ferry. Needless to say, the flags would either end up in the sea or be left behind on the Viking graves. It was typical of the way all Norwegians other than the Quislings managed to defy their German masters.
Up at Estridborgen, Gerda had been detailed to stand by the front door and receive the visitors’ coats and hats. It was an honour for her, Hauptmann Weiss had said with a leer, because all men appreciated a pretty face and a curvaceous figure. Somehow she had managed to smile back at him, content with the knowledge that in a few hours’ time hopefully he, too, would be dead.
When the hour came and luncheon was served, Gerda realized that the task was not going to be as easy to carry out as Erik had supposed. The German mess orderlies were acting as waiters and the women were carrying the trays of food from the kitchen along the passage to the dining room and taking empty ones back, the reverse of what had been expected. Thus the Norwegians who were to be alerted by Gerda to remain out of the room when she gave the signal were not in the same place at the same time. She, herself, was responsible for refilling any empty wine glasses, smiling prettily at the men as she leant over them to reach the table. This instruction had been demonstrated to her by Hauptmann Weiss, and she had been hard put not to hit him when he had deliberately brushed against her breasts.
It was nearly twenty minutes after the meal had begun before a moment came when she could hurry over to the window to straighten the curtain and give the signal to the waiting men. As she did so, she could imagine how tense and agitated they must be, wondering what was going wrong. Now, knowing how little time she had before the east wing would explode, she hurried out of the room, dropped the tray and, together with the waiting women, raced down the passageway towards the flagstone steps leading to the cellar.
They had barely started their descent when one of the women tripped and fell headlong down the stairs. Gerda jumped down to where she lay by the cellar door. There was a deafening explosion followed by the sound of falling masonry and timbers, and a cloud of dust rolled down the staircase, covering them. It was several minutes before human sounds could be heard, men’s voices shouting and someone screaming, then the noise of heavy boots racing along the passage above their heads.
Gathering her wits, Gerda tried to lift the fallen woman to her feet but she cried out, saying her leg was broken. It was twisted beneath her and Gerda realized she had two options: to leave the woman where she was to be found by the surviving Germans or for the four of them to carry her outside where hopefully Kristoffer would be waiting. Knowing she could not leave the woman, not from compassion but because she could reveal the plot to the Germans who found and questioned her, Gerda opened the door into the cellar and instructed the two women to help her lift the casualty across the cellar floor and out through the heavy wooden door into the open.
To her immense relief, Kristoffer was waiting; the body of the German sentry he had killed lying not far from him. From the front of the house there came sounds of furious activity, men shouting as those who had survived the explosion began trying to douse the flames which were now emerging through the roof. The slight wind was blowing the smoke up over the roof towards them, where it disappeared among the tips of the pine trees on the mountainside.
As soon as he realized what had happened to the woman, Kristoffer signalled to one of Erik’s men who had been detailed to remain hidden in order to provide cover for him and Gerda as they escaped up into the forest. Fortunately he was a strong farm labourer and able to carry the injured woman on his back. Kristoffer ordered him to take one of the little-known paths back down the hill to the village, making as little noise as possible while the uninjured women screaming and crying were to run down the road ahead as any terrified female would normally have done.
It was a tense four minutes, each of them aware that at any minute guards might decide to come round to the back of the castle. Fortunately, as Erik had gauged, all rescue work was being concentrated outside the shattered remains of the east wing. There was no telephone connection to the castle and communications had been by field telephone and relayed to the Oslo headquarters. Erik knew that it would be quite some time before help could be sent to Estridborgen. It was a very old, beautiful building and it was feared by all who were aware of its proposed part demolition that any subsequent fire could destroy it completely. To this end, Erik had arranged that any able-bodied person in the village would go up to the house to help fight a fire if there was one. Their willingness to help would also serve to support their supposed ignorance of a plan to blow up the place. His objective would have been achieved – namely to kill the scientists, engineers and planners who were using their vast brainpower t
o produce a weapon deadly enough to wipe out any enemy.
Gerda had not been up into the forest but Kristoffer had used his free time to explore and had found the tiny wooden cabin several hundred metres high up where snow had already fallen and where he and Gerda were to hide until the hiatus following the explosion had died down. It had taken him half a day to get there and he knew that he and Gerda must now make haste if they were to get there before dark.
They had been climbing for little more than half an hour before Gerda stopped, saying she could not go on any longer. The aftermath of tension had set in and she was trembling. Kristoffer sat down beside her, produced a small flask of akevitt and held it to her lips.
‘It will give you strength!’ he said gently. ‘We can’t afford to stop here as I know I could never find the hytte in the dark. We must have shelter as it gets extremely cold up high after nightfall.’ He waited for her to drink and then helped her to her feet. ‘We’ll pretend we are just going off for a picnic!’ he said, smiling as he tucked her arm in his, and he started to hum a Norwegian folk song they had both learned at school. It was a long walk, mostly through densely packed pine trees but higher up, on rocky grassland, a chill wind was blowing. They were both silent now and Kristoffer was trying hard not to worry that if he lost the way they could end up without shelter of any kind.
Dusk had crept over the mountainside when the simple wooden cabin loomed up ahead of them. There was a light scattering of snow on the roof and frost had made the locked door hard to open once Kristoffer had found the key hooked under an overhanging wooden tile. Both he and Gerda were familiar with these cabins which could be found at high altitude on any mountainside if climbers or skiers needed shelter. Inside, the bare necessities for survival were always available: wood bark for lighting the stove and logs for heating; eating and drinking utensils; coffee, tinned biscuits or dried food of some kind; matches, candles, cloths. In the bedroom adjoining the main room were a couple of wooden bunks with sleeping bags for the occupants.
Kristoffer hurriedly lit the stove and carried in a supply of logs for the night. Gerda, now shivering uncontrollably in her light wool skirt and pretty blouse worn for the lunch party, crouched in front of it, trying to restore her circulation. He then found for her a thick wool jersey and a pair of knee-length red ski socks in a cupboard, after which he went outside and filled a saucepan with snow and, bringing it quickly to the boil on top of the stove, he made a jug of coffee for them.
Gradually Gerda stopped shivering and smiled weakly at Kristoffer, who was now trying to boil some spekemat which he had found in the cupboard, a kind of dried salted meat, to make a hot soup. She watched him coping so capably with a surge of admiration. He, too, must be as cold and exhausted as she was, but he was humming cheerfully and turned every now and again to smile at her. Her heart began to beat more swiftly as she realized that for at least the next few days she would be alone here with Kristoffer, and that if he was ever going to respond to her love for him, this must be the opportunity; he would see now that she wanted more than affection. She knew from him that when he went to England he had not been reunited with the English girl he had adored and that it was now nearly three years since their brief affair in Munich. She was certain that by now he had ceased thinking about Dilys and was ready to turn to her, Gerda, his childhood sweetheart, for the love she longed to give him.
They were both exhausted after the long, hard climb up the mountain which had followed the tense, exacting moments of the destruction of the east wing. It would be a long wait before they were back among other people who could tell them if the German’s invention had indeed been destroyed, along with its inventors. They decided to have an early night. By the time they had both been out of doors and washed their faces and hands beneath a sky now studded with stars and taken their turn in the tiny outside shed that served as a toilet, they were both shivering. The warmth from the stove had not yet permeated the bedroom next door and Kristoffer suggested they carry the sleeping bags from the bunks and lay them on the floor in front of the glowing logs, a suggestion instantly agreed by Gerda.
Having leant across to give Gerda a gentle goodnight kiss on her forehead, Kristoffer curled up in his sleeping bag and was asleep within minutes, unlike Gerda, who was tense with frustration. When Kristoffer had suggested they sleep side by side, her hopes had soared that this might lead to hugs, kisses and then the sexual intimacy she craved. She was now twenty-five years old and the only sex she had known was the brutal raping of her virginity by the drunk Germans. She now wanted desperately to put the dreadful memory from her mind and replace it with the sweet, thoughtful loving Kristoffer could give her. In their teens, they had explored each other’s bodies and kissed and caressed one another hungrily without overstepping the rules for unmarried couples. Kristoffer may have forgotten those evenings of exciting exploration but she had never done so, and that childhood adoration had turned all too easily to love. She’d thought her heart was broken when he’d told her how madly in love with the English girl he was, and of his intention to get to England as soon as he could and marry her. Her heartbeat quickened as, lying so close to his sleeping body, she heard him murmur Dilys’ name.
Kristoffer was indeed dreaming of Dilys. They were hand in hand walking up the mountain fields where he and Gerda had been that day. They were searching for a secluded spot where they could stop and make love. He could smell the scent of the wild flowers around them and feel the warmth of the summer sun on his face. Suddenly, Dilys reached out her hand and found a way to cover his fiercely beating heart. He was filled with longing for her, and she moved her hands and his to her bare breasts. Her nipples were hard and he caressed and kissed them. As he did so, he felt her hand move down beneath the open waist of his trousers to caress him tantalisingly between his legs.
He had not made love to a woman since he had gone back to the flat of a girl he met at a Christmas party who was obviously well accustomed to enjoying casual sexual relationships. That girl had found him attractive for that night but had had no wish to make their association permanent. Kristoffer had been perfectly happy when she declined to see him again. He was a young, healthy male and his body now responded instantly to the feel of soft fingers encircling and stroking him. He was about to press his mouth hungrily to what he believed in his dream were Dilys’ lips when he heard Gerda’s voice, deep and husky, begging him to invade her willing body.
It was only then he realized he had been dreaming and that it was Gerda whose half-naked body was lying beside him and her hand which was between his legs, stroking him. With a deep, aching feeling of disappointment, he began to draw away from her, murmuring pointless apologies.
Her cheeks flaming, Gerda cried out: ‘No, please, Kris, I want you to make love to me. I know you don’t love me but I still want you—’ She broke off for the briefest of pauses, and then said, ‘Don’t you see, I need you to dispel those awful memories of what the men did to me. Please, Kris, help me to forget.’
For days afterwards, Kristoffer tried to convince himself that he had only had sex that night with Gerda for her sake, but he knew in his heart that this wasn’t altogether true. He had been aroused by her before he had woken from the dream of Dilys and had not been able to subdue that need for release when Gerda had continued to press her body against him, her tongue in his mouth, her hands teasing every sensitive part that increased his need for release.
After it was over and he had apologised and she had wept, he feared that his guilt at having betrayed both her and Dilys would prohibit any return to his normal friendly relationship with Gerda. To his relief, however, the following day, although pale and a little red around her eyes, she had behaved as if nothing had happened, and gradually he had been able to relax. The following ten days passed without further incident, the only reminder being that at night-time they each, by unspoken agreement, retired to their separate bunks in the bedroom.
EIGHTEEN
Dilys was sitting in the
hot August sunshine watching the land girls loading the stooks of corn on to the conveyor belt carrying them into the threshing machine. She knew most of the girls who occasionally dropped in for a glass of homemade lemonade and a chat in the summer evenings when they had finished the day’s tasks. Dilys was pleased to see them, the house seeming relatively deserted after her evacuees had returned to London at the start of the New Year. The first half of 1943 had been a mixture of good and bad events. At the end of January the Russians had defeated the German army at Stalingrad and the Germans were finally driven out of North Africa. As a consequence the dreadful German ‘wolfpacks’, as they were known, were having less success as the Allied ships and aircraft carriers were released from duty off the coast of North Africa and were now escorting the allied Atlantic shipping, their planes able to hunt and destroy the U-boats. But there had also been a dreadful civilian tragedy in April when hundreds of people were crushed in Bethnal Green underground station shelter after a daytime air raid warning caused panicking Londoners to rush down the stairs, smothering those ahead. Sadly, Una’s delightful boyfriend, Scotty, had been shot down in a raid over Germany, and the wonderful actor Leslie Howard had presumably drowned when his plane was lost somewhere over the Bay of Biscay.
At home, shortages of nearly everything had made daily life more difficult, although mercifully the better summer weather had lessened the misery of the everlasting cold resulting from the shortage of fuel and rationing of electricity. However, all these discomforts and concerns paled into insignificance when she was notified by James’ colonel that he had been wounded and taken prisoner during the July landings in Sicily.
It had been a long and anxious time before she’d had further news a few days ago, this time from the Red Cross, saying he was in a German field hospital north of Pisa but was not well enough yet to write to her. Dilys worried about his recovery and whether, once he was stronger, he might be repatriated. A few days ago she had received an airgraph from a fellow officer who had been a patient in the same hospital as James but had managed to escape back to his regiment. He was keeping his promise, he’d written, to let her know that James never stopped talking about her and their little girl, but his head injuries made it impossible for him to write. The standard of medical care was not good and he hoped for James’ sake that the British would soon reach the north and James would receive the treatment he needed.
Live the Dream Page 17