This Shining Land

by Rosalind Laker

  In late August, when the evenings were drawing in again, Edvard began to talk of having the cattle brought down to their winter quarters. The sheep, which had roamed freely the whole summer, had begun to come back over the mountain slopes, each flock making its way slowly in the direction of its own farm, some homing instinct alerted by the changing season. It was frustrating for Edvard not to be able to carry out any chores himself and on bad days when he was confined to his bed he tossed on his pillow, stiff in his bones and ever chill no matter how warm the room. With school in session again the time Rolf could give to the farm was curtailed, but he still came morning and evening for the milking. It was early September and the last evening at the summer byre when he and Johanna arrived there to find a man they both knew, a schoolteacher from the next village, waiting for them.

  “Hello, Nesheim.” Rolf went to speak to him while Johanna made ready for the milking. The bell-cow had led the rest of the herd into the byre and a few needed a push to get them into their own stalls.

  “Johanna.”

  “Yes?” She turned, the milking stool in her hands. Her brother had dipped his head to come through the low doorway and when he straightened up there was a frown across his eyes, his expression severe.

  “Nesheim wants to speak to you. I thought you had taken my advice to keep out of trouble.”

  Puzzled, she went out of the byre. “You wanted to see me?”

  The schoolteacher drew near. “I have special instructions for you. Be here tomorrow evening after dark at nine o’clock and bring a pocket flashlight with you. A parachutist will be landing not far from here with a cache of arms. I’ll have someone with me to deal with the container and Rolf will dispose of both parachutes. Your task will be to guide the parachutist to the disused cabin by Troll Lake. There you’ll receive further instructions that have not been revealed to me. Is all that clear?”

  “Perfectly.” Her face was taut. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this.”

  “So I was told.” He gave a grim nod. “Good. Until tomorrow.”

  When she returned to the byre she went to put a hand on her brother’s shoulder where he sat milking. “Don’t be angry. I’m not the type to spend my time knitting.”

  He looked up at her. “I know that. Just don’t take chances, that’s all.”

  She thought it was as well he did not know of the risks she had taken in getting the Alsteens into Sweden. They were very much in her thoughts these days. Jews in northern Norway had all been arrested and sent to labour camps, men, women and children. Anna had been right in her decision to get Viktor away when she had. The situation had been perilous at that time, but it was far more so now.

  The following night was rainy and black as pitch. Gina was sitting at her husband’s bedside and Karen was in her room writing letters. Johanna left the farmhouse unquestioned and met Rolf as he came up the lane from the schoolhouse. Together they went up to the summer byre where Nesheim and another man, whose name neither of them was ever to know, were waiting for them. Almost without a word the four of them set off together, Rolf collecting a spade from the byre to dig the parachutes into the ground. He led the way, using a shaded flashlight when it was necessary to leap across a stream, many of which were full from the heavy rainfall that day, or when traversing a rocky patch. Within half an hour they had reached the appointed place, an area of plateau that by day revealed ferns and grasses with a distant lake set into a wide hollow where the deep water mirrored the peaks above. The four of them spread out in a wide circle to wait. There would have been no danger of talking together here, but each was too far from the next and it was a strangely isolated waiting period. When the allotted time arrived, Rolf lit a bonfire as a guide to the aircraft, and the bright flames danced high.

  Johanna suddenly grew tense. Above the patter of rain on leaf and grass there came the distant drone of a plane. When it sounded as if it was directly overhead, she strained her eyes through the blackness but could see nothing. At a far distance she saw Rolf’s light blink in signal to be on the alert.

  Desperately she strained her ears. When nothing happened she began to be afraid the drop had been misjudged. If it went completely wide the parachutist could be dashed against the mountainside or drown in the far lake without a trace. Then she heard a swishing sound, and as if the sky had suddenly bloomed overhead, she saw the vastness of the parachute and watched it swoop down to be lost in the blackness again somewhere behind her. Now it was she who flashed her light to let the others know that the parachutist had landed, her Morse signal being that of V for victory, which had become symbolic of the Allied resolve to win through. With her flashlight beam to aid her, she hurried towards the direction in which the parachutist had disappeared. She found him in a mossy dell where the plateau dipped as if under the weight of a blanket of heather. To reassure him she kept the beam on the ground and gave the password quickly. He had released the catches that held the parachute to his harness and knotted the straps, pulling in the rigging lines of the great mass that, in spite of a lack of any breeze, rose and billowed like captive foam. A young woman’s voice spoke out from the struggle.

  “Thank God I didn’t land on top of a tree!”

  Then Johanna saw her face and recognised her as the Englishwoman to whom Steffen had said goodbye on the day of the invasion. The parachutist was Delia Richmond.

  Johanna sped down the dell to give her a helping hand with the rigging. “Are you all right? You didn’t hurt yourself?”

  It was Delia’s turn to be surprised. “Hi! I didn’t expect to find another woman in this spot. I have a few bruises, that’s all. Everything went as smoothly as during my parachute training. Thanks to the pilot and navigator, of course. I only jumped.”

  Rolf arrived then. After a brief greeting he dealt with gathering in the parachute and bringing it under control as if it were a routine occurrence that a woman descended out of the night sky. The container had landed at almost the same time in the opposite direction, and after taking possession of the parachute Rolf paused only to speak to his sister.

  “You take over now. There’s a hole dug already to bury this silk. I’ll join you in a minute or two.”

  Johanna led the way with her light. It was not an easy walk to the cabin with obstacles of rocks and hillocks and bubbling streams all the way. Delia followed quickly and calmly without complaint, showing she had become used to mountain walks during her time at the embassy. With her eyes accustomed to the darkness, she saw the cabin ahead at the same time as Johanna. There was something instantly familiar to both of them about the man coming down the steps to meet them. Delia darted ahead of Johanna and threw herself into Steffen’s arms. Johanna came to a standstill some little distance away, able to see by the blended shadowy shapes that they embraced. What they said she did not know or want to hear. As he took Delia into the cabin, a ray of candlelight showing briefly as the door opened and closed, she thought he must have forgotten that Delia had had a guide to the cabin. She was wrong. He had not entered himself but loomed again from the shadows, keeping a look-out. When she might have gone forward she was passed a second time as Rolf came from behind her and went ahead to reach Steffen first. They spoke for a few minutes, old friends from the days when Steffen had worked on the farm; then she heard her brother say impatiently, “Come on, Johanna. What’s keeping you?”

  They both stood on the steps to see her into the candlelight. Steffen looked searchingly into her face, as aware as she that the last time they had been together they had parted in anger. “You all right, Jo?”

  “Fine,” she replied easily, going through the doorway and giving him no chance to take hold of her. When amends were made it should not be in front of her brother or the woman who had so recently been in his arms. Their relationship was still at far too brittle a stage and, for all she knew, in his case might have been strained beyond recall. He had not had the benefit of Astrid’s counselling.

  Delia had produced a hip-flask of brandy wh
ich she set down on the table in the cabin beside her gloves and flying helmet, which had helped to keep her warm during her descent. Her parachuting overall was of British military issue; she had divested herself of it and cast it into the wood-burning stove that made the whole cabin like a warm oven. Later the flying helmet was also consigned to the flames. She had brought some English coffee and cigarettes which she produced out of the pockets of the blue anorak she had worn, together with a thick sweater and ski slacks, beneath the overall. In all she was dressed like Johanna, and would have passed without notice in any street or place throughout the country.

  “Let’s celebrate my arrival.” Delia handed around the flask as the two men sat down at the table with her, a candle stuck in a bottle the only illumination. “This was all I was allowed to bring, supposedly for medicinal purposes in case I broke a leg or an arm upon landing. Somebody filled it for me from a long-hoarded bottle. It’s from Paris at a time when, as the song says, the heart was young and gay.” She tilted back her chair to hold the flask out to Johanna, who had volunteered to make the coffee. “You first.”

  Johanna took the flask and raised it. “Skål!”

  Delia was next. “Cheers!” she toasted in English.

  “Down the hatch!” said Steffen in the same language as if back in a British pub.

  From Rolf it was “Bonne santé,” in honour of Paris. The gathering was fast becoming a merry one.

  Standing by the stove, the warmth of the gulp of brandy in her throat, Johanna inhaled the aroma of the coffee as once she had seen the Germans do shortly after the invasion. Everybody had scorned their greed then in eating butter on chocolate, but it had become a national joke among Norwegians that now they would do it themselves if the chance presented itself and if only they could remember what butter and chocolate tasted like!

  Johanna found four enamel cups in the cupboard. The men who had been with them on the plateau would be halfway down the mountainside by now with the container. As she waited for the coffee she listened to, but did not join in, the conversation around the table. It was becoming abundantly clear to her that Steffen had seen Delia frequently when he was in England after making his escape there. There seemed to be a possibility that they had done some training together. Delia was giving him news of mutual friends and acquaintances and there were references to parties that both had attended. As on a previous occasion, Johanna observed the completely relaxed attitude between them, the glance of understanding, the quick smile of anticipation as if each knew what the other would say. She did not have the least doubt that they had been lovers. She felt composed and curiously detached. Perhaps the brandy helped and maybe it was that which was tuning her in to Steffen and Delia’s reactions to each other in such a way that she did not seem to miss a crinkle at the corner of smiling eyes or a suppressed chuckle at a reference to something known only to them. It was not that they cut Rolf or her out of their general talk, it was simply that they had their own private line of communication in the midst of company.

  She had not realised the three of them were waiting for her until she had poured the coffee into the cups for them and taken the remaining chair at the table.

  “Now to business,” Steffen said briskly. “Where’s the important dispatch you brought with you?” He held out a hand to Delia across the table, palm uppermost.

  Delia grinned and took a slim package from an inner pocket. “Here it is.”

  He put it down on the table in front of him. Then he took an envelope from his own pocket which he laid down and pushed towards Johanna.

  “This is the assignment I promised you. Meeting our newcomer and guiding her to this cabin was just the preliminary. The package she has brought is to be delivered by you to an address in Oslo. This envelope contains a travel pass bearing the official German stamp authorising your journey. It’s not a forgery, although the indecipherable German signature is. A blank stack of these passes and a rubber stamp were acquired by a resourceful resistance worker who unexpectedly found himself with access to them. You’ll find enough money to cover your expenses and overnight accommodation if you should need it, but I want you to try to get the overnight train back again. Your return tickets for the fjord steamship and the railway journey are also there.” He was regarding her steadily and assessingly as he spoke.

  “Does Johanna have to do this?” Rolf demanded. Steffen gave him a hard glance.

  “Your sister is in the Resistance by her own choice. This is scarcely her initiation into danger, although I doubt if you’ve heard about her part in the escape of two people into Sweden.”

  Johanna ignored her brother’s startled inquiring stare and took up the envelope. “It all sounds perfectly clear. What pretext do I use for being in Oslo if I’m stopped by the Germans for questioning?”

  “You’ll say you’re going to see your former employer at the fur shop who has offered to keep your old job there open for you.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “How do you know he said that? I don’t remember telling you.”

  “I have constant contact with Leif Moen in the Resistance.” A smile lifted the corner of Steffen’s mouth. “You’d be surprised at how much seemingly unimportant information can prove to be extremely useful at a later date.” He returned to the matter in hand. “If through any unexpected turn of events you’re unable to deliver the package to the address I shall give you to memorise, he will take it from you, but it’s preferred that it should go direct to the person awaiting it. Any diversion increases the risk of discovery.” His voice took on a stern note of warning. “Remember always to behave as routinely as possible. Never do anything to draw attention to yourself, and that includes making your appearance as inconspicuous as possible, a hard task for someone who looks like you in the first place.” It was a curious compliment, for he was intensely serious. “Leave your smart clothes at home. Don’t wear anything you yourself would normally have worn for a trip to Oslo and yet, at all costs, avoid looking countrified. You know the city and you know how the average Oslo woman dresses. Aim to blend into the background. Do you have any questions?”

  When she shook her head he proceeded to give her the address, which was simply Number 7 on the third floor of a block of apartments in a street she knew. She repeated it three times for him. Then he gave her the password, which would only be given after a reply, especially phrased, to her question as to the whereabouts of the previous occupant of the apartment. It was very straightforward, but again she had to go through the procedure three times with him. Lastly he pushed the package across to her.

  “Put it somewhere next to your body. If you carried it in your purse it could be seen when you were asked to show your papers. In a coat pocket it might be pulled out accidently or stolen. Whatever happens, you don’t allow it to fall into enemy hands. That’s an order.”

  She fully understood. “I’ll obey it.”

  He gave her a look that told her plainly he approved of her intelligent attitude. “There’s only one possible complication. As you will have heard from the radio, the trade unions in the factories have finally called a strike. The latest information I have received is that there have been mass arrests by the Gestapo in Oslo. Two unionists have been sentenced to death already. More executions are likely. If you see any kind of demonstration in the streets, keep away from it. When the Gestapo make a sweep of the streets for questioning, they take in everybody and sort matters out afterwards.”

  Beside her Rolf seemed on the point of protest again, and then apparently thought better of it. He lit another English cigarette and drew on it fiercely. It was indicative of his anxiety about her. Steffen appeared to have none.

  “Am I to notify you when I get back?” she asked him.

  “There’s no need. I’ll hear when the package has been delivered before you are home again. Just carry on as usual afterwards at the farm. If family or friends ask you about your visit to the fur shop, say you’re thinking the offer over. We may want to send you to Oslo again.”
He glanced at his watch. “You had better get home now. You’ve a busy time ahead of you.”

  No kiss or embrace to send her on her way. She accepted that was due as much to her own attitude when she entered the cabin as to the state of hostility in which they had last parted. Even worse for her was the realisation that Steffen and Delia were preparing to leave together, talking as they zipped up anoraks and donned woolly caps. They were surely bound for some mutual resistance work about which she knew nothing, for she could not believe the parachute jump had been made simply to bring the package she was to deliver. She took it up from the table, not wanting to think about them alone in the private renewal of their long association.

  “Ready to go?” Rolf asked her, waiting to leave.

  “Yes, I am.” She made to head for the door. Simultaneously Steffen and Delia turned towards her. The Englishwoman jerked up a thumb cheerily as a sign of confidence that all would go well in Oslo.

  “The best of British luck, as we say, just to strengthen the Norwegian variety. Thanks again for being on the spot to meet me.” It had been a nerve-racking experience for her, being the first time she had been dropped behind enemy lines. She had been selected at a moment’s notice, there being great urgency about the package she had carried with her. It had come from British Intelligence, its coded contents sealed tight. She hoped this Norwegian girl with the beautiful, resolute face would seal the success of the mission. It was her guess that its importance was beyond anything that could be envisaged by the four of them in this mountain cabin.

  Her gaze followed Steffen as he went across to the girl. Only he had known by a coded transmitted message that she would be coming. For a while during their S.O.E. British military-based training she had hoped they might work together in occupied Norway, but their courses had diverged, his being of prime importance and highly specialised, and the emphasis from the start had been on individual effort and survival. In a way it reflected their own relationship. Lovers and friends and yet essentially apart. There had never been anyone else quite like him in her life. He meant more to her than he knew. Maybe she should let him know during this coming short time together. Love-words had never passed between them. It could have been her mistake. She would take the chance to right it.