Jakob P. Stromsheim
24TH NOVEMBER 1942, DRUMINCRAIG HOUSE
I’m in bed and I’ve been trying to sleep but my feet are too cold, so I thought I’d write about dinner instead. (Hopefully my feet’ll warm up soon.)
At precisely 15.32, as instructed, we were all in the dining room. It looked very grand, but there was no sign of food, no cutlery, no glasses and no smells of cooking. Instead, at each place setting, there was a large, carefully folded dishcloth.
“Take your places!” said Colonel Armstrong.
We sat down.
“Open your dishcloths!”
I opened up the folds. Inside the cloth I found ten lead pellets, a box of matches, a small-ish penknife, a sturdy catapult and a page of instructions on the skinning and gutting of rabbits.
We looked at each other, completely astonished. We each had the same little pile of equipment. Not even Åse had anything to say.
Colonel Armstrong gave us another crooked little smile. “Well, it’ll be dark soon, so get a move on. Supper’s outside. You’re all trained in small arms fire, so it won’t take you long to get the hang of those catapults. And you’ll need to know how to butcher an animal.” (I wonder why we’ll need to know this.) “Don’t build your fire inside or within four metres of the house.”
And then, just as Freddie let out a faint whimper, the Colonel cried, “Bon appetit! Dismissed!”
We trudged outside, feeling thoroughly dejected, and made for the ornamental garden where we’d already seen lots of rabbits. But as well as having lots of rabbits, the ornamental garden also had lots of small box hedges that the rabbits could hide behind. And we had Freddie who – typically – stumbled noisily on a wet branch just as we approached.
That was it! The rabbits ran for cover.
We crouched down behind two rhododendron bushes and waited. Slowly, in dribs and drabs, the rabbits returned to their feeding. But the light was fading and the rabbits kept their distance. I could feel Åse getting fidgety and losing patience. Then she fired at a rabbit over by the fountain, which was too far away. Her shot fell short. In a scurry of white bottoms, the rabbits fled.
“What are we going to do?” asked Freddie in a despairing voice.
“We’re going to kill a rabbit,” I replied.
“I know that!” hissed Freddie. “But how are we going to eat it? We haven’t any mustard. You have to have mustard with rabbit. Maybe we could shoot a pheasant instead. They’re so much tastier…”
Åse rolled her eyes.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” said Freddie. “You shoot the bunny. I’ll do the rest.”
And before we could call him back, he scuttled off down the path.
Åse and I hunkered down again behind the bushes, catapults at the ready. This time the rabbits took an age to reappear, and when they did come back they were even more cautious than before. Now they grazed in little groups, completely out of range.
It was beginning to get really dark when I suddenly felt a crick in my neck. I turned my head to stretch it out and there it was – a lovely large, plump rabbit on the path just behind me!
In a trice I released the pellet and the rabbit’s head jerked to the side. Its legs crumpled under it.
Åse ran over to the creature. “It’s not dead!” she said in an appalled voice.
The rabbit was twitching horribly. I picked it up by the back legs, swung it round and thumped its head against a paving stone. It came down harder than I intended, spattering me with blood.
At this point Freddie reappeared, his coat pockets bulging. When he saw the rabbit, he rubbed his hands together cheerfully. “Aha!” he said. “This’ll be my job! Give me a couple of your hair slides, Åse, and I’ll do the cooking.”
We were only too happy to leave Freddie to prepare the rabbit. And while I cleaned off my bloodstains in the old fountain, Åse gathered up wood to make a fire. Meanwhile Freddie sawed off the rabbit’s paws with a penknife and then, with a terrible tearing sound, he tugged the skin off in one piece. He offered Åse one of the paws to keep for good luck and looked a bit puzzled when she shuddered. Then he gutted the animal and prepared it for roasting.
We built a fire in a sheltered spot near to the garden wall and Åse found two Y-shaped sticks and an old piece of metal railing which we used as a spit. Then we huddled round the flames while Freddie slowly turned the rabbit on the spit and tried to stop it falling into the fire every two seconds.
Gradually the rabbit began to sizzle. It smelled so good.
“I stuffed it with herbs from the kitchen garden,” said Freddie. “Chives and thyme and rosemary.” Then he added, a little regretfully, “They’re so much thinner without their fur on. Maybe we should’ve got two.”
I looked at the rabbit and then I looked at us. Freddie was right – it was a bit skinny. Åse looked at the rabbit too.
“Hey!” she cried. “Those are my hair slides!”
“Well, I had to use something to keep the stuffing in place,” said Freddie.
We went on sitting there getting hungrier and hungrier, and after a while we just couldn’t wait any longer. We took the rabbit off the spit, and tore the limbs apart. The meat on the outside burnt our fingers and the flesh was still rather raw in the middle, but we didn’t really mind.
There wasn’t much rabbit left when Colonel Armstrong appeared suddenly out of the darkness. He stood above us, and the light from the fire made his face look particularly gaunt and beaky.
“Would you like to try some, sir?” asked Åse. “Fred’s flavoured it with fresh herbs.”
Colonel Armstrong cocked an eyebrow at Freddie.
“Sir,” said Freddie, “what’s for supper tomorrow night? Will it be rat? Or crow? I’ve heard squirrel can be very good indeed – a nice, gamey flavour.”
The Colonel gave him a grim little smile. “I’m afraid it’ll be rabbit again,” he said. “But tomorrow you’ll have to kill it with your bare hands.”
So that was dinner. I’m giving the log over to Åse tomorrow. She says she usually writes a diary, so hopefully she’ll be better at describing things. (I’ve never seen anyone write as fast as her – it’s surprising the pen doesn’t catch fire!)
Åse Jeffries
25TH NOVEMBER 1942, DRUMINCRAIG HOUSE
I’m writing this in the dining room after breakfast, having spent my first night in Drumincraig House. It definitely wins the prize for MOST CREEPY AND UNCOMFORTABLE PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE.
In some ways it’s worse – if that’s possible – than Roxbury Hall (my horrible boarding school where, apart from schooling me till I drop, they’re also intent on turning me into a Proper English Lady).
Here’s how Drumincraig measures up:
1. The bedroom:
Icy cold. A colony of daddy-long-legs dance around the light fitting. Sounds of rats (or vampire bats?) sharpening their nails in the enormous corner cupboard.
2. The bed:
Unspeakable. Cold and clammy, as if previously occupied by some monster of the deep. Lumpy mattress, sheets made of slippery nylon that snags on your toenails. If you move even a fraction in the night all the bedclothes slide to the floor.
3. The bathroom:
Miles away. Turn the tap on and there’s a sound like a volcano erupting.
Last night, when we came in from the rabbit hunt, the Colonel sent us down to the kitchen where a nice, fat, smiley woman called Mrs Collins gave us mugs of hot milk and set down a tray of toast and dripping. She wasn’t counting the slices (the way the Roxbury Hall matron does) and when I put a spoonful of sugar in the milk she winked at me.
Then I went upstairs, and the bedroom was icy. I just got straight into bed as quickly as possible. Tomorrow night I won’t drink anything in the evening – if I want to go for a pee in the night I have to pass the old laird’s Madagascar beetle collection.
We still haven’t been told what we’re doing here. Hopefully we’ll find out today. But the best thing so far is that the f
ood – when we’re not hunting it ourselves – is bliss.
For breakfast we’ve just had fried kippers and eggs and porridge and as much toast and raspberry jam as we could eat. I thought I’d had a bad night, but it turns out that the pillows on the boys’ beds have metal bars in the middle. When Fred complained, Sergeant Chop-chop-chop yelled at him, saying it was only an old orthopaedic pillow and called him “a right lady’s blouse” for wanting to swap it. Then, just to get the message across, he gave Fred an almighty slap on the back that sent him careering into a little nest of antlers which the Colonel uses as a stand for his galoshes.
I’ve got to stop now. Colonel Armstrong has come into the dining room with Sergeant Chop-chop-chop at his heels. The Colonel is carrying a sheath of papers under his arm and has just looked at me over the rim of his spectacles and given me a put-down-that-pen-and-listen-to-me-right-now nod. What a cheek! It was him who wanted us to write this in the first place!
Åse Jeffries
27TH NOVEMBER 1942, DRUMINCRAIG HOUSE
This morning at breakfast the Colonel handed out our timetables. But it’s not like school – they don’t have English, maths, history, etcetera. Instead the subjects are:
FITNESS DRILL
EXPLOSIVES OR SIGNALS
CLIMBING
COMBAT
FIRING RANGE
ORIENTEERING
FIRST AID AND SURVIVAL
EXTREME CONDITIONS TRAINING
We still don’t know what our mission is going to be, but we have been divided up. Fred (who will probably master Morse code in a flash) and Jakob are studying signals. I’ll be learning explosives with the other boy who’s due to arrive soon.
“Sir,” Jakob said to Colonel Armstrong, “we did quite a bit of judo in Monmouthshire. What other kinds of combat will we need to learn?”
The Colonel started to count on his long, bony fingers. “Unarmed hand-to-hand, knives, garrottes, a little bit of jujitsu, a spot of karate, pressure points …” he paused here and out came one of his grisly grins, “and, of course, silent killing.”
There was an icy silence as we all absorbed the news that we were going to learn to become murderers.
But the Colonel only shrugged. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll soon get the hang of it, and we only practise on dummies to start with.”
Well, that sure made me feel better…
And I’m flummoxed. What do they have in mind for us? Why are we learning silent killing? When Pop said I needed an English education, I don’t think this is quite what he had in mind.
Anyway, I had my first explosives training session this morning. Then, after an enormous lunch, we went down to the stone hall, with all those animal heads a-goggling down on us. The wind was howling down the chimney and outside there was nothing but that crazy Scottish rain that comes in sideways in great gusts.
We stood there hoping Colonel Armstrong was going to say, “Why not take the afternoon off? There’s a nice fire in the library. Go and curl up there with a board game and a plate of chocolate biscuits.”
But not a bit of it. He looked out the window, chewed on his pipe and said – I wish I could do his accent – “Now for a wee stroll up Ben Mor.”
Well… The wind was blowing so hard we could barely get the front door open and we were soaked to the marrow in minutes. The Colonel’s legs are hugely long and he walks like a dromedary, with great lolloping strides. I had to do Scouts’ pace – ten paces running, ten paces walking – to keep up. I know I’m small, but being anywhere near the Colonel makes me feel the size of a dachshund.
At the foot of the path up Ben Mor – which is, of course, insanely high – there was a small shelter. Here the Colonel deigned to stop. “Miss Jeffries! Haukerd! Stromsheim!” he said. “Pick up your packs!”
I couldn’t believe it. In the shelter were three rucksacks filled with rocks. I thought only prisoners in Alcatraz carried rocks, but clearly I’m wrong.
I was barely able to move with my pack, but then Jakob told me to fasten the bottom belt of the rucksack – which meant I took most of the weight on my hips rather than my shoulders. So instead of being unbearably heavy, the rucksack became merely excruciatingly heavy.
Up we trudged. Up and up and up. And up. I’m proud to say I didn’t snivel, though I darned well felt like it. I tried to forget that I was cold and soaking wet and that all I was going to have for supper was more of Fred’s skinny half-burned, half-raw gourmet bunny.
And what I didn’t know was that the Colonel had a little treat in store for us: thirty one-armed press-ups each on the summit!
No doubt tomorrow he’ll be pulling out our toenails with red-hot pliers.
We got back to Drumincraig at dusk, completely bushwhacked and pig-whimperingly cold and wet. I knew I had to change out of my wet things but I couldn’t bear the thought of that freezing cold bedroom. I wandered downstairs to see if there were any spare legs of roast lamb or apple turnovers floating round the kitchen – at least it’s a bit warmer down there – and as I got to the long stone corridor in the basement, I heard a “Psst”. A door marked no entry had opened a fraction and Fred was beckoning me in.
He’d found the boiler room! He’d also managed to filch some custard creams from Mrs Collins. It turns out Fred is a practised thief. He comes from a big, hard-up family and says he’d never had a boiled egg to himself before he started this training.
We sat by the lovely warm boiler eating the biscuits and watching the steam rise off our clothes. And it was then we heard the voices. Mrs Collins sounded really angry.
Up Ben Mor
by Jakob Stromsheim
“You can’t do that, Colonel!” she exclaimed.
Then came some murmuring which must have been Colonel Armstrong, though we could only make out the words “hunting” and “hardening up”.
But Mrs Collins’ voice was loud and clear. “They’re children! And while they’re under my care they’ll have a nice warm supper and that’s the end of it!”
Fred punched the air.
So this evening we didn’t have to murder bunnies with our bare hands. Instead, Mrs Collins served us a proper shepherd’s pie. Make no mistake, this wasn’t horrible wartime Roxbury Hall shepherd’s pie made with a tiny bit of mince and lots of grey oatmeal and diced turnip to pad it out. No. This was proper, juicy, meaty shepherd’s pie. I’m going to write that again: PROPER, JUICY, MEATY SHEPHERD’S PIE!
I don’t know what they’re doing about rationing – our cards only entitle us to a slither of bacon every hundred years. When I asked Mrs Collins she said, “There’s plenty of sheep fall down ravines here.” Then she winked.
Just before I went to bed, Colonel Armstrong gave me this piece of paper with the new boy’s “resumé” on it.
I’m really curious to meet him, but I wonder if we’re all going to get on. Jakob and Freddie and I have been together for weeks now and, though we have our moments, we’re a tight little band of friends. And Lars sounds like a dark horse. (He’s practically twice as tall as me! I’ll need binoculars to look him in the eye!) And what exactly does “complex character” mean?
NAME: LARS PETERSEN
DoB: 02.08.28
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
LANGUAGES: Bilingual in Norwegian and English (educated at the international school, his written Norwegian is poor)
HEIGHT: 1 m 70 cms
WEIGHT: 55 kgs
EYE COLOUR: Blue
HAIR: Blond, straight
COMPLEXION: Fair
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: N/A
SPECIAL SKILLS: A good outdoorsman and skilled navigator
Petersen has been active in the Norwegian resistance for two years. He has worked as a courier in Oslo for the underground press and also as a guide in mountain regions, helping fugitives escape. He is brave, hardy and physically very fit.
Surviving in the wild comes naturally to Petersen. His family have a holiday hut in the mountains above Oslo and he has accompanied
his father on hunting trips from an early age. His uncle was on Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole.
Petersen was recently interrogated by the Gestapo and managed to withstand the ordeal without giving away the names of his contacts or details of his work. The experience has clearly affected him, though he has been unwilling to discuss what happened. Petersen is a complex character – a loner at heart and uncommunicative – but his outdoor survival skills are unsurpassed.
I’m in bed now, stuffed with shepherd’s pie and completely pooped. I’m sure I’ll sleep well if that strange scrabbling sound from the cupboard doesn’t keep me awake. But I am wondering what the Colonel has in store for us. I know it’s a difficult, dangerous mission and probably has something to do with Norway (why else would we all be Norwegian speakers?). But what exactly are we going to do? And what is living in my bedroom cupboard?
Jakob P. Stromsheim
28TH NOVEMBER 1942, DRUMINCRAIG HOUSE
I’m snuggled up in a shabby old armchair by the fire in the library. It’s my favourite place in Drumincraig. I wish we had a big wood fire like this at home – it would really cheer Mother up.
The final member of our team has arrived.
We were at lunch when Mrs Collins brought him in. He was wearing muddy clothes, and I couldn’t see him properly at first because he walked with his head down and his hair flopping over his face. He sat down at the end of the table beside Åse and opposite me.
“Children, this is Lars Petersen,” said Mrs Collins soothingly. “That would be ‘Paterson’ here in Scotland.” She set down a plate of Lancashire hotpot in front him. “Lars will sleep in the bed next to yours, Jakob. Colonel Armstrong has asked you to look after him. He’s come all the way from Norway and he’s had quite a journey.”
Well, of course I wanted to ask him about this immediately. He must have been smuggled out, just like I was when the Germans invaded Norway two years ago.
Mission Telemark Page 2