Mission Telemark

by Amanda Mitchison

  “And what did she say?” I asked.

  “She said that your father would have been proud of you.”

  Would have been?

  That would have been felt like a kick in the guts. Father is not dead. He’s missing in action. He could be a prisoner of war. He could be lying low behind enemy lines. Or he could be out on some operation with a faulty radio transmitter. Anything.

  Nobody – until now – has ever said that my father is dead. Does “missing” really mean “dead”? Has everyone else quietly buried him in their minds? Is it only me that holds out any hope?

  To my surprise – for he never touches anyone – the Colonel leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, sonny. War brings grief and hardship to us all, but it also brings out qualities that we never knew we had. In the days to come your loss will become your strength. We often find the best agents are those with the least to lose.”

  After I left the Colonel’s office I went for a walk in the grounds. The rest of the evening has passed me by in a blur. I only hope that tomorrow there’ll be something to distract me from my thoughts.

  Jakob P. Stromsheim

  7TH DECEMBER 1942

  I’m writing this sitting on a pile of logs after the worst night of my life. I really can’t believe I’m still alive.

  It all started last night.

  I woke suddenly in the dead of night. It was a horrible feeling. I opened my eyes. Two large men in overcoats – I couldn’t see their faces in the darkness – were by my bed. One of them was tying a gag round my mouth, the other was binding my feet.

  This is a nightmare, I thought. I’m only dreaming this.

  But, of course, I wasn’t.

  I tried to cry out, but there was something clogging my mouth and blocking off my tongue. A voice with a heavy accent hissed, “Quiet”.

  I tried to wriggle free, but one of the men swore in German and wrenched the gag so tight that it cut into the corners of my mouth. The other man at the foot of the bed pulled my legs down hard.

  So I had to lie there, trussed up from head to toe – hands and feet and knees all bound together. I could move my neck and there was just enough light for me to see that Lars’s bed was empty, with the bedclothes all jumbled on the floor. Did he get away, I wondered, or had they got him too? What about Freddie?

  One man grabbed my shoulders and a cloth bag was thrust down over my head. Now I could see nothing at all – just blackness – a stuffy, hot, airless blackness. Then I was picked up by the waist and roughly hoisted over one of the men’s shoulders, like a sack of coal.

  The man set off, walking quickly along the corridor and upper landing and down the stone staircase. With every step he took, my head bumped against his back.

  I stopped trying to struggle. There was no point when I was so tightly bound and I certainly didn’t want to be accidentally dropped head first on the stone stairs. Anyway, I’d got my mind on more important things – like breathing. The hood was made of some heavy, closely woven material and I had to fight for air – taking deep breaths in through my nose, though nothing seemed to be getting to my lungs. I felt sick and dizzy. How long would it be before I blacked out?

  At the foot of the stairs the man turned into the corridor that led past the boiler room to the kitchen. The back door opened and I felt the cold air as we came out onto the gravel. The man crossed the back yard. A second later, he bent down, gave a heave and a grunt and I was tossed into the air.

  In the blackness, I tried to put out my hands to break my fall – but they were bound tight. I landed on my side, smashing my forehead against a sharp corner. I cried out, but only a feeble muffled squeak got through the gag.

  I was lying on a damp metal floor, the cold seeping through my pyjamas. The wound on my head thudded and I could feel warm liquid running down my face. I curled up to try and keep warm. I remembered that earlier in the night I had wanted some distraction – now I had it in spades.

  A minute later, a door slammed and an engine started up. Suddenly the floor under me began to move. I was in the back of a lorry or a Landrover. The driver accelerated fast – he crashed along the bumpy old driveway at bone-breaking speed. And of course I couldn’t hold on to anything to steady myself, so I just bumped painfully up and down like a loose ball bearing.

  The driver turned on to the tarmac road. Here he went even faster, screeching round the corners, sending me sliding helplessly from side to side, banging into the seats. The road wound on endlessly. I was freezing cold and hardly able to breathe, and I was still being buffeted back and forth, back and forth. I soon lost any sense of time.

  Eventually the vehicle stopped and the back door opened.

  “Out! Get out!” yelled the voice with the heavy, Germanic accent. Someone grabbed me by the arms and pulled me on to the ground.

  I was standing on wet cement or tarmac – I knew that, for I was in bare feet. And I could hear a large engine running nearby.

  Someone undid the rope tying my feet together.

  “Move! Walk!”

  I couldn’t see where I was, so I took a small, careful step forward.

  “Faster!” yelled the man.

  Something small and hard and round prodded me in the small of the back. I stumbled, but a hand grabbed my arm to stop me falling and marched me along.

  “Steps,” said the voice.

  We mounted a short flight of metal steps that clanked and swayed like a ladder. Through my hood I could smell diesel fumes and I realized I must be climbing into an aircraft.

  Once we were inside, the man shouted, “Down!”

  I knelt down.

  “Down!”

  A sharp kick in the side, just below the ribcage, toppled me onto my side. Quickly I curled into a foetal position and put my hands up to cover my face. I waited for the next blow, but nobody hit me again. I felt the engine purr into gear. Hurried voices were speaking in German.

  The plane juddered down the runway and I felt a peculiar floaty sensation of release as the plane lifted upwards into the sky. I was too tired now to feel frightened and too tired to feel self-pitying. I was also too cold to sleep. I had no idea what would happen next – I could be going anywhere. But I knew that whatever lay ahead, it was going to be worse than what had just happened. I would need all my strength.

  Time passed. My legs were still unbound and every so often I tried turning over, believing that in another position I wouldn’t be quite so uncomfortable. I tried to move as quietly as possible – the last thing I wanted was another kick in the ribs – but the position I ended up in was always worse than before.

  After one of these moves, I heard boots walking towards me. I huddled up tight waiting for the blow, but instead someone grabbed my arm and pulled up my pyjama sleeve. Then something cold was rubbed on to a patch of my upper arm. I smelled the disinfectant – it must have been a swab of cotton wool. That was strange – first they hit you and half suffocated you, then they treated you with cotton wool.

  I felt the needle go in, and with it came a rising wave of heaviness. Then there was nothing.

  I woke to find the wound on my forehead throbbing. The strange heaviness was still there and it felt as if I’d been unconscious for a long time – maybe hours, maybe days.

  Where was I? I wasn’t in the aircraft any longer. I wasn’t on the move. There was straw underneath me.

  I came to the conclusion I must be somewhere behind enemy lines. Maybe in Germany. Or Belgium. Maybe the Netherlands. Wherever it was, someone had cared for me, even if it was in a rough and ready manner. There was something heavy over me that smelled of mud and sweat and old tobacco – a greatcoat, probably. They’d taken the hood off my head as well, so I was just blindfolded. And some light was penetrating the blindfold, so it was daytime, wherever I was.

  And, thank goodness, I no longer had the gag. I could breathe easily. But my mouth felt very dry, and I was thirsty. I wanted water. A long, cool glass of water. As long as they gave me water,
I’d be all right.

  More time passed. I had cramp in my right leg and I shifted around groggily under the smelly greatcoat or sacking or whatever it was that was covering me. My thoughts returned to Drumincraig. I thought of my mother. I thought of water. I thought of orange juice, of soda water, of pineapple juice, of the lemonade Mother used to make with little bits of lemon peel floating on the top. But mostly I thought about water. Cool water. Lots of it.

  I heard a key rattle in a lock – a big clunky door was being opened only a metre or so away.

  “Get up!” It was the same thick German voice.

  I tried to get up, but with my hands bound together and the cramp in my right leg and the greatcoat in the way, I moved slowly.

  The man snorted, grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me to my feet. My knees felt weak and wobbly.

  “Walk!” shouted the man. And, again, there was something small and hard and round jabbing into the small of my back. I realized now it was a gun.

  I walked forward. After a few yards the man thrust me through a doorway to the left. The door slammed behind me.

  A man’s voice said something in German. Someone cut the ropes round my wrist and then my blindfold was removed. The light was blinding. I blinked pathetically and after a few moments I could see my new surroundings.

  I was in a small white room with a mirrored panel along one wall. Behind a table sat two men. One man, fit and thickset, was wearing a German army officer’s uniform with a leather greatcoat and knee-high boots. His hair was short and almost white-blond, his eyes blue and very hard. His companion looked older; grey and balding with half-moon glasses. He was dressed in an old-fashioned faded suit and in front of him lay a sheaf of papers. His face was lined and tired.

  The army officer spoke first.

  “Name?”

  “Jakob. Jakob Stromsheim.”

  “SIR!” bellowed the officer.

  “Sir,” I repeated.

  The officer looked me up and down with some distaste.

  “Stromsheim, where are the shoes?”

  “I haven’t got any.” Then, quickly, I added, “sir.”

  “Your feet are dirty! You cannot stand here with feet like that! Clean them!”

  The officer was quite right – my feet were black with dirt. But what was I to do? I bent down and started to wipe my toes with the cuff of my pyjama top.

  “Stop!” he yelled.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Fool!” he shouted. “That way your clothes become dirty!”

  I just looked at him. What on earth was I to do?

  “Lick!” shouted the officer.

  I sat down cross-legged on the floor. My feet stank of engine oil and I was sure I was going to be sick. But I just got down to it – I shut my eyes and slowly started licking, trying all the time not to think about what I was doing. Between each lick I wanted to spit the dirt out of my mouth, but if I so much as paused the man started shouting at me again. So I just kept on licking – licking and swallowing, licking and swallowing and trying not to wretch.

  After what seemed like an eternity, I heard a chair scrape backwards. The army officer walked round to my side of the table, pulled me to my feet and then gave me a kick in the backside that sent me skidding across the floor. My head smashed against the brick wall. For a minute the world seemed to swirl around. And I wondered if I’d cracked my skull, because I was seeing stars. I slowly slithered down the wall on to the concrete. I needed water. Cold, clear water.

  “Lift him up,” said a weary voice that must have belonged to the older man.

  The officer hauled me up and threw me into a chair. Then he turned on a very bright lamp and shone it directly into my face.

  I tried to turn away, but the officer grabbed my hair and jerked my head back towards the light.

  “What were you doing in that house, Stromsheim?” he asked.

  “On holiday, sir,” I said. Even if I shut my eyes the light still bored into my eyeballs.

  “You were going somewhere, were you not?”

  “No, sir.”

  The officer yanked at my hair again.

  “I said, ‘You were going somewhere, were you not?’”

  “Nowhere, sir.” My eyes were watering. I remembered the advice in the SOE notes on interrogation. I had to act stupid. Say nothing. The prospect of pain is worse than the pain itself.

  The officer brought out a long black baton from inside his greatcoat. He held it in front of my face.

  “So what were you doing?” His mouth was very close to my ear.

  “Adventure holiday, sir.”

  “What?” he hissed.

  “Adventure holiday, sir.”

  The officer raised the baton up above my head and paused for a second. I hunched my shoulders and cringed in anticipation… The baton came crashing down and landed with a great thud on the table in front of me. It had passed millimetres from my head.

  At this point the older man in the suit gestured to the officer to stop and said something in German.

  Then the older man looked at me. His smile was tired, but it seemed genuine. “Now, Jakob. It’s nice to meet you. Don’t be frightened. Nothing will happen to you if you behave yourself. You’d be surprised how much we already know. We have much information. Your friends – they’ve been most helpful.”

  I kept my face blank. They couldn’t have cracked. It wasn’t true. It just wasn’t true. But how would Freddie go on without food? Freddie would do almost anything for food.

  The man continued. “Where were you going? Norway or Sweden?”

  Even in my befuddled state I knew this question was a good sign. The others couldn’t have told them anything, or they wouldn’t be asking me, would they? But it was vital that my face gave nothing away. I looked at him blankly. Be stupid. Say as little as possible.

  “I asked a question, Jakob,” said the man, a little less kindly now.

  “We weren’t going anywhere, sir,” I replied.

  The man swivelled round in his chair, opened a small cabinet behind him and brought out a tray with a jug of water and a glass.

  “You must be thirsty. You would like a drink?”

  “Yes please, sir,” I replied. Things were looking up. Maybe the interrogation wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  The man poured and I watched the cool, clear water tumble into the glass. Then, slowly, the man returned to the cabinet and removed a metal ice box. He took out two ice cubes and put them in the glass. Plop! Plop! He pushed the glass across the table towards me. But, just as I reached forward to take it, he moved the glass back out of reach.

  Then he smiled sadly and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t give you anything now. Was it Norway you said you were going to? All I need to know is that. Then you have your drink.”

  I stared at the glass of cool water. I wanted it so badly, and I started to consider. Surely there couldn’t be any harm in saying Norway? But then I remembered the Colonel saying that once you gave away one piece of information, you would find it hard not to say more – psychologically your interrogators would have the upper hand.

  So I looked at the floor and said, “We weren’t going anywhere, sir.”

  The officer, who was still standing behind me, grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back into the light. He took my right arm and bent it round and backwards in a half-Nelson. I let out a scream of pain.

  The officer tugged the arm up a little further. Then up a little further again. I clenched my teeth as the pain shot up through my shoulder and neck. The officer pulled a little tighter still. I could feel that the bones and ligaments in my arm could go no further. Soon they would snap.

  I shut my eyes and counted. Five … ten … fifteen … twenty. I reached sixty before the floor began to lurch. Only then did the officer release his grip.

  “You can have your drink now,” said the man in the suit.

  He threw the water in my face.

  The interrogation
went on for what seemed like hours. Repeatedly the men made me stand, they made me stare at the light, they bent my arms and fingers back, they scrunched my knuckles, they kicked me round the room and threw me against the wall and, once in a while, threatened to whack me with the truncheon. The officer in uniform did most of the hitting and kicking and the tired man in the suit asked the questions. And, though plenty more glasses were poured out, they never did let me drink any water.

  And, every so often, the man in the suit changed tack. His voice would soften. He offered me anything I wanted: water, lemonade, a warm bath, steak and chips, a balloon ride. (He got quite inventive at times.)

  I know this sounds strange, but after a while the water became almost unimportant. As things got worse I grew more and more light-headed, as if I was watching what was happening to me from a great distance.

  And somehow, I stood my ground. Repeatedly I looked at the floor and said I didn’t know anything. Again and again in my mind I counted five … ten … fifteen … twenty … and just hoped they would kill me soon. Then it would all be over.

  At last the guard came and took me away. There wasn’t much fight left in me by then, so nobody bothered with a blindfold or handcuffs. And I certainly wasn’t up to escaping. I just stumbled along the corridor with the guard behind me. When I reached my cell I lay down on the straw, tucked the filthy old greatcoat around me and fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Later I was roused by the sound of someone opening the heavy metal door. Light shone in from the corridor. A very tall, thin, stooped figure carried in a tray holding a jug of water and a glass.

  My head pounded. My eyelids were heavy and my body ached all over.

  I found myself staring at the tray thinking, Oh no, we’re going to do the glass of water game again.

  The tall stooped figure put the tray down. Alongside the jug and the glass was a small plate of custard creams.

  I half closed my eyes. All I really wanted to do was sleep.

  “Good afternoon, Jakob,” said a voice I knew so well.

  I looked up. Colonel Armstrong was crouched on the ground beside the tray, stuffing his pipe.