We lit the stove, took off our soaking socks and boots and placed them as near as we could to the flame. Then, exhausted from our search, we got into our sleeping bags and huddled together.
Freddie made supper. He crumbled a loaf of pemmican into a biscuit box and added some oatmeal and water. Then he patted the mixture into balls and plopped them into the frying pan with a little butter. He called them “rissoles alla Hardanger”.
As the rissoles began to crackle in the fat, I watched two small ducks fly down on to the lake. They sat low in the water.
Lars clicked his tongue.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Those are black-throated divers. They shouldn’t be here at this time of year.”
“Is the weather too warm, then?” asked Åse.
Lars nodded. “It’s made the snow sticky, and most of the lakes won’t be safe to cross.”
“I’m afraid we’ve no choice,” I said. “We can’t go over the mountains now, not without paraffin. We’ll have to keep to the low ground where we can gather firewood.”
The rissoles were ready and we picked them up with our gloves, and ate them straight from the pan. Then we spread out our map of the Hardanger Plateau on an undersheet and Lars pointed out where we were now and where, as far as he could remember, we’d find all the different mountain huts that were scattered over the plateau.
With advice from Lars, I planned out our route. We’d go along the edge of a long winding fjord, up over a mountain and down again, into the Skoland marshes, where we should have landed all along. Once we were on the far side of the marshes we’d make our way on to an upland area and then over the mountains to the last hut – the Fjosbudalen hut.
Then we’d be five kilometres from Vemork. It would be a long trek. I’d worked out that the last part of the journey on the uplands could take at least a week. Without fuel and with the ground boggy underfoot, I wasn’t at all sure we’d make it with enough food left for the escape to Sweden.
But we did at least seem to be quite safe from Germans up here. I mentioned this to Lars, who nodded grimly.
“You’re right,” he said. “Nobody in their right mind comes here in winter.” But then, in the kind of quiet voice that fills you with dread, he added, “It’s the weather that’ll be our real enemy.”
Jakob P. Stromsheim
10TH DECEMBER 1942 (MY BIRTHDAY!), A TINY HUT
I woke everyone just before dawn. Once we’d buried the primus stove – it’d be no good to us now – we set off down the mountainside.
We’re not bad skiers, but the slope was steep and rocky and the backpacks were so heavy it took us a moment to get our balance. When we reached the lake we left our rucksacks, climbed up the mountain again, picked up the remaining packs and skied back down the hill a second time.
Then we set off along the lakeside. The snow was soft and sticky. It soaked through our boots, and formed great clumps on the bottoms of our skis. Every few minutes we had to stop to scrape the snow off. It’s really awkward wiping your own skis. You can’t reach them at all easily – it’s like a fat man trying to cut his own toenails.
We continued along the lakeside, carrying the rucksacks in relay: forward and back, forward and back. It was a beautiful day. The air felt crisp and clean and the snow shone so brightly that it seemed to give off a bluish-white light. But I didn’t pay much attention to this. I just kept my head down and pushed along on my ski poles as fast as I could. We had to reach Ronsen’s hut in daylight. If the weather broke we wouldn’t survive the night in the open.
The afternoon stretched out into early evening and still there was no sign of the hut.
Mindlessly I carried on pulling myself forward. I was completely exhausted, and my only thought was that we should do another stint before we tried to hunker down for another night in the open.
And then, as the trail wound around a shoulder of the mountain, a little brown hut came into view.
It looked tiny, tucked in among a glade of birch trees, but the sight of it made us quicken our pace. As we got nearer, the hut began to look a little bigger – but not very much bigger. When we arrived we realized it was barely the size of a child’s Wendy house.
I lifted up the door latch and stooped inside. The smell reminded me of my grandfather’s potting shed in Bergen – all earthy and damp.
I sent Lars down to the lake to collect water while the rest of us gathered firewood. I was piling up damp birch branches at the door when Åse came running towards me. She was puffing and bright-eyed.
“There’s another little shed beyond the trees!” she cried.
“What’s in it?”
“Guess,” she said excitedly. I could see that it must be something very special. So could Freddie.
“Bottled blueberries?” he suggested.
“No. Better than that.”
“Firelighters?” I asked, looking at our sodden firewood.
“No. Better still. Come and have a look!”
She scampered round the back of the hut and up into the trees. We followed and found her standing triumphantly beside a collapsing outhouse. At her feet, still half-wrapped in tarpaulin, was a large, sturdy-looking toboggan with metal runners.
What a relief! There would be no more going back and forth with the rucksacks. This would cut our journey time by two-thirds!
“I didn’t tell you, but it’s my birthday today,” I said. “And you couldn’t have given me a better present.”
Åse beamed with pleasure.
“I’ll make you my birthday special, Jakob,” added Freddie.
“What’s that?” I asked, taken by surprise.
“Marmite flapjacks.”
After supper, Freddie cooked his flapjacks. They were black and gave off a horrid acrid smell. I shut my eyes, put one in my mouth and bit into it. I just about managed to stop my face from puckering up, but my eyes watered. The taste was vile, the gritty little particles clinging to my teeth like barnacles. After the awful foot licking during the Colonel’s interrogation, this was the nastiest thing I’d ever tasted.
Freddie offered the tin to the others. Lars shook his head, but Åse popped a square into her mouth. Almost immediately, she wriggled out of her sleeping bag and bolted for the door.
I heard retching noises from outside the hut.
“I knew you’d like them,” said Freddie confidently. “So many things are improved by a spot of Marmite: meringues, fairy cakes, boiled carrots. Now if only I had a little tube of anchovy paste…”
Åse returned, wiping her mouth against the back of her hand. “We could use those as weapons against the Germans,” she said. I pretended to be studying the map and somehow managed to keep a straight face.
Freddie gave her a disappointed look.
When we’d banked up the fire for the night I arranged all the food supplies in neat piles on the floor of the hut. I had to calculate rations. It would be three weeks until the raid – though that could always change – and then there would be ten more days for the journey into Sweden. I also needed some reserves for emergencies. I did some sums in my head, then took a plate and measured out: one cup of oatmeal; one cup of flour; one loaf of pemmican; twelve biscuits; a piece of cheese about the size of a pack of playing cards; half a pack of butter; and four squares of chocolate.
“Is that breakfast?” asked Freddie.
“Nope, that’s the daily rations.”
He gave me a crestfallen look. His hand crept towards the chocolate. I slapped it back quickly.
“I don’t know if even I could eat a whole loaf of pemmican every day,” he grumbled.
“This is the daily ration for all of us,” I replied. “I thought you were meant to be brilliant at maths?”
He looked astonished.
“But that wouldn’t feed a mouse,” he protested, looking at Åse.
“Don’t start that again. I’m NOT a mouse!” said Åse.
But Freddie was right. It is a pitifully small amount of food, e
specially when we are going to be out in the cold, skiing all day long.
I’m not sure the others realize, but things look very bad. How are we going to keep our strength up?
It’s time to settle in for the night, so I’ve put the food away. There’s nothing to do now but huddle further into our sleeping bags. It’s so good to be warm at last and out of the wind. I was just lying here with a lovely sleepy heaviness descending on me, when I got that burnt Marmite taste at the back of my mouth.
Note to self: keep an eye on Freddie’s cooking.
Jakob P. Stromsheim
15TH DECEMBER 1942
Several days have passed, but there’s not been much to write about because every day seems the same.
But let me go back to that first morning when we were staying in our tiny hut.
We rose just before dawn. Lars rubbed a candle along the runners of the toboggan and Åse looped some rope around one of the bars to make a harness. Right at the last moment, I decided that there was no point taking the tents – they were heavy and cumbersome and slowed us down. Of course not having them would mean that if a storm blew up suddenly, we’d be caught short. But that was a risk I was going to have to take. Compared with some of the other risks we were facing, it really didn’t amount to much.
Nobody argued with my decision and soon we set out along the lakeside, with Lars at the back pulling the toboggan along like a big, silent ox. Slowly the light crept up over the mountains and, after the mist rose from the lake, we found ourselves in bright, cold sunshine.
We forged ahead, pushing our poles through the sticky snow, trying to ignore the damp creeping into our boots and up our legs. In places the face of the mountain was so steep it felt as though the rock and snow towering over us would come crashing down at any moment. We skied on as fast as we could.
Our pace was much better, thanks to the toboggan, and soon the tiny hut disappeared behind us. As the morning wore on, the landscape altered, the mountains becoming less steep and the fjord widening out into a series of inlets, like the fingers of a hand. In colder weather we would have skied straight across these stretches of water, but the ice was still too thin. Instead we skirted around the edges and, occasionally, when we came across level ground, we raced each other to the next clump of trees or big rock.
Lars always won, but it was still great fun. At one point I even thought, Goodness, I’m enjoying this. Maybe everything isn’t quite so impossible after all.
Most of the time we were skiing downhill, so we were making better time. I worried whether we were pushing our luck with no tent, but Lars had said we’d come to a hut before the end of the day. I kept scanning the sides of the fjord, but no buildings came into view. Finally, just as dusk was beginning to fall, I spotted something barely bigger than a Monopoly piece. It was another little brown hut!
When we reached the hut we gathered up birch branches and, after much blowing and fiddling, we lit a slow, smoky fire. Then we ate, curled ourselves up in our sleeping bags and went to sleep.
And this – with better and worse fires, and better or worse food (depending on how well supplied the hut is), is how we’ve spent the last few nights. We ski until late afternoon and then we come to a hut. Some are barely more than hovels filled with animal droppings, others are neat, trim, little chalets with shutters and verandas and tins of food in the cupboards.
The day before yesterday we came to the head of the fjord and began a slow climb out of the valley, leaving the trees and the fjord behind. We followed a small, icy-cold river up on to the higher land. The ascent was hard work – we’d gathered bundles of branches for firewood and had tied them on to the toboggan. We now took it in turns to pull the load along.
Finally, we came out on the top of the plateau. Here was a pure, bare world of rock and snow. There were dips and rises in the land, but the whiteness seemed to stretch out for ever.
At first our main guide was the river. Then, as time passed, the river became smaller and smaller. Eventually it disappeared completely.
After that, we were on our own, just us and our compasses. It was impossible to know for sure exactly where we were. We scrutinized the map, trying to follow each contour, and we held up our compasses every few minutes to check we were still heading four degrees south-east to where the Grasfell marshes lay.
For two whole days we’ve continued on through this blank, white land. The weather has been eerily good – with clear skies and just a light breeze. And every evening Lars says how lucky we are and that there must be a cold front soon. (Åse rolls her eyes at this.)
But each morning we wake up to more clear skies and we set off again across the great white desert. Nothing changes from one hour to the next. And with so little for the mind to latch on to, I am becoming hyper observant (and hyper bored and hyper boring!). I seem to notice every large rock or strange-shaped cloud, or hovering bird.
We’ve passed the tracks of wild sheep and once we even saw a mountain hare, but there have been no ski tracks, no signs of people. In the huts we stay in it’s been clear that no one has visited recently. Why would they? There’s nothing here but snow and ice and emptiness. We might as well be on the moon.
Jakob P. Stromsheim
16TH DECEMBER 1942
You remember me writing yesterday that the weather was “eerily good”? Well, today I’m lucky to be alive! This is what happened.
It was our third day on the high plateau, and we were making our way down to the Grasfell marshes when the weather finally broke.
It happened very quickly, in a matter of minutes. The sky suddenly grew overcast, as if a shadow had passed in front of the sun, and a cold westerly wind whipped up the loose snow all around us. I stopped and tightened my hood, adjusted my goggles and then, head down, I went on down the slope. There was a mountain hut about 200 metres away, over a stretch of flat ice. If we could reach it, we could rest up until things improved.
At the foot of the slope I stopped and waited for Åse, who was a few metres behind me. Lars and Freddie were further back, manoeuvring the toboggan (my birthday present had proved to be a blessing and a curse). I couldn’t call out – the wind was too loud – so instead, I pointed with my ski pole across the ice in front of me. I knew that there, under the snow and ice, lay a mountain pool.
If it had been calm, with the sun shining, I would have skirted round the side – I could see clumps of snow-covered reeds marking the edges. But I was in a hurry. We had to get to that hut as quickly as possible.
With my head down against the wind, I set out. The ice was covered in a thick layer of wet snow that slushed up round my boots.
I hadn’t gone more than five metres when I heard what I took to be the crack of a rifle. Then more shots – really one strange, long, drawn-out shot – rang out. I stopped and looked round. I could just make out Åse back at the edge of the ice. Her arms were in the air, waving frantically, but I had no idea why.
All of a sudden I did know why. The surface gave way beneath my feet. I crashed down through the ice. And water so cold closed over my head.
I opened my eyes – the shock had pulled my breath away and bubbles were churning out of my mouth. I was going down into the blackness. I pulled my goggles down and flailed my arms around and kicked with my legs. But my skis were still attached to my boots and the weight was dragging me down.
I unclipped my skis and kicked harder. With a gasp I reached the surface. I grabbed at the edge of the ice and started to hoist myself up, but the ice crumbled under my weight and I was pulled back down again.
This time I couldn’t get to the surface. The rucksack on my back had become waterlogged and was pulling me down. I wriggled free of the straps and came up for air. The rucksack, which contained half our food supplies, sank immediately.
My skis were floating by my side and I thought clearly enough to fling them up on to the surface of the lake towards the shore. I grabbed at the slippery edge of the ice again but again the ice gave way beneath me.
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I knew the science. Only a minute more and then my heart would stop. Already I was getting weirdly sleepy.
Then above the wind came the sound of a voice.
“Jakob! Here! Here!”
It was Åse.
She flung a rope towards me. I reached out to grab it, but my movements were slow and fumbling and the rope somehow just slipped by me. Åse hauled the rope back towards herself ready to throw it again.
The cold and tiredness were pressing down on me now and everything seemed to be happening so slowly. Åse threw the rope again. This time I grabbed hold of it through my soaking gloves and Åse began to pull.
But it all went wrong. Åse started to slide across the ice towards me. I was pulling her out onto the lake.
Then came a hard jerk on the rope. Lars had caught up with Åse and was pulling as well. With a great sucking noise, I was plucked out of the water and pulled along the ice.
A little way from the side I let go of the rope and scrambled on to all fours. If I stood up I might well go through the ice again. I crawled back to the bank.
Lars grabbed me and dragged me to my feet. The water had been freezing, but the wind was even worse. It blew straight through my soaking clothes, chilling every part of me.
“Get his clothes off or he’ll freeze,” Lars shouted out over the wind.
“The food was in that rucksack, wasn’t it?” yelled Freddie.
“Shut up and help!” cried Åse.
I stood there, limp and pathetic, as they stripped my clothes off me, underpants included. Åse looked away, but it didn’t matter to me – I was beyond caring.
Once undressed they wrapped a blanket round me whilst they found a dry set of clothes for me to put on. There was nothing to be done about my boots – I had to put them back on soaking and waterlogged.
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