Mission Telemark

by Amanda Mitchison

  “Now jump!” Lars ordered.

  Exhausted and half-dead with cold, I started to jump. My first jumps were pretty feeble. But I kept on. I jumped twenty jumps, then thirty more jumps – it seemed to work. I began to feel a little bit of warmth returning to my limbs.

  By the time I’d done another thirty jumps, Åse had retrieved my skis from the ice and we had to get going again. (She’s as light as a waterboatman and can probably walk on anything!)

  Progress was slow, for the snow was thick as a blizzard and the wind was growing stronger by the minute. I couldn’t see more than an arm’s length in front of me. I kept pulling myself forward, and with the anorak hood pulled in tight, all I could see was the tunnel of swirling white in front of me.

  The snow driving into my face froze to my skin immediately. And my nose was running, but I soon gave up trying to wipe it. The main thing was to get to that hut.

  As I struggled along, I couldn’t stop thinking about the food that had been in my rucksack and was now deep down in the bottom of the lake. Why hadn’t I divided the food up and put a little in each pack? Why? Why? Why?

  We didn’t find the hut – it found us. Lars’s skis bumped straight into the side wall with such force that he crumpled to the ground. He let out a shout and got back onto his feet. Then we blundered after him, feeling our way along the wall of the hut until we came to a little door, which was half-buried in a snowdrift.

  Freddie took out the spade and started to dig – and the rest of us scrabbled away in our gloves. Eventually we wrestled the door open, and stumbled in from the storm. We brought the sled in with us, and banged the door shut.

  The hut was very basic: a small window, a small, stone-lined stove, a table and four chairs. And that was it.

  Everyone pulled off their goggles and Åse stared at me for a moment. Then she began to laugh. Then Freddie looked at me and he started to laugh too. Then I noticed that even Lars was smiling faintly.

  What on earth was so funny?

  I tried to smile too, but it hurt when I moved my mouth and my skin felt very peculiar and numb.

  “You look like an elephant!” said Åse.

  I put my hand up to my nose. A thick, tube-shaped icicle had formed on my nose and upper lip. I had a trunk!

  “There’s only one way to melt this,” said Åse. She took off her gloves and pressed her bare hand up against my cheek, just at the root of the giant icicle. Lars did the same, while Freddie held my trunk and wobbled it gently to and fro.

  Just for that moment, with my friends huddled round me, I managed to forget that the rucksack had gone and that our dinner was now food for the fish.

  Åse Jeffries

  17TH DECEMBER 1942

  This hut is really shoddy. A huff and a puff and it should all come down. Amazingly, it hasn’t – even though there’s been a blizzard yowling like a herd of alley cats since we got here last night.

  Maybe the hut stays up because it acts like a kind of sieve. There are so many little cracks in the planks that the wind just rips straight through. Jakob and I spent this morning tearing up bits of newspaper and stuffing them into the cracks, but it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.

  So I’m sitting here at the little table by the stove with my fingers black with newsprint and not only can I see my breath – I can see it blow away too. There is also water drip-drip-dripping down my neck from the ice on the ceiling that’s been melting all day.

  But hey! At least we’re inside and not freezing to death. Jakob, apart from a slightly drippy nose and very red skin on his face (where his trunk was amputated), seems to have recovered completely from his little dip.

  Thank goodness we had all that firewood on the toboggan! We’ve kept the hut well above freezing, but it’s not that warm. We’ve spent the day in our sleeping bags (I’ve got mine on now). You quickly learn to shuffle around in them, and if we ever do make it back, we’ll win all our school sack races.

  We’ve also got entertainment – there are some old angling magazines, and Jakob has found a big ball of string and he’s practising his knots with it. The string has other uses too. Lars has been binding a handle onto his combat knife to give it a better grip (the Colonel will be shocked to think of someone fiddling with the design).

  And this morning, when I said I was going out for a pee (the boys have been using a bucket in the corner, but I thought I was above such things), Jakob tied a length of string round my waist. He tied the other end to the door post – which made me feel like a toddler out on reins for a shopping trip with mum.

  Gee! He was right. Inside the hut you forget just how big and scary the storm outside is. I’d barely closed the door when the wind blew me flat on my face. I somehow managed to do my business (next time I’ll use the pot, thank you), but the blizzard was so thick and white it was as if I was stuck in some giant vat of freezing mashed potato. I became completely confused and had to use the string to guide me back to the door. I’ve never been so pleased to see those three boys again in my life!

  So that was my Near Death Experience for today. (There’s sure to be another tomorrow.) The main problem we face now is that we don’t really have anything to eat. When Jakob went down in the lake he took nearly half our supplies with him. (And I’m proud to say that I have managed to restrain myself and not yell at him for being so stupid as to divide up the food into only two bags.)

  We still have more than two weeks before we head off to almost certain death at Vemork power station. And then, if by some freakish chance we do survive, we still have to get ourselves to Sweden – a trivial matter of 400 kilometres. That’ll take about ten days. So while we’re holed up here, we’ll have to eat almost nothing.

  Jakob, whose every second word at the moment seems to be “sorry”, has worked out our daily rations and there’s not much to look forward to: a piece of cheese slightly smaller than a full-grown raisin every day, and a square of chocolate every fourth day.

  We had a biscuit each for lunch – lunch! – and then Fred made a flour and pemmican stew for supper. The helpings were unbelievably small. It would have made an ant weep.

  Åse Jeffries

  18TH DECEMBER 1942

  Another day shut up in the hut. Today there were chocolate rations. I cut my square up into tiny slivers with a penknife. Then very, very slowly I ate it. One sliver at a time.

  And that has been the big event of the day. There’s not much else to report – the storm is too rough for the radio to work and Jakob is less snivelly than he was, but now he has a boil on his neck that looks like a mini Mount Etna.

  And, of course, we’re hungry. I always thought you were meant to feel light-headed and otherworldly when you don’t eat. But surprise, surprise! We just feel hungry. I haven’t been thinking about God and the Meaning of Life. I have relived every single meal Mrs Collins made – even her toad in the hole that didn’t rise properly.

  What should we do? Lie in our sleeping bags saving energy but getting unfit? Or keep moving about but use up our fat reserves? In the end your body decides for you. I can’t be bothered to do anything…

  I’m going to turn in now for the night. My fingers are too cold to write any more.

  Åse Jeffries

  19TH DECEMBER 1942

  Yet another day shut up in the hut. The blizzard is still belting away at full blast and the hunger is really beginning to get to me. Why did I agree to go on this mission? Why? Why? Why?

  This morning I stood up too quickly, keeled straight over, and smashed my head against the stove. I’ve spent the rest of the day lying in my sleeping bag, unable to face the prospect of getting up. The others look pretty rough too. Fred’s legs are swollen and he has to get up all the time in the night to pee. Jakob’s boil is even redder than before. Only Lars seems OK, but even he isn’t moving more than he absolutely has to.

  All day we drop in and out of sleep. Hours pass with nothing except the occasional sigh or snuffle, or little bits of bickering about how and wh
en to feed the firewood into the stove. Jakob has insisted that we ration our fuel and try to keep the stove just going and no more, because the storm could go on FOR EVER! (Lars says he remembers one that lasted ten days…)

  On the plus side, all this lolling around is perfect for daydreaming. Here is my current list of things I want to happen right now:

  1. I want the storm to stop and the sun to come out.

  2. I want Jakob’s gigantic boil to burst.

  3. I want the war to end.

  4. I want to find a giant Mrs Collins’ lemon drizzle cake under the floorboards.

  5. I want to go home.

  Åse Jeffries

  20TH DECEMBER 1942

  Did we do something to offend the gods? This is day five and the storm has got worse. The wind is so strong that the hut quivers like a tent, and the screeching is not just ten alley cats, but a hundred, or a million.

  Jakob’s boil finally met its maker today. This morning I tried to lance it with a needle. But Jakob gave such a yelp and he wouldn’t let me have a second go. I had to hold a little piece of mirror up (funny what you find in the cupboards here) while he did it himself. The gloop spurted out – a horrible explosion of pale custardy stuff. Really revolting.

  I thought we were on a mission to save the world. Instead it turns out we’re stuck in a freezing shed, prodding spots.

  Åse Jeffries

  21ST DECEMBER 1942

  Yet another day in the sleeping bag. We’re all feeling rotten. Fred’s legs are even more puffed up (his ankles seem to have completely disappeared). I can feel the glands in my neck and my muscle conditioning is completely shot. At the moment, I couldn’t do a decent front hand spring on the vault if my life depended on it.

  We’re also running out of firewood. Lars was going to go out to see if he could find a woodpile, but there was so much snow piled up against the door, he couldn’t even get out.

  So we’ve done the only thing we could and chopped up the table. It’s been burning nicely and we’ve spent the evening drinking hot water (you have to gulp it quickly because it cools down so fast) and lying here in our sleeping bags blethering on about our lives and remembering good meals we’ve had.

  When I say “we”, I mean Fred, Jakob and I. Lars never says anything, unless it’s about the weather or the wood supplies. Jakob has told us about going clay pigeon shooting with his dad, Fred has explained the principles of light refraction and how to galvanize a zinc bucket, but Mr No-Chat has no chat. I’ve been cooped up in here for days with him, but I still know nothing about his parents, or his school, or his friends, or anything.

  All I know is that Lars has a brother. This is how I found out:

  I’d been talking about my little sister Trudie and how irritatingly perfect and blonde she is (of course I have to take after the dark-haired American side of the family). I was telling them how Trude never smudges her homework, never loses her gloves, always makes her bed and arranges her toys on her bedside table, blah-blah-blah-blah and how, despite all that, I really miss her.

  As per usual Lars said nothing and just stared into the fire.

  So I thought I’d push the boat out a little.

  “Hey! Lars,” I said. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  No reply.

  “Lars, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  Nada.

  “LARS!”

  “Mmmmmm?” he said in his just-returning-from-Planet-Zog tone of voice.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “A brother or a sister?” He makes you do all the running.

  “A brother.”

  “Older or younger?”

  “Older.”

  “How much older?”

  “Eleven years.” And then he went back to staring at the fire, with a “conversation over” look to him.

  So I’m left wondering. What’s the brother like? Is he fat or thin? Is he a champion tap dancer? Does he have a duelling scar down across one cheek? We will never know.

  Åse Jeffries

  22ND DECEMBER 1942

  A chocolate day! Otherwise nearly nothing to eat. Any food is OK if you are absolutely starving. Fred says some of the Eskimos in Alaska are very partial to the little yellow gadfly grubs they find in the nostrils of the caribou – and they eat them alive. I would eat anything now, even wriggling caribou-snot-covered little grubs.

  In fact we could eat more, but Jakob has carefully set rations aside for the journey into Sweden. And, maddeningly, he won’t be talked out of it.

  Jakob likes everything oh-so-neat-and-tidy. Even his fires! This morning, when I opened the stove and chucked a piece of skirting board in (we’ll burn anything here) he gave me this pained, in-sorrow-rather-than-anger look.

  I glared back at him.

  “Åse, all I’m asking is that you don’t just throw the wood in the stove – place it carefully. We can’t afford to waste it.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I said.

  But Jakob had on his extra-patient, grown-up-talking-to-a-three-year-old voice. “If you put the wood in at the front like that it blocks off all the heat. The middle of the fire is the hottest bit where those nice red embers are.”

  “For heaven’s sake! It’ll burn anyway.” He’s such a fusspot.

  “Listen, Mouse,” he said.

  “Don’t you dare call me Mouse!”

  He backed off.

  But then of course Fred had to wade in. “It’s interesting you should think that red is so hot. In fact the most intensely exothermic parts of a fire aren’t normally red. Of the colours visible to the human eye red indicates the coolest temperature and violet the hottest. Astronomers can look at the colours and can work out the temperature of stars by—”

  “SHUT UP!” yelled Jakob, Lars and I all at once.

  And, just for once, he did.

  We’ve started burning the chairs – there were four of them and we’re already breaking up chair number two. It was a choice: burn ’em, or eat ’em.

  Åse Jeffries

  23RD DECEMBER 1942

  The storm is over. Last night the din of the million yowling alley cats died down to a whooshing noise – as if the hut was just by the side of a huge waterfall. By morning there was no sound at all.

  The door was completely blocked by snow, so we had to climb out of the window and dig down to the door. Once we stepped outside, we found ourselves in a very weird landscape.

  You know when you’re at a smart restaurant and you’re bored out of your mind and the hot wax is dribbling down the candles and you mould it into strange shapes? Well, the wind had done just that with the snow, piling it against rocks and then hollowing it out in the most peculiar ways. Now there are strange pinnacles and swirls and mounds everywhere. One of the protuberances looks just like Colonel Armstrong’s beaky nose.

  I took a brief walk round the outside of the hut to see if my legs were still working after all those days in the sleeping bag. I forced Fred to come with me – I think part of the problem with his legs is that he hasn’t been moving much.

  When we went back inside the hut, the stink of bodies and stale air really hit me. We’d been cooped up for so long we hadn’t noticed the fug.

  Fred has been trying to get the radio to work all day. With the storm over, the signal shouldn’t have been too hard to get, but the accumulators are short of acid so the batteries can’t work properly. The generator is also a nightmare. It has to be wound by hand and, unless you’re a fifty-tonne sumo wrestler, that’s pretty hard going. Jakob now has blisters all over both hands.

  Lars has hacked away at the snowdrifts round the hut and found a small wood pile, so for the moment we won’t have to burn the two remaining chairs. He’s also come up with a new source of food. This morning he dug down to some rocks and uncovered this greyish-looking spiky lichen called reindeer moss. We boiled it up with some oatmeal for lunch.

  The moss is meant to be fu
ll of vitamins. It’s OK to put in your mouth – the consistency is a bit like wet sand – but you have to think hard about something else if you ever want to swallow it.

  We had a discussion about food this afternoon. I told Jakob if we didn’t increase our rations we wouldn’t be strong enough for the mission and – whoopee! – he agreed.

  So he’s going to use up some of our emergency supply and tonight we’ll be doubling the rations – we’ll have half a loaf of pemmican each. And tomorrow Lars and Jakob are going out with their guns to hunt for reindeer. If they don’t catch something quickly we will all starve to death. I’d been hoping for a rather more dramatic ending – a shoot-out or a massive explosion. Anything but this slow misery.

  Åse Jeffries

  24TH DECEMBER 1942, CHRISTMAS EVE!

  Lars and Jakob set off at dawn this morning. The extra food – and maybe that awful reindeer moss – has made all the difference. Fred’s legs have gone down a bit, Jakob is looking better and I’ve felt well enough to spend most of today out of my sleeping bag.

  More reindeer moss for lunch. Yeuch! Still, it was better than Fred’s Marmite flapjacks. He hasn’t noticed yet, but I’ve hidden his Marmite in the bag with the fuses and rubber gloves. It was a mean thing to do, but I just can’t bear the smell of that stuff any more.

  This afternoon I’ve been checking over the explosives, counting out the charges and looking at the plans. Every three minutes I go to the window just to see if there’s any sight of Jakob and Lars. In my mind’s eye I’ve already got those venison steaks sizzling in the pot. If the boys come back empty-handed, I’ll eat one of them instead – though Lars might be a bit tough and stringy.

  Fred had been fiddling with his transmitter for most of the morning without much luck. And then suddenly, at 3.00 p.m. he got through to London.