When I’d walked a hundred paces I turned and beckoned the others on. They were to follow, always keeping some distance behind and walking in my footprints.
I continued on down the track. After a short while I came to some footprints in the snow. These were old prints – the snow had crumbled and thawed around them – and they put my mind at rest. If the staff at the power plant were walking down by the railway line the ground must be safe.
I followed the footsteps and, round a bend in the trees, I came to the small shed we’d spotted on the plans. At last!
I opened the door on an enormous electrical converter.
And this is where I’m writing. There’s plenty of room inside and it’s warm and dry and out of the wind. The others have arrived too and we’re hunkered down at the back of the hut, where there’s a small window looking out over the suspension bridge. Outside I can see a scattering of lights from the village of Vaer on the far side of the gorge. How far we’ve come!
Åse Jeffries
5TH JANUARY 1943
By the time we got to the hut I was bushwhacked. All that clinging on to rock faces had done something very strange to the muscles in my hands and my fingers felt as if they’d been chopped off and put back on again the wrong way round. As for my legs, I could barely feel them at all. But hey! I was still alive.
It was nearly midnight and for some time everyone had been very quiet, wrapped up in their own thoughts, apart from Jakob, who was scribbling away in the log. It was a good, companionable silence (although there was something rather scary about the way Fred fiddled with his mini flask of chloroform). Anyway, I felt so close to all of the boys. I realized that even Lars, who was sitting by my side chewing a matchstick and staring out the window, no longer seemed like an alien to me.
Suddenly Lars pointed to the barracks. Two men were coming out carrying rifles.
The enemy! Real German soldiers! The first I’d ever seen! And of course they didn’t look anything like the terrible cartoons of the Hun. They were just like you or me.
The men walked slowly down the hill, towards the suspension bridge. One of them was a tall, skinny beanpole of a man and the other was squat and sort of blob-shaped. They weren’t exactly hurrying – I’ve seen coffin-bearers move faster – but then nobody would be exactly rushing off to spend a night standing on a suspension bridge in a high wind.
The tall German was waving his arms about, and the squat one seemed to be nodding.
They stopped. The tall one was explaining something that needed two hands. He was holding his arms out as if to show the size of something. What was it? A fish he’d caught on holiday?
These soldiers had no idea what tonight had in store for them. They couldn’t know that they were about to play a role in history. Their jobs and possibly their lives (I don’t think Hitler really suffers bunglers) were on the line. And the future of Europe, and of the world, hung in the balance.
And what were they doing? Discussing a fishing trip!
In five minutes we were to go in. Then it’d all be up to me and I’d be squeezing my way between high-voltage electric cables so tight that I wouldn’t be able to turn round or probably even breathe.
What if I got stuck? I tried hard not to think of my pet frog Humboldt. Last summer I brought poor Humboldt into the house for a little swim in our bath. Being an idiot, I let the plug out while Humboldt was still frolicking on a sponge. Quick as quick he jumped into the downpipe and promptly got himself stuck. And there he stayed, croaking pathetically, until Dad put him out of his misery with a chisel.
Nothing worse than poor Humboldt’s fate could befall me. I just hoped that there was enough room in the chute for me to reach for my white capsule.
It was time to check my charges and say a quick prayer.
Jakob P. Stromsheim
5TH JANUARY 1943
At precisely midnight, we left the hut and made our way towards the plant. We crouched down among the trees beside the gate. Up close, the power plant was a truly terrifying prospect. Everything seemed so big.
The great electrolysis building where they stored the heavy water was a monstrous hulk of steel and glass, with machinery rumbling angrily somewhere in its bowels. Behind it loomed the great metal pipes of the penstocks (sluices that control the water flow). Even the gate – four metres tall and padlocked shut with a chain as thick as your arm – was not to be trifled with.
I felt very small and very scared, but we had to go on. We had to go in.
The guards’ barracks, a long rectangular building on the far side of the gate, lay about thirty paces away – well within shooting range. I took the safety catch off my Tommy gun and pointed the muzzle at the ground.
Then I glanced at Freddie. His job was to run ahead and break open the gate. He looked keen – in fact, he looked a little too keen.
“Try and do it quietly,” I whispered. “We don’t want to wake the soldiers, OK?”
“Don’t worry,” he said happily. “They’ll be used to odd noises. They’ll have small hydrogen explosions here all the time.”
Freddie ran to the gate. He positioned the shears round the chain and, as he gave a great wrench to the chain, I screwed up my eyes and cringed in anticipation.
A screech of tearing metal rang out in the night air. Then came a deafening jangle as Freddie let the broken chain clang against the gate.
The noise would’ve woken the dead. And that’s what was so peculiar. I looked in all directions. Nothing happened. No siren, no floodlights, no sound came from the barracks, and no guards appeared.
Could we really be so lucky?
By now Freddie was through the gate and running along the inside edge of the fence. He came to a second gate, which he broke open to give us another way out of the complex if we got trapped. Again the sound was incredibly loud, but again, there was no reaction from the barracks. Maybe Freddie was right and the guards really were used to bangs and clangs in the night.
I crept through the first gate, dashed to the back wall of the barracks and crouched down low. Here Freddie joined me. I listened, but the noise of the machinery was just the same as before. All was clear. I beckoned to Lars and Åse, who were still out among the trees. Lars ran through the gate and took up position behind a storage tank. Åse followed, stopping to close the gate and wrap the chain back around the handle.
I edged my way along the wall of the barracks and stuck my head round the corner. Between the barracks and the electrolysis building lay a large open courtyard speckled with strange little dots of light, like thousands of tiny eyes. I couldn’t work this out. I looked up at the building and then suddenly I understood: the windows had been blacked out with paint, but the job had been crudely done, leaving cracks between the brushstrokes. Hence the little lights everywhere.
We had to cross this open courtyard. I put my forefinger on the trigger of the Tommy gun and felt for the pistol in my holster. There was complete silence from the barracks – the guards must have been sleeping. Up on the mountainside I could see the guard stationed at the penstocks, but he had his back to the plant.
It was time to go. Lars and Åse were still crouched by the storage tank. I gave them the thumbs up.
Lars raced across the courtyard and disappeared round the corner of the building. Then Åse followed. Freddie went next and I was the last to run across.
On this side the plant was less exposed. There were no barracks here, and the snowdrifts at the edge of the building provided some cover, but my heart was still pounding.
We crept along the wall and came to the heavy metal door that led down to the basement. Lars tried the handle, but the door was bolted, just as we’d expected.
We carried on till we came to a ground floor window, which was poorly blacked out. I found a keyhole sized gap in the paint and peered in.
Phew! We were in the right place. Down below me was a basement room with two rows of large, gleaming metal drums. I knew this room very, very well. It looked just like its
replica back at Drumincraig. The metal drums – eighteen of them – contained the heavy water cells. This was our target.
But something was different. The room now had a new, human component! In between the two rows of drums was a man sitting at a table, with his back to the window. The man looked old, with thinning hair and a stooped back. If his shabby overalls were anything to go by, he was a civilian. So he would be a Norwegian.
Åse elbowed me in the ribs and pointed further along the building to a metal flap set high up on the wall.
“The electrical duct,” she whispered.
The flap was a couple of metres off the ground. Freddie cupped his hands and Åse clambered up until she was standing on Lars’s shoulders. (We’d practised this manoeuvre a zillion times.) Åse tried the flap, but it didn’t move. Swaying slightly, she took out a small metal pick from her jacket pocket and inserted it into the lock at the bottom of the flap. She moved the pick carefully up and down until the lock gave. Then she lifted up the flap. The hole looked horribly small.
She turned back to me.
“Wish me luck!” she whispered. Then, ever so nimbly, she hoisted herself on to the lip of the tunnel and soon the flap closed behind her.
We waited. I felt dreadful – this was worse than anything else so far. For now we had nothing to distract us. All we could do was stand around and wait. And, of course, the longer we did so, the more likely it was that one of the guards would find us.
A minute later the flap reopened. Åse came out legs first and Lars guided her feet back on to his shoulders.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“No use. It’s been blocked off.” Åse jumped down and wiped the dust off her shoulders. “It only goes back a few metres. Somebody’s made a mistake.”
“We’ll have to break our way in,” said Lars, striding over to the nearest window.
“No! Wait!” I hissed. Lars stopped.
I turned to Freddie. “Is there any other way in?” I asked.
We’d studied the plans of the power station in detail, but only Freddie would remember absolutely everything.
“Quick, Freddie! Think.”
Freddie stared blankly at the night sky for what seemed an unbearably long time. Lars rocked on the balls of his feet and looked so impatient that I was afraid he’d just go ahead and break the window anyway. But then, finally, something came to Freddie.
“There’s a second entrance that leads into the next room in the basement,” he said. “Nobody seems sure about it – it’s just a dotted line on the plans, but we’ve nothing to lose.”
Freddie scanned the side of the building. “If it exists, it’s in there,” he said, pointing to a huge pile of snow banked up against the wall. “It’ll be on this side,” he added, “about a metre off the ground.”
We dug away at the side of the snowdrift with our hands, pushing the snow out of the way until it formed another big mound behind us. We worked fast, but time was against us – a guard could appear any minute.
Suddenly Lars cried “Down!”, and we ducked behind the mound of snow just as an open-backed jeep sped round the corner.
The jeep stopped about four metres away from us. I heard the door open, and then came the sound of German voices. I felt for the little capsule in the inner pocket of my trousers. I could feel panic rising. I looked over at Åse, who was listening to the men, following what they said. Her face looked pinched.
Then the door of the jeep slammed shut and the engine started up again. They drove past our mound and on round the plant.
Åse let out a sigh of relief.
“What was it?” I asked.
“They’ve noticed our footprints, but they think we’re some of the Norwegian staff coming outside for an illegal cigarette break. We have to move fast. They’re coming back.”
“When?”
“You won’t believe this! One of them has found a hole in the sole of his boots and doesn’t fancy getting his feet wet. So they’re going to stop off at the barracks for a change of boots and then they’ll be back.”
“That gives us about five minutes.”
“If that!” said Lars.
We dug like maniacs, flinging snow in every direction. And then, thank goodness! My fingers found a small, square metal door about a metre off the ground. Åse released the lock with a flick of her metal pick and we opened up the flap.
The shaft was even narrower than the electrical duct and it stank of mice.
Åse grimaced. “An eel would find that tight.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said breezily (I couldn’t let her know how nervous I felt). “Just hunch your shoulders together and keep your nerve.”
She clambered headfirst into the tunnel. “It’s full of cobwebs,” she whimpered.
“That means air must be circulating and they haven’t blocked off the openings,” said Freddie, as I held the flap open so she could see where she was going.
But she was hardly half a metre inside the tunnel when she stopped and let out a little yelp.
“I’m stuck!” she cried.
I reached in and gave her bottom a quick shove, but nothing happened. We had no time now. Those guards would be back any minute.
“Lars!” I cried. “Help!”
Lars gave a great heave and shoved with all his might.
There was another yelp and then Åse was free! She crawled away down the tunnel.
We crept back along the wall to the metal door and waited for her, guns at the ready. We were completely exposed. I looked at my watch. Four long minutes had passed – the guards would surely be getting back into the jeep.
We heard the bolt on the door being drawn back.
“Leicester Square?” asked a familiar voice.
“It’s us, let us in!” I hissed.
“Leicester Square?” Åse asked again. I could’ve brained her! Above the roar of the machinery I could hear an engine starting up round the corner.
“Shut up, Åse! Let us in!”
“Why have passwords if we’re not going to use them? Leicester Square?” she asked for a third time in her most hoity-toity voice.
I wanted to slap her. This wasn’t a game! But my mind had gone completely blank. What was the password?
“Piccadilly,” said Freddie.
The door opened.
We stormed through it as if we were being chased by wolves. I closed the door and, as I did so, I heard the patrol jeep drive round the corner of the building. We’d only just made it.
Lars was about to fix back the heavy metal bolt but I grabbed his arm and shook my head. It was too late to lock the door. The jeep had stopped just outside and the guards were getting out. If we pulled the bolt now they’d hear us.
The guards were walking towards the door.
We had to hide.
I looked round, trying not to panic. We were in a windowless corridor with a metal spiral staircase leading to the floors above. On our right was the door to the room with the heavy water cells and the old man sitting at the desk. But at the far end of the corridor I spotted two large chest freezers and a row of lockers.
We ran along the corridor and Åse dived into one of the lockers – she only just fitted. Lars opened the lid of one of the freezers, and the two of us grabbed Freddie and threw him in. We closed the lid so quickly he had to duck. That left Lars and me. I opened the other freezer lid – it was so cold that white smoke billowed out.
“Get in!” said Lars.
“And you?”
“There’s space by the lockers,” said Lars.
I got in and Lars dropped the lid.
I was plunged into a world of profound cold and blackness. It was far worse than falling in the lake – I was sealed in. I could barely move, there was so little room. And it was so cold. I tried to breathe in tiny sips, partly because the little blades of frozen air hurt my lungs and partly because I had to be careful: there wasn’t much oxygen.
How long could I last? What were the guards doing?
I tried to listen, but I could only hear the hum of the freezer’s motor.
A cold, lonely time passed – seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours. Soon there was almost no air left.
I couldn’t take it any more. I tried to push the lid open just a crack, but it wouldn’t move. I tried again. It was too heavy.
I closed my eyes, thinking that if the others were going to find my corpse, at least I wouldn’t be staring at them.
Finally – thank mercies! – the lid was raised and I opened my eyes to find Lars and Åse looking down at me.
They grabbed my arms and started to haul me out.
“What took you so long?” I asked, breathing in sobs. I was amazed that I could speak at all.
“Sorry,” said Åse. “The guards went and talked to that chap for a bit. Then they wandered round the corridor for a minute or two before they went out again.”
“Is Freddie OK?”
“He’ll be fine. His freezer wasn’t on,” said Lars.
I felt as though I needed to rest for at least a week, but as soon as Lars had hauled Freddie out of his freezer, we had to get on with the job. We walked briskly down the corridor. Outside the door to the heavy water store we paused for a second.
The sign on the door said:
NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS
“Well, that’s all right,” muttered Lars. “We’re on business.”
The door was unlocked. Freddie and I went in first, both pointing our Tommy guns at the old workman at the table.
“On your feet. Hands up,” I said in English. Whatever happened, we had to pretend not to understand Norwegian.
The workman gave a start of surprise. He took off his glasses and stumbled to his feet, putting his hands in the air. He had a kindly, crumpled face. In fact he looked a bit like my uncle Mathias.
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