“Nothing will happen to you if you do as you’re told. We’re British army.” I pointed to the embroidered insignia on the front of my camouflage suit.
But the workman’s eyes were on Åse. How he was gawping at her! He was clearly wondering how old she was.
I had to get him out of our way.
“We’re British army,” I said again coldly. “Now, move!” I had both hands on the gun, so I gestured with a flick of my head that he was to go and stand by the wall.
I kept the gun trained on the old man as he moved, and Freddie took up position by the door.
Åse and Lars made for the table. Pushing the workman’s papers aside, they laid out the eighteen plastic explosives. They were strange-looking things – grey, sausage-shaped lengths of putty-like stuff about a handspan in length. Each had what looked like a piece of candle wick attached to one end – the detonator fuse.
Lars and Åse put on rubber gloves and set to work on the heavy water cells at the far end of the room. They worked like a pair of old pros, quickly wrapping the explosives round each cell in turn. They always put the explosive in the same place – just below the water jacket, where the mechanism was most vulnerable. The explosives fitted snugly – they were exactly the right length. Even though I knew they were going as quickly as they could, the wait was agonizing.
The old workman watched Lars and Åse attentively, and when he saw exactly where they were placing the explosives, he nodded, as if to say “well done”. When they were about halfway through he gave a polite cough.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I think you should know that there’s a lye leakage. It’s caustic, so be careful not to get any on your skin or clothing.”
“Thank you,” said Lars, who was crouched down low over a cell.
Åse shot him a smile. I did, too, relieved that he was speaking to us in English, not Norwegian.
Åse moved lickety-split down her row of cells. She finished first and started coupling the fuses in twos so that there’d be only nine fuses to ignite. Eight of these fuses she kept long – the fuse cord would burn at a rate of one centimetre per second. These fuses would take two minutes to go off, and were our back-up plan. The ninth fuse she cut much shorter – it was to detonate after only thirty seconds. She then linked the short fuse to the other detonators so as to set off all eighteen charges simultaneously.
Once the fuses were lit we would have thirty seconds to make our getaway. That wouldn’t be long enough for us to leave the compound – we might not even get out of the building.
Åse quickly checked that the explosives were securely wrapped around the cells, then turned to me.
“Everything’s set. OK to go?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. I was worried. What was I going to do with this nice old workman? We could hardly take him with us. I decided I’d let him run up the spiral staircase and get as far away from the explosion as possible. That was his best bet – as long as the building stood up to the blast.
Still pointing the Tommy gun, I walked the workman over to the door. Then I nodded to Lars, who lit a match and made for the fuses.
“Wait, please!” cried the workman. “My glasses! They’re on the table. I need them for my job. They’re impossible to replace these days.”
“Get them,” I said to Lars.
Lars blew out the match. The spectacle case was lying there with all the workman’s crumpled-up papers on the edge of the table. Lars grabbed the case, dashed across the room and handed it to the man.
“Tusen takk,” said the workman. I tried to read his expression. Why had he reverted to Norwegian? Was it just nerves?
Lars struck a second match. And he was just crouching down to light the first fuse when the workman cried out again.
“My glasses! They are not in the case!”
Again Lars blew out his match.
For a moment I shut my eyes. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Nothing could be more important than what we were doing. Everything – the war, the future of the world, our own survival – hung in the balance. And we were worrying about an old man’s glasses!
I was feeling really frantic.
“Where are your glasses?” I snapped.
The poor workman shrugged.
I held my breath while Lars and Åse rifled desperately through the papers on the table. If a guard came down the stairs and found us now…
Finally Lars opened a ledger and found a pair of delicate, metal-rimmed spectacles. He ran across the room and pressed the glasses into the workman’s hand.
The old man looked at him intently and said, in Norwegian, “I’ve seen you before. You’re one of the Petersens, aren’t you?”
Lars looked at him, aghast.
This was disastrous!
“No!” I hissed at the workman. “We are British army agents. Remember that.”
The old man nodded.
“Let’s get a move on,” I said.
Lars struck a third match and bent over to light the fuse.
That was when we heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
Everybody froze, even the workman, and Lars blew out the match.
We waited. I still had my gun on the workman, while Freddie and Åse were pointing theirs at the top rung of the spiral staircase.
The steps clanged noisily with every footfall. I took a deep breath in. Should we kill the guard to silence him? Would the noise raise the alarm?
Yet the footsteps were approaching at a most unhurried pace. It wasn’t a good clipped soldier’s march, but more of a slow shuffle.
“It’ll be Gunnar,” murmured the old workman.
“Who?” I asked.
“The nightwatchman,” explained the workman. “He’s a good Norwegian.”
That was excellent news – a good Norwegian meant someone who wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer. So this man wouldn’t shout out, or make things difficult.
But you could never be sure.
“Hands up! Stop where you are!” I cried as the man reached the bottom step.
The nightwatchman gave a start, put up his hands and blinked. One look at him in his old overalls and I knew he was no threat. He was just a gentle soul who mended dripping taps, and I felt sorry to be giving him such an unpleasant shock.
But there wasn’t time to apologize, or to explain. I turned to the old workman and gestured to him to join Gunnar at the bottom stair.
“Right,” I said. “When I shout ‘go’, run up the stairs as fast as you can. You should reach the second floor before the explosion. I’ll follow once I’ve seen you up.”
I could see Åse understood – I had to wait behind just in case one of the men put out the fuses. It was unlikely; they didn’t look the sort. Instead I’d got a more serious worry: they were both old men and didn’t look very fit. Would they be able to run up those stairs fast enough? I hoped they’d make it to safety. I hoped we all would.
I nodded to Lars and he lit the long fuses. I pressed the button on my stopwatch.
We waited.
We wouldn’t leave the basement until the thirty-second fuse was lit. And that minute and a half seemed to last an eternity. The fuses hissed and sizzled and the stopwatch counted off the seconds at a slow plod.
Twenty-eight … twenty-nine…
Anything could happen now. What if someone had found the sabotaged gate?
Forty-three … forty-four…
Maybe an ambush was waiting for us outside that steel door?
Seventy … seventy-one…
At ninety seconds, Lars lit the short fuse, then dashed to the steel door with Freddie and Åse. I stayed behind. I counted aloud slowly – as if overseeing a race. The two men looked very anxious.
“Seven … eight … nine … ten … run!” and the old men clattered off up the stairs.
I sprinted down the hallway to the steel door. The others were already out in the yard running back the way we had come.
Only fifteen seconds remained. We had to get cle
ar of the electrolysis building before the explosion.
I ran like I’d never run before, feet pounding against the ground. In the moonlight I could see Lars up ahead, crossing the open yard by the barracks.
I reached the yard, running blindly.
I wouldn’t have time to make it to the gate. Not even Lars could have done that. The blast would come any moment now…
I leapt the last few paces and slid to a stop behind the storage tanks, where Freddie was already crouched down. I could see Lars and Åse behind some old drum casks.
I hunched my shoulders and waited for the big bang. But what came was more of a muffled thud, as if two steamrollers had collided. There was a flash of orange and then a splintering crash of breaking glass as the basement windows were blown out.
That was all. The sensible part of me was relieved. The electrolysis building hadn’t collapsed. The workmen – and even that wretched pair of glasses – would be all right.
But I did feel a little disappointed.
The explosion hadn’t been very dramatic. After all of the training in Scotland, and those endless, freezing weeks up on the plateau, and all the dangers and hardships that we’d faced…What had it all been for? It was silly, but I’d expected – at the very least – to be personally flattened by the blast.
For a moment it was as if nothing had happened. There were no sirens, no screams or shouts, no bursts of gunfire. All we could hear was the whistle of the wind and the hum of the machinery.
Then the door to the barracks opened and out stepped a German soldier, pulling on his greatcoat as he came. The man was bare-headed and unarmed – all he carried was a large torch. He glanced around the empty yard and then he shone his torch at the upper storeys of the electrolysis building. The torchlight moved slowly along the tiers of balconies on the top two floors of the building. If he lowered his torch just a fraction he’d see all those broken windows.
But it’s extraordinary what someone can miss!
The guard didn’t lower his torch. He just shook his head and made his way back to the barracks.
“You know why he was looking up at the balconies,” whispered Freddie. “That’s where they keep the gas burners that isolate the deuterium from the hydrogen. It’s all highly combustible. Every time there’s a glitch in the gas supply or—”
“Shhh!” I hissed.
The guard was back. He came out of the barracks again, and this time he had a gun. He clearly wasn’t that worried, for he was holding his rifle loosely in his left hand, just like you might carry a garden spade.
The guard wandered across the yard towards the storage tanks, shining his torch from side to side.
I tensed my finger on the trigger. Once there was gunfire the game would almost certainly be up. The soldiers would spill out of the barracks long before we could get near the gate.
I watched the guard as he shone his torch across the sky in a dreamy way. There was nothing I could do. In a desperate, last-ditch attempt, I screwed up my face and concentrated with all my might on wishing this blessed man back into his barracks.
But of course he didn’t go away. The guard walked closer, until he was level with the flank of the storage tanks. Then he swung his torch in a wide arc round the yard and over the top of the tanks. If the beam of light moved the tiniest bit lower, he would see us.
Åse was nearest to him, her gun at the ready. Shall I fire? she mouthed.
I shook my head – not yet.
The guard hesitated. Then, quite unaware that his life was at stake, he trudged back into his barracks and closed the door.
I was so relieved that I wanted to pick Freddie up and hug him. Instead I waited thirty seconds and then gave a thumbs up. We ran out of the yard, through the gate (where Lars carefully draped the chain and padlock back into position), and down the railway track.
We didn’t stop for breath until we got to the tree by the cliff edge where we’d left the rope. Here I bent down and looked over the side into blackness. The wet rock face glistened faintly but I couldn’t see the end of the rope. I knew it was only 50 metres long – it would only get us a fraction of the way down. I remembered the terrible climb up.
“Let’s go on,” I said, trying to sound confident. “There must be somewhere easier.”
Freddie beamed with relief.
We untied the rope and set off running and stumbling through the snow.
A couple of hundred metres further down the track we came to a bare slope covered in slushy, melting snow. Here there were no trees or bushes to hold on to, so it would have been harder to climb than the cliff. However, the descent was more gradual with the mountain falling away in a series of steep slopes. Every so often there were little ledges which I hoped would break our descent.
We had to be quick; any moment now the sirens would go off, the spotlights would shine down and we’d be caught.
I went first. The fastest way was to slide down on our backsides – we’d get completely sodden, but at this point it didn’t really matter. So I sat down on the edge of the mountain and pushed off. Wheeeeeeeeeee… It was like vertical skiing. I just plummeted downwards. I tried using my hands to break my fall, but it was no use. Nothing could stop me.
I went faster and faster – a sort of human landslide – until I crashed to a halt at the first ledge, a hair’s breadth from the edge of a ten-metre drop. I shuffled sideways several metres and set off again, angling myself diagonally across the slope. This time it was better. I stopped, changed direction, and took off again.
And so, sliding and slipping and stopping, I zigzagged my way down the mountainside, never quite sure in the darkness whether I was going to stumble over a cliff.
Soon my bottom half was completely soaked and the seat of my trousers was shredded by the rocks. But it was all over very quickly and I tumbled to a complete stop at the foot of the gorge.
While I waited for the others to come bumping down behind me, I inspected the river. We were in luck! Several huge blocks of ice had become stuck at a narrow point and, because they were all jammed up together, some had been pushed upwards to form a great white pile of ice in the middle of the river. The pile was unsteady, but it would make for a far easier crossing than last time.
Åse and Freddie went first, then Lars, then me. I was half way across, balancing on the big ice pile, when a loud, blaring, deafening, horrendous screech nearly knocked me off my feet.
The siren.
The noise was nerve-jangling and loud. It throbbed on and on. Soon the spotlights would go on and they’d pick us off. Easy as shooting rats in a barrel.
When I got to the far bank of the river, Lars and Åse and Freddie were already starting up the cliff face. We had to get out of the gorge as fast as we could. Fear cleared our minds, and hand after hand, foot after foot we climbed and clambered in the darkness, pulling at the small trees and shrubs to lever ourselves up. The snow was very slushy – but we were so soaked that it didn’t matter now. And, anyway, there was no time to rest and get cold.
We never stopped. My lungs were fighting for breath, but I just continued saying to myself, “Keep going, keep going. It’s not far now, keep going.”
And soon what I wished did come true. Up above me I saw the flicker of headlights weaving in and out of a dark line of trees. It couldn’t be far to the road – ten or fifteen metres. One last ascent and we’d be out of the gorge.
When I reached the foot of the last climb the others were already a little way ahead. I paused for a second to adjust the straps on my rucksack. And at that moment there was a scraping sound and a shower of stones rained down all around me. A horrible, high-pitched scream filled the air. I covered my head with my hands and a body landed with a thud on the ledge beside me.
It was Freddie.
He lay there cold and limp as a fish. I crouched down at his side. At least he was breathing.
“Freddie?”
Nothing.
“FREDDIE!”
Still nothing.
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“FREDDIE!” I shouted in his ear, and gave him a sharp tap on the face.
Freddie let out a tiny grunt, but he didn’t open his eyes.
I tried to remember my first aid. There was no blood, his airways seemed clear. Had he broken his back?
“Can you move your legs?”
Freddie let out another grunt, which seemed more of a “yes” grunt than a “no” grunt. But his body had gone all floppy and he seemed to be slipping away again…
I gave him a shake. The effect was instant. Freddie let out a moan of pain and opened his eyes. He looked up at me, his eyes unfocused and his breathing juddery.
“Just leave me,” he said in a faint, faraway voice. “I’ll be all right.”
“We’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said briskly. “We can’t leave you here for the Germans to find. And you know perfectly well you won’t be all right with them!”
Lars and Åse were back on the ledge now. Lars quickly retrieved Freddie’s glasses. Åse crouched over and unbuttoned Freddie’s jacket. She checked him for injuries.
“Come on, Fred. You’ve bumped your head a bit, but it’s not that bad. Sit up,” she said.
I held one side of him and Åse the other and slowly we raised him up into a sitting position. He moaned as we moved him. His face was white and clammy.
“My arm,” he murmured. “I can’t move it.”
At this point Åse tilted her head to one side and inspected Freddie’s upper body. She was assessing him – it was the same shrewd look I once saw her give a climbing wall she was about to scale at Drumincraig.
“It’s not your arm you’ve done in,” she said. “It’s your shoulder. You’ve dislocated it. Look.” She pulled back the top of Freddie’s coat. “His right shoulder – it’s all out of shape and droopy. That arm’ll be useless.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
She gave a shrug. “It happens all the time at the gym – people falling badly off the bar. He’ll need to have it pulled back into place. Shall we do it now?”
“NO!” Freddie’s voice was suddenly very loud and firm.
Lars looked over at me and I nodded. I held Freddie round the chest and Åse pressed her scarf into Freddie’s mouth.
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