“Saboteurs,” he said. “They’ve attacked the hydro plant.”
“Oh!” I said, trying to sound shocked.
“Anyway,” said the sheriff with a sigh. “Enjoy the rest of your holiday.” He handed back the passports.
“Happy hunting,” said Fred.
“Oh, I don’t want to meet them,” said the sheriff with a nervous laugh.“I hear they’re armed.”
You bet we are! I thought, as I closed the door.
Åse Jeffries
7TH JANUARY 1943
Sleeping in a real bed was wonderful, even with Fred tossing and turning and moaning away next to me. But I was worried about the sheriff – might he have second thoughts? Might he get suspicious? I woke at six o’clock – three hours before dawn – and we quickly dressed in our civilian clothes.
Fred was feeling so poorly that he didn’t mind skipping breakfast. He looked terrible. I asked him how his shoulder felt and he replied that at this point he wouldn’t really care if his arm was chopped off.
We were just about to go when I heard the stutter of a car engine. I crept out to the balcony. Outside the inn, two men in boots and greatcoats were getting out of a large Chrysler. One of them was the sheriff!
Very quietly I closed the balcony door.
“Fred! The sheriff’s here!”
We raced down the stairs, rucksacks on our backs, and dived through the green baize door into a long galley kitchen where a woman was crouched down by the oven. She looked up in surprise. I put my fingers to my lips and she smiled.
“Back door?” I whispered.
She gestured to a door at the side of the kitchen. It led to a crowded scullery with sheets hanging on a pulley. The doorbell rang. We clambered round some bales of dirty washing, crawled across the floor on our hands and knees and slid the bolt back on the door.
We came out into a paved courtyard and, with a little light from the kitchen window, we groped our way along a damp passageway from the back of the house and out on to the street. There was the sheriff’s car, so he was still inside searching for us or questioning the innkeeper.
We scuttled up the dark street, Fred stumbling along behind me (I don’t know how he did it), until we reached the bus stop. We were heading for the village of Miland where a family called the Froylands would help us. I knew there wouldn’t be a bus until seven o’clock, but thankfully there were some big bins nearby and we huddled behind them and prayed that the sheriff would give us up for lost.
We spent a long cold half hour crouched up behind those bins. Fred was shivering and miserable and could only speak in little gasps and winces. Thank goodness we didn’t try to ski to Sweden – he’d never have made it.
At about five to the hour, a couple of people arrived to wait at the bus stop and we sauntered out from behind the bins trying to look casual and relaxed (even though Fred could barely walk).
Once we were on the bus, things began to look up. The bus was warm and didn’t jiggle Fred’s shoulder too much. We got off at Miland and Fred had remembered the Colonel’s notes and knew the directions to the Froylands’ farmhouse, which was some way out of the town.
But he found the walking really hard. By the time we came off the road onto a dirt track, Fred was staggering. Then, just as I thought we were on the last lap – I could even see a farmhouse up ahead – he stumbled on something and crumpled to the ground. As he did so, he let out a terrible groan and I knew immediately that he’d put his shoulder out again.
I couldn’t get him to move at all. I didn’t know what to do. There was no one in sight, just Fred and me and the open fields with the mountains beyond. I crouched down and took hold of him round the ribs. He felt heavier than a piano, but I managed to haul him to his feet. Then I put his good arm round my shoulder and slowly – so very, very slowly – we hobbled down the track.
The farmhouse was trim and had a brass dolphin knocker on the front door. I knocked and a woman with one of those kind, snub-nosed currant-bun kind of faces opened the door.
“Mrs Froyland,” I said. “We need help.”
But she didn’t look at me. She was staring at Fred. Just in time, she reached out her arms and caught him as he fainted.
Her eyes flicked over the fields behind us. “Quick,” she said. “Inside.”
She carried Fred into the kitchen and set him down on a rocking chair by the stove. The room was homely and neat with a scrubbed wooden table and crocheted cushions on the chairs. It made me long for home.
Mrs Froyland filled the kettle and sat down. The Colonel had said we were never to tell people what we’d been doing. It would only compromise them and make it harder if they were taken in for questioning. But I did feel I owed Mrs Froyland some sort of explanation.
“We’ve been living out in a hut on the Hardanger for a month,” I said.
“Yes, I can see that,” she replied calmly.
How on earth could she know that?
She must have seen the surprise on my face, because she smiled at me. “Your nails,” she said. I looked down. Despite the bath last night my hands were still black with engrained dirt. So were Fred’s.
Mrs Froyland continued, “And you’re both bone thin. Normal children, even in wartime, aren’t this skinny.”
Fred lay half asleep on a rocking chair by the stove. Mrs Froyland gave him an appraising look.
“How long has his shoulder been out?”
“About twenty minutes,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“It isn’t the first time,” I explained. “He had a fall three days ago.”
“That fits with the power station,” she said.
I gave her a little half nod.
“But you’re just kids!” she said, astonished.
I nodded again. And she smiled.
While we drank some tea, Mrs Froyland looked at Fred’s shoulder. She said that maybe we hadn’t got the joint properly back in the socket the first time. Then she went out and came back a few minutes later accompanied by a large man with a very similar, round, snub-nosed face.
“This is my brother, Haakon,” she said.
Haakon grinned and rubbed his hands together. They were the size of paddles.
Mrs Froyland poured a glass of akvavit (it’s a spirit a little like vodka) which she told Fred to drink, then she moved a pile of papers and all the crockery off the kitchen table. In Norway, it seems, the kitchen doubles as an operating theatre.
Mrs Froyland beckoned to Fred.
“Up on the table, lad. Haakon is going to see what he can do. Don’t worry – you’re in safe hands. He saves more lambs every year than any other farmer round here.”
As Haakon took off his boots, Freddie very slowly climbed onto the kitchen table and lay down. He was so resigned to the pain that I don’t think he was bothered about what lay ahead. But he closed his eyes. I don’t think he wanted to see what was going to happen.
I wish I’d closed my eyes too.
Haakon looked carefully at the shoulder for a minute. He put his stockinged foot in Fred’s armpit for leverage and picked up the bad arm. Then, with a powerful movement that would either rip the arm off entirely or slot it back into place, he jerked the limb backwards.
Fred gave a loud squeak, like a hundred guinea pigs meeting a fox on a dark night. Then he passed out.
“It’s in,” said Haakon.
When Fred had regained consciousness, Mrs Froyland brought out some bandages and bound his arm to his chest. She said he needed to remain like this for two or three days and afterwards he would have to wear a sling for a couple of weeks. She told us we couldn’t sleep in the house. The Germans were doing regular house-to-house searches and it was too risky.
Haakon took us to a huge barn round the back of the house. There were bales of hay piled up in one corner and they looked rather comfortable. But Haakon smiled, shook his head and pointed upwards.
Far, far above us were the huge beams that supported the roof and, to j
udge by the droppings on the ground, acted as sleeping perches for hordes of bats. Resting on these beams were some narrow wooden planks – our sleeping perches. If we were to fall off it would be onto the cement floor.
Haakon rested one of his huge hands on my shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” he said gallantly. “If you do roll off, I’ve set plenty of bones before.”
Then he brought out a rickety old ladder and we climbed up – not at all easy for Fred, with his arm bound up. Nor is getting down very straightforward for him either.
The drill is that we climb up the ladder and then cast it to the far side of the barn – otherwise it would give away our hiding place. When we want to come down, we walk along the beams and jump onto the hay pile over in the far corner. This is great fun (if you don’t have a dislocated shoulder).
Now, as I write on this grubby piece of paper, I’m up on the old beams. The planks aren’t as bad as they first looked and I’ve nudged three together so it feels as if I’m on a kind of aerial raft. Mrs Froyland has given us blankets and a chamber pot – and I’ve also carried up a little jug of water, half a loaf of bread and a bag of wizened old apples to keep us going.
I get the idea that we aren’t the first people to have slept in this barn. But I haven’t asked the Froylands and I’m sure they wouldn’t tell me. There seems to be a certain etiquette to being a hideaway.
Åse Jeffries
8TH JANUARY 1943
I was frightened that I would just roll off the planks in my sleep. But I shouldn’t have worried because … I didn’t sleep! For hours I lay looking up at the holes in the barn roof, feeling the plank digging into every possible hard bit of my body. Other people count sheep, but last night I counted the knobbles on my spine. I’m now personally acquainted with every single vertebra and small bone: they all wanted to say hello.
And then I completely forgot how uncomfortable I was because I heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps. There were men’s voices, talking loudly in German.
The soldiers tramped into the barn, swinging torches. I was on my side and I quickly shut my eyes. I felt that if I looked at them they might get that prickly feeling at the back of their necks that someone was watching them. So I lay there with my eyes screwed up and my body frozen with fear. I hadn’t even had time to wake Fred so I just had to pray that he stayed still and didn’t make a noise.
The Germans went on stamping up and down, joking and laughing about some drinking competition they were planning for when they went off duty. I peeked a look. Two of the soldiers were jabbing at the hay pile with their bayonets. I immediately shut my eyes again.
Then suddenly the voices were only coming from one place – the soldiers were directly under me, by the entrance to the barn. They stopped here and the conversation changed tone. Something serious was being discussed, though I couldn’t make out the words. I screwed up my eyes even tighter.
At last I heard them leave. The voices and the plod of the boots started to recede. But they took their time – it seemed ages before they were entirely out of earshot and I could breathe again.
Fred, of course, had slept through everything!
Later – I think a couple of hours had gone by – I heard boots approaching the barn again. I froze. This time the tread was more purposeful. This person knew exactly what he was doing.
I heard the ladder being dragged across the barn floor. The poison capsule was in my coat pocket – there was no time to get it now.
Someone was mounting the ladder.
I fumbled in my sleeping bag. There’s nothing like a nice warm, weighty gun in your hand… I released the safety catch and waited.
I gave Fred a nudge. He made a chewing motion and snuffled back into his sleeping bag. Well, he’d wake up soon enough.
The Colonel had taught us to aim for the centre of the chest, but now I needed the element of surprise. I’d have to take a risk and skim the top off this German’s head as he came up between the rafters.
It was me or him. I aimed the pistol, my arm quivering.
Then the creaking stopped. There was a little cough and a man said, “Åse? Are you awake?”
It was Haakon.
“Ah, hello,” I said, as casually as I could. I thought it best not to let on that I’d been about to blow his brains out.
Haakon came up the last few steps of the ladder and I shone the torch at him. He was fully dressed, but heck, did he look a fright! His hair was tangled and matted and there were stains all down his shirt front. His hands were dark and so too were his wrists and forearms. Haakon seemed such a gentle soul. But he’d clearly been up to his elbows in blood!
“What happened!” I cried. “What did you do to them?”
“Who?” said Haakon.
“The soldiers!”
For a second he seemed puzzled, then he looked down at his hands and laughed.
“It’s only beetroot juice.”
“Ah!” And I laughed too.
Haakon crawled across the beams and sat down on our little raft. He seemed to have forgotten about Fred’s shoulder, for he gave him a vigorous shake. Fred let out a great groan of pain, opened his eyes and looked around him blearily. He didn’t seem a bit surprised to see a huge, wild-looking man completely kippered in beetroot juice.
“It’s not safe for you to stay here,” Haakon said. “The Germans are clearly on to something. Get your stuff together. It’ll be dawn in an hour and we want to be on the road by then. I’ve got a lorry ready – you’re going in under the beetroot.”
“Can’t we just hide in a hay lorry?” I asked. “It’d be a bit more comfortable.”
“Beets are better,” replied Haakon. “Germans won’t touch them – they hate getting stains on their uniforms. Anyway, by the time you get to Sweden you’ll look back on the beet lorry as luxury!”
This didn’t sound too good. But sometimes it’s best not to know what’s in store. So I purposely didn’t ask Haakon “Why?” or “What happens next?”. And I silently prayed that Fred wouldn’t ask either.
“Why?” asked Fred.
Haakon dropped his voice. “I’m afraid you’re to go into the gutting bins at Tønsberg harbour.”
“Gutting bins,” I repeated tonelessly.
“That’s right,” said Haakon. “We’ve a boat lined up to take you to Sweden. But while you wait in the harbour, the bins are the only place smelly enough to put off the sniffer dogs.”
So that is what awaits us: gutting bins, followed no doubt by a rough crossing hidden away in the hold of some tiny fishing boat. I suppose nothing will make any difference now. Fred and I are scratched and smelly and worn to the bone. And after all that’s happened, a few old fish heads can hardly hurt us now.
Jakob P. Stromsheim
15TH JANUARY 1943
I haven’t filled in the diary for eight days. It’s partly because we’ve been so tired and partly because we’ve been sleeping rough (this is the first night that I haven’t felt the wind on my back). Also, there has been so little to say. All we’ve done is travel on and on over vast, endless valleys and mountains, hoping all the time that we might be getting nearer to Sweden.
Everything here is white. The snow blurs any landmarks – it hides bogs and lakes and deep ravines. So every single valley looks the same and our map has become impossible to follow. We keep pushing east and trust to the stars, the sun and the strange little button compass.
But some things have changed.
A few days ago the mountains were much steeper, but now we’re on lower ground with smaller hills and valleys. The nights have finally become a little less cold, but there are no huts. We’ve passed a few farmhouses, but we have no idea whether the local people are friendly or informants. When it gets dark we find a sheltered spot, eat our pemmican and raisins, stick our boots into our sleeping bags (frozen boots are just unwearable) and huddle up together for the night. The wind has blown constantly, but there haven’t been any storms. And while we are never dry and we’re
never really warm, at least we aren’t freezing.
I’ve got Lars to thank for that. He isn’t exactly chatty – hours can pass without him even opening his mouth – but he does know so much about survival outdoors. He’s shown me how to start a fire using the heartwood from the very middle of a pine tree where there’s plenty of sap. And it was his idea to place brushwood under our sleeping bags to stop the melting snow from soaking us. He can judge distance, too, or tell if we’re approaching running water. Also – and this is the strangest thing of all – he’s got an animal’s instincts for the weather.
This afternoon was a typical example.
We were skiing along as usual and suddenly, halfway down a hillside, he just stopped. I asked him what was wrong. He scowled up at this glassy blue sky and said, “There’s a storm on its way.”
I looked all around. It was true there was a nip to the wind, but there were no clouds and the snow was firm and hard underfoot. Conditions seemed pretty good.
But Lars’s eyes were moving across the valley, looking carefully at the terrain. “Haven’t you felt the wind?” he said. “It’s in the east now and the smell of the air has changed.”
I’d never thought of air as having a smell.
Lars pointed further down the valley to a shallow hollow in the hillside. He said, “That’s a good spot over there. Come on. We haven’t much time.”
When we reached the hollow, the wind was already colder. I untied the juniper branches which I’d been carrying to use under our bedding and I started laying them out on the ground, but Lars handed me our spade.
“We won’t survive the night out here,” he said. “We’ve got to dig a hole.”
“A hole?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Nobody in the whole world hates being in a hole as much as Lars. When we were on the assault courses at Drumincraig he’d do anything rather than crawl down the Colonel’s drainpipes.
“Yes, a hole!” said Lars abruptly. He thrust both hands into the hillside and removed a great chunk of snow.
“How big?” I asked.
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