Nonplussed, she stared at the spot where he’d been. What should she do now? Wait some more, it seemed, until her mysterious savior appeared. And hope that he did before the Nazi nurse showed up with the police.
Another urge interrupted her mood of anger and anxiety, and once again, she struggled into her boots and set out. She shuffled slowly along the corridor, supporting herself with one hand on the wall. At the end, she entered the tiny room that smelled strongly of disinfectant and relieved herself. Ironic, she thought. The one place she was safe from discovery was the toilet.
Resigning herself to the return trip, she opened the door and stared down the long corridor. Then she saw them.
Police. Two of them, entering the ward. The quisling nurse had reported to them after all.
She backed up instinctively into the tiled washroom and tried to pull the door closed. But a hand held it and forced it open again.
Bewildered and alarmed, she stepped back as the doorway filled with a large male figure.
“Niilas! What are you…oh, you’re the Sami friend he found!” The question and answer came out at the same time.
He stepped into the washroom and hugged her warmly. He seemed older and bulkier than she remembered him from four years before, but his appearance delighted her. After Gaiju, ex-fiancé Niilas was the closest thing she had to family.
“But the police are already here.” She tilted her head toward the direction of the ward.
“I saw them and wondered who they’d come for. It’s you?” he asked.
“I think so. Help me get out of here, please.”
“Can you walk?”
“Not very well. I was shot and lost a lot of blood. It left me very weak.” She glanced toward the ward. “My clothes are still back there, under my bed.”
“I have a blanket in my wagon. But first, how do we get you away from here?”
“I…I don’t know. The police will be looking here the minute they see the empty bed. We don’t have time…”
The sound of men shouting curses caused them both to turn. Olet knelt in the doorway to the ward, his bucket of soapy water overturned next to him, flooding the entrance and blocking the way of the two Germans.
Bless him. He’d created a diversion.
“You idiot!” one of the policemen shouted. “Look at what you’ve done!”
Niilas seized her arm and dragged her along while the policemen berated Olet. How long would it take him to mop up the pool of water and clear their path?
Long enough, it seemed, for they managed to stagger down the staircase and out of the wing to Niilas’s wagon without capture. He helped her into the rear, where she curled up under a heavy blanket.
A light flick of the whip urged the horse forward, and the silence behind them told them there was no pursuit. She felt a wave of gratitude and relief. Niilas Paaval, the only man who had ever intimately touched her, had saved her life.
Chapter Twenty
November 1944
Kirsten skied alongside Leif Tronstad, relieved to be back in Norway and in action again, under the leadership of someone she deeply respected. They’d skied more or less silently for three hours when they reached a large rock outcropping, and he called for a rest. Grateful, Kirsten brushed snow from a convenient spot and managed to half sit on it.
“How are you holding up?” Tronstad asked. “Sitting in an office is no preparation for this, is it?”
“No, but I’ll manage.” She paused. Perhaps this was the moment to say what was on her mind. “I was wondering. After we’ve set everything up, you know, recruited the men you’re looking for, could I take off a couple of weeks for private business? I’d come right back…”
She’d gotten to know Lief Tronstad as a soft-spoken, engaging man, who was loyal to his team and who received loyalty in return. He was not given to ultimatums.
But now, in his gentle voice, he gave one. “Kirsten, you’ve served Norway well, and we’re aware of that fact. This operation is as important as the ones you’ve already carried out, and you’ve signed on to it, but we can’t accept half measures. If you’re not up to this new mission, wholly and completely, we’ll understand. We’re desperately short-handed and need you, but you hold no military rank and signed no contract, so if you want to leave and go home, you can do so today. SOE and I will release you.” He held out his hand. “Thank you for your service.”
Kirsten cringed as if he’d slapped her. As if she were a whining child who’d grown bored with a task and begged to be allowed to play while the adults carried on. She was suddenly ashamed.
“No, no! I’m with you for the duration. No matter what happens. I’ve just been separated from someone I care about for over a year now and wondered if I could make contact. But I see the problem, and I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He shrugged slightly, his voice conciliatory. “We’re all separated from the people we love, our wives and parents and partners. I have a wife and two children, and I haven’t seen them since 1941. I can’t even let them know I’m back in Norway. They have to know nothing in case the Germans interrogate them.”
Three years’ separation! Her own anxiety now seemed petty. “I understand. Shall we carry on?” Humbled, she stood up, ready to continue skiing, no matter how long or how far.
Eventually they descended into the gorge that brought them to Rjukan, and the sight of the town raised her spirits. “I was arrested here last year, as you know. Do you suppose anyone is still looking for me?”
“No more than they’re looking for me, but at least it’ll be dark when we arrive.”
“Dark” in Rjukan in early November meant about four thirty p.m., and even before that, the town at the bottom of the gorge was already in a dusky half-light. They skied along back roads to the meeting place, which, she was delighted to learn, was still Birgit’s café. They removed their skies and approached the familiar store-room entrance. When they stepped inside, she glanced for a moment toward the corner where she and Maarit had slept…and kissed. A lifetime ago.
Birgit’s welcome was sincere, but hurried. It was risky for so many Milorg to gather where Germans could enter at any time, so they quickly sat down to business.
Kirsten recognized a handful of others: Odin and Terje Martinson, leader of the local Milorg, and the one they called Red. Two women also sat at one of the tables, but she never learned their names. The discussion started, Torstad directing his remarks to Martinson.
“Our first job is to recruit,” he said. “We need numbers, and we need them fast. The Germans are retreating all along the northern front and burning everything they pass through. They know they’re losing, but Norwegians know it, too, so it’s up to us to organize them and put weapons in their hands.”
“Where are those weapons going to come from?” one of the women asked.
“From the Allies by airdrop. Odin, you’ll be in charge of distributing them. For the time being, we’ll still keep to teams of three. In case anyone’s captured, each member can name only two others, and of course, we have to hold out for twenty-four hours so those people can escape.”
“Who’s covering what installations?” Red asked.
“Group one is assigned to the Nore Power Station and substations. Group two, headed by Terje, will take Notodden and the power station. The third group, under my command, will take care of Rjukan, Vemork, and the ferries left on Lake Tinn. Each team leader will recruit for his own team. That is, find the fence-sitters, the ones who are loyal but a bit timid. If you put a rifle in their hands and tell them this is the moment to prove they’re men, you can fire them up.”
After the meeting closed, Kirsten made her way across the storeroom to Birgit, who had remained silent throughout.
“Have you heard anything from Maarit? We separated in Trondheim last February, when I left for Britain, and I’d like to track her down.”
Birgit shrugged. “As far as I know, she was working with the people in Trondheim for a while, delivering refugees t
o the Shetland transport.”
“Do you think she’s still there?”
“Almost certainly not. Word was, she was wounded, spent some time in hospital, and returned to her people with a man.”
“Wounded? Was it serious? And the man she left with, did they mention his name? Gaiju, perhaps? Or one of the Tuovo men?”
“Someone she’d been engaged to. People assumed she was going back to marry. I don’t think the wound was life-threatening. She couldn’t have left the hospital if it was. And we had no indication that she’d given up any names. Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you.”
Marry. The word stood out as if Birgit had shouted it, and Kirsten suddenly felt nauseous. It was her own fault. She’d stayed away too long.
Birgit seemed to sense her despair. “Don’t worry, dear. The war will be over in a few weeks. Then you can travel up north and find out yourself.”
* * *
Kirsten wasn’t sure which was more devastating—losing Maarit to the war or to a husband. It was of course selfish to equate death with abandonment, and she would have never spoken it out loud, but both possibilities shattered her.
And to add to the agony, she’d have to wait to find out. “A few weeks,” Birgit said. “What will a few weeks be after almost a year?”
Defeated, she worked with Tronstad, gaining the confidence of Rjukan residents. Her argument was always the same. The Germans were losing, and after they were driven out, who would want to admit they did nothing to protect the homeland? She called on her memory—and theirs—of King Haakon, quoting him, the soul and symbol of Norway.
Resistors were emerging all over Europe, she told them. The Germans had lured them into thinking Norway was safe, that Norwegians would be part of the rulers of Europe. But the destruction they were leaving all across the north proved that promise to be a lie. The true Norwegian protected his homeland against invasion. Period.
Her argument was helped enormously on November 10, when the BBC announced that three hundred Norwegian troops that had been training in Scotland had arrived in the north. And if anyone had any doubts about who would be the victor, on November 12, the report came that RAF Lancasters had sunk the German battleship Tirpitz anchored in a fjord at Tromsø.
Irrationally, Kirsten took each victory as a sign that she would find Maarit and all would be well. So, the weeks went by, with more and more Norwegians signing on for last-minute defense, and she soldiered on. Tronstad saw to the chain of supply of weapons, each man or woman had a specific task, and, miraculously, the various local German authorities didn’t catch on. The man was a constant inspiration, and his long separation from his wife gave her the courage to endure her own.
But in March 1945, when the end of the war was already in sight, she attended a meeting of Tronstad’s section leaders. One of them, Jon Landsverk, arrived breathless and late. As he sat down he swept back his wool hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “We have a problem.”
Birgit frowned wearily. “What are you talking about?”
“Torgeir Lognvik, the flunky the Nazis put in place to keep an eye on things, has been asking questions. Someone must have seen one of the airdrops and reported it. I don’t know how much he knows.”
“Can we interrogate him? If he’s a danger, we have to neutralize him.”
“We can’t touch him here in Rjukan. We have to lure him away from his office. Far away.”
Tronstad scratched his chin. “What about getting him up to Syrebekk? The lodge there is closer than Skinnarland’s cabin, and we can concoct some reason, tell him we’ve found weapons.”
“I can do that.” Landsverk volunteered. “I know the man. Not well, but enough that he’ll probably trust me. I’ll tell him I saw a drop and followed it to a hiding place. That should interest him. Then we can find out if he’s a problem. If he is…” He ran his thumb on a line across his throat.
* * *
Kirsten waited with Tronstad and the others in the Syrebekk lodge. “Do you think he’ll fall for it?” she asked.
Gunnar Syverstad watched at the window. “I’m sure he will. After all, it’s his job to ferret out the resistance. A report of an Allied weapons drop should bring him running.”
“And just how are we going to find out what he knows?”
Skinnarland stirred the embers in the cabin stove. “We’ll have a little chat. If it looks like he’s onto us, we have to bring him over to our side or neutralize him.”
“I really hate that word. What you mean is ‘shoot him.’”
Tronstad puffed on his pipe. “I’m afraid so.”
Syverstad turned from the window. “I see them. Landsverk in front and Lognvik right behind him.”
Minutes later, the two men stood at the doorstep, and Syverstad opened the door. Seeing the five people waiting for him, Torgeir hesitated, but Landsverk yanked him inside.
“What the hell is this?” Torgeir asked.
“Just have a few questions,” Skinnarland said, snatching Torgeir’s sidearm out of his holster and pushing him down onto a chair. “Mainly why a man would let the Germans use him to control his own people.”
Torgeir swept his gaze over the entire group, contempt forming on his face. “You bastards. You’re the traitors, working with the Brits, killing honest Norwegians. To hell with all of you.”
“You stupid fool.” Tronstad shook his head. “The Germans have lost this war, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced out of Norway. What do you think the courts will say about collaborators like you? We’re giving you a chance to come over onto the right side before it’s too late.”
“The right side?” Torgeir sneered. “It’s your lot who are the fools. The Germans had a plan that would have freed us from the Russians.”
The recriminations flew back and forth for several minutes, and all attention was focused on Torgeir sitting defiantly. Tronstad stood in front of him, and all but Kirsten had their back to the door.
By the time she registered the danger, it was too late. The door burst open, and a man standing in the opening fired immediately. Struck in the back, Syverstad collapsed on the floor.
Tronstad glanced down at Syverstad for a fraction of a second, then rushed at the intruder, who fired at him point-blank. Instinctively, Kirsten threw herself over him as he lay on the floor, then realized she too was a target.
But the shooting was over, and Torgeir had already lurched through the cabin door and escaped with his rescuer.
It had all happened in seconds. Stupified, the rest of them crouched over Tronstad and Syverstadl, looking for signs of life.
Skinnarland shook his head. “Dead, both. Who the hell was the man who shot them?”
Landsverk stood up, ashen. “Torgeir’s brother. He must have followed our ski tracks.”
Stunned, Kirsten still knelt over the body of Tronstad. The whole operation was now jeopardized. Then she remembered Tronstad’s wife. The next time she heard about her husband would be to learn he was dead. Just as bleak was the thought that if she herself had been killed, the same would be true of Maarit.
* * *
They buried Tronstad and Skinnarland, and Kirsten knew nothing more would be revealed about them until the war ended. The operation had enough momentum to continue even after the death of its founder. Jens Poulsson stepped into the leadership, and recruitment continued.
In April, Norwegian forces counted over three thousand men, and they swept the enemy southward. Tronstad’s successful operation to protect Norwegian infrastructure from the ravages of the fleeing army was his legacy.
The Norwegian High Command declared that Finnmark was free. When Kirsten reported in to Rjukan in late April, Birgit passed on a radio message from Trondheim that confirmed the rumors she’d heard, that Maarit was wounded and taken back to “her people” by a young man called Niilas.
Kirsten nodded, trying to order her thoughts, develop a plan. “Don’t you have an assignment that will send me back up north?” she a
sked Poulsson.
“The Germans are no longer a threat there, but they’re still fighting to hang on down here. We need everyone at their post. You know yourself how easy it is to blow up something like a power plant. All you need is one fanatical Nazi to toss in a grenade before he marches out of the city on his way to Germany.” Poulsson laid his hand on her shoulder. “But it will all be over soon enough.”
“Yes, sir.” She consoled herself. If Maarit was able to travel, her wound couldn’t be life-threatening. But…Niilas, of all people. How would he have known where to find her? Had she felt so abandoned that she’d consented to marry him?
Dutifully, Kirsten stayed at her post, day and night, reporting on German detachments that came anywhere near the substation. To her relief, the scorched-earth policy in the north had not spread.
As it became clear the Germans had stopped patrolling, and were largely waiting for orders from headquarters, someone brought a radio into Birgit’s storeroom, and anyone not actively standing guard came to listen to the reports.
Curiously, even after word came on the first of May that the Russians had entered Berlin and planted the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building, the Rjukan Germans did not withdraw. But neither did they attack. The following day, news arrived that Goebbels and his family were found dead in the bunker of the Chancellory, and a smoking fire pit suggested that Hitler was dead as well. Berlin had surrendered.
On May 4, German troops in Denmark and the Netherlands surrendered, and still the Germans in Norway were silent.
Not until the evening of May 8 did official word come from London that Germany had capitulated. The news seemed anticlimactic, but Poulsson called together the operation leaders.
“Are we relieved of duty yet?” Kirsten asked him. “Surely we have nothing left to guard.”
“Almost. Milorg is in charge now, and London has ordered Terje Martinson to retake Akerhus Fortress for Norway. We have one last assignment—to assist him. He’s sent a messenger to inform the commanding officer—one Major Nichterlein—that he’ll be arriving to accept surrender. We all know the German troops outnumber us ten to one and are far better armed than we are, so we just have to hope that everything stays calm.”
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