by Kris Tualla
Several of the men in Teigen’s car were reduced to tears, moved deeply by the idea that their countrymen even knew they were on the train.
And more so that these men, women and children had waited for who knows how long beside the tracks for the train to pass through, just so they could ease the teachers’ frightening situation with food, water, ale, and encouragement.
As it turned out the train did make two more comfort stops, both of them in deep forest and miles from any towns. Teigen welcomed the chance to stretch his legs and relieve himself on a tree, rather than add to the stench of the fouled rail car.
His lips curled in a wry grin.
Small mercies.
“That last town was Støren. We should pull into Trondheim in less than an hour,” Jans said.
Teigen coughed a laugh. “Have you memorized all of the train routes in Norway?”
Jans blushed and turned his face toward the side of the car. “It was one way I could connect with my father. So yes, I did.”
The men were quiet for a while until one brave soul asked the question no one else had thought to ask. “How do we get from Trondheim to Kirkenes?”
Teigen looked at Jans. “Is there another train?”
Jans shook his head. “If I was a regular person making a normal journey, I’d take a Hurtigruten ship.”
Teigen dragged his fingers through his lengthening hair. “But we’re not regular people on a normal journey.”
“And the Germans won’t want any of us to be seen at all if possible!” a voice called out.
“They’re already riled by the crowds along the way.”
“Starting at midnight to keep us a secret?” another scoffed and made a rude gesture. “Take that Adolf!”
Exhausted laughter scuttled among the men.
“So if not the Hurtigruten, then…” The man who spoke from the other side of the car let the sentence dangle.
Teigen looked at Jans. “I guess we wait and see.”
April 15, 1942
Trondheim, Norway
The Royal Shakespearean Acting Troupe disembarked from their Hurtigruten ship to face an unexpected scene. Hundreds of shabbily dressed and bearded men shuffled along the pier, prodded and ordered forward by dozens of heavily armed German soldiers.
“Who are they?” Selby asked.
Dahl shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
A man on the dock wearing a naval uniform turned around to face them. “They’re the teachers. On their way to Kirkenes.”
Selby gasped. “The teachers? The ones from the train?”
He nodded and turned back to look at the prisoners. “That’s them.”
Before they left Ålesund, Selby heard Nazi radio announcers brag about sending the arrested teachers to an Arctic labor camp in Kirkenes. But it was the resistance members who told the troupe how residents in the towns which the train rolled through had waited beside the tracks for hours to cheer for the teachers and hand food and drink to the five hundred men in the open cars.
“Those people’s actions are inspirational,” one of them said. “From what we’ve been hearing, the whole country feels that way.”
“Not to mention the refusal of the teachers to give in to that traitor Quisling. That encourages everyone as well,” another chimed in.
Selby and Dahl were joined on the dock by the other members of the troupe. The group stood rooted to their spots, silently watching the first teachers make their way up the plank of the small steamer.
“Certainly they aren’t all getting on that ship…” Selby said to the man in uniform. “That ship’s much too small to hold them all.”
He huffed his disgust. “Aye, that’s the Skjerstad. She’s built to carry a hundred passengers.”
He turned back to face Selby again. “She was requisitioned six days ago by Reichskommissar Terboven to transport the teachers.” His expression darkened. “And she’s the only ship he requisitioned.”
“Five hundred men on a ship built to carry only a fifth of that?” Dahl’s expression clearly displayed his horror. “Isn’t that too much weight? It’ll surely sink!”
“Five hundred men will die!” Selby’s chest tightened and tears stung her eyelids. “This can’t be happening.”
“There’s some what think the boat’ll be put out to sea and sunk on purpose.” The seaman sniffed, cleared his throat, and squinted at the vessel in question. “Then either Allied submarines or bombers’ll get the blame.”
Selby stepped forward and stared at the men in line. They were husbands, fathers—sons at the very least. Hundreds of families would be facing the senseless loss of a loved one.
Please God, don’t let this happen.
As her gaze moved down the line, one man caught her attention. Tall, even for a Norwegian, his tousled blond hair brushed his neck and his light brown beard was the same length as most of the other men.
Of course.
None of them had been able to shave since they were arrested three weeks earlier.
It was his straight back and proud demeanor that kept Selby staring. She could see his jaw muscles working from fifty yards away and his glaring eyes were shadowed by his lowered brow.
He’s angry, she thought. Very angry.
And why wouldn’t he be?
Selby realized with a start that she was furious on his behalf.
Why this one man?
Why not all of them?
Please don’t let him die.
As if he heard her silent prayer, he turned his head and looked directly at her. Bright green eyes met hers, pinning her gaze. There was no plea in his intense regard, only seething, furious determination.
Selby forgot to breathe.
He had stopped moving to look at her. That unwise lapse earned him a sharp jab from a presumably loaded rifle.
“Move!” the brown-clad soldier barked. “Get on!”
The compelling green gaze left hers and slid to the German. But as he stepped forward to close the gap, he looked at her again.
Selby returned his regard while desperately trying to think of something—anything—that she could do to encourage the man to stay strong.
Even if he’s about to drown in an overloaded boat.
Tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, chilling her skin as they dried in the sea breeze. Without really thinking about it, she laid her right hand over her heart.
His beard twitched as the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. His brow eased. He dipped his chin in a small, quick nod.
It was his turn to climb the gangplank. He turned away from her and commenced his ascent, walking out of her sight.
*****
Teigen relished the brief respite from his situation that his silent interaction with the beautiful woman on the dock had offered. He thought she looked a little familiar, but he couldn’t place her.
Doesn’t matter.
He focused his attention on finding a place to sit on the overcrowded ship.
After seventeen cold hours in the cattle cars, the train carrying the five hundred teachers had arrived in Trondheim. In the three days of waiting for the next part of their journey his imagination had run wild, taking him through increasingly horrific scenarios, all ending with his untimely death at the hands of his captors.
“The days before things happen are always more terrible than the days they actually do happen,” Jans said. “Anticipating the unknown is the worst.”
“You, there. And you.” A Nazi soldier pointed at Teigen and Jans. “Follow those men.”
Teigen looked toward where the soldier pointed and saw a line of men going below the deck. His gut clenched at the thought of dying in the bowels of an obscure little ship off the coast of Norway. He nodded and moved in that direction, trying to breathe normally and not allow panic to swamp him.
Once they went down two levels Teigen was shocked at what he found.
In the steerage section of the passenger ship, bunks made of plywood—three beds high�
��had been installed in the hallway. Further on through a heavy door, the ceiling of the twenty-four-bunk room was a foot higher than the hallway. A top bunk had been added to every set of two beds. It was so close to the ceiling it would be impossible for that passenger to sit up on it.
The teachers from Grini Prison were already laying not only on half of the three-tiered bunks, but on the floor below the bottom bed as well.
“They’re stacking us four high?” Teigen grumbled.
Jans shot him a resigned look. “Well it’s not like we have luggage to store.”
Teigen wondered if he could stand to sleep either on the low-ceilinged top bunk or on the floor beneath the bottom one. His cell at Grini had been crowded, true, but he never felt like he was sleeping in a coffin.
A cold sweat spread over his skin.
Stop it.
Breathe.
“You. Here.” The soldier pointed to Teigen and then to the second tier. Teigen blew a sigh if relief and hoisted himself onto the thin mattress.
The soldier turned to Jans. “You. Top.”
Teigen shifted to give Jans a place to step as he climbed to the top bunk.
“Do we get mattresses?” Jan asked.
The Nazi glared at him and answered in accented Norse. “You get a place to sleep. Be grateful you do not have to stand once more.”
Teigen drew a deep sigh and gave his friend a sacrificial offering. He could not do otherwise; and he hoped other men would follow his lead.
“I’ll take turns with you, Jans.”
Jans’ head appeared over the edge of the bunk above his. “Thanks, Teig.”
While they waited for the rest of the bunks to fill, Teigen allowed his thoughts to return to the woman on the dock. The pain in her eyes meant the world to him. That a stranger would care so deeply about what was happening to him and his fellow teachers filled him with even more determination than the well-wishers along the train tracks had.
Those people had been singing, cheering, and handing out food. The mood was almost festive.
This woman was clearly stricken by their dire situation. And Teigen felt the fraught emotions he saw on her face. Those emotions were real.
One corner of his mouth lifted.
Unless she’s a consummate actress, that is.
An SS officer’s shout halted his reverie.
“Listen to me!”
The mumbling chatter that had filled the room stilled.
“You all have been assigned to the noon to six o’clock sleep shift.”
What?
“Every day when the bell rings at noon, you are to come down to this level and exchange places with a man who has been assigned the six in the morning to noon shift.”
So this isn’t my bunk.
Teigen groaned softly. He would have to compete for sleeping space every day. At noon. How soon would he become accustomed to that odd time? And how long was the voyage?
“When you are not sleeping, you are to spend your time on the deck. Is that understood?”
A grumble of assent wafted from the men.
“Good. We begin now.”
The officer flipped a switch and the room built for forty-eight and now holding nearly a hundred men went black. The heavy door clunked closed.
Shocked silence filled the lightless space.
“What the hell?” someone blurted.
“Sleep shifts?” Teigen heard a bunk near his creak as the disembodied voice continued. “How are we expected to sleep in the middle of the day?”
The reason was clear to Teigen. “It’s because the ship is overloaded,” he stated. “They don’t have room for five hundred beds.”
“Or even half that, judging by what I saw,” Jans offered from above him.
“If we are only allowed to sleep for six hours, there must four shifts,” another voice posited.
“Ninety-six of us in here, another thirty in the hallway, then.”
“That would do it…”
Teigen closed his eyes. He found it disorienting to have them open when there was no light to ground him. “I suppose we should try and sleep, then.”
“How can I sleep when I don’t know what will happen to us?” A voice at the far end of the room asked.
“Staying awake won’t help,” Jans said. “We don’t get to lie down again until noon tomorrow.”
Teigen heard the bunks groan and crack as ninety-six teachers tried to get comfortable—admittedly a much harder proposition for the half of them lying on bare wood or the floor.
Compounding their situation was the steam engine that suddenly came to life. The hiss of steam and the deep scrape of iron seemed to be happening inside the room with them.
“Well, hell!” a man shouted.
Teigen lay on his side, more miserable than he could remember ever being in his entire life. Hungry, with no hope of food for another six hours at least, he tried to doze off. But even though his body was exhausted, he wasn’t sleepy in the middle of the day. It also wasn’t helpful that the rumble and squeal of the engine banged in his ears.
It wasn’t long before he felt the ship shudder and begin to rock.
We’re moving. We’re going out to sea.
A voice somewhere in the room began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. A dozen or more of the teachers joined their voices to his and it seemed like everyone in their cramped quarters chorused the Amen at the end.
At least he wasn’t cold—with this many bodies jammed into the enclosed space the room should stay warm, especially being close to the boiler.
Teigen thought again about the woman on the dock.
Thank you for your kindness.
Whoever you are.
Chapter
Eight
April 29, 1942
Trondheim, Norway
For two weeks Selby had been listening to every single radio broadcast on the Nazi-controlled radio stations, trying to hear news declaring that the sailor on the dock’s dire prediction had come true. Certainly if the teachers’ ship had sunk, as he suggested, the Nazis would be quick to blame their enemies for the deaths of five hundred respected men.
But nothing was said.
“No news is good news,” Dahl reminded her. “And in this case, Quisling can’t risk another major uprising.”
“Bastard traitor,” Selby muttered.
The Royal Shakespearean Acting Troupe had finished their performances of As You Like It and spent the last ten days in Trondheim refitting costumes, repainting backdrops, and rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing for their southern journey back to Oslo. Every time Selby passed the Trondheim pier the memory of the teacher’s bright green eyes sprang to her mind.
And every time it did, she said a prayer for his safety.
She was passing there now when Dahl ran to meet her. His sandy shoulder-length hair flew madly around his head in the wind and his blue eyes were pinched at the corners by his wide grin.
“Selby!” he called out. “They made it!”
Selby’s heartbeat lurched. “The teachers?”
“Yes, the teachers!” Dahl slowed to a stop in front of her. “I just heard it on the resistance transmission.”
Thank God.
“Was there anything on the Nazi radio?”
Dahl shook his head. “I think Terboven and Quisling want us loyal Norwegians to forget all about them.”
Selby made a face and resumed walking toward their hotel. “Well I—we—won’t. Not after seeing them.”
Dahl slid his puzzled gaze sideways to hers. “No. We won’t…”
Selby stopped walking again. “Can we work something into the play that will remind people that they’re up there?”
Dahl swung around to face her, his expression wary. “What sort of something? What are you thinking?”
“Well…” Selby paused, rummaging through her mind for ideas. “The soldiers in the story come to Leonato’s house after a war. What if we added that they had been prisoners of war ‘in the far north’?”<
br />
Dahl rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “Go on.”
Selby formulated the plan as she spoke. “They could say that there were five hundred of them that had been imprisoned. And that they stuck together and triumphed over their enemies, and now they’re returning home.”
This time it was Dahl who resumed their pace. He didn’t speak, but he did tug on one earlobe—a habit that Selby realized months ago signaled concentrated thought on his part.
“We could pass out paperclips.”
Selby smiled; Dahl was in agreement. “Could we have the returning soldiers in the play wear red?”
Dahl laughed derisively at that. “You want to mention five hundred prisoners in the north and bring the Red Army to mind?”
Selby shrugged innocently. “We’ll tell the Nazis—if they ask—that the red clothing is correct for the time period.”
Dahl hmphed. “And what about the reference to five hundred prisoners?”
“That’s what Shakespeare’s original manuscript said.” Shelby winked. “We’ll tell them to look it up.”
“Of course they won’t.”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
This time Dahl’s laugh was appreciative. “Okay, Selby.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes.” He sighed loudly and stopped walking again so he could look her in the face. “The things I do for love.”
Selby’s entire body flushed with adrenaline prompting the flight response. She wanted to flee. “Stop that, Dahl. Don’t say things like that.”
Without waiting for him to react, Selby whirled around and hurried up the steps of their hotel. She pushed her way though the leaded glass door without looking back.
May 1, 1942
Kirkenes, Norway
Teigen survived the slow, cold, and rough thirteen-day voyage to the far north through a combination of his stubborn Norse will and the mental image of the woman on the dock who noticed him. He would never have imagined how much her simple gesture could strengthen him.
In the unlikely event he ever saw her again in his lifetime, he would thank her.