by Kris Tualla
“Oh no,” Selby groaned.
“Don’t worry. They won’t be sent anywhere except Grini,” Bennett stated. “After this mess, Quisling doesn’t dare ship any more teachers to the arctic circle.”
“I agree,” Gunter the troupe’s second male lead stated. “Quisling needs to try and stay on the Germans’ good side. He’s bungled this so badly that he can’t afford another public cry of outrage.”
Green eyes locked on hers floated through Selby’s mind. “I hope you’re right.”
“Shall I continue?” Dahl asked.
Selby flashed an apologetic smile. “Yes. Please.”
Dahl returned to the paper. “In spite of the arrests, Quisling’s statement proves our victory. It shows that by standing together the teachers have blocked Quisling’s plan of organizing a new Corporate State.”
For a moment, everyone was silent, contemplating those words.
“This is good,” Dahl said finally. “This is very good.”
June 5, 1942
Kirkenes, Norway
A month had passed since the five hundred teachers were settled into the labor camp and they were told that their four groups would each be assigned to one of two tasks.
“Each task will continue day and night in two twelve-hour shifts,” the SS officer shouted at the assembled group. He waited for the translators to repeat his words in Norwegian before he continued. “And the teachers will work seven days a week for the glory of Germany and her assured victory. Heil Hitler!”
Not one teacher repeated the salute.
Jans leaned close to Teigen. “So that means one hundred and fifty of us will sleep in the stable at a time, not three hundred. I suppose that’s an improvement. Two feet of luxury means I can sleep on my back.”
“I’m glad we are in the same group, Jans,” Teigen said, flashing a crooked smile. “I would sorely miss your humor.”
“When will the work begin, do you think?” he whispered.
“Attention!” shouted the same officer. “Groups A and C are assigned to road-building. Groups B and D will be unloading ships at the dock in Kirkenes.”
“We’ll be at the docks, then,” Teigen murmured.
Jans nodded. “I’m glad. I think.”
“Group A, please proceed to the fjord and board one of the boats tied there. You will be transported across the fjord to begin clearing the land.” The officer’s arm swung stiffly to the east and pointed at the fjord which their rough camp was constructed beside.
Then he pointed north. “Group B, please assemble at the gate for your walk to the docks.”
Jans elbowed Teigen. “There’s my answer. Let’s go.”
As the men shuffled toward their assigned gathering spot, the officer gave his last command. “Groups C and D, your shift will begin at six o’clock this evening. I suggest you get some sleep.”
After a grueling month, and despite their general lack of experience with physical labor, the teachers had fallen into the demanding routine. It was the duty of the interpreters and sub-group leaders to keep the Germans informed of any illnesses or injuries among their assigned workers, and relay any orders from the Nazi officers and guards to the teachers.
Falko Jensen immediately organized regular meetings between the Norwegian leaders and made sure that both the day shift and the night shift leaders all knew what the other shift was experiencing. These meetings were the only thing that allowed Teigen to hold on to the elusive glimmer of hope that they would survive their imprisonment and forced labors.
That, and the sweet memory of the blonde woman who stared into his eyes and laid her hand over her heart.
Lord, please let me find her someday, he prayed. I do want to thank her.
Tonight’s leaders’ meeting was centered on a shared concern. From the beginning, the inexperienced and weakened teachers were forced to unload large oil drums and heavy crates of supplies from German ships.
As was to be expected, injuries were common. At any given time at least a dozen men from Shift B were recuperating in the medical tent at the camp.
Today, however, the supplies included live ammunition—and that was the reason Falko called for this gathering.
“Live ammunition is dangerous, not to mention we’re aiding our enemy,” declared one of the group leaders. “I think we should all refuse to unload it.”
Teigen’s gaze moved from man to man, assessing whether they agreed. Their reaction, sadly, appeared unanimous.
Falko nodded. “I asked you all here tonight to come up with a solution. I don’t think that outright refusal is viable. That would lead to repercussions.”
“Why don’t the men fake illness or injury, and get out of it that way?” another man suggested.
Teigen wagged his head, exhausted from his shift and frustrated by the direction of the discussion. “You’re not thinking straight, Halsten. Every man here can’t pretend to be unable to work.”
“That’s true,” Falko agreed.
“What can we do, then?” demanded the first man, glaring at Teigen. “If you’re so smart, you tell us.”
Teigen sucked a deep breath. “We do need to comply if we want to survive. There is no way around that.”
Halsten snorted. “So why are we even having this meeting?”
“We need a tactic,” Falko said carefully. “One that every one of us can agree on.”
“And that tactic would be what?”
“Well…” Teigen began, a plan forming as he spoke.
The nineteen men crammed into Falko’s hut quieted and leaned forward so they could all see him. He briefly met every man’s eye as they waited for him to speak.
“We slow down.”
Silence.
Shifting gazes.
“Slow down?” a man asked, his brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“That means we still do the work but we do it slowly. Carefully.” Teigen wagged his finger back and forth between two of the men. “We double up, so it takes two men to lift the crate or the barrel.”
Halsten straightened, his expression brightening. “We can do less than half the work, but still appear busy.”
“The bastards won’t stand for that!” the first man objected.
“They will if we start spilling some of it.” Falko laughed as he continued. “If we ‘accidentally’ drop a dozen barrels of oil into the sea, they won’t grouse about us being more careful.”
“The SS will probably come talk to us as group leaders about the slow down,” Teigen warned. “And we will tell them the truth: that the men are growing weak with the meager meals, the mile-and-a-half walk to and from the camp, and the brutal twelve-hour shifts.”
Halsten grinned. “When they do, I’ll suggest that if they want to feed us more, and give us a day of rest every week, that the men would be more productive.”
“Do you think they might do that?” a hopeful voice from the back asked.
The group leaders grew quiet.
Falko sighed. “No. I don’t think so.”
“But we’ll ask just the same,” Teigen said. “It can’t hurt to remind them that we are humans, though merely human, after all.”
“I want to bring up one more thing before we finish,” Falko said. “You all know that part of our work is unloading the Germans’ food and putting it in storage…”
“Already ahead of you,” Teigen stated. “My group has been pilfering food for the last two weeks.”
“Mine, too,” declared another group leader.
“And mine,” said the redhead next to Teigen.
Falko grinned and nodded. “Glad to hear it. The Germans are stealing so much for themselves that they can’t be certain the missing food didn’t go to one of their own.”
He clapped his hands together and rubbed them to warm them. “My next question is: do we want to have some sort of supply exchange among us?”
The men murmured to each other until one raised his hand. “I say we make certain that those from our o
wn groups who’re injured or ill are seen to. But after that, to each his own.”
“I agree.” Teigen glanced around the room. “We don’t want to do anything that might tip off the brown bastards.”
Falko nodded again. “All right. Then we are finished.”
As the men rose to their feet several shivered and wrapped their arms around themselves.
“Thor’s thunder it’s cold,” one growled. “Isn’t this June?”
“Has to be,” another answered him. “The sun hasn’t set for a couple weeks.”
Teigen opened the door to Falko’s windowless hut. “There’ll be no sun tonight.” Incredulous, he turned around to face the assembled group leaders. “Because it’s snowing.”
Chapter
Ten
June 6, 1942
Kirkenes, Norway
“Hay, sir. We’d like some hay.” Teigen stood in front of the SS captain’s desk the next day. Heavy snowfall had prevented any of the shifts from working today, which made the captain’s mood as dim and gray as the frigid day.
“For what purpose would you deprive our guard’s horses?” he replied sharply. “They work harder and are more valuable than any of you.”
“With all respect, Hauptman Mueller, my men are freezing.” Teigen waved a hand toward the office’s window and the thick blanket of white on the ground. “The hay would insulate us from the cold while we sleep.”
The German captain looked annoyed. “It’s June sixth. This can’t last.”
“In the meantime, sir—”
“Silence! My answer is no.” Hauptman Mueller waved Teigen away. “Get back to your hut. Heil Hitler.”
Furious, Teigen gave the officer a stiff, jaw-clenched, bow and left the room.
Two of the group leaders, Halsten and Roald, were waiting outside for him in the already foot-deep summer snow. “What did he say?”
Teigen turned sideways and answered in German so that the two sentries guarding the door could see and understand him. “He said no, we cannot have any hay to keep our men from freezing to death as they sleep on the cold wooden floors.”
Roald caught on to the ploy. “But the men will come down with pneumonia and bronchitis.”
Halsten jumped in now. “The stronger ones might only lose toes to frostbite, but the weaker ones will certainly die.”
“Hauptman Mueller says his horses are more important than any of the teachers.”
Teigen noticed that the sentries—young men who couldn’t be over seventeen or eighteen years of age—exchanged frowning glances.
“I don’t know what to tell our men,” Teigen said sadly. “Let’s hope that the frostbite does not turn gangrenous, or even more of us will die needlessly.”
The three men turned as one and walked silently away from the camp’s headquarters.
Please, God. Let them help us.
*****
“You move the old straw from the top of the haystack, like this.” The young sentry carefully lifted away the graying, snow-covered hay. “Then you take the fresh hay from underneath.”
Teigen, Halsten and Roald each grabbed an armful of fresh hay. The sentry replaced the old hay so that the appearance of the stack, though slightly diminished, was essentially unchanged.
“Take a little from each of the stacks,” the sentry instructed. “And they might not notice.”
“Danke schön, Privat Fischer. Vielen Dank.” Teigen turned to the other Norsemen. “We better hurry so we aren’t seen.”
As the trio stomped through the snow back to their huts, Teigen sent up a silent prayer of thanks.
He dropped his armload of hay in his shared hut and told the men in there to spread it on the floor. “I’ll show you how to get more,” he promised. “After I check on Jans.”
Jans was in the medical ward recovering from a fever. The explanation of what he suffered from was vague, and no helpful drugs were available to the prisoners anyway—they were simply kept warm and allowed to sleep on cots until they recovered from whatever ailed them.
“How are you faring, Jans?” Teigen knelt beside the cot. There were no chairs for visitors in the medical tent.
“I’m getting better, Teig. I think the fever’s gone.”
Jans did, in fact, have a much healthier tone to his skin.
“Are they feeding you?” Teigen slipped a packet of dried reindeer meat under Jans’ thin blanket.
Jans’ fingers wrapped around it and he smiled a little. “Yes. Three bowls of fish soup a day.”
“That’s good to hear.” Teigen smiled softly and lowered his voice. “Be glad you are in here. We have over a foot of snow outside.”
Jans gave a weak chuckle. “I heard.”
Teigen gripped his friend’s hand through the covers. “I need to go. We have to collect hay for our beds so we don’t freeze.”
“Thanks again, Teig.” Jans shifted his position on the cot. “I should be back to work in a couple days.
Teigen doubted that was wise, but what could he say about it? He shook his head and gave Jans a stern look as he rose to his feet.
“As your friend, I say stay as long as they’ll let you,” he encouraged. “This is the best duty you could pull.”
Teigen turned on his heel and headed for the door, tucking his hands under his arms to keep them warm.
June 9, 1942
Kirkenes, Norway
The German guards brazenly marched the Norwegian teachers through the village of Kirkenes on their way to work—every day, every shift—as a warning to the townspeople of what disobedience might earn them as well. The march was a long one as their camp was a mile-and-a-half south of the town and the road was merely a dirt path.
German soldiers on horseback accompanied the men to and from, and threatened them if they got out of line, even to piss.
It wasn’t as if any of the teachers would run. There was nowhere else to go in this remote area of the world except into Russia. But the part of Russia that lay less than three miles south of their camp wasn’t populated. And Russia was at war.
Even before the discussion about working slower at the docks, the teachers had been walking as slowly as possible from the camp to the pier. By doing so, they shortened their working time and reduced the profits the Germans could make from their imprisoned labor force.
Two wins.
Exhausted and depressed by their situation, Teigen was moved to tears the first time the inhabitants of Kirkenes showed their respect for the teachers and their struggle by standing silently along the road through town toward the docks.
Though surprising the first time it happened, in the last weeks the lines of men women and children—many wearing red and, for some inexplicable reason, paperclips—had been consistently in place.
They waited while one group went to the docks to start their shift, and were still in place when the finishing group passed by on their return journey to the camp.
This evening, one man suddenly stepped forward and grabbed Teigen’s hand. “God bless you.”
The action earned the man a shouted warning from the guard who spurred his mount forward from ten yards behind him.
Teigen stuffed his hands into his pockets and didn’t look back. Curiosity demanded that he look at the folded paper which was pressed into his palm, but wisdom forced him to leave it hidden safely away when he arrived at the pier.
When you are back in your hut, he scolded himself silently. And not a minute before.
*****
Teigen didn’t need a light to read the note. The sun never set this far north in June; instead its light seeped through the gaps left by the constantly wet-then-dry warped cardboard walls of his shared hut.
He took off his boots and stretched out on his hay-cushioned blanket before retrieving the many-times folded scrap of paper. He had to read the words three times to be certain of what it said.
I believe God will forgive me for changing His word (Philippians) this way. We want the teachers to know how their stoi
c example has strengthened our nation, and whose example is better than Saint Paul’s:
“I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to you has served to advance freedom. That it has become known throughout Norway, and to all the rest of the world. That your imprisonment is for good; and Norwegians have been made confident because of your imprisonment, and are emboldened to speak against our captors without fear.”
Teigen was stunned.
Ever since boarding the Skjerstad he and his fellow teachers were certain they had been forgotten. Not one of them felt particularly heroic, nor had they even talked about when the war might be over and who would win.
They were, by necessity, completely focused on their immediate situation—surviving from day to day without succumbing to illness or injury. Their conditions were miserable.
They were badly equipped for the cold.
They were just fed enough to keep them moving, but were all losing weight with the workload.
And there was no end to their imprisonment in sight.
Teigen wiped his suddenly damp eyes and reread the message yet again.
Norwegians have been made confident because of your imprisonment, and are emboldened to speak against our captors without fear…
He folded the paper carefully and tucked it back inside his pocket. This was something he needed to share at the next meeting of the group leaders.
But first, he would share it with Jans.
June 12, 1942
Kirkenes, Norway
The constant sun’s restored glare on the last bits of melting snow actually caused physical pain to Teigen’s eyes. He shielded them with both hands and squinted as the teachers who were leaving for their six o’clock in the morning shift at the docks were told to wait off to the side of the camp’s gate.