by Andrew Gross
“They certainly appeared British.” The watchman nodded nervously. It was as if he had a practiced speech. “They wore green-gray uniforms; they spoke in English mostly. They even said they were British. You heard them, didn’t you, Gunnar?” he said to his foreman. “They said, ‘Tell them British officers wouldn’t take a Norwegian life.’”
“I did hear them,” the foreman said, but he was clearly not happy to be brought into the conversation in front of the senior Gestapo officer from Oslo.
“But they spoke Norwegian as well, I heard you say?” the Gestapo chief pressed further.
“Yes, a little,” the watchman admitted. “When one has a gun trained on you it’s not great for the ears.”
“You can see the gun they left over there for yourself, Herr General.…” The chief engineer, Larsen, pointed to the discarded Thompson submachine gun, doing his best to deflect the heat from his man. “And the explosives manual…” It had been charred in the blast but still had the British insignia on it and was written in English.
“I do see them.” Rediess looked at the engineer. “And I’ve seen the gate near the railway tracks and the footprints in the snow leading to the gorge.”
“With all due respect, Herr General…” The NS police captain, Lund, stepped forward. “I do not believe myself the people who committed this act were, in fact, British. Or at least, it had to have been accomplished with significant local support.”
“I am listening, Captain,” the Gestapo general said, surprised to hear a Norwegian who could think for himself. Usually, they did nothing in this country but back each other up to the bitter end.
“First, sir, to have gained access to the building through the pipe duct, they would have to have received inside knowledge. Former Chief Engineer Brun is the likely source. He is thought to be in England now, as you know, with the previous head of the plant, that traitor Leif Tronstad. Second, there are mines set throughout the plant’s grounds. To make their way up here, not from the bridge or from down the cliffs, but from the gorge—only someone with a keen knowledge of the local terrain would even attempt such a feat.”
“I agree with you completely, Captain Lund.” The Gestapo chief stepped up to him. “Keep going.”
Lund knew this was the only chance he had to turn disaster into opportunity, if he could play his cards right. “Thank you, sir. Third, the likelihood is the saboteurs came together from up on the vidda. Over the past week, there have been severe storms up there. In such conditions, familiarity with the terrain would not simply be an asset, Herr General, it would be essential. In my view, I am sad to say that only Northmen could have pulled this off. And only ones familiar with the region, down to the smallest detail.”
Rediess betrayed a knowing smile, his suspicions confirmed. “Anything more?”
“Lastly, in spite of what the night watchman claims, Herr General, I believe we are looking for more than four saboteurs. Four, perhaps, to enter the plant and set the charges … But others would have to have been watching over the guard hut in the case the guards became alerted.”
“Yes, I believe you are right on that.” The Gestapo man nodded. Rediess knelt and picked up the charred British explosives manual and tapped it in his hand. “And on the supposition that you are right, if you were these people, where would you be headed now?”
“To the safety of the huts and cabins spread out over the vidda. And then to Sweden, I suspect. But it is also possible that some who helped them have remained behind. Or worse, they are part of the local community, right under our noses, and a threat to continued danger.”
“I agree again, Captain. It’s as I’ve been saying. And as such, you will order an immediate sweep of the entire area,” Rediess declared. “Colonel Rausch…”
The officer in charge of the Rjukan garrison snapped to attention. “Yes, Herr General.”
“We have three thousand men in the area. Planes. Armored vehicles. Wireless direction-finding locators. Why are they not mobilized yet? The Swedish border is roughly three hundred and fifty kilometers away. These criminals cannot go undetected forever. What is the delay?”
“Again, if I may, sir.” Lund stepped forward. “I’m afraid we won’t catch them on skis. In fact, if one of the persons involved is the man I am thinking of, we may never find them. And in camouflage suits, even a reconnaissance plane would not likely spot them against the snow from the air.”
“Are you saying you have some idea who it is?”
“Only a hunch, sir. But a solid one, I believe.”
Lund felt certain a man like Nordstrum had to have something to do with it. He knew the area as well as any local. He’d made it to England that they knew—on the Galtesund—where Tronstad and Brun were known to be and the raid was likely planned. And if Lund had a sense of Nordstrum at all, the man would not be scampering like some frightened deer across the vidda to safety. He would remain here. This was only one job. An important one, perhaps, but there was other mischief to be done. “It is also possible he knew people on the inside of the plant who helped him pull this off.”
Lund saw that Larsen, his fellow Norwegian, was regarding him with a look that bordered on contempt and shame. The word “treachery” blazed in his eyes. No matter, it was what he must do.
“That is precisely my suspicion as well.” Rediess returned to the plant director, Nilsson. “As such, I want all department heads who were on duty last night placed in jail in Rjukan.”
“Herr General!” Director Nilsson’s jaw fell open in outrage. “These men have done nothing—”
“And since these people are civilians,” Rediess turned to Lund, “I place the matter under your jurisdiction, Captain. I am sure you can carry this out?”
Lund bowed his head and nodded. “It would be my duty, General.”
“And if we do not discover the name or names of whoever has provided aid to these provocateurs,” the Obergruppenfuhrer pulled off his wire-rim glasses and began to clean them with a huff of breath, “then one of them will be shot each day, until the traitor or traitors’ identity is confirmed. I will oversee the interrogations myself.”
“General Rediess, I must strongly object!” The plant’s director stepped forward, aghast. “This raid is clearly a military matter. Not a civilian one. These men are loyal employees. Many have held jobs in the plant for years. It will disable the work.”
“The work…” The Gestapo chief’s eyes fell on him like a heavy weight. “There is no longer any work here, Herr Director, other than what we tell you to perform. The only work”—he pointed to the disabled compressors—“is restoring this equipment and resuming the production as swiftly as possible. The rest … Whatever chemical you create, or whatever it is you do here, is precisely what it is destined for—fertilizer. Shit. It is completely irrelevant. Do you understand?”
The director cast a hapless glance toward Chief Engineer Larsen.
“As such, you will get your best engineers on the task of fixing these compressors and getting them back up and running as soon as possible. That is all the work this plant is responsible for now. Any day that the effort slackens, even for an hour, in my estimation, another worker will be shot. Is that understood, Herr Director?” The Gestapo chief’s gaze remained fixed on him. “Or would you prefer it would be you who will be shot instead?”
Nilsson released a breath of held-in anger through his clenched jaw and stepped back in line. “Perfectly understood, Herr General.”
“In addition, there will be a state of emergency imposed in Rjukan, effective today. There will be a nightly curfew of six o’clock. Anyone on the streets after that will be deemed up to no good and shot. And there will be house-to-house searches in town. Anyone in possession of explosives or even a fuse will be immediately imprisoned. Captain Lund, I imagine you are capable of overseeing such measures. Does any of this present a problem in any way?”
“No problem at all, Herr General.” Lund clicked his heels and stood facing straight ahead, his ch
est expansive. In fact, one such farmer came to mind immediately. One he would love to toss into his cell. And for a farmer, dynamite and fuses would be a common possession, to blow up rocks and clear the land. Lund would only be upholding the law.
“Colonel Rausch, I am not sure why you are still standing here.” The Gestapo chief turned to face him. “By day’s end, I want five hundred men up in the mountains on the trail of these criminals. They cannot have gotten too far away. Surely German mountain divisions are every bit the equal of a few Brits and local mischief makers?”
“Indeed they are, sir.” The colonel snapped his heels. “But, I’m told, we are hampered by severe storms up there today. Nothing will be visible until they clear. Besides, in this weather, any tracks they left will be swept away.”
“Then I would dress warmly, Colonel. Indeed.” The Gestapo general went up to him, his face only inches away. “Am I clear? And turn over every hut and cabin in the region so you do not need tracks. Burn each unoccupied one to the ground; that way anyone cannot double back. Captain Lund, I am certain you have men who know their way up there as well as any, do you not?”
“Yes, there are some.” Lund nodded.
“Fit these men out and have them get after these intruders. And if I find out the people responsible for this are, in fact, Norwegian, and not British after all,” his stare landed on Larsen and Director Nilsson, “there will be hell to pay in town. Do you understand? And I might be starting with you two as the first examples. Just so we fully understand each other.”
With blanched faces, Larsen and Nilsson both looked back at the Gestapo man.
“So get on with it. I want those processors repaired, as quickly as possible, Herr Chief Engineer. That is your work now. I am certain there is an assistant chief engineer who would be happy to comply if his boss were to be lined up against a wall.” He nodded and dismissed everyone with a formal Heil Hitler. “That’s all.”
The group made for the exits. Rediess took out a notebook from his jacket and jotted something in it. Everyone hurried to get out of his sight.
“Oh, and Night Watchman Fredrickson…” the general muttered, still buried in his notebook.
Gustav stopped, a hand on the door. “Sir?”
“It was on your watch that this sabotage took place, was it not?” The Gestapo chief finally looked up. “You didn’t honestly think that I had forgotten about you, did you now…?” he said with a blank smile.
49
For the next two weeks, Nordstrum traveled from hut to hut, staying ahead of the German pursuit, which came onto the vidda in a presence larger than anyone had ever seen before.
The first few days, the storms in the mountains continued to rage; despite his blistered cheeks and ice-stung eyes, Nordstrum knew it only aided his advantage. His tracks would be concealed. The reconnaissance planes couldn’t fly. After a week, he’d eaten the last of the food he’d brought with him, and from then on it was whatever he was able to find or catch in the wild. On the Songvaln he shot a deer, which lasted him for days. He hoped to get back to Rjukan to see about his father, but right now it was far too dangerous there. More German soldiers were flooding into the Telemark every day, and there was always the risk that someone in town might recognize him.
After a month, when he felt safe enough to show his face again, he got on with the work he was sent to do.
His assignment from Wilson and Tronstad was to recruit three agents who would be set up as radio transmitters. Things had become a little too heated for Einar, who had a family, an important job and, as such, couldn’t easily disappear for days at a time. Not to mention Einar’s brother Torstein had been picked up by the NS for questioning, which cast the glare of suspicion on the family. And as SOE intended to drop in more agents and plan further operations, it required a broader network on the ground.
The first recruit he found was a friend of his cousin, named George Hansen. He was a bull of a man, with a thick red beard and a gap in his teeth, a farmer whose house had been burned to the ground by the Nazis and whose wife had been shot. He was now skinning hides in a slaughterhouse in Uvdal, the same town Kristiansen, the ill-fated hunter they’d had to shoot, had come from. He had a daughter somewhere.
The butcher wasn’t hard to convince. Haugland’s radio and codebook had been hidden before they left and Nordstrum knew enough about how to operate it. George was willing, though a little slow on the coding and decoding. “I’d much rather shoot the fuckers,” he simply said. “Given a choice.”
“You’ll get your chance. I promise,” Nordstrum assured him. “In the meantime you have to be careful.” A working radio was a valuable commodity in occupied Norway. George still had his old stone barn and a cabin deep in the wilderness, which he could use as a transmitting site.
“You have to move from place to place,” Nordstrum instructed him as they set up the transmitter in the remote cabin. “No two transmissions in a row from the same location. I’ll meet you every other Tuesday. There’ll be a stone in your mailbox if I have something for you. And you leave one on the post if you’ve something for me. We’ll meet the next afternoon at the barn.”
“Okay,” George agreed, scratching his beard.
“You’ll need a code name.”
“How’s Okse? That’s what they called me back in school.”
“Ox. That works. Welcome to the Free Norwegian Army, Ox.” Nordstrum put out his hand.
The big man grinned and took it, almost burying Nordstrum’s grip in his. “I’m happy to finally be doing something in this war.”
The second possibility happened serendipitously, in the town of Rauland. From a ridge on the vidda, near where he was hiding out, Nordstrum had spotted German patrols, and thought, at some risk, that there would be better cover for him in the town, since no one knew him there. From the word he’d received, the Germans were not only looking for Brits, but for some locals as well, who might have assisted them. He skied in and found a hotel and presented the forged identity papers to the proprietor behind the desk. He said he was a hunter from up north, on his way to Oslo for a family funeral.
“Watch out, they’re rounding people up left and right here,” the manager warned. “Some big sabotage raid down in Rjukan a few weeks ago. Everyone’s gone crazy over it. If I were you I wouldn’t go out after dark.”
“Thanks for that,” Nordstrum said appreciatively. He carried his pack up to his room. Who knew who he could trust, even among the staff? The main thing he had to be careful of was that no one found his Colt pistol, which was a sure sign he wasn’t who he represented himself to be.
For the first time in weeks he took a bath and cleaned himself properly. The hot water washed away all the dirt and grime that had caked on him since he’d left England, and took the chill from his bones that had been there since he first landed on the vidda six weeks ago. He asked for a pair of scissors and trimmed his beard and dressed in the most suitable clothes he had. In case the room was searched while he stepped out, he used his belt to strap his gun to the bottom of the bed frame. Then he went downstairs to the restaurant for dinner.
As soon as he stepped in, he knew he’d made a mistake. The place was swarming with Germans. There was a large table set up for eight of them, high brass—he could see a major, a captain, and several others in civilian clothes. Gestapo, he assumed. Conversing loudly. Singing. Ordering lots of booze.
There were a few other tables filled, but the rest of the patrons were subdued with the Germans present. Nordstrum took a seat in the corner by himself.
His first instinct, if it wouldn’t draw attention to him, was to get out of there. Ox had warned him that people were being randomly searched all over and the hotel proprietor had backed that up. In fact, at that point, he had no idea how things had gone for the rest of the team. If they had made it safely, or if any had been captured or killed. Or had to swallow their pills. Nordstrum kept his in his pocket at all times. In the end, though, he thought it better to remain at the t
able and have his meal, rather than draw unwanted attention to himself by leaving abruptly.
A waitress came up, plump and red-cheeked, likely the hotel manager’s wife. He ordered fish in butter and dill, and picked at some bread. The noise at the table of Germans grew loud—ordering the harried waitress left and right, demanding more drinks and wine, laughing boisterously. As the liquor got to them, their actions began to spill over on the neighboring tables.
At one of those tables an attractive local woman was seated with four friends. She was nicely dressed, with long, dark hair folded neatly into a bun, and high cheekbones, in her mid-to-late thirties, Nordstrum reckoned, and had clearly drawn the interest of one of the German officers. He was an SS captain who kept leaning toward her, trying to gain her attention. The woman did her best to ignore him, burying herself in conversation with her friends and turning away from his advances.
“Madame, have you ever been to Germany?” The officer finally swung his chair around and spoke loudly enough for Nordstrum, who was across the room, to overhear.
“Please, if we can only continue our meal,” the woman said politely, and went back to her own conversing.
“Maybe you’d like to come there with me someday,” the officer continued, turning to his colleagues with a suggestive wink. Their group laughed.
“I should very much not like to do that,” the woman finally replied, unable to ignore the officer’s rudeness.