The Fragile Hour Read online

  She gave a nod, wondering how he knew. “It was June, 1940. I was already eighteen and about to leave school.”

  While speaking she had felt Karl Kringstad’s hard gaze on her from where he sat nearby. It made her feel uneasy and also intensely aware of him as an extremely physical man. In every way he was a contrast to the Major, who wanted her to be at ease. Glancing across at Karl she met a kind of dark look in his sharply intelligent grey eyes. It was not exactly hostility, but something equally turbulent and disturbing. She wished he was not in the room.

  “So you were very eager to join up,” the Major commented.

  “I was. In fact, I thought I was coming here today for a special interview before promotion.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  Karl chose to speak for the first time, his eyes never leaving her, and his voice held an oddly challenging note. “I can hear the west coast in your Norwegian.”

  Anna looked fully at him. He had a strong face, high-cheeked with a handsome Viking nose and a jaw to match, his mouth well-cut and his hair a dark wheat colour. There was a self-assured ease in his whole manner combined with an air of confidence that normally she liked in a man, but in his case she felt an extraordinary need to assert herself in order not to be overwhelmed by the force of his personality. There was a curious undercurrent passing between them.

  “As a matter of fact,” she remarked smoothly, “I can tell that you’re from Oslo.”

  “Correct.” He raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve an ear for the nuances of the Norse language.”

  “I think I can pride myself on that.” She turned again to the Major. “I believe that you, sir, are from Bergen.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  But Karl Kringstad had not finished with her yet. “I’d like to know how you absorbed the county of Romsdal into your speech.”

  “There’s nothing surprising about it. I was only a year old when my mother took me to spend my first summer near Molde and that set the pattern for many summers afterwards. I suppose it could be said that for a while every year I grew up with the local children.”

  The Major was not oblivious to the underlying terseness in the questions and answers being exchanged between the two seated opposite him. Karl was revealing an interest in the character of this girl, bringing her out in his own way and it was going well.

  Karl, sitting back with one long leg crossed over the other, continued his selective questioning of Anna as he watched her closely. “You mentioned your aunt in Oslo. What is her name? Perhaps I know her.” But when Anna told him he shook his head. “No, I’ve never met Fru Rosa Johansen.”

  “Whereabouts did you live in the city?” She was determined not to be beaten down in this extremely civilised battle of questions and answers.

  “Grefsen. Do you know it?”

  She smiled, more at her own pleasant memories than due to any softening towards him. “Yes, I went often with my aunt to visit the Moen family on Tonsenveien.”

  “I grew up in the next road. They’re fine people. A bomb was dropped nearby on the first morning of the invasion and I went to see if they were all right, but they had only suffered smashed windows from the blast.”

  Major Andersen intervened at this point. “I’d like you to tell me who else you know in Oslo.”

  Anna’s resentment soared. It had been obvious to her almost from the start that these men were questioning her about Norway for some inexplicable reason of their own and she felt it was high time that it was explained to her. But she obliged the Major by listing her acquaintances in the city, adding that her closest friends were those with whom she had shared her summer days. Just as she was about to make a direct request to be told what this interview was all about, Karl stood up to leave. He made his apologies for having to break away. He turned to her.

  “Goodbye Fröken Marlow. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day.”

  It was a relief to her when he was gone. The room had been too full of his angry presence. She leaned forward and spoke forthrightly to Major Andersen, who was seated again at his desk.

  “Why am I here? Have you been testing my Norwegian? It’s obvious that you wanted to see me for a specific purpose. Is it that you wish me to transfer from the WRNS to be an interpreter for newly-arrived escapees?”

  He compressed his lips briefly. “It’s much more than that. But, before I explain, I want to tell you something of present conditions in Norway. The newspapers here print whatever they can, but I can give you an insight as to what Norwegians are having to endure in their daily lives.”

  He went on to list some of the hardships being imposed by Reichskommissar Terboven, the German commander in control of the country. She knew, as everybody did, of the thousands of young Norwegians escaping to join the Free Royal Norwegian Forces formed in England under their exiled king, but she had not known that the penalty for even attempting to escape from Norway was death by firing squad. The Major also told her that recently the fathers of the successful escapees had been taken as hostages, whatever their ages, and sent to one of the concentration camps in Norway. The most notorious of these was Grini near Oslo where hundreds of patriots, men and women, were housed in apalling conditions and subjected to brutal treatment.

  “Hitler thought Norway would be easy to subdue. After all, there are only three and a half million of us among all those mountains and fjords, but from the start on what we call the Home Front we proved him wrong. German reprisals and arrests and even torture happen every day, but nothing has checked the people’s determination not to be broken.”

  Anna looked down at her hands linked in her lap, moved by all that she had heard. “Occupied, but unconquered,” she said as much to herself as to him.

  “You’ve summed up the situation most accurately.” He paused for a moment. “How would you consider the chance to return there in these troubled times?”

  Her head jerked up and she stared at him, her heart beginning to thump heavily. A possible understanding as to why she was here had begun to dawn on her throughout all he had been saying. “How would I do that?”

  He sat back in his chair. “This is the headquarters of the Norwegian Section of Mr Churchill’s Special Operations Executive, which organises military sorties and sabotage by the Resistance in Norway, as is being done in every occupied country. Here we select fellow countrymen, who have escaped, to return to Norway secretly and to undertake extremely dangerous missions. Naturally they have to be of the right character and calibre to meet such requirements.”

  “You haven’t mentioned women.”

  “We have many women in the Resistance and you have been highly recommended. The training would be hard and strenuous. I’d want you to have a week’s leave to think it over.”

  “How soon could I start that training?”

  His eyes showed his satisfaction at her query. “Just as soon as I see you again. But there is an important point for you to remember. There can be no reunions with your aunt or anyone else in Norway. That would be putting their lives at risk just because you yourself would always be in danger. Their ignorance of your presence in the country would be their safeguard.”

  The thought of being in Norway and unable to see those she cared about was a bitter disappointment, but she accepted that it was how it had to be. “Does anyone else except you and Captain Kringstad know why I’m here?”

  “Only those within a closed circle.”

  “How did you hear about me?”

  He gave a slight shake of his head. “I can’t tell you that, but I will say that it came from a reliable source.”

  “I feel privileged to have been mentioned.”

  They talked for another half an hour. He could tell that already Anna had committed herself whole-heartedly to what had been asked of her.

  “Come back a week today,” he said as the interview came to an end. “I need hardly say that everything has been strictly confidential. Now enjoy your leave.”

  In the nearest telephon
e box Anna made a call to a good friend from her schooldays, Joan, with whom she usually spent her leaves. Joan, married to a bomber pilot serving overseas, and alone at home with a three-year-old, always looked forward to Anna’s visits. Her voice over the line was warm and welcoming.

  “Some unexpected leave prior to an overseas posting, Anna? No, of course I don’t mind that you can’t tell me where. Catch the next train!”

  They had an enjoyable week together. Anna was able to wear her own civilian clothes, for Joan was looking after her personal possessions for the duration of the war, since she had no home now. By chance on their last evening together when they were listening to the radio, the BBC broadcast a recording of President Roosevelt speaking to the people of the United States. His slow, gravelly voice was clear and articulate.

  “If there is any man who wonders why this war is being fought, then let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any illusions that this war is unnecessary, let him look to Norway. And if there is anyone who doubts the will of democracy to win, then again I say, look to Norway. He will then, in the besieged yet unconquered Norway, find the answers to all his questions.”

  Joan glanced at Anna, able to tell by her expression that her thoughts were with her aunt and Nils in particular. “It was a very fine tribute.”

  Anna gave a slow smile. “I’ve always liked that man. He and I see eye to eye about Norway.”

  When the time came for Anna to fold away her own clothes again, she kept back one item that would be useful in the future. It was a traditional kofte, a thick hand-knitted cardigan such as was worn by people of all ages in Norway. Hers was in grey and white and had been knitted specially for her in an intricate pattern by Aunt Rosa’s housekeeper. She made sure that Joan did not see it go into her suitcase, not wanting to give any clue to her destination.

  The following day, after a return visit to see Major Andersen, Anna travelled to her training centre. It was in a bleak and isolated area. There were other women on the course with her, one Dutch and the others bilingual in French. She was the only one not destined to cross the Channel when the course was over.

  It was as strenuous as she had been warned. There were lessons in unarmed combat and self-defence, hours spent at a shooting range and in operating and repairing a radio transmitter. On her first parachute jump she did not release her harness in time and was dragged some distance across rough moorland before she managed it. She did not make that mistake again. The most strenuous exercise of all, apart from climbing high walls and going hand over hand along a rope strung across a river, was escaping in the countryside under real ammunition. The trainees became used to ending a day wet, cold, bruised and muddy.

  While the others were given individual briefings on France and Holland, Anna received hers from a Norwegian, who was a veteran of several dangerous sorties back in his own country. It was he who prepared her fully as to what to expect there under Nazi rule.

  When the course ended it was February. She had been encouraged all the time to think herself into the new identity and background that she had been given. Her surname was to be Larsen, which was common enough in Norway, making it less easy for any inquisitive person, German or otherwise, to pinpoint anything about her. On all the forged papers she was given she saw that the German language had priority over Norwegian on her identity card, ration book and clothing coupons as well as on a travel pass. She thought how galling it must be for the Norwegians to have their language demoted to second place.

  Apart from her pre-war Swiss watch, which was of the kind that had been available everywhere, and her hand-knitted kofte, one of which would have been issued to her in any case, Anna was unable to keep anything else of her own. Some photographs in a leather folder, a powder-compact that had been a gift and other small personal possessions had to be put into a box that would remain stored until her return. She demurred about the two spare keys that Aunt Rosa had given her long ago to the Oslo home and the west coast house. Since the invasion of Norway she had felt that the keys had become talismans and that by keeping them with her she could be sure of opening those doors again one day.

  “If ever questioned,” she said to the Norwegian who had briefed her, “I’ll simply say that they’re the keys of my old home and I’m keeping them for sentimental reasons.”

  He considered seriously before he gave a nod. “OK. They may help you to unlock entirely different doors in an emergency. Some members of the Resistance carry bunches of master keys and then they can get in anywhere. Now you’d better go into the other room and see the clothes that are ready for you.”

  All the garments had been made in Norway or were accurate copies, even to the labels, and included a ski outfit and boots, not for sport but for any necessary cross-country treks that might come about in her new venture. She was to pack everything in a well-worn suitcase, which she guessed had probably been brought across the North Sea by an escapee. A false bottom had been added to it for any secret papers she might carry.

  At first Anna thought that the handbag, which held appropriate Norwegian-made contents, was of crocodile skin. But closer inspection showed that it was dyed fish skin. It was the same with a pair of shoes with wooden soles that had also been provided. The ingenious Norwegians, faced with a leather shortage, were making use of natural resources wherever possible. There was a pair of stout brown leather shoes, still in a pre-war Oslo box, but these had been scuffed deliberately in order not to look new.

  When Anna, again in her WRNS uniform, stood once more in Major Andersen’s office, he congratulated her on how well she had come through the course. Another officer, who was also present, gave her a wad of Norwegian Kroner notes, for which she had to sign. Then he gave two pills into her keeping, one a stimulant and the other lethal. She would have preferred not to have received the second one, but the Major had told her that Gestapo interrogation could bring a captive to a point beyond human endurance.

  Both men shook her hand and wished her well. “As we say in Norway,” the Major added, “farewell for the time being.”

  Outside an army car was waiting for her and she was driven out of London. Contrary to her expectations she was not to be dropped by parachute into Norway. Instead she was to go by a very different route.

  Chapter Three

  Rain was slashing down as Anna left the RAF plane that had brought her north to Shetland. A friendly lieutenant, who introduced himself as David Howarth, met her. Being in WRNS uniform, she gave him a salute, which he returned. Otherwise he wasted no time with preliminaries.

  “I’ve a jeep waiting. Let’s make a dash for it!”

  Anna turned up the collar of her greatcoat as they ran towards the vehicle, rain-fountains dancing up about their feet. She gave a mock sigh of relief as she slid into the passenger seat and he took the wheel beside her. “Does it always rain this hard up here?”

  He grinned as he turned the jeep onto the road. “We do get more than our fair share of rough weather, being north of Scotland. Not that I mind it myself. But you should see how beautiful the isle is when the sun shines on the cliffs and bays and skerries.”

  “I like what I’m seeing now.” She was gazing out with interest. In spite of the downpour and heavy skies there was a curious, sombre beauty to the oddly treeless countryside with a sprinkling of sheep here and there. The single-storeyed stone crofts were the only sign of habitation, but sometimes even these proved to be derelict.

  “Since I was first posted here I’ve grown deeply attached to the isle and the good-natured Shetlanders,” David continued as he drove along. “They were used to a quiet life before the war, but they’ve accepted our naval and military presence, and none would give away the secret operations that take place from here. And it’s not only us disrupting their lives, but many escaping Norwegians arrive on the east coast of the isle. It’s their first landfall after leaving home waters. Not that they stay long. They’re taken from here to London.”

  Anna glanced at him quickly. “D
o you have the names of those arrivals? I’d like to look at any listed under the letter O.” She was thinking of Nils. It had often occurred to her that it was highly likely that he was an escapee, but he would have had no idea where to find her.

  “I’m sure that can be arranged. It may be a few days before you’re able to leave on the Shetland Bus for Norway and you’ll have plenty of time to peruse it.”

  “The Shetland Bus?” she queried.

  He grinned at her. “That’s the name we’ve given this route of Norwegian fishing boats across the North Sea, because they come and go so regularly on secret expeditions. I don’t know what is in the cargo you’ll be travelling with, but it could be anything from weapons for the Resistance to German uniforms for various sorties against the enemy. They return with secret agents, such as yourself, who have special information to deliver or others who need to escape and so on. The demand on these Norwegian fishermen is endless and nothing deters them, whatever the cost might be. Before the war all they ever did at sea was to cast nets.”

  “I hope the toll on these brave men is light.”

  He shook his head grimly. “We’ve had heavy casualties in men and boats. Also nobody knows how many individual escapees have lost their lives through being gunned down by enemy aircraft in the North Sea.”

  She hoped that Nils had not been one of them.

  Soon they came to the little village of Skalloway with its narrow streets, small shops and old stone houses. She was given comfortable accommodation and liked the place and the local people from the start.

  During the next few days Anna met several Shetland Bus fishermen, who were waiting between trips for passengers such as herself or for a particular cargo or even for the weather to improve. She soon heard of the dreadful gales that blew there and how seaplanes, as well as fishing boats, had been lost. She thought the weather exceptionally rough already as the wind buffeted her whenever she went out and the waves lashed at the land enclosing the harbour.