This Shining Land Page 4

  There followed a tirade of abuse against the government, whose authority he pronounced null and void through its own actions. Then he solemnly informed the nation that he had appointed himself the new prime minister with his own Nazi party in full power.

  “I order you to show no further resistance to the German forces,” he gave out in conclusion.

  In fury Johanna snapped off the radio. “Traitor!” she exclaimed aloud. It seemed to her that the echo of her voice remained in the room.

  When it was time to go to bed, she double-locked the front and back doors, sure it was a precaution that had never been taken in this house before. Frequently the keys had been left unturned; there had never been anything to fear before. Now everything was changed.

  As she went upstairs, she considered Quisling’s extraordinary speech again. Although not mentioned in the evening news bulletins, which were probably already under the pressure of German censorship, it was clear from what he had said that the Norwegian call to arms that morning had been obeyed by many and fighting against the invader was widespread. She hoped Steffen was safe. It was a hope that she would carry like a talisman through whatever dark days might lie ahead.

  In the darkness of the cold night, not far from the military academy buildings, Steffen glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. It was just after midnight. Lying full-length on his stomach in the snow, he waited with his rifle for the first sign of enemy movement ahead. He and the rest of the company had received with bitter anger the information given by their commanding officer that the Germans were in Oslo. Since then Colonel Ruge had been alerted that an enemy force was on its way to compel the King back to the city, for at liberty he would continue to represent a nucleus of freedom to the nation that the Germans were determined to crush.

  Around Steffen, under a row of birch trees and dug into a long snowbank, were his comrades-in-arms. They waited, tense and silent. They had a rifle each and ammunition for it, but nothing else. There had not been a single grenade or explosive or anything else vitally needed in the weapons store of the academy. All it could provide was a solitary machine-gun, which was being manned by an officer and was strategically placed. With the military buildings to the rear and right of them, they faced the expanse of snowy ground across which the enemy must come. A barricade of felled trees across the road would check the Germans’ motorised advance.

  Steffen looked through his sights again. He was among those detailed to give covering fire to the machine-gunner against concentrated attack. His breath hung before him in the frosty air, every nerve in his body taut. Then he swore quietly to himself in satisfaction as the distant hum of approaching vehicles could be heard and soon the headlamps of a convoy flickered through the further-off trees.

  “Stand by!”

  The muttered command had been passed along. Against the pearly glow given off by the snow in the fitful moonlight, the open commercial trucks commandeered into service presented a harmless sight at first. Then the silhouettes of the passengers in the back were spotted against the lights, helmets clearly defined, rifles upright. There was no attempt at concealment. The Germans’ arrogant assumption that they would take the King without opposition gave satisfaction to those waiting in ambush, geared to a reversal of surprise tactics. As the barricade caused the trucks to halt one after another, the Germans jumped out in turn and began to move across the snowy ground in the direction of the academy buildings, unaware that their dark forms made perfect targets against the whiteness. Steffen’s finger tightened in readiness on the trigger of his rifle.

  The Norwegian command split the snowy silence. “Fire!”

  The sudden stutter of the academy machine-gun exploded into the night, taking the enemy completely by surprise. It was a company of a crack regiment of the Wehrmacht, trained to a peak of instant response, who hurled themselves fearlessly into attack, those in advance with submachine guns blazing from their hands. Shouts and screams and groans added to the nightmare noise. The scene was alive with red-gold flashes, the enemy intent on winning the fire fight in the least possible time, but Ruge’s men had the tactical advantage of position and vision as well as familiarity with the ground. Some of the Germans took shelter behind a low hut, firing from there, but again and again they were picked off like coconuts at a fairground.

  The German commander fought through the whole encounter in a state of disbelief. When asked if he could bring the King back to Oslo he had replied boastfully that with his men he could get the devil out of hell. Now he saw his crack soldiers falling down around him. As he emerged from a protective ridge of snow to lead a final rally, a bullet caught him and he went face down into the snow, fatally wounded.

  It acted like a signal to his demoralised troops. They fell back quickly, taking their dead and wounded with them, blood left vividly on the snow. The lights and sounds of their transport disappeared into the distance.

  Steffen rose slowly to his feet. Clumping down the snowbank, he went across to the hut that had offered some protection to the Germans. There on the trampled snow he salvaged a submachine-gun that had been abandoned. For a few moments he stood looking about him. He felt no triumph in the bloodshed, only in the routing of the enemy. That was how it had to be, and must be, until the last German was driven from Norwegian soil.

  Chapter 2

  Dawn brought “Panic Day” to Oslo. Within minutes of the early morning bulletin it became a phrase used by everybody. Warning had been given that a heavy bombing raid by the British was imminent with an attempted landing to follow, and immediately people began to evacuate the city. From her bedroom window Johanna could see that the road out of Oslo was already a flow of traffic and people on foot. She made ready to leave the city herself. Her plan was to take Steffen’s car, drive out of the city to a safe distance and await events.

  Feeling a new responsibility for the Alsteens’ possessions in their absence, she quickly gathered up small antique items, including rare porcelain and silver, which she carried down to the cellar. There she packed them with newspaper wadding into boxes, which she covered over against the chance of any falling debris during an air raid. After that she took down half a dozen Astrup paintings, which she knew to be of value, and placed them in what she thought would be one of the safest corners against the wall.

  When she had secured all that she knew meant most to the Alsteens, even some items of only sentimental value, she went up to her bedroom where she hastily packed a suitcase of clothes for herself. She put in what was best, having no idea when she would be able to return to the house, or if it would still be standing when she did. After closing the suitcase, there were still some evening dresses left in her wardrobe that she did not want ruined by bomb damage. Taking a large red-and-white-striped cardboard box that had originated in the fur shop, she laid the dresses in it, adding some garments out of the chest of drawers and whatever else could be snatched up in haste. Putting on the lid, she carried the box down to the cellar and looked to see what space was left. Then she noticed that Steffen had secured a heavy cupboard with bolts to the wall to prevent it from toppling, and at its base there was a narrow, curved aperture between the carved claw feet. That, she thought, would be a protective place for her clothes. Kneeling down in front of it, she slid the box underneath, pushing and pressing until it was back against the skirting, guarded from everything except a direct hit on the house.

  Dusting off her hands, she went back up the steps into the hall just as there came a frenzied ringing of the doorbell. She flung it open to find Sonja, her friend from the fur shop, on the doorstep.

  “Come on, Johanna! I’ve managed to get a taxi to take us to my mother-in-law’s out in the country. Get your things. There’s no time to lose.”

  “I have a car. You can come with me.”

  “Better still!” Sonja whirled about to run back to the gate and dismiss the taxi, which immediately took on a fresh load of passengers from a neighbouring house. Swiftly Johanna locked up, took her suitcase and
went to Steffen’s car in the garage. It was a new car, less than three months old.

  “You had better not get any scratches on this,” Sonja joked as they piled their luggage onto the back seat. Then, as Johanna drove out into the lane, she closed the garage door and fastened the gates before getting into the passenger seat.

  “Whoever thought we should come to these straits?” Johanna remarked fiercely as they went smoothly down the lane. “We’re refugees in our own country. Let’s hope the British blast the Germans out of Oslo today.”

  Congestion on the road made driving difficult. Every kind of vehicle not commandeered by the enemy had been called into service to get people out of Oslo. Now and again a truckfull of Germans went through, a motorcycle escort cleaving a path. The soldiers themselves glanced without interest at the fleeing refugees. For them it was a familiar sight, one they had seen often enough in other lands they had occupied.

  Sonja’s mother-in-law lived just far enough away from Oslo to be out of range of any battle for the city. Having been telephoned by Sonja, she was on the look-out for her arrival and she made Johanna equally welcome, hurrying them both into the house out of the cold. Fru Holm was a widow and lived alone; she was small, grey-haired with a kindly face and mobile hands that danced in the air expressively.

  “Thank goodness you reached here safely. I was so worried. What a dreadful calamity to have befallen our peaceful nation! I keep thinking it’s a nightmare and I’m going to wake up.”

  Her house was neat and trim with an abundance of photographs on the walls and every other available space, each generation of the Holm family circle represented, from sepia-tinted great-grandparents to the latest babies. All three of her sons were at sea, two in the whaling fleet, while Sonja was married to her youngest. Johanna saw at once there was a good relationship between Sonja and her mother-in-law, bearing out the goodwill with which Sonja had always spoken of her.

  That evening, when the three of them listened to the news, they heard that the expected British raid on Oslo had not taken place and there was no further reason to believe that it would. “Panic Day” had come to an end.

  “Was it another example of German propaganda, then?” Fru Holm exclaimed indignantly. “It seems to me it was a ploy to try to make us accept Nazi ‘protection’ from the British. Huh! Don’t they know our late Queen Maud was English and our Crown Prince was born in England? Nobody needs protection from their friends.”

  Sonja was turning the radio dial in an attempt to pick up a station not under German control, and by chance she tuned in to a local wavelength in time to catch a broadcast from the King. His voice came strongly over the air.

  “My people …”

  His message was short and clear. He had that day given a final and irrevocable “No!” to further German demands for capitulation. The fight would go on until Norway was free again.

  During the night the German bombers went over and there was a distant rumble like thunder far away. In the morning they heard that Elverum had been flattened by bombing. The reason was obvious—it had been a deliberate attempt to kill the King. The local radio station was able to report that he and the Crown Prince and the government ministers had got safely away beforehand.

  Johanna and Sonja were making ready to return to Oslo, although Fru Holm would have liked them to stay. “We must go back,” Sonja said. “Johanna and I both have jobs to keep. I’ll come and see you again soon.”

  There was plenty of traffic heading for the city again, although nothing like the amount that had been leaving the previous day. It seemed likely that many families would remain in the countryside for a few more days as a precautionary measure. When a traffic hold-up occurred on the boundaries of the city it was through a roadblock set up by the Germans.

  When Johanna’s turn came to drive past she was halted by the upraised hand of a corporal, rifle slung on his shoulder. He and another soldier came forward, one on either side of the car. Johanna wound down the window. The corporal lowered his head to look in at her.

  “Is this your car, fräulein?” he spoke in German, roughly and rather loudly, as if he had already suffered a great deal of exasperation by not being understood.

  She replied in his own language. “Nein. It has been loaned to me by a friend.”

  He looked relieved and his tone became less aggressive, more like that of a policeman giving traffic directions. “It makes no difference. I’m commandeering the vehicle in the name of the Third Reich. Drive off the road into the field there on your left. A soldier will take the keys from you.”

  In disbelief she stared at him. “What did you say?”

  His face stiffened in anticipation of trouble. He had had abuse from every driver he had stopped so far and two had been put under arrest. The friendliness that he and the rest of his comrades-in-arms had been assured they would receive in Norway had not been evident so far. They had certainly not expected armed resistance, and least of all a defiant king who hadn’t the wit to see that the Third Reich came as a benefactor and not as an enemy. Admittedly some aggression was natural from a driver being deprived of his car, but since the Norwegians had brought war onto themselves they must put up with all the inconveniences of it.

  “You understand me. I’m not repeating my words. Do as I have instructed.”

  “I refuse! Who’s in command here? I want to speak to an officer.”

  “I’m in command!” In annoyance he tapped the insignia of his rank and his voice rasped with warning. “I’m telling you for the last time: Park the car and get walking!”

  Sonja understood most of what had been said. She had served many German customers in the past and had gained some grasp of the language. Now she plucked at Johanna’s coat sleeve. “Do as he says. Please! Those other soldiers are coming forward. They’ll only turn us bodily out of the car. I couldn’t bear it!”

  Johanna could hardly speak for rage at the German’s high-handed action, which she saw as simple theft. Her teeth clenched and the temper that she dreaded within herself was reaching a white-hot pitch. “You get out, Sonja. This isn’t your problem and I don’t want you to be involved. Steffen has loaned me this car and I’m not giving it up.”

  Sonja scrambled out, retrieving both Johanna’s suitcase and her own from the back seat, able to guess what would happen. She was proved right. The corporal, realising that Johanna was not going to obey, had his arm inside the car before she could wind up the window and fasten the doors. Wrenching the door open, he grabbed her with both hands and hauled her out, kicking and struggling. She was flung into a muddied snowbank where she went down heavily, sprawled across it, the breath knocked from her by the impact of her fall. Sonja ran to help her sit forward and when she had recovered her breath, assisted her to her feet and brushed the dirty snow from her coat.

  “Don’t say anything more,” Sonja implored in a whisper, seeing how Johanna glared after the car as a soldier drove it into the field where a number of other commandeered vehicles were already parked. It was obvious that only the newest and the best were being selected. “Come on, Johanna. It’s not far to walk.”

  To her relief Johanna responded to the plea and the gentle tugging on her arm. Without another word she picked up her suitcase and started walking, her gaze set straight ahead. She must have heard the soldiers laughing among themselves at her show of defiance but she gave no sign. When they had covered quite a distance and she still retained her burning silence, Sonja ventured a question.

  “Are you wondering what Steffen will say about his car?”

  “I know he’ll understand.” Johanna still looked ahead.

  “You’re so quiet. Are you angry with me too? For getting out of the car?”

  Johanna shot her a look of complete astonishment. “Angry with you? Of course not. I wanted you to do that. There was no sense in both of us getting manhandled.”

  “You knew what would happen then?”

  “I realised I was in a difficult situation. On principle I co
uld not give in. Since we started walking I’ve been wishing again and again that there was some way in which I could help get the Germans out. I loathe feeling helpless.”

  They trudged on along the road, drawing well to the side to avoid being splashed by slush when the traffic went by. Their suitcases were heavy, and it was a relief to reach Grefsen and take the lane up to the Alsteens’ house. Indoors, they changed shoes and mud-spattered stockings. While Johanna put on the coffee-pot, Sonja went to the telephone and called the fur shop to see if it was open that day. Leif Moen was on the premises and replied. When she replaced the receiver, Sonja looked puzzled.

  “The shop is closed, but he’d like us to go in for a couple of hours. He didn’t say why. I said we’d get there soon.”

  They took a tram. As they drew near the centre of Oslo Johanna stared out of the window, scarcely able to believe that the city she knew so well should have changed its outward appearance in such a short time. The swastika was everywhere, fluttering from flagpoles or emblazoned on scarlet banners hanging like giant ribbons down the face of government buildings. Although Norwegian police directed the traffic, there were German soldiers patrolling everywhere and marching along the streets. A sense of outrage assailed Johanna with each new viewing.

  As she and Sonja walked up Karl Johans Gate they saw that armed guards stood outside the Parliament buildings and every other large building of governmental importance. When they reached the fur shop the blinds were down. Leif admitted them at the side entrance and locked the door again.

  “I am glad you were able to come in today. When you telephoned I had only just got here myself after taking my wife and children out of the city yesterday.” He led the way, telling Johanna to bring a notebook when she and Sonja had taken off their coats.