The Fragile Hour Page 8

  Out in the street again she had a little time to spare before the appointment she was to keep. Greta had received word through Emil that she was to meet the leader of a local Resistance group at a newsagent’s in one of the cobbled side streets. Anna passed the intervening time looking in the shop windows. One was displaying some paper sandals, probably having nothing else, which were in various colours, some plaited and extremely smart. It was like a promise of summer.

  At the newsagent’s shop she had to wait until it was empty of customers before she could go in and make herself known to the man behind the counter. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Go through the door behind me and up the stairs.”

  Anna went at once and found the man she had come to see waiting on his own in a stockroom. He looked like a Viking warrior with his white-blond hair and ice-blue eyes, a deep-chested man with a voice to match. He was casually dressed in a thick dark blue and white kofte and knee-length ski-pants with calf-length, home-knitted socks. Anna’s hand was lost in his large clasp as he shook hands.

  “I’m Rolf,” he said quite formally with a bow. “I’ve been told that you know this area well.”

  “That’s right.”

  They sat down opposite each other on ancient, ink-stained benches that were probably redundant from some old schoolroom. She explained how she had discovered the information about a large new gun and handed over the film.

  “You’ve done well, Anna! Action will be taken on this, I can promise you!”

  She was unable to hold back any longer from what she wanted to ask him. “Have you had any news about a sabotage attempt on a Bergen ball-bearing factory? I’ve read nothing about it in the newspapers.”

  “All news is censored by the Germans anyway and they don’t always let sabotage reports go through. After all, these incidents can be humiliating for them when the saboteurs get away. But, yes, the factory was completely destroyed.”

  “So Karl escaped! Unharmed?”

  “Without a scratch.”

  Relief overwhelmed her to such a point that she had difficulty in keeping her voice steady. “Do you know where he is now?”

  “No. We don’t keep track of one another’s movements except when we’re working together.”

  He considered the topic closed and went on to give her instructions on a new assignment in which she was to be a courier again. But what he knew he must keep to himself was the purpose behind what she had to do. She would be carrying coded papers for further distribution that were part of a plot that had been hatched in London. The code would not be difficult for the Germans to crack and Hitler was to be led to believe that the Allies would make an invasion attempt through Norway. The seed had already been planted by two Anglo-Norwegian commando raids on the west coast and previous undercover work.

  Thoughtfully he picked up a smallish package that was lying on the bench beside him. As yet only a few leaders in the Resistance, such as himself, had been entrusted with this secret ploy and eventually the papers would be strategically placed for ‘discovery’ by the Germans. The very least he could do was to alert Anna to the extreme importance and danger of her mission.

  “It’s vital that this package is delivered to an agent who’ll be waiting for you at Sylte in Tresfjord.”

  “That’s not much more than an hour and a half’s drive from here.” Anna took the package from him.

  “It takes longer these days along that winding road in a wood-fuelled bus. It’s not like it used to be and you won’t get a return trip the same day. Take your skis. If the worst happens, you must go up into the mountains and come back that way.”

  “That could take two or three days! Longer if the weather is bad!”

  “It’s that or walk the road and you don’t want to be questioned. With luck nothing should go wrong and you can stay overnight at a safe house in the village after meeting your contact at the Haug farmhouse.” After giving her the rest of the information she would need and the password of identification, his voice deepened with the gravity of a warning. “If you’re caught with the contents of this package, it’ll be the Gestapo who will interrogate you about it and you know what that means.”

  Anna did not flinch. As she put the package into her basket with the loaf, covering it with a newspaper that Rolf had given her, she told him about Klaus Schultz’s invitation. Rolf pondered for a moment.

  “It could be advantageous to be accepted by the enemy, but be wary, Anna. You’d be on your own. If anyone becomes suspicious or something happens you don’t like...” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “I’ve had to look out for myself in the past. I can do it again.”

  *

  When Greta heard that Anna needed to have her absence covered for two days and perhaps four, she suggested a pretended illness.

  “Perhaps a bout of flu, Anna?”

  “No, that won’t do at all. I can’t tell you where I’ll be going or what I’m to do, but I must be able to explain my absence in case one of the officers from this hotel should catch sight of me returning.”

  “Yes, of course. What about a sick cousin in the country? Would that fit in?”

  “Yes, but I’ll make the person my mother’s cousin. I used to know an old lady who lived in the place where I’m going, but she died before the war.”

  “That’s it then. You can safely use her name if you’re asked.”

  “I’m not sure whether I’ll be needing skis. I’d like to borrow a pair.”

  “Take your choice. There are plenty to choose from in the cellar.”

  “Thanks. I’ll need a rucksack too.”

  “There’s some on a shelf near the skis.”

  Before going to bed that night Anna made everything ready for her morning departure. Not knowing if it might be necessary to make an escape during this assignment, she packed a compass as well as extra pass-papers. Lastly she sewed a pocket inside her ski-jacket in which to conceal the package.

  Chapter Eight

  As Anna put her skis into the ski-rack of the waiting bus, the soldier on duty came up to her. “Why are you taking skis?” he demanded.

  “I’m visiting in the country and I can take a shortcut on my skis when I get to Tresfjord.” She was tense, thinking of the package hidden within her jacket.

  “Your papers.” He held out his hand.

  He found them in order and she was allowed to board. The bus was almost full and she made her way to a seat at the back. Shouldering off her rucksack, which held an emergency supply of food, she set it down on the floor beside her. Soon an elderly man sat down next to her. Just before departure two soldiers entered the bus and took seats. Immediately the passengers next to them moved to other places. It was the pattern followed on every public transport. If no seats were left, people often preferred to stand rather than sit with the enemy. Anna watched anxiously, for she had seen one of the soldiers, a sergeant, glower ferociously when the seat next to him had been vacated.

  The bus soon began filling up, although the two seats by the enemy remained empty. When the last three passengers boarded, they each saw the seats, but chose to stand. The driver closed the door and was about to take off when the sergeant rose to his feet.

  “Wait! There are places that haven’t been filled yet,” he stated on a threatening note.

  The driver twisted round in his seat to answer in defence of his passengers. “I don’t object if people prefer to stand.”

  “But I do,” the sergeant replied implacably. “I want the vacant seats filled.”

  Anna could see by the set expressions on the faces of the three standing, two men and a youngish woman, that they had no intention of giving in. The support of the whole busload of passengers emanated towards them. The other soldier rose to his feet and took his rifle into his hands. He and the sergeant, grim, helmeted figures, were all the more menacing for waiting motionless to be obeyed.

  Anna could guess, as she knew others would have done, what the outcome of this present impasse wa
s likely to be. The three standing passengers would be turned off and everyone else would have to follow them. She was desperate. If that happened, she would miss her contact in Tresfjord. It was vital that the package was delivered on time. Slowly she stood up, her movement heightening the tension that had become almost palpable, every head turning in her direction.

  “I’d prefer to sit nearer the front, sergeant. May I take the seat next to you? Then somebody else could have my place.”

  A heavy silence prevailed as the sergeant regarded her with some surprise mixed with approval. Apart from appreciating the fact that she had a lovely face, he liked the steady fearlessness of her gaze that lacked the hostility coming from everywhere else in the bus.

  “Yes, you may, fröken.” He moved into the aisle to allow her into the window seat. As she gathered up her rucksack to move into her new place, she was conscious of the same contemptuous looks thrown at her as when Major Schultz had escorted her into the bakery. She thought wryly to herself that if she went on hobnobbing with Germans in public much more she’d find herself having her head shaved by patriots marking her as an outsider, which had happened to a number of Norwegian women having close relationships with the enemy.

  Under the sergeant’s instructions, the soldier went to the front of the bus and stood with his back to the windscreen, enabling him to keep a watchful eye on the passengers. It was an act of intimidation, but it also left enough seats for everybody and the situation was solved. With a suppressed sigh of relief, the driver drew his bus out into the traffic and in the direction of the bridge to the mainland.

  As Anna had expected, the sergeant made conversation. He was greatly taken with the beauty of the scenery everywhere he had been in Norway.

  “I wouldn’t mind settling here after the war,” he said condescendingly. “There’s no place like home, of course, but I can tell that life has been of a high standard in the past and it will be even better under the Third Reich. It would be more like that now if British propaganda hadn’t poisoned the minds of your countrymen and women. It will take time to erase, but after we’ve beaten the Allies, everybody in Norway will come around to the same sensible attitude as yours.”

  He talked on, Anna saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ according to what fitted in, but through the window she was absorbing the scenery. It was all familiar territory, with the spec-tacular Sunnmore mountains in a final scenic blaze of glory before the even greater Romsdal range took over. A finger of the fjord, lapping saltily green and gold in the sunlight, followed the route until it drew away for the forests and the occasional ice-bound lake. All the tall firs were inverted cones of snow, a-sparkle as if decked for Christmas as far as the eye could see.

  To Anna’s relief, the sergeant was not going as far as Tresfjord. She had been worried in case she could not shake him off. Instead he and the soldier, as well as at least half the passengers, alighted at the village of Sjoholt. There was a quick refuelling of the bus’s stove with logs. Anna watched the sacks being brought from a garage to the back of the vehicle. It had become such a routine that it took less time than putting petrol into a car would have done.

  As the bus moved on to higher ground, the trees thinned out and on Orskog mountain the sweeping, whale-backed slopes, so perfect for cross-country skiing, stretched away into the far distance.

  A stop was made at a café there. Everybody on the bus went into it for coffee, but Anna strolled back along the road to recapture the feeling of being on these wide slopes where, no matter how many skiers gathered, it was possible to get away from everybody else in the mountains and be totally alone. She seemed to see again the confetti dots of colour as people skied away, the families keeping together and babies carried on parents’ backs.

  The tooting of the driver’s horn brought passengers back to the bus. Wood smoke rose from its stove from a top-up refuelling. Anna had gone farther than she had realised and had to run back. Ahead dark clouds were gathering again for snow.

  On the bus Anna collected her rucksack and took a seat at the back again. Everybody on the bus deliberately looked away as she went past, making the atmosphere as chilly as it was outside. As the journey continued, small mountain cabins were to be seen, nestling deep in the snow. All of them were private holiday retreats for skiing at Easter or for weekends at all seasons and always for a long spell in summer. Anna wondered how many had remained shuttered and unused since all lives in Norway were turned upside down on that day in 1940.

  By the time the road had levelled out for Tresfjord, large flakes had begun gently drifting down and masking visibility across the great Romsdal fjord to Molde. Some clung to the bus windows like miniature stars as the bus followed the road along the small subsidiary Tresfjord to its village of Sylte where mountains enclosed it pro-tectively. As the bus slowed to a standstill outside the dairy, two armed guards stepped forward to carry out the customary checks on arrivals.

  The first passenger to alight was a middle-aged woman. Anna saw with alarm that it was not to be a mere inspection of papers. The woman had to remove her coat and stood shivering as one guard searched the pockets and even the lining, while the other rummaged through the contents of her small suitcase. All the passengers waiting to leave the bus had to remain on board and take their turn, none spared the humiliating search.

  Anna welcomed the hostility she had aroused earlier, for nobody was looking at her. She slid silently down to the floor where she was hidden by the seat in front of her. The driver became impatient, having a parcel to deliver to the dairy. He was allowed off to be searched as throughly as everybody else. Anna was glad that he was out of the way and would not know that she had stayed on the bus. That would be an unpleasant surprise for him later, but she would face that crisis when it came. She would have to leave the bus before it was too far from Tresfjord on its continued journey.

  At last the bus was empty. The driver had been waiting to get back on board and he entered to remain standing by the open door. The voice of one of the Germans echoed through it.

  “Is there anybody else in there?” He sounded bored.

  “No. See for yourself,” the driver replied.

  Anna crouched down still further in her hiding-place as she heard the heavy thump of military boots entering the bus. She could imagine the soldier’s gaze sweeping the seats.

  “Nothing left behind, is there?”

  “I’ll take a look for you. It’s part of my job to check up anyway.”

  The driver came along the aisle, glancing to one side and then the other as he advanced. Anna jerked her face up imploringly as suddenly he was there, looming over her. A flicker of surprise showed in his eyes and he reached out a hand so swiftly that she thought he was going to grab her and haul her into view. Instead, to her wild relief, he gave her a slight wink as he picked up a forgotten newspaper from the seat and turned back with it.

  “Only this left behind,” he said casually, retracing his steps.

  Anna closed her eyes and let her head sink forward against the seat by which she crouched, deeply grateful for the man’s quick wits. As the soldier stepped out, the driver informed some people waiting to board that he would be back as soon as he had refuelled. By the speed with which he closed the door, she concluded that it was not his usual custom to let passengers wait in the cold.

  As he drove away from the dairy, he looked for Anna in his mirror. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you made sure of not being turned off the bus at Alesund and now you don’t want the enemy to spot you. Whatever the reason, the sooner you’re off my bus the better for you and for me.”

  She rose up from her hiding place, but still made sure she could not be seen by anyone at the roadside. “Thank you for not giving me away. Is there anywhere I can leave the bus without being seen?”

  “Keep down and come to the front. I’ll draw up for a matter of seconds by the church. Jump off, don’t stop for your skis, and get out of sight. There’s some alert on and I couldn’t find out why. If you wa
nt to hide in the church for a while, the key may be over the lintel if it’s locked.”

  She nodded. “I hope to catch this bus back to Alesund tomorrow. Will you watch out for me?”

  He made a comical grimace and chuckled. “All right. I must be a glutton for trouble.”

  The church was in sight, a small octagonal building of wood and painted white, located almost at the water’s edge. The driver looked sharply about for any signs of Germans in the vicinity. There were some military vehicles approaching on the far side of the fjord, but they were too great a distance away to present any immediate danger. He slowed his bus to a standstill, but Anna was out before it had stopped.

  “Good luck!” he called after her as she sped in the direction of the church gates. Although he looked for her in his side mirror as he drove on, she was lost from his sight.

  The key was not where the driver had said, but Anna soon found it and let herself into the church, locking the ancient double-doors again behind her. She was in a vestibule with a stairway that would lead to a gallery, the timbers of the walls so time-darkened that she could not begin to guess at their age. A vase of snowdrops stood on the windowsill.

  Slipping off her rucksack, Anna put it down on a bench. Then she opened the double doors and entered the nave of the old church. It was a sudden feast for the eye of age-mellowed colour. Long ago local craftsmen had used their talents to decorate it to the best of their ability, the wooden walls painted with drapery, the columns to marble and the ceiling be-starred. All of it set off an altar of simple splendour, enhanced by a most primitive carving in relief of the Last Supper.

  Anna sank down in one of the pews. The church was warm, for there was no shortage of logs in the country, the heat coming from a large stove. She guessed that there had probably been a service that morning. Perhaps a wedding, for there were snowdrops in a vase here too. Although Reichskommissar Terboven had removed all authority from the clergy after their united denouncing of Nazism, couples still went to their churches for a full marriage service after the German-imposed civil ceremonies. Anna wished today’s couple well in their future together.