The Fragile Hour (31 page)

Ulman,
sweat standing out on his forehead and upper lip, became agitated and showed his fear. “Don’t look at me like that,
Herr
Kommodant
! I won’t do it! Not now the Resistance is almost here! There’d be retribution! They’d shoot us both! God knows what they’d do to us first!” He was gripped by panic.

Without
warning Nils leapt up from his chair, causing it to crash backwards, and threw open a door to get to the office. In horror at what he might do, Anna rushed after him, Ulman at her heels. She reached the office to find Nils already at the batteries.

“
No!” she shrieked in desperate appeal.

He
looked at her fully for the first time since she had come downstairs. “Get out, Anna!” he ordered tersely. He turned back to the batteries. She raised her gun and fired deliberately at his shoulder.

The
impact of the bullet jerked him away from the table, and he half turned towards her, astonishment in his face, before another bullet from Ulman’s revolver hit him in the chest. Anna uttered an agonised cry. As she would have darted forward, Ulman flung her out of his way. She fell against the desk, her flailing arm sending papers fluttering from it. She regained her balance as Ulman stood by the table, glaring down at Nils, who lay sprawled on the floor and groaning, red stains darkening his tunic.

“
You bloody fool,
Herr
Kommodant
!” Ulman exclaimed contemptuously, turning his attention to the batteries. “I had to stop you to save myself, and you didn’t have the sense to realise it!”

They
were his last words. As he was about to tear free the short length of zigzag wire that had been vital to the operation, the door from the outer office burst open. The newcomer with the Resistance armband, seeing him at the batteries, fired instantly with his Sten gun.

By
now Anna had reached Nils and she dropped to her knees beside him to wrench open his tunic and see if there was anything she could do to stem the flow of blood, but she saw at once it was useless. Outside there came the singing of the National Anthem from the liberated prisoners in the camp.

Nils
spoke with effort. “Don’t...leave me.”

“
I won’t.” She wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. In spite of everything, she could never have abandoned him at this time for the sake of all that had once been. As he tried to speak again she took his hand and lowered her head to listen.

“
I...was dismantling the...batteries.”

She
leaned back, staring down at him. “Dear God!” she whispered in deep distress.

His
gaze was riveted on her face as if he would take the image of her with him. “Anna...”

Blood
filled his throat, his eyes closed and his head fell to one side. A huge sob convulsed her and she raised his hand to press her lips to it and hold it to her. She did not see Lars, wearing his armband, enter the room with a rifle. He took in the scene at once and came to crouch beside her.

“
I’m sorry, Anna. Nils was a brave man.”

“
I made a terrible mistake,” she said brokenly. “I thought he was about to destroy the camp. I shot him in the shoulder and then Oberleutnant Ulman fired too.”

Lars
knew she was confused. He had been told where to find her by the man who had caught the
Oberleutnant
red-handed at the batteries. One of her shots must have gone wild in the exchange of gunfire that had taken place here. He’d make sure she was never questioned about it, especially as a bullet in any healthy man’s shoulder was most unlikely ever to be fatal. It was Ulman who had been guilty of Nils’s death.

Straightening
up, he took off his jacket and laid it over Nils’s face. Then he took Anna by the elbow and raised her to her feet. She turned to him as if in a daze.

“
Listen to me,” Lars insisted to gain her full attention. “We’ve found Karl. He’s been put on a stretcher and we’re getting him off to hospital with some of the very sick men we came across in one of the huts.”

“
Where is he?” she gasped. “Can I stay with him?”

“
Yes, I’ll take you to him now.”

Anna
broke into a run as soon as she saw the stretchers being lined up. One requisitioned German ambulance was already driving away with a full load. Karl had just been lifted up to be placed in another, almost full, that was waiting when she reached him.

“
Karl, I’m here!”

He
looked thin and ill and haggard, but love warmed his eyes as he saw her bending over him. “I told Lars I wouldn’t leave without seeing you,” he said, his voice faint, his spirit unbroken.

She
took his skeletal hand tenderly into hers and kissed it, her own features transfigured by joy. “Partings are over, Karl. I’m coming with you.”

She
climbed up into the ambulance after him. The doors were shut and they were driven away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

In the quiet forest glade where she was seated, Anna, having looked back over two decades to the Occupation, let her thoughts dwell finally on how the whole of Norway had burst into rapturous celebrations on that Liberation day. She smiled on the memory of a large placard in a shop doorway,
‘Closed
because
of
Joy’
.

Reichskommissar
Terboven had been among the first Nazi leaders to commit suicide. Yet there had been no violence against those who had imposed a reign of terror for all those long years. Neither were the collaborators assaulted. Only Quisling received the death sentence and even that was regretted afterwards, for Norwegian law had abolished it years before the war. The resolve to forgive and not forget had taken root early on and had prevailed ever since.

Neither
Greta nor Christina survived their imprisonment, but Emil and Margot came through it. Her fiancé returned home with his squadron, having been a pilot since his escape, and they were married shortly afterwards. Frida also lived and had become mellow in her old age. As for Magnus, he had stayed on in Sweden and had become a scientist committed to space research.

Anna
’s thoughts went to Karl. He had eventually regained his health with only the scars on his body to show what he had been through. Yet there were times still when she had to wake him from nightmares in which he thought himself under Gestapo torture again.

Now he was in Washington at an international oil conference, for the discovery of oil in Norwegian waters was going to make Norway richer than Midas. He had no idea that she had never been entirely free of Nils. It went back to that moment when Lars had covered Nils’s dead face with his jacket and she had been struck by doubt. Had Nils told her the truth? But then he would never have lied to her in his last moments. She suffered terrible grief. Karl did his best to console her. It was shortly before their marriage.

“
Anyone could have drawn the same conclusions as you from his strange behaviour that evening,” he said consolingly. “As you’ve said, you’d had that quarrel, which would have upset him in the first place. He also knew that the lives of hundreds of men were hanging in the balance. Naturally he was under a great strain and he had to dismantle the batteries in case any other officer stepped in.”

“
But I shot him!” she wept.

“
You did what seemed right at a dangerous moment, but your bullet wouldn’t have killed Nils as you knew. Ulman did that and would have done, whether you’d been there or not. Although it’s now known that Ulman was shot by mistake, such things happen in war. Put the whole matter out of your mind. You were not at fault in any way.”

His
words of reassurance should have enabled her to get everything into proportion. Although she got on with living, having three children and loving Karl in a passionate and caring marriage as well as taking up a writing career, every so often the memory of pulling the trigger would come back to her. Nils had said she would never be free of him and he held her now by regret as once he had done with love.

With
a sigh, Anna stood and brushed some dry grass from her trousers. It had done her good to rest for a while.

She
’d had a hectic time in London seeing her publishers and her agent. After a few books that had done moderately well, her latest, an historical novel, seemed to be taking off, and there was talk of it becoming a best-seller. Yet she had cancelled important appointments to be here today. Nothing could have kept her away.

Without
haste and with rising trepidation, Anna left the forest and saw the lake lying wide and blue before her. The size and grandeur of its setting reduced the large number of spectators around it to a mere sprinkling. She took up a place on the east bank, not far from the land-based crane.

There
was a lot of activity on board the shallow-drafted working-boat with its own crane ready for action and she asked a fellow spectator what was happening.

“
Divers have gone down again to inflate the parachute-bags on the lifting-frame that’s attached to the aircraft, which has lost a lot of rivets in the initial work. It will be touch and go whether it hangs together on the way up”

He
broke off as the water began to churn like a maelstrom by the working-boat. Then the vivid yellow parachute-bags burst through the surface in fountains of spray. The Mosquito was safely free of the rock ledge!

The
dive-master was busy issuing fresh orders and the last bags went into place. Below the surface the aircraft, slung under the frame, began its slow journey to the east bank of the lake where Anna stood. As the working-boat came alongside the land-based crane was able to take over and almost leisurely began its work.

Anna
clenched her hands together, her heart pounding. This was her own fragile hour, in which liberation from Nils would be lost until the end of her days if this salvage attempt came to nothing. It was a conviction that had gripped her from the moment of reading about the salvage attempt in that London newspaper. A curious hush had descended over the whole scene, emphasising the noise of the crane as it winched its burden slowly up through the water. Anything said by the working-boat crew could be clearly heard, their desperate concern adding even more drama to the scene.

Now
the water began to hiss and bubble. The dive-master gripped the rails and his voice was harsh with tension. “She’s there! And she’s holding!”

The
general suspense was almost palpable. A dark shape had begun to shiver below the surface and soon there was a more violent stirring of the water. Anna gasped as slowly, almost majestically, the Mosquito speared the water like a rising whale.

Up
and up it came, hung with fronded weeds, water cascading from every section, with the port wing gracefully extended as if ready again for flight, and the starboard wing, although badly damaged, still in place. A great cheer resounded around the lake, every camera recording with the TV and film crews the spectacular rise of the fighting machine that had lain hidden for so many years.

The
tank had cracked in the lifting, and fuel mingled with the water that was pouring down to form oily blue patches that swirled about on the lake’s surface beneath the suspended aircraft. Slowly again, the crane swung the Mosquito over and down on to a specially constructed platform. In its camouflage colours, which had barely been affected by the pure water, the aircraft lay like a great tired bird spreading its wings in the warmth of the evening sun.

The
dive-master was the first to spring up on the platform and others followed. The whole team was in exuberant spirits after the number of setbacks encountered before this moment of triumph. Champagne corks began to pop and every member of the team held their glasses high as they were photographed by the media and public alike. The dive-master gave a quick TV interview. Then hot food was served to the team, for there were hours of work ahead for them yet.

The
last of the spectators drifted away. The TV and film vans had already gone. Only Anna still stood on the bank. The policeman, whom she had spoken to when she had first arrived, detached himself from conversation with another member of the force, and came across to her.

“
There won’t be anything more to see now,
fröken
. The divers will be going down again to try to retrieve any scattered components and that salvage work will go on for several days. If you want to see the aircraft depart, that will happen tomorrow when it’s transported to a hangar at Gardermoen airfield to await restoration.”

“
Someone has climbed into the cockpit. I’m waiting to see if the cargo is still there and intact.” She was remembering Nils’s angry frustration at having failed to get it to England.

“
How do you know there might be something on board?”

Her
gaze was on the aircraft. “I knew the pilot.”

The
policeman left her to go and speak to the dive-master, who listened and then looked across at her.

“
Come and join us,” he invited.

As
Anna had expected, he knew who had been flying the aircraft and everything about the flight, but he was interested that she had been given an account of the crash by Nils himself. “I’ve been told to expect a sealed box on board,” he said, “with contents that are still Top Secret. It has to be handed over to those two government officials waiting over there.” He jerked his head in their direction.

“
Who’s in the cockpit now?” she asked.

“
A veteran pilot of 331 Squadron. He’s taken a battery up there with him.”

There
was a sudden triumphant shout from the cockpit and everybody looked up to see the navigation lights on the port wing blink and settle into a steady glow. There was a burst of applause from those gathered around. It was as if the plane had taken life again.

The
pilot looked out. “I’ve found the box, but there’s another here too.”

The
dive-master went back on to the platform to take the first box from him and hand it down to the government representative, who had come forward. The pilot was having trouble with the second box and raised it up with difficulty. One of the team came to help the dive-master receive it, but its weight took both men by surprise and it crashed down to bounce off the edge of the platform and smash open against a rock, spewing out its contents amid disarrayed straw and other padding. In a moment of terrible revelation Anna stared at Rosa’s jewelled ikon sparkling through some straw.

Rushing
forward, she picked it up and gazed at it, ignoring the excitement of those around her. All too clearly she was remembering that Nils had spoken about those Germans desperate for funds to keep the flame of Nazism alive for the future. He had given her no inkling that he had been including himself! It was he who had instigated the raid on Rosa’s apartment! He had seen the chance to take a fortune in easily transported goods safely to England where it could be banked away to provide political funds in the future. With Rosa and Frida gone and, using a master key, he could have looted at leisure. His Nazi officer friend must have been his confederate and perhaps it was he who had taken everything else.

All
she had suspected of Nils had been true, including that last vengeful attempt to eliminate Karl, no matter how many other lives would have been lost. At last she knew for certain that she had not been mistaken in believing that Nils’s finger was already on the switch.

It
was her shot that had prevented the catastrophe. Even Ulman’s bullet would have been just too late. Then Nils in his last moments, all rage gone, had still tried to hold her to him with a lie. He had been as fanatically obsessive about her as he had been with Nazism.

She
did not hear a taxi-door slam or see Karl as he came running down the bank to her.

“
Anna! What’s happening here?” He stared incredulously at all the
objets
d’art
being collected up, knowing enough about antiques to recognise the value as well as the rarity of the tiny Japanese lacquered boxes to the carved jade and ivory. Somebody had taken a rolled up painting from a container that was unmistakably a Degas. Others were looking at a Munch. “Where did all these things come from?”

“
They were Aunt Rosa’s,” Anna replied in a choked voice. “Nils must have betrayed her for his own ends. Just as he destroyed others throughout the Occupation. He was a traitor, Karl!”

“
My God!” Karl breathed, tight-faced, and drew her close to him. They turned together as the dive-master gave an exclamation.

“
Look at this, everybody !” He had picked up a leather medal-case stamped with a gilded swastika. Opening it, he revealed a medal awarded to Nazi Norwegians for exceptional service to the Third Reich. It was dated 1942, the year in which the Resistance had suffered some of its heaviest losses.

Karl
took Anna’s hand and pressed it encouragingly. “Tell him.”

She
explained, hesitantly at first and then her voice gathered strength as the shadow across her life began to slip away. All there listened intently.

“
There is something to Nils Olsen’s credit,” she said in conclusion. “In spite of his Nazi ideals he was instrumental in saving the life of a Jewish child. That is all I wish to remember about him.”

Before
leaving the lakeside Anna handed back the ikon. Although Rosa had bequeathed everything to her, except for a life income to Frida and the Oslo apartment, her legal claim to these particular treasures would have to be established.

“
How did you know I’d be here?” Anna asked as she and Karl went up the bank on their way to the road, his arm around her shoulders.

“
My colleague heard a news item about it on the radio. I left him as deputy and caught the next flight out of Washington.”