‘Get up. There is a German patrol on the way. If you stay here, they will find you.’
I stared up at the fisherman. I was still half asleep and struggled to comprehend his words. He had found us when he’d lifted up his boat, which Eirik and I had hidden under the previous evening after reaching the little coastal village I didn’t even know the name of.
‘Up! You must hurry!’ the man barked. At last, I understood. I scrambled out from underneath the boat, pulling Eirik with me, and we stumbled after the man towards the road.
After I killed the German officer, horror and panic had continued to flood through me, making it hard to breathe, to think, to even move. Eirik had continued to cry hysterically at the sight of the dead man, who had blood still leaking from his mouth, and it was the sound of his wails that finally spurred me into action; I’d scooped him up in my arms and run from the barn, leaving my basket behind, knowing that at any moment the woman from the house up the road could return, and we had to get away before she did.
But now, the chain of Milorg was broken. I no longer knew who we could turn to for help getting to Sweden. All I was certain of was that the Germans would spare no effort in hunting down their officer’s murderer, and I had to put as much distance between us and the town as possible. That’s right, run, Anders had hissed inside my head as we hurried away. Now you’ve really made a mess of things, you stupid fool. Every night since then, Eirik had nightmares from which he awoke screaming and sobbing, and I knew he was dreaming about what had happened. Trying to soothe him, I would be overwhelmed by guilt, and find myself holding back sobs too. All I had ever wanted for my son was to give him a good life, and instead, I had married a man who turned out to be a monster, and then, through my own bad decisions – one on top of another, like a line of falling dominos – I had ended up a murderer, on the run from the Wehrmacht. Could things get any worse?
Finally, yesterday evening, we found ourselves in a small village on the shore of a fjord. The weather was windy and wet, so we sought shelter under one of the fishing boats that were resting, upside down, on the beach above the tideline. I’d planned for us to get away again before daylight, but once again, exhaustion claimed us; the next thing I knew it was morning, and the fisherman, a man in his sixties, was staring down at us, his eyes wide with surprise.
The fisherman took us to his home, a small house at the edge of the village. Inside, his wife was stirring a pot on the stove with a wooden spoon. She looked surprised to see us but not alarmed. ‘Astrid, I found these two hiding under my boat,’ the fisherman said. ‘And a patrol is on the way.’
Terror speared through me, but before I could say anything the woman put down her spoon and came over to me, catching hold of my hand. ‘Come,’ she said. Picking up a lamp, she led us down to a basement with a packed earth floor. There, she handed me the lamp. In its dim, flickering glow, I watched as she bent to fiddle with something in the floor. ‘Where is it?’ she muttered as I wondered what she was doing. ‘Ah!’
She lifted a trapdoor, so well-concealed it looked like part of the basement floor – it was invisible to the untrained eye. Beneath was another room, really no more than a compartment. When I climbed down inside, I discovered it was not even big enough for me to stand up in.
Eirik began to cry again, a thin, dreary sound as if he was almost too weary to force out any more tears. ‘No, Mamma,’ he said. ‘No.’ The woman picked him up and lifted him down to me. ‘You must both stay here,’ she said. ‘And do not move or make a single sound until one of us returns. I cannot leave you the lamp, I’m afraid.’
I nodded, although dread squeezed my throat at the thought of being shut up down here in absolute darkness. God only knew how Eirik would react.
‘Thank you,’ I managed to say, my arms wrapped tight around my son, muffling his whimpers against my ragged skirt.
She nodded grimly. ‘Do not thank me. Give thanks to God for Leif finding you in the nick of time.’
She stepped back and the trapdoor thudded closed, blackness closing in around us.
‘Shh, lille vennen,’ I said to Eirik, rocking him from side to side and feeling the alarming way his chest was heaving as he tried and failed to catch his breath. ‘You must be quiet.’
‘I’m so scared, Mamma,’ he choked, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about being shut up here. Fresh guilt see-sawed through me. Oh, if only I could go back to that night I decided to shelter in the barn. If only I had not killed that officer. We might be in Sweden by now – we might be safe.
I don’t know how long we waited, crouched in that small, dark, damp earth-smelling space, but it felt like a lifetime. At some point, the patrol visited the house. I heard muffled shouts; heavy feet tramping across the floor; furniture being dragged around; voices talking in loud, harsh German right above where we were hiding. Eirik was trembling, his whole body wracked with shivers. Don’t cough, please don’t cough, I pleaded silently. I knew only too well what would happen if we were discovered, not only to us but to the fisherman and his wife and everyone else here too; the Germans would punish them all. In the spring, a village in the south of Norway called Telavåg had been destroyed by the Wehrmacht: it was discovered some of the inhabitants had been hiding two Norwegian resistance men, and two of the officers sent to arrest the men were shot. The whole village was burned to the ground, boats sunk and animals slaughtered. The Germans executed as many of the men in the village as they could, sending the rest to concentration camps along with the women and children. I had heard about it from Mette, and even though Kirkenes was over two thousand miles away it had the same impact on us as if it had happened in the next town. The thought that I could bring a similar tragedy down on the heads of people here made me want to vomit.
When the patrol left the house, Eirik and I continued to wait for what felt like hours. I was thirsty, and desperate to use the lavatory. Eirik was too; eventually he couldn’t hold it any more and wet himself, weeping miserably. The sharp stink of urine filled my nostrils as I tried to comfort him. At last, the hatch above us opened and the fisherman and his wife peered down at us, their faces lit by the weak glow from the oil lamp once more.
‘They have gone,’ Astrid said. ‘But they may return. They say they are looking for a woman, a spy, who murdered a German officer – they suspect she is in the area.’
They didn’t ask if that was me. I supposed, from the emotions that must have wrestled across my face as I took in their words, that they didn’t need to.
‘Oh, God,’ I said, my voice trembling and ragged with tears. ‘What am I going to do?’ I wasn’t even sure why I was asking; I knew I’d reached the end of the road. My mind whirling, I wondered whether to beg the couple to take Eirik or to find someone who could – anything so that he would be safe once the Germans took me away.
Before I could speak again, Leif and Astrid exchanged glances.
‘There is a boat about to leave for the Shetland Islands in Britain,’ Leif said. ‘It is taking four resistance men over there as part of an operation called the Shetland Bus, and they say you and your son can join them. It will be a difficult journey – there are storms forecast, it will take many days, and you will have to stay below deck the whole time, but if you make it, you will be safe.’
Inside me, hope fought with panic. Take a boat all the way over to Britain? It seemed impossible. But what other choice did Eirik and I have?
Nodding mutely, I allowed Leif and Astrid to help us out of the hidden compartment. There was no time to clean Eirik up, but Astrid gave us some bread and water. When we’d gulped it down they led us outside. I was startled to see it was getting dark again already; we had been in their basement all day.
‘Good luck,’ Astrid said, squeezing my hands. I was so grateful to her for her kindness I wanted to hug her, to weep on her shoulder, but there was no time. Lief took us back down to the little beach and in the twilight, I saw a single-masted fishing vessel moored out on the fjord. He hurried us into the boat we had hidden under that morning and, telling us to keep our heads down, rowed me and Eirik out across the water.
On board were four men in traditional fishing gear. They didn’t say anything to us, but one of them hustled me and Eirik into a hidden room at the back of the boat’s cabin, even more cramped than the room in Leif and Astrid’s basement. Once we were inside, they quickly nailed boards across the entrance to hide us. The air was thick with oil and diesel fumes and I began to feel nauseated almost immediately, even though the surface of the fjord was calm. At least we had a small lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling. There was also a bucket in the corner. Unable to hold on any longer, I used it to relieve myself, then huddled on the floor with my arms tight around Eirik, rocking him as he coughed and cried. A short while later the boat’s engine chugged into life and with a tonk tonk tonk, it began to move through the water, out towards the mouth of the fjord and the open sea beyond.
The journey was uneventful at first. Eirik fell into a miserable, restless sleep, punctuated by more fits of coughing, and my nausea receded a little. I found, by focusing on my breathing and not allowing myself to think about anything else at all, I could keep the terror that kept threatening to rise inside me at bay. Eventually, worn out, I began to doze too.
I was woken by a low, ominous whistling sound and the boat beginning to pitch up and down.
‘Mamma, what’s happening?’ Eirik said, sitting up too.
‘It must be a storm,’ I said, remembering what Leif had said before we left the hidden room in his basement. I wondered how far out to sea we were and if, should the weather get too bad, the men steering the boat would have to turn back.
Above us, on deck, I heard shouts. The lamp hanging from the ceiling flickered as it swung from side to side. ‘Come here, lille vennen,’ I said to Eirik, pulling him into my lap and pressing my back against the wall to steady myself as the boat continued to pitch and roll.
‘Mamma, I feel sick,’ he groaned.
‘Try to take some deep breaths,’ I said, but I was feeling nauseated again too. Slowly but steadily, the whistling of the wind rose to a scream, blotting out all other sounds. Eirik began retching between coughs; I reached for the bucket and rubbed his back as he hunched over it, trying vainly to soothe him even though I was almost overwhelmed by my own fear. Then a particularly large wave crashed into the boat, rocking it almost over onto its side, and the bucket tipped over, spilling the foul contents across the floor. I tried to scramble out of the way but there was nowhere to go.
‘Mamma!’ Eirik wailed, clinging to me as we were thrown against one wall and then the other. I could hear nothing except the roar of the storm, and we were being hurled around so violently now I was certain the boat would be smashed to matchsticks. Was the engine still running? Were those men still with us? Had we been forgotten – abandoned? Soundlessly, I began to pray, tears streaming down my face as I begged God to keep us safe for just a little longer. I do not want to die. Please do not take my son from me like this. Please do not let us drown.
As the boat lurched again I put a hand out to try and steady myself, and realised that I had put my hand down in an inch or so of water. My skirts were wet too, and I realised, with fresh horror, that the sea was coming into the boat. I tried to scramble to my feet but another jolt knocked me back down. Foul-tasting water splashed into my mouth. I coughed and spluttered. ‘Mamma!’ Eirik cried again in a tone I had never heard him use before.
We have to get out of here, I thought, pulling him into my arms. We have to get up on deck. As the seawater lapped around our feet. I turned towards the entrance to our hiding spot, wondering if I had the strength to pull the heavy boards that covered it aside.
Then the lamp flickered one last time and went out, plunging us into darkness.