Saturday afternoon now. During the forenoon a seaplane had appeared from seaward and circled around over this end of the fjord, Ben and the others holding their breath and suspending the operation of dumping the Ekhorn’s drums of petrol over the side. The seaplane, 3-engined, did a couple of circles and then flew away up-fjord, eastward, and they’d heard it again ten minutes later to the south of them, flying south-westward probably to search down-coast – Frojen, Norddals Fjord and half a dozen others between this one and the biggest of the lot which was Sogne Fjord, 5 miles across and 100 deep and with a dozen offshoots, most of them pretty big just on their own. That lot would take a bit of searching. Here in the mouth of Nordfjord MGB 600 was in what was really no more than a fissure in the rock – actually a narrowing gap between two rocks: she had anchors down at both ends, a tent of camouflage netting over her, two fathoms of water under her keel and room for the Ekhorn to lie astern of her – if by some miracle Iversen did show up.
It wasn’t likely; hence the decision to dump these drums. They’d be easily recoverable and of great value to some later clandestine visitor, were certainly much better stashed here than taken back to Lerwick. Other cargo – weaponry and explosives, etc. – might have to be taken back. Hughes was impatient to be off: obviously not now, in daylight, but in the first period of darkness after Vidlin returned with the escapers. He – Vidlin – had set off in his 16-foot dinghy – clinker-built, pointed at both ends, from a Norwegian point of view the real McCoy, even with an old fish-head or two lying around, and well-used gear, splintery oars and so forth – he’d rowed himself away up-fjord soon after piloting them in here yesterday just after dawn.
If the Ekhorn had been going to show up, she’d have done so during the night. From about midnight onwards, had been Ben’s guess: allowing Iversen time to enter the fjord slowly i.e. quietly, and penetrate this far in darkness or semi-darkness. One hadn’t expected that he’d make it; but if he’d been going to, that would have been the timing.
Vidlin, asked by Mike Hughes how long he expected to be away – collecting the agents/escapers and getting them back here – had shrugged, glanced at Ben as if surely he’d understand this, and told the skipper, ‘One day, two day. Three, maybe.’ Pointing in various directions then: ‘Is here – here – here. Ten kilometre, twenty. Who know?’
Hughes had said, ‘Damn sure I don’t.’
‘I think he means he knows where his contact is but not where they’re keeping the other drongoes.’
The double-ender with its odour of fish and litter of old gear had been in the water and riding alongside by then, it was fully daylight – high cloud, and cool for the time of year – and Vidlin had been breakfasting on eggs, bacon and corned beef before leaving. Daylight was fine by him, he had papers that would pass muster, probably would put his lines over and catch a few fish somewhere along the way. He’d gulped down the rest of his coffee, and got up. ‘I go. Saying goodbye.’
The tail-end of a rocky holm hid this slot from the mainstream of the fjord. He’d raised a hand in farewell as he disappeared behind it, and Ball muttered pessimistically, ‘Let’s hope we see him back this side of Christmas.’
They’d got the last of the petrol drums over the side before lunch – one drum at a time, using the davits of 600’s own 10-foot dinghy, and the drums all linked by manilla rope from the end of which a grass line ran up to a buoy – small, inconspicuous buoy, disguised in a wrapping of seaweed. Meanwhile the rest of the crew had been cleaning up the ship, overhauling and greasing guns and doing whatever needed doing around the engines. Lunch was corned beef and pickles. Ben and Mike Hughes had theirs in the bridge, where the camouflage netting had small apertures from which to see out in various directions, although with that rock islet blocking any view of the fjord you’d see aircraft but not much else. From this height you might see some of that trawler’s upperworks – bridge and funnel – if it passed close enough, but not if it stayed out in the middle. The fjord was about two and a half miles wide at this point – but with a mass of holms and skerries in it, about as much rock as open water. Eastward – up-fjord – mountains stood massive against the lightly clouded sky; there was high ground behind the southern shore too.
Hughes finished his corned beef and mug of coffee, gave himself a cigarette and offered Ben one. ‘Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to crash my swede.’
‘Good idea. Ball and I’ll stand watch and watch, if you like.’
‘Count me in on it – and young Cummings – far less strenuous.’
‘Right…’
Nothing to do but wait, in any case. Nothing one could usefully do anyway, if disaster struck – for instance, a scenario such as aircraft over and circling, then the trawler presenting itself in the gap there with its four-point-one. All right, so 600 would give it a good pasting with her own not inconsiderable armament; in fact you’d shatter the bastard, and keeping a lookout would have been worthwhile because you’d have let rip pretty well as soon as he poked his snout in. But in the longer term – well, it wasn’t likely you’d get out of here. Not very far out, anyway.
The Ekhorn arrived as he’d guessed she might have done the night before, half an hour after midnight. Ben had been asleep in the wardroom and the young sub-lieutenant, Cummings, had sent a man down to wake them all, seamen-gunners meanwhile rushing up from the for’ard and after messdecks. Cummings had been keeping watch on the bridge and heard the Ekhorn’s engines; by the time the guns were manned and officers in the bridge, she was a low, black moving shadow in the gap at the end of that rock barrier. Engines slow-revving, a sound like some sea-monster coughing, in danger of bringing up its lungs.
Vaguely familiar, at that.
‘Searchlight on him, sir?’
‘No. Wait…’
The intruder’s engines had stopped, and straining his eyes through night-glasses Ben realised a second before anyone else did that it definitely was the Ekhorn. He’d thought it might be – against all the actual or apparent odds. Several others had by now sprung to the same conclusion, there was a cheer or two and by this time the launch was inside the screening rocks, engines still muttering but probably going astern to take the way off her. Stopped, now. Hughes used the port-side Aldis lamp to show Iversen his way in and a minute later was using a megaphone – not the loud-hailer, which would have been louder than was necessary in this quiet night – hailing Nils Iversen, and some moments later getting a shout of, ‘Nils Iversen bad hurt. Here is Petter Jarl. We berth on you?’
‘Wait, please.’ Muttering, ‘Want him in stern-first…’
Ben offered, ‘I’ll transfer and—’
‘No. I will. Ball—’
The boats touched, port bow to port bow. Hughes jumped over – which Ben with his damaged knee might have made a mess of – had Jarl re-start his engines and turn her, bring her in stern-first then to berth on 600’s port side, where Ball with a couple of seamen secured him.
Iversen was semi-conscious – or in and out of consciousness, apparently. One of his crewmen had been killed, and they were the only casualties although the launch had been knocked about a bit – sections of gunwale, coaming, stern-post and other timbers shot away, wheelhouse holed and most of the glass in it smashed. Nothing in any way crippling or that a shipwright couldn’t fix easily enough. The crippling loss was Nils Iversen. Ball took CPO Ambrose and another PO over with a stretcher and a medical kit including morphine, and the Norwegian was manoeuvred very carefully over to 600 and down to the bunk in Hughes’ cabin. Ben, being spare, kept out of the way at this stage, but heard the story presently in the wardroom where young Jarl, shaking with nerves, gulped neat whisky while he told it. Fortunately his English wasn’t bad.
On Thursday night, finding themselves alone, Iversen had had no doubt they’d fallen astern of station, so increased speed to catch up; but failing after a reasonable period of time to re-establish contact had eventually stopped to listen for 600’s engines, heard what at first puzzled them but turned out to be a seaplane circling. The pilot must have spotted Ekhorn’s wake: from a height of only a few hundred feet it probably would have been visible, vertically downwards, a spreading white track on slate-coloured sea, even through that fog. Iversen had immediately altered course away from the nearer land, heading as if to pass outside Stadtlandet in order not to compromise the whole operation – including the escapists on shore, and this gunboat – which he would have risked doing if he’d led the Germans to Nordfjord or its vicinity. Meanwhile the seaplane had completed its circle, dropping even lower and then attacking from astern with machine-guns. Iversen left it to Jarl to con the boat from inside its wheelhouse while he and a man by the name of Sundvik manned the two Lewis guns in the open stern. Iversen was hit quite badly in the first attack; Sundvik shot dead in the second; another crewman took Sundvik’s place. Jarl had gone to help his skipper but had been told to get back to his own job – in any case it was only a scratch. The hell it was – and he was hit again in at least one other pass. The seaplane came in five or six times, and on the last run they thought they’d hit it, which could have been why it broke off the action and flew away northeastward. Iversen had been hit in the face, chest, and left arm and shoulder. He’d been unconscious for some periods, then awake and obviously in agony. No, they’d had no morphine. In a lucid period and speaking out of the undamaged side of his mouth, he’d ordered Jarl to turn inshore and get into hiding before daylight and/or the ’plane or another one came to pick them up again – which meant now, double quick – and in the event they’d lain up in a bay south-east of Stadtlandet, amongst rocks and under their camouflage netting. Ben fetched the chart and Jarl showed them the place: ‘Here. See – Hafvruskalle,’ Iversen had told him during one conscious spell. ‘Nightfall, go Nordfjord.’ Several times during the day they’d seen seaplanes searching, mainly off Stadtlandet – ‘And beyond – maybe think we go Alesund’ – and had also seen an armed trawler, almost certainly the one 600 had been very lucky not to run into. As a result of all this, as dusk approached Iversen had changed his mind, told Jarl to wait another whole day, then see about getting into Nordfjord.
Ball had said, ‘Suppose we didn’t hear any of that because we’d got going again before it started? And I did think I’d heard an aircraft some time before that – you did too, sir—’
‘And it didn’t find them – or us – at that time. Making a sweep seaward, perhaps, caught ’em on its way back – by which time there’d have been a few miles between us.’
Jarl was in a considerable state of anxiety. He looked about seventeen. Iversen had told Hughes in Lerwick that he knew the boy’s father and that he was a good lad, lacking only experience which he, Iversen, was seeing that he got. Jarl mumbling now, ‘I don’t know what now we do. Don’t know what.’ Demanding of Hughes – as if he could do more than guess – ‘Skipper goin’ die, uh?’
‘Please God not, but—’
‘Goin’ die, sure.’
No one who’d seen him could have doubted it: it was surprising he’d hung on this long. His face – jaw – was an awful mess. At about 2.00 in the morning Ben and Hughes were in the little cabin with him when he came round: there’d been a shudder through his whole body, lips drawing back on that side over clenched teeth, left eye a bloodshot slit – the other one, with most of the right side of his face, was covered in black and scarlet bandaging – breath dragging in and forcing out in hard gasps, the visible eye by then actually bulging; Ben chuntering urgent nonsense to him about getting him out of this, back to Shetland and into hospital, while Hughes administered more morphine which after a while took effect and put him out again. He was not going to live: you wouldn’t have wished it on him, either. Ben said, after he’d lost consciousness, ‘Deserves a medal anyway. Leading ’em away from us – and staying out there—’
‘I agree. I’ll try to get him one.’
‘It’d be posthumous – like Rosie’s.’
‘Rosie – that girl you were nuts about?’
‘She’s getting a George Cross. Remember you allowed her the use of this cabin – to l’Abervrac’h and back, one time?’
‘Dare say I would have. But a GC, huh! Posthumous? Ben – I didn’t know, I’m—’
‘Tell you about her, shall I?’