Atomic Winter

CHAPTER ONE

A line of grim faced commandos in black sweaters and ski caps braced themselves against pitching motions from the boat. I stood to one side as an overhead light bulb swung at each roll throwing a cast in its passage about the cabin. I needed another drink but the British Major was briefing his men and I decided it could wait. I had a question to ask.

"So it's a bomb we're after,” said the Major, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. “More specifically the plans. Jerry has the blueprints in a folder. We get the folder then leave. Straight in, straight out. No heroics. The top brass doesn't want any mistakes. The contents in the folder are of the utmost importance to our war effort. We’ll be ferried across the North Sea, dropped off at a village north of Kristiansand, and under assumed Norwegian names will push on to the objective. This is a double mission. After we hit land, Norwegian resistance and their material will be brought aboard and ferried back to the Shetlands."

As he spoke I watched the shadow of the light passing over equipment on the table. The Commandos had the best kit. There was an array of machine pistols, side arms, and a Thompson with a drum magazine. I frowned as I looked at the Thompson. Someone had etched last month's date on its barrel: 12-1942.

The Major was finished. I didn't believe any of what he'd said. It just didn't sound right. I thought I knew the real purpose of his mission. As far as I was concerned the Nazis deserved everything they got but the Major's story about blueprints didn't ring true. There was something else going on.

"Sir, I have a question." I said, scratching stubble. "Will there be something in this mission for me?"

The Major looked at me, there was no love lost between us. I was just a shrimp boat hand drinking my way across the North Atlantic. He pulled at his cuffs, some of his men were smiling.

"Don't you have any work to do Edwards? Doesn‘t your skipper have duties for you topside? A ships bell to polish or a deck to scrub?"

He smiled and his men laughed as they collected their weapons from the table.

"This doesn't concern you. Why don't you go and find another bottle?"

I didn't like the way he was looking at me. They'd commandeered the boat and Narvik was in the hands of the Germans, what else was I going to do but drink?

"I just want to know, sir. When this is all done. Where will I stand?"

"Stand, Edwards?” he said. “What do you mean? I'd be surprised if you can stand at all."

He was putting on a show for his men and they obliged him by laughing at my drunkenness.

"I mean, sir, what will I get out of this mission? Or are you planning to leave me to the sharks?”

The Major hesitated before he answered and I knew that whatever he said next could not be taken as truth.

"Of course there's something in it for you. Big rewards if your skipper gets our men ashore safely. Does four hundred thousand American dollars sound good to you? You can buy all the beer you need, if the mission is successful."

I knew he was lying, the top brass would never agree to anything like that.

"You're crazy," I told him.

I pushed myself to my feet as they all looked at me.

" I'm serious," the Major said. "You, my friend, will never have to work a day in your life if you help us succeed in this mission. Not that you look at all capable of a days work."

His men laughed again but I'd had enough. I began to push my way through them but I was more drunk than I'd realized.

"You're a liar. You're all liars. I hate lies." I staggered and rough hands held me up.

"He's lost his sea legs," laughed one of the men who held me.

They were all watching me and I pulled myself free.

"You're all liars!" I shouted, breaking away from the hold on me.

I staggered to the corner of the cabin and stumbled up the ladder and, in a rush of energy, punched open a hatch and pulled myself up onto the deck.


CHAPTER TWO


Under moonlight, fierce waves struck the deck with spray. Every step made was a slippery mistake. I hung onto the bulwarks as the bow dug and rose from a swell with breakwater. Another tidal formed further out, rolling very near the boat, almost toppling it, but the vessel rose upon its mass and came out safe.

My mind surfaced from an alcoholic haze and I thought back to Colorado and all the times I had left a pub without a nickel in my pockets. The bartender, rather than the watery abyss hollered against me and my drunken ways. Our verbal exchanges ended with a kick at me out the door and a threat of his brother at his altar to chastise me for sinning against his holy reign over a flock of apostles. He had a tally of slaves bound by invisible rope to pews of worship, until made drunk enough to spill out their earnings.

The money I earned from the bartender in those days, if any, so pitiful the return seemed even while staring out to sea penniless, came from ski trips in the Rockies, weaving past the Feds, pulling sleighs laden with White Lightning, homemade whiskey. The slim pay offs made my stomach roar with hunger, but I still managed to strap on skis and race back into the woods to collect a staple from an old man who sucked lightning out of steel tits, opening his palm to me with crumbs of topsoil coating a hoard he stashed in his cabin shop. I left him knowing the next day, all the work exerted falling down cliffs, or evading police, only supported his game. After too much foul play, I went overseas in search if not my riches, a place of belonging amongst a crew on a trawler flung out into the North Atlantic.

A smack against my back made me turn around to find its cause. A shadow met my eyes, tall and muscular, but not threatening, and as they widened to perceive it, they recognized its wheat-tinted beard and weather-beaten complexion.

"Erik!" I shouted in a drunken slur.

"Bajas!" he snapped back, a Norwegian colloquial for clown.

"Whatcha doing out here?" I asked.

He held a red toy spaniel under his armpit.

"I hear mission is big," he said.

"Yeah, it seems it will be. But there's good money." I said.

"How much?"

"You won't believe it if I told you."

Pondering on our pay made me uneasy. Four hundred thousand was a crazy reward and I knew Erik would be as dumbfounded to hear its sum. He came back with a retort.

"British are cheap," he said. "It will be a slap in back like last time. You serve Great Britain well and they leave us dogs. You know what I think, bajas. If they pay like last job, we leave the skipper and herd goats. What you say, eh?"

"You stink of whiskey, my friend." I squeezed my nose in response to the stench arising from his white coat, but what did Erik care? He was a sea bum and our skipper, Henri Standferd, an old seafarer, content with his rituals, kept him onboard as a friend and drink mate.

"Well, there’s big money, they said four hundred thousand." I felt better on deck and the diminishing effects from the whiskey allowed more control of my speech.

"Four hundred thousand! You drunk, bajas," he let out a burp.

I stared out to sea. The skipper’s trawler resembled a tugboat ready to be sunk. I only hoped it could navigate the beachhead without being lit up by patrolling German E-boats. Those racing devils seemed to always be at wait behind shoals, then bam, a searchlight shot down upon a vessel followed by horrendous machine gun fire. It had happened to many of my friends’ boats, good fellows too, and they all went a horrible way.

The trawler lurched to port, caught on a wave, and I grasped the bulwark railing to catch my fall.

Muffy wriggled about in Erik's hands, and he bent over, but instead of letting go, he fitted her head with a bonnet. The dog looked silly, her ears hidden behind straps. He let her down and she ran about the deck.

"Look a beauty, she does looks. She a queen, she is. Made it from me own linen, the white bonnet."

I gave her a passing glance.

"You know what Erik? I have a funny feeling about this one," I said, nodding to the chaos at brew around our boat. "Just look at the sea. When we're this far out and near the fjords, it's not good to be in a mess. The sun could peep out and we got Krauts popping at us in their planes. The Sea Horse can't take it." The words evoked a fear hidden within my recesses, kept silent by the booze, but in such a situation, it felt a need to break out.

"Well, you know what I say bajas?" Erik said, in a soft-spoken voice.

"What's that?"

He gave a mischievous grin, as if to mock me. "There is always rum."

"Yes, and what does that do?"

"It is a happy drink," Erik laughed under his breath and he danced around deck. " It makes the sun shine and the moon bright and up next morning you feel a fright."

"You know what Erik? Let's have another drink."

"But I threw away last liquor in whole boat," Erik said.

"You didn't touch the moonshine," I answered, remembering the stash in my cabin, a drink kept as a surprise for occasions like the presence of ladies onboard or a handsome catch, but tonight only the war hung around us in the form of a noose, and it was hard to celebrate such a tragedy, but with aid of drink, could all the easier be forgotten. I took my hands off the railing and flashed him a grin.

"Erik! Let's go have a look at it down in my cabin."

Erik ran for the prow and threw away a floor hatch. I nodded for him to go down before me, but he stood in a drunken stance, his arm hanging in front and leg out to steady his weight upon deck.

"Go down, you fool!" I ordered.

“But I…"

"Get down."

He fell backward into the hole.

"Aw, Erik!"

A clatter rang from each hit rung.

"Oh no!"

I ran to the hatchway and looked down to find Erik stumbling up.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Bah, it is nothing."

"Nothing? You just about hit every rung in the ladder with that fall."

"I hit lucky steps."

"Yeah," I said, descending into the cabin and under light from a bulb strung between its walls, stroked my hair, feeling content we would make it to Norway. The sheets and pillow on my mattress were sweat-stained and odorous and hoping to blot out the smell, I threw away the pillow, but it still stunk.



CHAPTER THREE


We had recesses all about the boat, rusted out cabinets with padlocks to hide our liquor from thieves.

"So, this brew you make?" Erik pressed as he stood next to me.

"It's over in the sea chest. I'll be gettin it. Jus' hold your horses."

A desk for charts took most of the space, so Erik and I stood against each other, realizing we had got into a squeeze. Erik broke away by jumping onto the mattress and I knelt next to it, felt a handle hit against my fingers, and in elation, pulled the chest out. I flipped open latches, threw open the lid, then with a sift inside, brought out a bottle. Erik snatched it from me and spat out the cork.

"Don't trick me," he warned. "This no grease for engine?"

"Now, why would I do such things as that?"

He sipped the bottle, coughing after a swallow.

"Too much?"

"Ack!" Erik cried, his face twisting into a grimace. "Bajas! You make good liquor. Strong drink."

I sat next to him on the bunk, pawing at dew upon my hair, which felt miserable in these quarters, where the warmth pinpointed every damp place to produce small little pains. It took more than a brush to make it dry.

I remembered a box of dominoes underneath my bunk, went to my knees next to the mattress and dug them out.

"Want a game?" I asked.

Erik laughed. "But you always win, bajas!"

"You're a poor sport, come on I'll give you a chance!" I threw open the box, dominoes exploding upon the mattress in their shiny lengths. "I'll go first." I said, got my stack, and put down the first piece.

"You cheat!" Erik said, his mouth stale with liquor. "I do not trust you."

"Trust? Don't you remember who got you out of Bergen, huh? Remember the guards?" The memory arose amongst the mess of white dots on dominoes, screaming for me never to forget.
.
"You, bajas," Erik said, connecting his piece to my domino, and then grinned at me. "Yet Clara, eh. She was not so lucky."

"Don't you talk about her, you know we were helpless," but knew I could have done more to save her. It was midday, the worst time to make an escape from an espionage mission. Dogs sniffed us out of a sailboat in dock. The first bark sent me in a sprint out of a pilothouse and into the water. Erik followed and we swam to an oar boat, making a quick getaway, but without Clara.

She ran down the pier as we swam away, her brown hair crashing into ballpoint shoulders and police dogs caught up from behind to maul her.

"She was a good girl, though," I said. "She had experience."

"I know," Erik giggled. "A shrimp would grow into giant squid with your loving betimes with her. What did you do in cabin, bajas? Did you kiss her, sleep with her?"

"You spy!" I shouted. "You've had your share of fun too, but Clara wasn't a cheap whore. She was a romantic dame." My mind flashed to the memory of dogs attacking her. "I'll never forgive the Krauts. That was jus' wrong what they did! They'll get what's comin' to them, jus' you see."

"Do you hear it?" Erik said, breaking my contemplation.

"What?" I said, believing he had heard nothing but the buzz from our diesels.

"The sound? Listen?"

I thought Erik had gone drunk, but the sound arose, first a plop, then a stomp. Feet shuffled on the roof above us.

"It's jus' our trusty commandos up there on watch," I said to Erik, trying to reassure him. "Let's hope they haven't been drinkin' much as we have."

A shout broke from aloft, followed by a holler and then a louder one. I could not make out the words at first, but when I went under the ladder well, it rang clear.

"E-boat! German E-boat off starboard bow!"

The exclamation hit me with dread. I turned to my friend. "Come on, Erik! We've got company!"

I went up the ladder, did not look my way to the top, and hit my head against a hatch.

"Ow! Damn roof. This ladder's terrible luck."

“Those lucky steps, Bajas," Erik said below me. "Lucky steps."

"Don't say it," I growled. "You'll send me down off my grip and on top of you."

"I be smooshed."

The hatch did not budge.

"What the…?"

"We are stuck?"

"The board's welded shut."

I hit the hatch with my fists, but it did not give, shuddering with a weight on top of it.

"Why wonder. Someone's standing on it," I muttered.

"Heh, heh," Erik smirked. "We have fools onboard…fools who stand in wrong place."

"Yeah. I just made em' fall. But he's on the wood." I knocked at the hatch. "Ahoy up there! Get off, you hooligan, whoever you are! We need to get out!"
The hatch swung away, thrown to the side by a commando who grabbed my arm to hoist me topside.

"Edwards," he said. "I'm sorry for standing there. I took a dreadful fall right here on deck. I feel it was my foul footing, but I'm so glad you're here. I've just sighted a German E-boat out in the waves. Just look for yourself there."

"Where is it?"

The officer gave me binoculars and I looked through them. Dank clouds came up close in the lenses, a swell curled over, and it felt like being in the water.

"Show me. I don't see anything but a soup."

"Over there at the starboard side." He pointed to our prow rising with breakwater.

"I see it!" Erik shouted.

I jerked the binoculars and about a hundreds yards out spotted a sleek hull slicing through a swell. Crewmembers scurried about the speedboat’s deck for a mounted machine gun and as it neared us, its superstructure shown in the lenses, a sloped tombstone of steel with lines as dark and sinister as those of a knight's helmet.

"Christ! We got a E-boat coming right at us."

"They German?"

"Here have a look." I gave Erik the binoculars.

"So we have trouble on the brew?" asked the commando. His face shone pale from seasickness.

"Yeah, get down below. I'll have to tell the skipper and hope we can lose the Krauts in the squalls," I said and spat on deck.
`
`Are you sure?''

``Yeah, the skip' will handle this, but we need you down below. The decks are going to get a little heavy with the sea, you know...and I mean heavy, if we give her all she's got.''

``I wish your skipper luck, I'll be in my berth.'' His boot slipped on a rung in the gangway and with a scream, he fell headfirst into the well.

"That boat from Duetschland!" Erik cried, throwing me the binoculars. "It is a Schnellboot."

"She's readying her guns, isn't she?"

"Yes, it look it."

"Christ she's probably been chasing us."

"What we do?"

I neared the pilothouse, a white block of steel and sent a hesitant look at the face of our skipper standing behind windows and at the pilot wheel. A sense of fear and wonderment radiated from his figure as he held firm the steerage and with side-glances looked over his left at the E-boat. He then stared at me and showed through shakings of his thin shoulders, a confusion upon our dilemma.

"Skipper!" I yelled at him.

"What's your bearings on the situation, Edwards!" he hollered back.

A flash sprang from the side of our boat. The vessel shook in a explosion. I fell on deck. Boards shot out of their ruts and smoke surrounded us, its darkness blinding me, and I coughed out its bitterness in my mouth.

"My God!" I shouted.

Erik fell beside me, his eyes shut, and coat sprinkled with woodchips.

"We've been hit," yet the machine gun from the E-boat never fired a shot. I jolted for the bulwarks and leaned over to examine the hull. No holes had been blasted into the waterline. I glanced back at the E-boat. The chances of having fallen prey to an underwater mine seemed scanty.

Our dangers struck with urgency. Smoke arose from below clouding the decks and as it lingered in front of me, obscuring the pilothouse, and even the crouched figure of Erik, I wondered if the E-boat had shot a torpedo at our trawler. Maybe it was a hunter, sent to end our voyage. Their code breakers probably intercepted messages sent to us and then relayed our coordinates to patrols.

The Sea Horse listed to port. The engine sputtered to a halt and pools of salt-water arose from below, splashing against my feet.

A glance back at the pilothouse came with findings of a splattered red mess at the pilot wheel.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Get the lifeboat cut off the lines!" I shouted. "We gotta get out."

"We will drown in such a storm," Erik protested, as a wash snaked by my heels, splashing against the bulwarks.

"Looks as if we don't have a choice, we're drowned if we stay."

"I will go," Erik said, sprinting behind the pilothouse to our ship's lifeboat.

"The E-boat's gonna fire," I shouted, seeing crewmembers readying its forward antiaircraft gun.

"Reel it down! The boat!" I yelled.

"Yes, Bajas. But we'll drown, I know we will."

Erik threw off the lifeboat's canvas, then reeled out rope from its overhead appendage, the mechanism creaking as the dinghy dropped into the sea. He leaped down into it.

"Poor skipper," I said, gesturing to the pilothouse. "He was a good captain."

"He and the crew went down with the ship," Erik replied. "A good captain dies with his boat."

"I'm coming aboard."

The skipper's toy spaniel brushed against my leg, wagging its tail as it sniffed my ankles.
"Muffy!" Erik cried. "Bring the little Miss down! She comes with us."
I picked the dog up and dropped her over the side. Muffy shot out of Erik's grasp and hid under a seat. I held onto the rope and braced myself against fierce winds.
I leaped into our lifeboat, putting a foot onto a seat, and as the stern rose on a swell to fall away, I dropped into Erik's lap, the Norwegian with laughing eyes staring at my head pillowed in his crotch.
"Look," he said. "I gave birth to ugliest smelliest man ever."
"You're worse."
"I am not!"
"You smell of everything you drink." I got to my feet and sat on the center seat. On the side, a whitecap rolled by and brought out a loud groaning from the keel. A shot of seawater spat at Erik, drenching his clothes.
"Fordømme!" he shouted in ferocity, his teeth chattering as he stood up.
"Let's get away from here," I said and untied ropes mooring us to The Sea Horse.
The head of our lifeboat shot over a wave and we slid down a wall of water to land on but another hill of abysmal blackness.
"We must row away," Erik said. "Get your oar."
After another climb over a swell, we dug our oars in. The Sea Horse came near, a shadow in the night, the edge of a wave raising it high above the trough where our lifeboat lay. The trawler made a sickening roll to port, the glass panes of its pilot house vibrating against a shower of spray thrown by its swing into breakwater.
"Hurry, we must get away!" Erik shouted.
"I'm trying," I said, rowing from our ship. A wave spilled over the stern and broke against my back, striking so cold it felt like someone had thrown open a bag of broken glass and it soaked through two sweaters to wet my skin.
Waves rose to colossal heights threatening to spill over us and I doubted survival.
"Look!" Erik shouted. I gazed at the trawler drifting about a hundred yards out and discerned on deck a shadowy form discernable as a German boarder from the E-boat. He waved at us.
"Damn!" I shouted. "Damn! Damn!"
"It will be bad if current sucks us near them. We could crash into boat and Germans will shoot."
"Row, that's all we can do," I said, shivering against the cold. "We can't get close or we're done for."
I felt weighty. Our boat began an ascent on another breaker, the prow shot vertical, pushing Erik against me, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, his body quivering against mine. The surging climb threatened to swamp us.
The moon came out of the clouds and shone the monstrous hill of water rise ahead, taking our boat on its incline. A lion-like roar sang out of this mountain and we rode the tail of it, feeling the sea push behind us for its foaming tops.
We slid down its spine, the wave moving ahead, a foaming giant intent on swallowing other outreaches, and behind us, another hill of seawater rose and hissed at its tops, our boat rising onto its crest. To my left I found the current had brought us near The Sea Horse. Motley crews of screaming Germans leaned over its side. A glint of steel shined from an object held by a newcomer to the crowd and he pointed it at us.
"Duck, Erik!"
Erik flung himself into blankets wedged into the prow. I pressed flat against the bottom, the wood striking cold against my belly. A pout next to my ear made me glance to see where it had arisen. Two flickering dots stared out from a recess below the seat. Muffy had curled herself into a ball, a glazed shine in her eyes. I felt sorry for the rascal, but with not too much sorrow to attempt a thrust of my hand at her with intentions to pet. In such a condition she would lash back and bite through my fingers.
A roar of lead erupted and a bullet thumped against the side. Another round split the water and splashed droplets on us. We lay in a frightful position.
The floorboards nudged against my chest. The sea below shoved our boat skyward and I felt it being dragged by a current, whisking us away from the ship. Water spilled over the side and ran along the baseboards toward the stern, collecting itself into a pool behind me. My boots sank into this brew and it soaked through the leather to sting in my socks. The air struck frigid enough to blacken toes. I wondered if my feet would ever be the same.
"Bajas," Erik said, fear in his voice. In the moonlight, I could see his face through a cranny as he laid flat on the floor. "This good plan you make. Plan you make so good I want to hug you so hard I break your bones. We beat Krauts, but we never win to sea. You owe me barrel of øl if we live."
"What a bargain."
"And buy other boat so I have job."
"Cheap, cheap."
"I hope you drown and turn into seaweed."
"And I hope to see your head at the end of a fishing hook."
The gunwale went vertical and shaken by the jolt, I flipped onto my back and fell to a stand on the rear rudder box. Muffy slid too, her paws grasping onto wooden grooves and I caught her by the neck. God, I thought, we are done for, we will sink to the depths.
Muffy moaned in my grasp. Gravity, rather than her weight, gave me most of the troubles, enticing me to let go and throw myself into the abyss. I fought hard against it, struggling to maintain a firm back pressed against a floorboard changed now into a wall by our tilt. When looking below, the sea upright, a sickness came over me, and I thought how awful to die of drowning after a fall into its iciness. Only a brief moment the sea required to choke one's breath with painful shivers.
Death churned below me, but hope gave me a will to survive. A wooden rib protruded out of the side under the oar holds and my left hand went for it, the other clasping Muffy, the fingers wrapping around the inlet, hoping they would not slip out.
"You won't get me this time!" I shouted out in anger at the storm. The lifeboat shot over a crest and with a squeal slapped level on the sea and I crashed to the floor, my head hitting an oar.
I folded into a fetal position, stricken with pain and of the hurt from my feet, this new injury held an unrivaled fire.
"Bajas get up," I heard Erik shout. "Get water out of boat. I have pail now get up."
Dizziness came over me and everything spun in front of my eyes.
"Get up, or we drowned."
I wanted to escape the blackness, to return to my senses and help Erik, but unconsciousness came quick. Bands of red and blue shades fluttered across the darkness, turning into small balls, imprints of trapped light burning in the void of my stupor.
"Erik," I uttered. "You bastard, is this what you want? For me to die?"
I gave a breath then was lost to unconsciousness.

CHAPTER FIVE

I awoke to confusion. The sky, once a raging storm, now shown with a pinkish candescence. The bow of our boat rose on a swell, disclosing upon the gunwale as it fell, a slump figure wrapped in blankets. Had Erik pulled us out of the mess? He would have been awake if he sat in the posture maintained by this clothed form.

"Erik," I whispered to it.

No answer. The crashing sea cut to a hush with the call of his name.

"Erik!" I shouted.

A rustle from the blanket confirmed a presence underneath the wrappings. I assumed Erik sat near his own demise, ears deafened by sickness, the last of his strength exerted now to push himself off into the glassy tumult.

"Don't do it Erik," I said. "It's a terrible way to die."

The top layer of cloth shifted and the head underneath turned to look over its shoulder. Instead of Erik's face, a bluish hue radiated from below a cover. It turned to glance at me, with eyes below dark brows, darting out like white islands in an indigo abyss.

"Who are you?" I asked.

Silence came as a response.

A flash blinded me and I awoke again, not to find a blue fellow at stare from the prow, but Erik, his face a ruin of exhaustion, tottering between snores on a bench.

"Erik," I shouted to it.

The boat dunked into a swell.

"Erik," I shouted at this bearded man again and his eyes flitted open to shut at the absence of any preceding sound.

I went to him and shoved his arm. He leaped up, throwing his blanket to the side.

"So you awake my sleepy giant," he said. "If it were not only sooner. Bajas, we about lost boat to storm. Look, it is calm, but last night, it was screaming banshee, up to the death in waters around me ankles!" He threw down his hands to empathize his anger. "And you, you were asleep all time. I gave you a blanket you see.” He pointed to the sheet I had discarded in my sleep. "As death had arms about me, I gave you blanket for you to sleep and watch as I saved you from drowning.” Erik pointed at the horizon, where the morning sun shined in radiance. "Ah, how better it look than in night. But look you see."

A seagull flew by, made a crooked turn with its wings, and hovered over us.

"We have gulls! We are near land, not hundred miles now, and we will see them."

I felt disoriented, my mind throwing up a jumble of reflections which did not make any sense, like the recollection of the nightmare and tried to come to some understanding. Why was the man blue? Why had he haunted the prow instead of Erik? It all seemed odd, but my nightmares tended to be mysterious and senseless.

"God I had a terrible nightmare, how long was I out?" I asked Erik.

"All night, Bajas. Bad dreams, heh, I had bad dreams, but I had both eyes open.” Erik stood upon a seat, sprang open his arms, made flapping movements with them as if to mimic waves, and uttered splashing noises. With one hand curled and the other flat, he swallowed it with the other, smacking his hands together to end the catastrophic show. "Gone! But lucky you, I mighty seaman."

"Well, if one of your oars had not knocked me out," I said, angered at Erik's apparent blame for my dip into unconsciousness. "I could have been glad to give a lending hand in this mess.” I stared past him spotting cliffs almost indistinct amongst purplish clouds. They spread too dark for confusion with morning haze. "I think we won't have to stay out here too long. Those gulls have lead us to the right place, I see land."

"Bah, if it land," Erik said not surprised. "You do the oaring."

I thought it in good favor to concede to this request and took up an oar.

We bypassed a rock island, nearing the fjords, a mountainous barrier shooting steep into chalky tops, their sides insurmountable against the sea.

"What you make of it?" I asked, shoving my oar into the water. "You think we'll make it before the Krauts shoot?"

Erik gazed at the ridgeline.

"I think we good. No patrol as I can see. We good."

The boat rocked with the current and Erik and I rowed with vigilance. The tide flowed in our favor. Massive waves rushed ahead to swallow the shore and ones behind us took our boat over dangerous shoals.

"Watch out below!" I cried.

Deadly rock heads floated by on jetties.

"The other side, look!" I cried.

At our right, where Erik paddled, a rock jutted out from the sea, its tops sharp. A wave fell over it, the watery back ribbed with foam. Our boat rose high in the water and I took up the oar until the sea fell flat. When a wave split on the rocks, the boulder came up again, wash dripping down its tops.

Erik brushed by to turn our rudder. Our bow swung to port and a swell rushed in from behind, climbing as it came nearer.

"Row!” Erik cried.

The wave shot to considerable heights, its white crest foaming, and a roar rang out from its depths.

"Yeah!" I shouted, worried the wave would spill over and swamp our boat, and I dug my oar quick into the sea.

The current sucked our boat into the swell and with strong strokes we beat a breaking crest, tottered atop the wave and rode its surf to shore. White water shoved our boat into a canal between boulders and I lifted my oar as we sped into it.

When the wave spit us out of a canyon, our boat shot into shallower depths, and made landfall on a pebbly shore.

Erik grabbed my arm.

"We here, bajas. We have won over sea.” His words rang with glee yet I thought of the Germans who could have picked us off from the fjords. A shiver ran through my body.

Erik leaped into the water and waded for land.

I stood in the boat, trying to recollect my senses, and pondered upon the difficulties we would face in our climb up the fjords. We had no rope for scaling them and their shearing walls, gray and formidable, showed no hint of passage without necessary tools. I only hoped Erik would find a trail, a nice foot path for us to follow up, where our worries would only get worse, with chance run-ins with Germans.

Muffy let out a bark and I stopped it with a hand over her snout.
.
"Here let me take her," Erik said.

I gave Muffy to him and he lifted her over the side, dropping her on shore. Her fuzzy flanks ran on the rock until they came to where Erik stood in contemplation. I dug about the boat, found two pairs of skis, and threw them over.

"Found skis!" I shouted in elation and knew Erik would be joyous. "Where you going?" I asked, watching him prowl about the rocks. His ramblings brought him behind boulders, then with a leap upon them, as if to show off his skills in mountaineering, he jumped off one and vanished behind it, to appear again further down, where a smile broke from his countenance. I wondered what gave him elation.

"Found it! Knew it would be here. We have way up," he slapped his hands against his trousers and rushed back to the boat, Muffy trailing his feet.

In my passage, the sea lapped against my boots. I got to a boulder, patted down my leggings, and after vain swipes to vanquish the wetness, gave it up to pursue other duties, like handing my friend his skis, while tucking my pair underneath an armpit. I dashed for the start of the trail.

I made headway on a path zigzagging up the fjord, its sudden turn offs causing me to fear Muffy would leap the cliff, but she maintained course.

When we got nearer the top, both of us panting, I bit at the top buttonhole on my jacket while staring below at the tide as it burst into the fjords in systematic waves of rising and falling water.

"You think we'll get up there before the Krauts see us?" I asked Erik, although it was a dumb question, for he had the same visual advantage as myself, but I always relied on his second sense to detect danger. He looked at me with his weather-beaten face.

"It is too early for the likes of them, Bajas," he said. "But if we find a soldier, they wear gray coats you know. So you get your hand, you see.” He shut his hand into a fist. "Then hit him between the eyes."

The wind chilled my breath and my words came out in smoky clouds. "That's if they don't have guns."

My legs ached as we made the summit. The snow lay deep at the top. I put on my skis, Erik following my actions and with Muffy tucked into my jacket, went onward into the unknown.

















CHAPTER FIVE

We skied down a slope, snow dripping from our tunics, and fell into a town, its houses of colorful fronts offset in the center by the gloominess of a barracks with barbed wire masking its windows, a Nazi flag flying outside its staircase, as if rippling in a plea for freedom from an anchor held in tow.

Erik cut to a stop, pressed a finger to his lips, and I answered his gesture with a quieter run.

We went by the barracks and glided by following houses. Fearful of Nazi traps, I hastened my advance. From each window, black and dead, it seemed thousands of eyes spied on me. I tried to ignore possible dangers, bending down at times, as if such movements would break my nervousness, but it only made it worse.

As we approached another structure, its porch stairs biting into our path, I feared a soldier would march down to murder us. Erik seemed to notice this uncertainty and went by, his poles throwing loose powder, as if to assure me of imaginary dangers.

Noises erupted ahead. We skied for these sounds, passing a boulder, and came into another section of colorful abodes, peopled by residents hidden in coats.

“Halloa there!” A passerby hollered from a demeanor ridden with stubble. I welcomed this encounter over confrontations with a deadly and clean cut German soldier.

“Where is this abouts?” I asked in Norwegian.

“This hole,” the man said. “This hole very near to Trondheim, I call it little Trondheim.“ He spoke in his native tongue and pointed into the lit pub. “Are you here for a morning soak? It starts early now.”

“Morning soak? You drink this early?” I asked, noticing his drunken slur. “What’s to celebrate?” I took off skis, tucked them with poles into my armpit, and strode up to the pubs threshold with its resounding clamor of clashes against glasses, hollers, and laughter breaking through gusty howls around us.

“To celebrate?” He caught me before I could enter. “Do you not know what holiday this is?“

“Sorry I can‘t say I do,“ I said.

“It is the birthday of our aviation hero. Our jolly pig. Hermann Goering. His greatest victory, a squeal and snort, a victorious climb into the heavens in a Fokker biplane. It took them four tries to get him up. An amazing feat! When his plane did rise, they named it a holiday. Tidings to the plumpest man in the sky, the first mound of jolliness to touch the clouds.” He caressed my jacket with his fingers in flowery emotion. “A strong man like yourself, deserves a sturdy tumbler to celebrate our victorious aviator, Hermann Goering. If not him why not this good snow pack, or the nice winter breeze, I could swear it has never been this warm in ages, or our good German neighbors, they give us much to celebrate, with their sauerkraut and rule books.” He ended his speech with a cackle and prompt stomping away from us.

“What you need, sir,” Erik said to our greeter. “Is another soak, come join the two lonely fishermen.”

“And drink for that jolly man, it’s late, and I’m a needing to wash out the blubbery after taste of his celebration with my wife’s goats milk. Besides, the Germans are in town. They’re all up in joy over that jolly aviator and his triumphant take off into the clouds. Don‘t like to mix with them. They always put me to work. Besides my bloods fiery today, and I would rather waste it on pleasuring the wife than their labors.”

Erik butted into me to whisper, “Let’s just hope he makes it across the street.”

I laughed at this remark, turning around to find our greeter rolling in the snow.

“Goering, the jolly man!” he screamed at each roll. “I drink for Goering.”

“Maybe he will roll back home,” I laughed and went into the pub, stepping inside with anxiety, for at a distant corner, underneath lamps, sat Germans in white uniforms. The soldiers, caught in the doldrums of boredom, hunched over beer glasses, while others slouched back in chairs with cigarettes alit. I dreaded the possibility one of them readied to ask us for our identification papers. I left my skis and poles at the door and went to the bar, a scent of wet oak and coal arising from its fire place not consoling enough to vanquish doubts, nor did the homeliness of the pub, with its soft cabin like environment cluttered with card tables, benches, and at guard over the bar, standing next to the tender like some merry companion, a wooden troll, with a smile, offer any assurance I would leave this pub alive.

“So stranger, are you journeymen? You appear to have come from a long trek. Why don’t you take a seat here at Steiner‘s bar,” said the bartender in Norwegian. His face, broken by wrinkles and blond brows so bushy they seemed shorn from a horse’s tail and pasted above his eyes, made me edgier than the Germans.

“No, but I just might take you up on that offer. My friend here, Erik, would like a drink also.” My finger, guiding Erik like a staff, pointed him to a stool right beside mine.

“No dogs allowed in here,” Steiner said. “You send him out with Lars, he is bringing back mail from the garrison, but I think he won’t mind a little company.”

Again, I did not trust this bartender. He portrayed himself as too friendly, as if he were a Nazi conspirator readying to coax us into our doom, but I took Muffy out from her perch inside my coat, and with blind faith, gave it to the lackey who rushed by with her.

“Do not worry, I have money,” Erik giggled as he sat next to me and with slaps against the bar, shot looks at both me and the soldiers at table behind us. “Heh, a fine celebration we are having today. I do hear, it is our jolly Hermann Goering’s birthday! As token to this great, aviator.” He gave me a faint sneer. “We should celebrate with a shot of jäger! Jäger for me and the crazy bajas here!”

“A shot of jäger it is,” Steiner returned, and with a slap of Erik’s coins upon the bar, he took them, putting in their place, two shots of liquor straight from Germany. With a smirk seeming to besmirch the honor of the toast, Erik put one glass in my hand and leaned against the bar, his glass high in the air. “For Hermann Goering, our glorious aviator!” Erik shouted and with a clash of his jäger against mine, we downed a shot.

The liquor sank warm down my throat and with a rub at my lips, hoping to dispel its hard effects, I coughed in reprisal to its potency.

“One more?” Erik suggested, but as I stared into his gleaming eyes, my expression distorted by the last drink, he recognized a rejection, and went on to the bartender. “What news for us to hear in town? We are traveling fishermen and have stumbled here tired and in need of respite and gossip. Is there activities to take the anchor off our minds, to soften it from our labors?”

“There has only been trouble these recent days,” the bartender said in a cold voice. “You see the show of police? They are all rallying to catch some strange saboteur hanging out in the woods! A firebrand. He has only caused trouble since our German neighbors showed their presence.“

“Oh and how do we recognize this criminal, this enemy of the peoples?“ Erik asked, shoving his hands into coat pockets, as if to retrieve something, but they came out empty.

“Well, he is a crafty one. Poses himself as a soldier, wears skijeger uniforms, our police men can’t even guess to his whereabouts when all of a sudden, slam,” and at this last word, he hit the bar with a fist, “He lets out a hell and ruckus. He’s infamous amongst our police, they’ve even branded him with the call name of blue devil, for there’s a story going about that the Lapps, out of some crazy whim, tattooed most of his body in blue paint, made him a child of the forest. I tell you he and his tribe of Lapps are all crazy. Our locals, traitors most of them, many are sulking in our jails for their behavior, a good punishment for that lot, worship him as some noble savage, a savior of the townsfolk.”

“So we should watch our backs in the street,” Erik returned, but with a visible nonchalance in regards to the noble savage, for we both knew the enemy sat behind us.

“Watch your backs,“ Steiner laughed. “Those who have come into contact with the firebrand have never had time to watch their backs or even bat a lash. They are snatched or killed quickly by the monster, gobbled up like an evening meal. If you ask me, I think the man’s a feral child, a wild man, who turned crazy after being out in those woods for so long, now he has a vendetta against our town’s populace. He’s the devil and I hope our police get rid of him.”

“Well, thanks for the warning,” Erik snickered, but underneath his sympathy for the bartender, his upturned brows shone a desire to meet this renegade wrecking havoc with Nazi occupiers. “We will, as you warn, just runaway from this town after this drink and hope this blue devil has no heart in his skis to chase us for dinner.”

“You better hope the heart you have in your skis is stronger than that of the greatest of skiers, for this blue devil, he is the best in the country. No one can outrun the monster. I have heard of experienced skijeger, those who have fought bravely in winter warfare during the northern campaigns, fall victim to his strategies. No one is safe. He‘s a monster.”

“Then,” Erik said. “I believe we are prisoners of your pub. I am deeply sorry and if the blue devil does, as you say, surprise us with his presence, we shall douse his anger with a shot of jäger, strike him into a drunken stupor, then bind his hands. A job made easy for you and our policemen!”