With huge satisfaction Gregory bought himself a bottle of champagne and sat down to drink it. He was a clever fellow— a monstrous clever fellow—and he was used to reading the news which lies behind the headlines; the story about blocking the iron-ore route was all 'my eye and Betty Martin'. Now that spring was here and the Baltic open again the Nazis could get all the iron ore they wanted without bringing it down the coast of Norway, so why should the Allies suddenly decide to block the winter route of the iron-ore ships when they had left it open until summer was almost here? The thing did not make sense, but was perfectly obvious to anyone. The Navy was really laying minefields to protect lanes through which troopships, bearing the British Army, could come to take over the country. Good old Winston had managed to kick some of his colleagues in the pants and Britain was at last stepping out to fight a war.
Having finished his bottle he went out to the Oslo air-port confidently expecting to see the R.A.F. sail in.
There might be a little mild fighting but he doubted if the Norwegians would put up any serious resistance and thought that if he could establish contact with the British landing-force he might prove useful to them as he now had a thorough knowledge of Oslo and its environs.
Although he waited there until an hour after sunset the British planes did not appear, so he assumed that they meant to make an early-morning landing on the following day, at the same time as the troopships appeared off the Norwegian coast. Back at his hotel he found plenty of people who were only too ready to air their views over rounds of drinks in the bar, and through them he learnt that the Norwegian Press had suddenly turned intensely anti-British. In spite of the number of their ships that had been torpedoed by the Germans they appeared to resent most strongly any suggestion that the British should protect them from the people who were murdering their sailors. Then a Norwegian naval officer came in with the startling news that German battle cruisers and destroyers convoying over one hundred troop and supply ships were reported to have left their ports.
Gregory promptly ordered another bottle of champagne. Such tidings were all that was needed to crown his happiness. The British Fleet was also either in or approaching Norwegian waters. They would catch the Germans and there would be a lovely battle in which they, with their superior numbers, would put paid to Germany's capital ships and sink or capture those hundred transports. Allied transports and aircraft carriers were evidently lying out at sea, just out of sight of the Norwegian coast. The intention was to let the Germans make the first open act of war against Norway so that world opinion and the Norwegian public should quite definitely be swayed on to the Allied side. The Germans were to be given a chance to land a few hundred men, then the balloon would go up; the Navy would sail in and shell their ships to blazes while British forces landed farther up the coast.
He went to bed about one o'clock in a high good humour and full of impatience for the momentous events which he felt certain this Tuesday, April the 9th, would bring. At four o'clock he was wakened by the crash of guns.
He had already made his preparations the night before, so within seven minutes he was dressed and downstairs in the hall, where a little group of people—mostly in their night attire— was assembled.
Nobody knew what was happening and most of the Norwegians seemed pathetically surprised—even stunned —at the thought that their policy of so-called neutrality had not saved them after all. They were as shocked and indignant at this unprovoked attack as an ostrich, considering itself hidden by burying its head in the sand, might have been upon receiving a sharp stone in the backside, aimed by a small boy with a catapult.
Police whistles were blowing, the guns continued to thunder and people were exchanging the wildest rumours, but no shells or bombs fell in the centre of Oslo and it seemed that the fighting was confined to the harbour district.
Within twenty minutes of the first alarm it was definitely established that the Germans were the attackers.
Apparently, considerable numbers of Nazi troops had been concealed in cargo ships in the harbour.
Under cover of darkness they had landed and were now shooting down anyone who attempted to oppose them, while their warships were engaging the shore-batteries along the Fjord.
This news perturbed Gregory considerably. It was all in order that Germany should be branded as the aggressor by being allowed to land troops before the Allies arrived on the scene, but what had happened to the British Navy? Why hadn't it intercepted the German Fleet that was bombarding the forts? But perhaps the German battle squadron had been deliberately allowed to reach its destination with the idea that it would be more certainly destroyed if the British sailed in behind it so that it was caught between two fires.
By 5 a.m. the invasion was reported to be in full swing by land, sea and air and Gregory began to plan what he had better do if Oslo fell to the Germans before the British put in an appearance. As the British had command of the seas it seemed reasonable to suppose that the Germans would not venture to send troopships out into the open ocean beyond the waters of the Skagerrak, whereas the Allies could land their troops anywhere along the Atlantic coast. Bergen, being the nearest large Norwegian port to Scotland, was the obvious choice for a British landing in force, so Gregory decided that he had better go there. However, he felt that there was ample time to have breakfast first and run from the Germans afterwards.
As the hotel staff was completely disorganised there was little prospect of getting proper service, so he walked downstairs to the kitchens and just shouldered his way past the stunned-looking people who had gathered there from fear of air-raids. In the larder he found that day's selection for the restaurant's cold table and while the other people sat or stood about in gloomy foreboding he made an extra large meal of some of his favourite foods because he had no idea at all when he would get another.
After his admirable breakfast he learnt that simultaneously with their invasion of Norway the Germans had invaded Denmark. The news did not surprise him and he felt that there was nothing very much that could be done for the unfortunate Danes. If Hitler had succeeded in forcing their frontier, which should not have proved a very difficult task, he could bring such a mass of men and metal to bear that no Allied expeditionary force could have hoped to hold Denmark for the Democracies. Norway, however, was a very different proposition, and he remained convinced that at any time now news would come through of landings by British troops who would oust the Germans because they could not be supported by sea-borne reinforcements from their bases.
On going upstairs again he heard that the Gneisenau had been sunk by one of the shore-batteries in the Fjord, which cheered him up a little. The place was thick with rumours that every sort of treachery was on foot and that certain commanders of forts on the Fjord had deliberately refrained from shelling the Germans; but there was evidence that at least one officer had had the courage to use his guns before a 'cease fire' order had been telephoned to him.
Soon after 7 a.m. word flew from mouth to mouth that a somewhat belated German ultimatum had been received in Oslo. The Nazis demanded the unconditional surrender of Norway's armed forces, the reception of German garrisons, the resignation of the Norwegian Government and the setting-up of a new one under Major Quisling. During his three weeks there Gregory had received good reason to conclude that the pompous Major was a big cog in the German Fifth Column machine, but it now seemed that he was an even bigger fish than he had appeared. The Norwegian Parliament was said to be already in session and Gregory waited with growing anxiety to hear what reply they would give to the high-handed ultimatum.