'Has he any troops out there to defend him?'
'No. I asked about that, but Lillehammer is not a garrison town and so he hasn't even an acting unpaid bombardier for escort—only a few policemen with those funny old revolvers.'
Gregory groaned. 'We must try and gain him a flying start somehow. I know! We can't stop the troops across the water but what we can do is to stop the motorised column by making a road barrier. We'll have to be darned snappy about it, though. Go and talk to those chaps in there; tell them as quickly as you can what's happening and get them to lend a hand dragging out the furniture.'
Langdon-Forbes advanced into the open doorway of the lounge and raised his high-pitched voice.
There was instant silence, and after he had spoken for a moment a fat man stepped forward and said something to him; upon which he turned to Gregory.
'Our luck's in. This place is the Lillehammer Rifle Club and our friend here, who is its President, suggests that all the members should get their rifles.'
'Splendid!' Gregory nodded to the fat man and added: 'But for God's sake tell them to be quick!'
The President called loudly to his friends and a stampede to the gun-room ensued. Two minutes later the first members of the club to reach it came hurrying back with rifles and boxes of ammunition. As they started to run out on to the road Gregory spoke quickly again to Gussy.
'Tell them that I'm a British officer and that they'd better let me take charge while you act as my interpreter. They won't stand an earthly if they line up out there in the open. The Germans have got tommy-guns and will simply shoot them to ribbons. The thing to do is to man the windows of the club and lie in wait until the Germans come down the road.'
Gregory's suggestion was adopted and under his directions the clubmen began to smash the long line of windows; afterwards removing the fragments of glass to prevent their flying when the Germans fired at the place. They then sorted themselves out inside the building while Gregory stood in the doorway watching the curve of the road half a mile away. Word was passed round that not a shot was to be fired until he gave the Norwegian word of command, with which Langdon-Forbes furnished him.
The preparations for the ambush were only just completed in time. A moment later he saw the Rolls suddenly shoot round the corner, and it was followed by a string of about sixteen other cars containing the parachute troops.
He stepped back a little in case he was spotted and von Ziegler took a flying shot at him when the Rolls drew level. Unconsciously holding his breath, he waited until the first four cars had passed him; then with all the strength of his lungs he-roared the word for 'Fire!'
There was a deafening crash as the thirty-odd rifles of the clubmen flashed at the German column. The cars were a bare twenty yards away, the attack was totally unexpected and the fusillade created absolute havoc among them. It was as though the drivers of the first eight cars had suddenly been struck with madness. From an orderly, fast-moving procession the leading half of the column was instantly thrown into the utmost confusion. Cars swerved, skidded and crashed into one another. Two of them plunged headlong down the bank on the far side of the road; one was caught sideways-on by a tree, while the other, rocketing from side to side, plunged into the water. A third came roaring towards the club-house but hit a telegraph-pole, which it tried to climb and became stuck with its front wheels eight feet in the air.
A fourth charged a petrol pump and, turning over, burst into flames.
Above the din could be heard the screaming of brakes as the drivers in the latter half of the column tried to pull up. They bunched in an almost solid jam, swivelled in all directions across the roadway, and the Norwegians sent a second volley into them. Gregory took in the general scene with grim satisfaction, then his glance ran swiftly along to the leading car— the Rolls—and remained fixed there. One of the back tyres had been exploded by a bullet and the car had run up the bank about fifty yards past the club-house.
As he watched he saw von Ziegler, Major Helder and another German officer climb out of it. Helder staggered a few paces then fell, either dead or wounded. The other officer turned and sent a stream of bullets out of his automatic towards the clubhouse, but von Ziegler, with his head low, was running hard towards the town. Suddenly he halted and shouted an order to the officer. The officer yelled something to two other men, who had just scrambled from the third car, and all three of them abandoned the fight to pelt after von Ziegler.
Somebody in the club-house drew a bead on one of the men and he was hit in the back as he ran.
Flinging up his arms he pitched forward on his face, but von Ziegler, the officer and the other man managed to reach cover before the marksman could fire again.
Gregory cursed softly to himself. It was the German Air Attache who was the brains of the party and he had got away with two armed comrades. He was not the sort of man to have fled from the fight on account of cowardice, and the fact that he had drawn two others off with him showed that, although he might consider the ambush into which his party had fallen as an infuriating setback, he was still unshaken in his determination to capture or kill King Haakon.
However, von Ziegler was without a car for the moment, and even with two armed men to help him, both of whom were in uniform and so likely to prove a target for the revolvers of the Norwegian police or the brickbats of the population, he would probably have considerable difficulty in getting another; so Gregory did not feel that he was called on to risk his life by giving chase immediately.
To have left the shelter of the club-house would certainly have been to do so, for, in spite of the devastating surprise attack, the Germans were now fighting back with determination and ferocity. Those who had escaped death or serious injury had climbed out of their cars and taken refuge behind them or in the ditch at the far side of the road and were blazing away with their tommy-guns at the club-house windows.
The Germans lost over thirty men before the Norwegians sustained a single casualty, but after that it became more or less tit-for-tat. Allowing for the many casualties which the Germans had suffered in the first few minutes after the attack opened, their numbers were now about even with those of the Norwegians; and although the soldiers had enormous fire superiority, that was largely offset by the fact that every one of the clubmen was a trained marksman.
Drum after drum of machine-gun bullets spattered into the club-house, annihilating any marksman who was rash enough to expose himself for more than a quarter of a minute, but every German who showed a limb was an instant target for half a dozen well-aimed rifles. Several of the Germans attempted to throw hand-grenades, but two of them were shot down in the act so that the grenades rolled away and exploded near them, causing further casualties, after which the others desisted, as they could not lob the bombs far enough while lying down.
Gregory and Langdon-Forbes had had no time to get rifles before the attack but immediately it had been launched and Gregory had had a chance to assess its results they dashed inside and collected a couple of weapons from the armoury; then for the next ten minutes they did their share by firing alternately out of the narrow window of the wash-place.