'Donnerwetter!' muttered the German, 'Donnerwetter! How my head hurts!'
'I'm afraid you haven't been listening,' said Gregory amiably, 'but you'll gather the facts of our present situation for yourself all in good time.' He raised his voice and added: 'How is your back?'
'Aching—aching all over.'
'Any special pain anywhere?'
'No.'
'Can you move your head?'
Von Ziegler nodded it backwards and forwards twice, then groaned.
'Good,' Gregory said approvingly. 'If you can do that your spine's not broken, and the cut on your head is nothing much so you're not in bad shape, really, except for that broken leg. From what I can see of things, we must have fallen thirty to forty feet and it was lucky for you that this ledge has a little earth on it, with a layer of old pine-needles, otherwise you would have been smashed to bits.'
'Water,' groaned von Ziegler.
'He asked for bread and was given a pancake,' grinned Gregory, lifting his flask, which still had a little of the Norwegian Punch in it, to the German's lips.
The patient gulped down the rum-flavoured liquor without complaint and with a sigh closed his eyes again, so Gregory thought that he had better allow him to rest for a little, while he mopped at his own nose and considered the situation. His recent escape from death had given him a temporary forced cheerfulness; hence his facetious burblings to the still dazed German; but he soon sobered down and the more he thought about the position the less he liked it.
The ledge could not be seen from the road above, so there was no chance that someone coming along it might spot them and bring help. Moreover, they were too far down the cliff to be able to hear passing motor traffic for any distance so they could not send up a great shout to attract attention just at the moment that a vehicle was approaching. By the time they heard it the car or lorry would be rattling away from them, and they could not sit there shouting all the time.
Crawling to the edge of the ledge Gregory peered over, but the distant valley far below offered no better prospect. No one down there could possibly have seen them against the dark rock, except with a pair of binoculars, and there was no village or even house anywhere in sight along the foot of the cliff, the attention of whose inhabitants might possibly have been attracted by the dropping of large stones.
If they had gone over near the wrecked cars there would have been a decent possibility that the first arrivals at the scene of the affray might have seen them while examining the Ford that was hanging out half-over the cliff; but they were now a long way from the Ford. Of course if Gussy were still alive he would cause a search to be made; but was he alive, and, if so, what would be the result of such a search?
The search-party would probably examine the road and the cliffs for a few hundred yards on either side of the two cars and, on no trace of the missing men being found, Gussy would assume that von Ziegler had got away and that Gregory was still pursuing him; perhaps in some desolate valley miles away up in the mountains. He could hardly be expected to guess that his friend had chased the German for the best part of three miles and that after a set-to they had fallen over the cliff together.
At the time of the King's escape from Lillehammer there had been no traffic at all upon the road, because for about an hour before that the Germans had cut off the stream of refugees at the southern side of the town and except on market days there was normally little traffic in the late afternoons between Lillehammer and the villages along the valley. But Gregory reckoned that even if the Germans got possession of the place it was unlikely that they would hold up the flood of refugees indefinitely, so that long before darkness came an unending stream of traffic would be pouring along the road overhead.
For a time he sat there listening intently. Once or twice he caught the faint purr of a motor engine and the note of a distant horn; then, about half-past six he became aware of a steady vibration that gradually increased until it was a regular hum and rumble, occasionally punctuated by the sounding of Klaxons or hooters. Either the remnants of Major Helder's motorised column south of Lillehammer had been mopped up or the Germans had taken the town and released the traffic; whichever was the case the refugees were on their way north again.
Filling his lungs, Gregory began to yodel for all he was worth. He kept it up for about five minutes but nothing happened, so he had a rest. Then, after a bit, he tried again; and for the next hour he spent alternate periods yodelling and resting, but with no result. At the end of that time his voice was cracked and husky so he gave up altogether and acknowledged to himself that as nobody on the road had heard him during the past hour it was unlikely that they would do so even if he had been able to keep his vocal efforts going all night.
Another idea then occurred to him. Since he could not make himself heard he might perhaps succeed in making their presence felt. Part of the ledge was covered with a fall of loose shale and, selecting a piece, he endeavoured to pitch it up on to the road. Until he tried he had no idea how difficult it is to throw a stone almost vertically upward. Had he been able to stand further back he could have managed to land some of his missiles among the procession that was passing above, but although he risked standing almost on the edge of the ledge he could not even get one up to within ten feet of the cliff-top. They sailed up for about twenty-five feet, seemed to hover for an instant and then, infuriatingly, came whirring back at him.
After a score of fruitless attempts he abandoned that game also and gloomily sat down beside the half-comatose German.
He had had nothing to eat since the late breakfast which Elvdalen had provided that morning so he was beginning to feel distinctly hungry. Fortunately he had on him a large slab of chocolate such as he always carried by way of iron rations for an emergency. Taking it out he broke off a bar apiece for von Ziegler and himself and they sucked it slowly, but it did not make a very satisfying meal, and the bulk of the contents of both their flasks had already been consumed so they allowed themselves only a swallow each, saving the remainder with the rest of the chocolate as a last reserve for the following day.
It had now become distinctly cold and having no overcoat Gregory began to dread the coming night; but von Ziegler did not appear to feel the cold as he was now in a fever. Gregory had made him as comfortable as he could by scraping up the dried pine-needles to form a pillow for his head but he had no means of setting the airman's broken leg or washing the cut at the back of his skull. They spoke little but all the enmity seemed to have gone out of them owing to the common peril they were now sharing.
Both realised that the other had only been doing his duty as he saw it, and although the airman had stopped at nothing in his attempts to get King Haakon, Gregory knew quite well that he would have been equally ruthless if he had had the least chance to get Hitler.