Their elation at the prospect of rescue had temporarily renewed their strength and made them forget their hurts, but this burst of nervous energy soon wore off and it became obvious to their rescuers that they were chilled to the bone, injured and exhausted. A short discussion took place among the crowd of Norwegians, and a father and son who had no women with them very decently agreed to turn their car round and drive the two strangers back to Lillehammer, which boasted the ' only hospital within fifty miles. The back of their car was half-filled with trunks and suit-cases but some of these were shifted round so that the groaning von Ziegler could be propped up with his broken leg stretched out before him, and Gregory squeezed into the front seat between the two Norwegians.
After being hauled up von Ziegler had still had his wits about him sufficiently to realise that his rescuers might become extremely hostile if they discovered that he was a German, so when he told Gregory how the eagle had led to their discovery he had used a few sentences of halting English. The pain that he was in had prevented his saying very much but the Norwegians had taken it for granted that he was a Norwegian himself and that Gregory was an Englishman. It now transpired that the driver of the car could also speak a little English and he and his son were both curious to know how their passengers had become stranded on the ledge of rock thirty-odd feet below the level of the road.
Gregory pulled his tired brain together in an effort to provide an adequate answer to this difficult conundrum without giving too much away. If he told the truth, von Ziegler would, he felt sure, be handed over to the military authorities at the first opportunity and shot either at once or as soon as his leg was mended; yet after the experience they had been through together he had a curious feeling that this would not somehow be quite fair to the man whom he himself had been ready and anxious to shoot the previous afternoon. Von Ziegler was no danger to anyone at the moment, and it seemed to Gregory that until he was in a better state to cheat death, if he could, a sporting chance ought to be given to him and that their personal armistice should continue.
He therefore told the driver that their fall was the result of an accident. He said that they had got out of their car the previous evening but had neglected to put the brakes on before doing so. It had then suddenly run forward and as they had tried to prevent it going over the cliff his friend had been knocked down right at the edge of the precipice; the car had plunged into the abyss and his friend had rolled over the edge, where he had been left hanging by one hand. He had rushed to the rescue but had slipped and so, just as he had grasped his friend's wrist, they had both gone over, but by extraordinary good fortune they had landed on the ledge below.
He knew that with the invasion crisis in full swing neither of the Norwegians would bother to check up the story about the missing car by wasting time looking for its wreckage; and they both accepted his account of the affair in good faith.
Half an hour later they reached the Lillehammer hospital, a fair-sized building with low gabled roofs like those of a Swiss chalet. The place was already crowded with casualties from the affray on the previous day, but extra beds had been put up and Gregory and von Ziegler were accommodated in a small, bright room, facing south, that was normally used as a sitting-room for the nurses. The place was spotlessly clean and the medical attention of the highest quality. A doctor and nurses took charge of them. Von Ziegler's leg was broken and reset under an anaesthetic and Gregory's wrenched shoulder adjusted; then they were put to bed between fresh, clean sheets, with a rosy-cheeked, golden-haired nurse in attendance.
The invasion had actually taken place in the small hours of Tuesday morning and it was now Thursday afternoon, yet to Gregory it seemed weeks since he had been in a comfortable bed without anxieties, so, although it was still early, after a bowl of excellent chicken-broth which satisfied his immediate hunger he dropped off to sleep in a relaxed and contented frame of mind.
They both woke early the following morning and Gregory found that von Ziegler, while still in considerable pain, was well enough to talk, so he told him about the explanation that he had given on the previous day as to how they had become marooned on the ledge of rock and that he had refrained from disclosing the German's real identity.
Von Ziegler expressed his gratitude and said that an occasion might later arise when he could repay Gregory's forbearance, in which case he would certainly do so. In the meantime, it was agreed that their armistice should continue at least until both of them were out of hospital, and to prevent complications the airman said that while he was there he intended to pose as a Swede, since he spoke Swedish fluently and the change of nationality would prevent the checking-up of any awkward questions that he might have to answer about his address and occupation.
After breakfast they asked for news, and before going to fetch them a local paper—which was the only one available— their golden-haired nurse brought them up to date. On the Wednesday many German transports had been sunk in the Kattegat and Skagerrak, but in addition to Oslo, Bergen, Trond-heim and Narvik the Germans had managed to establish themselves at Kristiansand, Stavanger, Egersund and Vallo. There had been a number of air-raids and the industrial district of Porsgrund had been severely bombed. The British and German Fleets had been in action at various points along the Norwegian coast, but no details were yet available except that five British destroyers had steamed into Narvik Fjord against seven German destroyers. One British and one German had been sunk and two British and three German badly damaged, but the British had also succeeded in sinking seven German supply-ships and partially wrecking the quays.
Gregory wondered why, when we had such immense naval superiority, five of our destroyers should be sent in against seven Germans, but even with the odds against them the British seemed to have put up a remarkably good show, as they had evidently gone in to destroy the supply-ships and had had to concentrate their fire upon them before becoming free to return that of the enemy destroyers.
When it arrived the local paper gave further particulars of the events of the previous day. The headline was devoted to the reaffirmation of Norway's rejection of the German demand for a Quisling Government by M. Nygaardsvold, the Norwegian Premier, and the rest of the front page was devoted to King Haakon's escape, the attack on Lillehammer and Mr. Churchill's speech in the British Parliament.
Von Ziegler gave Gregory a translation, and after hearing it he felt that although the British might declare that Hitler's attack on Scandinavia was a fatal strategic blunder the Nazis had carried out the job with amazing speed and efficiency.
Reading between the lines he could make a pretty good guess at what had happened. With brilliant and impudent daring the Germans had sent a squadron, led by the Scharnhorst, right up the coast of Norway.
Immediately the British had learnt of this they had dispatched their battle-fleet north in pursuit with the intention of cutting off the Germans when they turned and made for home. In the meantime, the rest of the German Fleet, in three squadrons, had convoyed their main landing-forces to Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim where they had forced the defences of these three ports and covered the landing operations with their guns.
The British were probably somewhere about half-way up the coast when they received news of this and apparently they had detached a squadron led by the Repulse to follow the Scharnhorst, while their main fleet had turned south again, arriving too late to intercept the Germans there but in time to sink a number of their transports bringing up reinforcements on the following day. The Scharnhorst must have arrived off Narvik at about the time that the other German forces arrived off the more southerly Norwegian ports.