'Well, yes, but Captain Cartwright wants some of our own troops up there.' He paused. 'I say, you haven't got a cigarette, have you, Sergeant?' He patted his pockets. 'I seem to be out.'
Tanner sighed inwardly, and handed over his Woodbines. 'I've three left, sir. Be my guest. Think I'll have one too.' The whine of a shell, followed by another in quick succession, whooshed overhead, the echo resounding through the valley. Dingwall flinched, but both men remained standing. The shells exploded some distance behind them. Tanner handed the lieutenant his matches and watched as Dingwall lit his cigarette, fingers shaking.
'About that fighting patrol, sir,' said Tanner, as he exhaled a curling cloud of blue-grey smoke.
'Yes. I want you to take it, Sergeant.'
'Two sections?'
'Not that many. Fourteen. One section and three others, not including yourself. I've been told to keep at least two whole sections here.'
Fourteen men, thought Tanner. Jesus. It wasn't a lot. He drew on his cigarette again, then said, 'I'd like to take Sykes's section, sir, if I may. Shall I take the other three from Platoon HQ?'
'Yes. I'll keep the mortar team here. You can have Hepworth, Garraby and Kershaw.'
Tanner took another drag of his cigarette, then flicked it away. 'Right, sir. Better get going.'
'Just have a look around up there, all right? If you see anything, only open fire if you really think you can hold them up. I need you all back here in the platoon . . . Look, I think we both know we won't be staying here very long. If for any reason we have to move out, it'll be along the valley, and I'm only guessing, I'm afraid, but you might be able to make some ground across here where the river loops westwards, then back towards Tretten. Here.' He gave Tanner a hand-drawn map. 'It's the best I can do, I'm afraid. Another thing we're short of - decent maps.'
'Thank you, sir.'
Dingwall held out his hand. 'Good luck, Sergeant.'
'And you, sir.'
The lieutenant hesitated again, then looked at the ribbon on Tanner's chest. 'I - I've been meaning to ask. Your MM. What were you given it for?'
Tanner shrugged bashfully. 'Oh, you know how it is with gongs, sir,' he said, then realized that, of course, the lieutenant had no idea. He kicked at the ground. 'It was during the Loe Agra campaign a few years back. On the North West Frontier. Those jokers weren't as well armed as the Germans, but they were vicious buggers all the same. Had rifles but bloody great swords and all sorts as well. Those wazirs would slice your belly open without a second thought, give them half a chance.'
'It must have taught you a lot, Sergeant.'
Tanner nodded. 'I suppose so, sir.'
'I envy you that experience. I'm sure it's the best training there is. Oh, and I heard about what you did today,' he added. 'You want to watch it, Tanner. They'll be giving you another bit of ribbon if you're not careful.'
Ten minutes later, Tanner and his patrol were on their way, climbing through the snow and trees round the north-west side of the Balberkamp. The slopes were steep and the men soon gasped for breath. Lack of sleep and food hardly helped. Nor did the weight of their equipment. Tanner had insisted that each man repack his kit, as he had done himself the night before. He had ordered them to discard any non-essentials and replace them with extra rounds of .303 and Bren ammunition. Gas masks were put to one side, as were items of personal kit. As Tanner pointed out, there were large differences between what had been drummed in to them during peacetime and what was practical in war. Most wore their greatcoats so that their large packs could be left behind, but Tanner carried his, full of rounds and explosives, with his haversack on his hip. He had with him around sixty pounds of kit.
The men had grumbled, and they grumbled again now as they forced their way up the mountainside, but Tanner knew it was not his job to be popular. His task was to lead by example and to inspire trust. Being a tough bastard was what mattered, not making friends. The ribbon on his tunic helped, and he was glad of it because it marked him out, giving him an automatic degree of authority and respect. It had made his life easier since he had joined the battalion. Now, though, he was about to be properly tested. Battle was about to be joined. His mouth felt dry and cloying as it always did before a fight. Earlier, at the station yard, he'd hardly had time to think, but now, in expectation of the German attack, he felt on edge and irritable, his mood worsened by his run-ins with Captain Webb and the Frenchman.
He wondered what they would find up on the slopes. In his own mind, it seemed rather pointless for the Germans to try to outflank their position from the mountains when they could attack head-on with artillery and armour and achieve the same result; the Allies would not be standing firm for long, of that he was sure. But there were always rumours in war - some turned out to be true, many more proved false. He supposed it was the commander's job to decide which was worth taking seriously. At any rate, someone had considered the threat of an attack by enemy mountain troops to be real enough.
No matter, he and his fourteen men were now cut adrift from the rest of the platoon and, indeed, the entire company and battalion. His gut instinct was that they would not be rejoining them for some time. He had no radio link, only a hand-drawn map, and no easy route back to the valley. His only means of signalling Lieutenant Dingwall was a Very pistol and three flares, only to be fired if they spotted significant numbers of German troops. But the lieutenant had no way of contacting him: if the battalion was overrun, he could not let Tanner know. And if they fell back, there was no guarantee that Tanner would be able to get as far as Tretten before the Allies had passed through.
Two of the Bren group stopped, exhaustion written across their faces.
'Come on, you idle sods,' Tanner chided.
'Give them a break, Sarge,' said Lance Corporal Erwood, the Bren group leader.
'Stop grumbling and get on with it,' said Tanner. 'Here, give me that.' He took the Bren off Saxby, clasping it by the wooden grip on the barrel. The machine-gun was certainly heavy, but he knew they needed to reach the open plateau at the top of the mountain as soon as possible, and that if he allowed them to stop now, they would only have to stop again.
Several Junkers thundered down the valley, and from where Tanner stood it seemed as though he were looking down on them. All the men halted, as bombs dropped from the planes directly over B Company's positions. First the whistle of falling iron and explosives; then the spurts of flame and clouds of smoke, earth, wood and stone mushrooming across the entire position. A moment later, the report, cracking and echoing off the mountainside.
'All right, let's move,' said Tanner. The knot tightened in his stomach. He almost wished he could meet some Germans now. It would take his mind off things.
Chapter 4
In a large room on the top floor of the Bristol Hotel in Oslo, three men sat round a small, low table. Although it was afternoon and the sky outside for the most part clear, the room was quite dark where they sat. In the far corner away from the windows a lamp cast a circle of amber light towards the ceiling, but it remained a room of shadows.
It was also a room of refined good taste, part of the largest suite in the hotel, requisitioned by the newly arrived Reichskommissar. The carpet was finely woven, the shallow wainscoting painted a flawless cream. The furniture was elegant, a mixture of French and Scandinavian, while the paintings on the wall spoke of an idyllic rural Europe several hundred years before. Admittedly the Reichskommissar had only arrived that morning, but nothing about the room suggested it was inhabited by the most powerful German in Norway: there were no flags, no busts or pictures of Hitler, no army of staff scurrying in and out.