The Odin Mission

'Lieutenant Larsen, also a member of His Majesty the King's Guard,' said the younger man, in heavily accented English. 'He has gone to find somewhere for us to hole up. Our colonel needs help.'

Tanner signalled to his men, then clambered down from the rock. 'Me and my men are from the 5th Battalion, the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers,' he told them. 'That makes us allies. I'm Sergeant Tanner.'

'And I am Lieutenant Nielssen,' replied the blond officer.

Tanner looked at the colonel. 'Is it bad?'

'A splinter in his side,' Nielssen told him. 'He's lost a lot of blood. We were attacked an hour ago. The stupid German missed us, but a shard of wood from a tree struck the colonel.'

'We saw the attack,' said Tanner, kneeling beside Gulbrand and pulling out another twin pack of field dressings. 'He was more successful firing at us. Two dead.'

'I'm sorry,' said Nielssen. Tanner was conscious of a tapping sound and turned to see the civilian clicking together two small stones. The man looked exhausted, with dark hollows around his spectacled eyes and an unkempt moustache and grey stubble around his lined face. Seeing Tanner's glance, he stopped tapping the stones, dropping them by his side into the snow.

'And who are you?' asked Tanner, as he tore open the cotton and ripped off the waterproof covering around each of the dressings.

'Someone we are escorting,' said Gulbrand hoarsely before the other could answer.

Tanner nodded. You don't want to tell me. Fine. It wasn't his business. 'Is the shard still inside?' he asked.

Gulbrand nodded. 'Yes.' He grimaced, then opened his coat and tunic. His shirt was almost entirely red and glistened stickily. With clenched teeth, he lifted it free. Tanner inspected the wound. The blood was bright crimson. The tip of the shard protruded from the colonel's side. Tanner rubbed his face. Tiredness. It was catching up with him again.

'What do you think?' asked Gulbrand, his English near flawless.

'That it's embedded in your liver, Colonel,' said Tanner.

'I think you're right.' He took a sudden sharp breath and winced.

'I can't pull it out,' said Tanner, still peering at the wound. 'Do that and you'll bleed to death in about ten minutes.'

'He needs a hospital,' said Lieutenant Nielssen, 'an operation, and soon.'

'Easier said than done, mate,' said Corporal Sykes, now standing over Tanner.

'What about Lillehammer?' said Nielssen. 'Two of your men could take him.'

'Two of our men?' said Sykes. 'Are you having a laugh? Even if they made it back down the mountain, they'd walk straight into Jerry hands. Lillehammer's fallen, if you hadn't already noticed.'

'I know - we saw earlier ... But they would save the life of the colonel.'

'If you're so bloody keen, why don't you two take him?'

'Shut your trap, Stan,' growled Tanner. 'You're not helping.' He turned to Gulbrand. 'Colonel, it's a bad wound. I'm sorry. Your lieutenant's right. You need a hospital.' He delved into his haversack again and produced a small tube of gentian violet antiseptic ointment. 'I don't carry much first aid, but this should help prevent infection.' He gingerly pasted the cream over the wound, then placed the dressings over it. Gulbrand cried out, but Tanner took another packet from Sykes, tore it open and wrapped more bandages round the colonel's waist. 'Why can't your men take you to Lillehammer, Colonel?' he asked. 'The fighting's going to be over soon. Better to live and fight another day, eh?'

'They can't,' Gulbrand gasped. 'It's impossible.'

'Why?'

Gulbrand stared hard at him, but did not answer.

Instead he said, 'Tell me, Sergeant, what are you doing up here?'

Tanner told him, then added, 'But now we need to get a move on. The front's fallen back this afternoon. I'm damned if I'm going to let us get stranded.'

'We're holding you up. I'm sorry.'

'But you're natives, sir. We help you, you can help us. We desperately need a map, and someone who speaks Norwegian would be useful.' He noticed that the sounds of battle from the valley had quietened. An occasional aircraft, desultory shellfire, that was all. Had the Allies fallen back yet again? 'And what about you, sir?' he asked Gulbrand. 'Why are you up here?'

Gulbrand closed his eyes. 'It's a long story.'

Tanner was about to ask him more when Lieutenant Larsen appeared. He had found a seter, a mountain hut used by herdsmen and shepherds during the summer, not far away. It would offer them shelter.

'We'll help get you there,' said Tanner, 'but then my men and I must push on. Put your arm round my neck,' he told the colonel. He glanced once more at the strange civilian. The man was gazing out through the trees, seemingly in a world of his own. Tanner called over to Sykes. 'Here, Stan, give me a hand, will you?' They lifted Gulbrand. 'Can you walk?' Tanner asked.

'With your help, I'm sure.'

The civilian now awkwardly got to his feet and with enormous effort, slung his pack on to his back, and then staggered a pace or two, so that Tanner thought he might fall over backwards. 'Does he speak English?' Tanner asked Gulbrand, he was conscious he had not heard the man utter a word.

'Yes. Almost everyone does in Oslo and the coastal cities. It's only inland that you will struggle to be understood.'

Tanner turned to the man. 'Carry the colonel's pack, will you? Come on, we need all the help we can get.'

The man smiled sheepishly then pulled it on to his shoulder, faltering as he did so.

Reichsamtsleiter Hans-Wilhelm Scheidt sat at his desk in his rooms at the Continental Hotel, the black telephone receiver to his ear. Anger surged through him as he listened to Sturmbannfuhrer Paul Kurz's latest report - rage fuelled, he knew, by his mounting fear of failure. Damn it, Terboven was not a man to mess with, and only a couple of hours after his meeting with the new Reichskommissar, Kurz was on the line telling him that the most important man in his life had narrowly missed getting a 20mm cannon shell through his guts.

'For God's sake, Kurz, that's the second time one of those flyboys has nearly killed him. We were fortunate he survived the last one. It might be third time lucky for those idiots and then where will we be? We need him alive, Kurz, not spread over some bastard mountain.'

'Calm down, Scheidt,' said Kurz, from his newly requisitioned office in Lillehammer. 'We've just heard. They got the colonel, and seriously too. Even if he doesn't die of his wound - and the odds are that he will - he's out of the picture, as far as they're concerned. Odin is as good as in our hands already.'

'Only if the Allies haven't got him before you reach him,' snarled Scheidt. 'Now, do what you're supposed to do, Kurz, and tell that idiot Geisler to stop his pilots attacking those men.'

Scheidt had heard the panic in his voice and so had Kurz. 'Don't try to tell me my job, Herr Schcidt.' Kurz told him flatly.

'Listen,' fumed Scheidt, 'you do your job and you won't hear me complaining. But if anything happens to Odin before we've had the chance to get the information from him neither you nor I will have a career, let alone a life. Now, you're the SD man here - start using your influence and get Geisler's boys to keep away from them.'

'Stop worrying,' said Kurz. 'We'll find them soon enough. They're not going to get very far up there.'

'That's just not good enough!' Scheidt exploded. 'For Christ's sake, so far you've let them slip through your hands once, and twice nearly had them shot to smithereens by the Luftwaffe. Don't tell me to calm down - tell me what you're doing to find Odin. What troops have you got for the operation? Tell me they're already tracking them down. Damn it, Sturmbannfuhrer, why the hell am I having to ask you all this? Tell me something that gives me confidence - something that makes me believe you're actually trying to get to this man.'