Vengeance 10

Afterwards, when the girl had fallen asleep, Bethwig got out of the bed and covered her with the eiderdown. He stood a moment, studying her face, then found his cigarettes, filled a large tumbler with brandy, and went through to the bath. Lighting a cigarette, he eased himself into the hot water. Trying to concentrate on Inge, he discovered he was too emotionally exhausted. He took a deep pull at the brandy and then a second, half emptying the glass.

Franz Bethwig was certainly not a virgin; he was far too attractive and personable for that. Inexperienced perhaps; but even so, there had been affairs, and once he had nearly married. He supposed the sum total of those experiences must have taught him something about lust, if not about love. And then there was the contribution of the party to the health and welfare of the German people, or so the joke ran: the promotion of free love — as long as you were a party member. A perk, one might say.

But never had he been subjected to an emotional assault like this evening’s. No one had ever done those things to him nor, literally, begged him to do them to her. And it had all been so free, so natural: Bethwig shook his head. He did not want this; she was a cripple, a mental cripple. He could not afford such an affair. And she belonged to the SS. How in the name of God could he cope with that?

The bathwater had cooled, and the brandy was gone. He got out, dried himself slowly, and returned to the bedroom. The night was warm, and in her sleep Inge had thrown off the eiderdown. A pale moon had risen and was shining fitfully through the curtains, touching her body here and there with silver. Bethwig drew the curtains open and returned to the bed, entranced with the vision. For a moment he had an inkling of the power that drove men to kill for a woman’s body.

Thinking of the soft presence beside him and the brief gleam of insanity he had glimpsed twice now in Heydrich’s eyes, Bethwig slept little that night.

Norway-England April 1942

Lieutenant Jan Memling crouched behind the pilings of a warehouse, spooning tasteless rations from a tin. A frigid wind flung spatters of rain, and his sergeant cursed. The fjord fled into the fog less than half a mile from where they were sheltering. Beyond that, he thought, anything could be happening. Rumour had it that a German destroyer was on its way from Bergen, but rumours weren’t worth a damn. He dug the last of the pasty mess from the can, licked the spoon, and slipped it into the light pack lying beside him. Memling then turned the tin this way and that, trying to read the scratched label in the failing light. It was impossible to know what he had eaten from its taste alone.

They had landed shortly before noon, in full daylight. A diversion, they had been told. ‘Need someone to distract Jerry’s attention while we drop a load of paratroops up on the plateau. Very important job, hush-hush. Wizards tell us there’s a big hydroelectric plant at Rjukan the Nazi needs.’

Their target village was defended by a small army detachment that had grown a bit soft with garrison duty, or so they had been informed. No one, it turned out, had so informed the Germans.

His section had been targeted on the wireless facility, which intelligence had pinpointed in the local school, a single-storey redbrick affair that looked very much like an English village school. It stood on the highest point in town, barring the mountains rising almost vertically from the fjord, and so was a logical choice. Apparently the Germans thought so as well, and no one had checked the information with MILORG, the Norwegian resistance organisation.

Memling had realised there was no radio in the building as soon as the door was kicked in. An elderly teacher and fifteen or so students had stared at them in wide-eyed fright. Ten vital minutes had been wasted before the radio was located in the town hall and destroyed, by which time every German garrison in central Norway had been notified.

The wireless set rattled and the sergeant major took the headset from the operator and pressed it to his ear, muttered something in reply, and shook his head.

‘Captain says to watch along the northern road. They’ve picked up something about SS troops coming down from Hergen.’

Memling nodded and went on staring out over the empty fjord. If he were the German commander charged with ousting a bunch of bastards from a tiny pinprick of a town that made absolutely no difference to anyone but the people who lived there, that is exactly what he would want them to think. In the meantime he would be doing his level best to bring his troops up by boat, especially now that he had the fog for cover. Norway’s west coast was long on water and boats, short on roads and vehicles.

‘Well?’ the sergeant major demanded.

‘Bugger the road. If they’re coming … ‘ Memling waved a hand at the fjord.