“Just swing yourself around,” Nordstrum instructed. “Put your right foot on that ledge—yes, that one.… Then all you have to do is reach up and grab on to here.”
His fingers straining, Pedersen sucked in a breath and nodded. “Okay.” It was not that he was afraid of heights—he had jumped out of a plane many times and he could ski the steepest slopes tirelessly. And he was also a man of enormous bravery. To have come all this way, braved the elements, to be within an arm’s reach of their goal, and then to falter, to let down his mates—it all seemed to give him renewed determination. “I’m coming.”
Feeling along the rock with one hand, he desperately tried to locate some sparse growth to wrap his fingers around. He got his foot to the stable nook Nordstrum had pointed out.
“That’s good, Olf. You’re almost there.”
At first it slipped off, and everyone expected the worst. A wrong move and he would plummet to the bottom of the rocks.
“Olf, come on,” Nordstrum said, meeting his eyes firmly.
Pedersen took in a breath, locked on Nordstrum. “All right.”
At last finding the courage to take a step with his full weight, he transferred himself over, beads of sweat pouring down his face. He hoisted himself up, fingers straining for the sparse clump of pine needles Nordstrum had pointed out, and pushed on his feet and grabbed on.
The clump held.
“Ha.” Pedersen gave out a kind of fatalistic laugh, blowing out his cheeks. “Got it now. Thanks, Kurt.”
“You’re in luck, the slope levels out up here,” Gutterson called from a few feet above them. “It’s much easier.”
“And just when you were getting the hang of it, huh, Olf?” Nordstrum gave Pedersen a smile.
One by one they crawled up to where Gutterson was resting, Nordstrum remaining behind if anyone needed help. Remembering their training, they kept their sights straight ahead of them and upward to their only goal—the shelf of rock perched above them where the railway tracks led—not backward, to the gorge, where the icy river was now merely a thin ribbon of white cutting through the canyon’s walls. And as, step by step, they began to climb the rest of the way, the wind suddenly picked up. The thought passed through everyone’s mind just how lucky they had been. A few minutes earlier, on the sheerest face, a gust like that would have surely swept them off the ledge to certain deaths.
It took an hour. Inch by hard-fought inch. The last hundred feet, Nordstrum’s fingers were bloody and his arms felt as heavy as rocks just to thrust one forward. He had to will himself to continue to push each boot up one more step, his gaze fastened up ahead, so tempting was it to stop, let out an exhausted breath, and look down.
One by one they finally all crawled up to the top of the ledge, the ones before helping the next in line. Even Olf, who rolled over it with an exhausted sigh, gasping, laughing, seemingly amazed he was alive. For a few minutes, they sat there in the snow, spent, almost numb, letting their lungs recover and contemplating, for the first time, as they finally looked down at the tiny river below them, what they had accomplished.
“Here,” Nordstrum said, handing Pedersen back his tommy. “You’ll be needing this.”
“Thanks, Kurt.” He gave Nordstrum a grateful nod.
For a while they all just sucked in air, ate a few bites of chocolate and dried fruit, recovering their strength. It was a few minutes after eleven. The steady churning of the massive turbines was louder now, as if it literally shook the rock shelf they were on.
And the danger now was no longer the climb or the elements, but, for the first time since they came back to Norway, the Germans.
37
The night had turned cold and blustery. Around them, tracks in the snow were visible where German patrols had trekked recently. Though not even the most thorough defender could have imagined a threat coming from the incline over the gorge.
“Let’s get closer.” Ronneberg rallied them together as soon as they’d regained their strength. “Covering team, you take the lead. If we encounter mines, whoever is left has to shoot their way into the plant and carry out the mission. Are we all agreed?”
This time, it wasn’t so much a collective yes as it was just everyone standing up and strapping on their weapons and packs with a nod.
“All right, let’s go then.”
Joaquim Poulsson, who was in charge of the covering team, headed out along the tracks, followed closely behind by Helberg, Gutterson, Storhaug, Pedersen, and Arne Kjelstrup.
Ronneberg waved Nordstrum forward. “Demolition team…”
Slinging the explosives over his shoulder, Nordstrum and the rest fell in line.
They scampered along the rail tracks toward the noise. The constant whooshing and shuddering of the plant’s dynamos again gave the sense that the entire ledge they were on was shaking, and drowned out any noise they made. They were only a few hundred yards from the target, with a detachment of enemy soldiers waiting for a mine or a tripwire to engage them, yet Nordstrum detected not a scintilla of hesitation or fear in any of the group.
The only German guards visible were the two sentries patrolling the suspension bridge far below, searchlights fanning the valley.
In fact, they were the first actual Germans any of them had seen on the mission. Nordstrum couldn’t help but think that not far away, the people of Rjukan, family to some here, were in their beds asleep, with no idea that only a mile or so away their sons and brothers were back, lugging enough firepower to blow up half the mountain, about to put their lives at risk for a threat no one here knew existed.
It was enough to make him shake his head and laugh.
“What?” Ronneberg asked from behind him.
Nordstrum just smiled. “Nothing.”
The night had become dark, with no moon. A strong southwest wind beat into their faces, but it also pushed back any noise they made. In a crouch, they followed the railway tracks up the hill. Poulsson, a few yards out in front, came upon a path alongside the tracks, which they assumed was for authorized personnel and therefore wouldn’t be mined. Ahead, the plant’s massive two buildings grew closer. At half an hour before midnight, they came upon a shack. A transformer station, maybe five hundred yards away from the back gate. Empty.
Ronneberg put up his hand. “Let’s wait here for the change of sentries.”
With Helberg and Stromsheim keeping watch, the rest took cover, taking off their packs, unwrapping a sliver of chocolate. They knew that a short distance away, fifteen to twenty German soldiers were playing cards or huddling by the stove to keep warm, ready to engage them at any false move or the sound of an alarm.
Yet the mood remained surprisingly relaxed. Helberg directed Gutterson’s attention to a series of lights on the far side of the valley. “My cousin’s house is right over there. In Vaer.” He pointed. “You see the two lights?”
“Underneath that ridge?” He used the Norwegian word, mone.