The Legion of the Lost, стр. 7
‘You may sleep in safety and comfort,’ Martin assured them. ‘Goodnight, please!’ said Olaf, from the door. They called goodnight. When the door closed they regarded one another in strained silence until Brian exclaimed: ‘Why is it that we never get used to it? The more we see the worse it gets!’
‘The longer it lasts the worse it is,’ said Palfrey quietly. ‘At least we’re doing all we can.’
It was a platitude which had little effect on Brian. All of them lay awake – they had not removed their clothes – close together on three of the palliasses. Palfrey thought that Brian went to sleep first, although Drusilla was soon breathing deeply and evenly.
Then he, too, slept.
For the next twenty-four hours he had an increasing feeling of frustration and impotency.
The friendly folk he met, all risking their lives and yet all absolutely trustworthy and prepared to sacrifice every comfort and possession to help the English, were all sad-eyed; all seemed driven by an inward urge which was stronger even than their physical powers. Pastor Martin typified them. Made hard by constant labour, even the poor food which they were allowed by their German masters did not seem to seriously affect their strength. Amongst themselves and with the English party they were cheerful and eager, but when others were seen standing in small groups – always broken up by shouts from Nazi soldiers, once by a thump across the shoulders of a man who must have been nearly seventy – they were outwardly sullen and inwardly raging.
Certainly they were ripe for revolt; the tragedy was that the revolt had to be postponed, at least until the Allies could bring more than moral support to uphold it.
The village – or small town – of Valle was new to Palfrey; and in its present guise new to Stefan, whom they met on the outskirts of the place with Conroy, both of them in a small hut used by a farmer, who did his best to wrest a livelihood from the poor soil.
To the west were large wooden buildings; the drone of machinery came from them all the time. Once, from the door of the hut, Palfrey saw the old men and women streaming to their forced labour at the factory. The Norwegian who had brought them in his creaking cart from Rokn had little to say – he was the grimmest man they had yet met. He hardly spoke and left them soon after they had arrived; but, as Stefan and Conroy were there, little was thought of the man’s surliness – if ‘surly’ were the word, Palfrey mused.
Conroy, short, well-knit, with a dark-skinned face and black hair, looked out of place in Valle amongst the tall, fair Norsemen, but there were others who had been drafted to Norway, and he was not noticeably different from many people in the crowds which thronged to the factory. Palfrey was further amazed by the fact that there was no great attempt at secrecy. No one inquired who they were, everyone assumed that they were new workers drafted in from other countries. The Germans did not question them, although they had papers which covered them and which would have explained, ostensibly, their mission in Norway. The absolute lack of interest was the most surprising thing.
Others agreed with Pastor Martin; the best time to travel was by day. By night the terror spread. Palfrey began to understand that it was fear of the night which obsessed these people; and he saw that the haunted expression was in the eyes of the women and the girls perhaps more than the men.
There was a strange atmosphere, not sullen but bitter. It was electrical, like a storm which was holding itself in suppression but ready to burst with enormous violence at a given moment. It was in the eyes and the demeanour of the people. It was in the Nazis, too, who walked in groups of three or four. Never once at Valle, nor on the way from there to Nisseda, a similar place, nor in Skien, a somewhat larger town of modern buildings and old ones cheek-byjowl, did he see a Nazi soldier alone. Once he passed a camp, wired off from the rest of the country, with perhaps a dozen small huts in one corner. A few scarecrow-like men and women were by the wires, begging piteously for food and money. The guards in the camp seemed to ignore them, as if they knew that there was no one with anything to spare.
At Skien they boarded a train where, for the first time, officials examined their papers; it was but a cursory examination, the paunchy German who looked at them appeared to be too tired to worry much about it. Palfrey saw five Nazi soldiers, oldish men, grey and haggard, being led away under guard to a carriage further up the train. There was the menace of death over the occupying Germans; Palfrey, who had not dreamed that he would find it so far north, felt a great hopefulness.
Stefan and Conroy had travelled in a different part of the train, and had not waited for Palfrey and the others. The latter party walked briskly enough; few people looked at them; those who did glanced quickly away when they were seen. On the walls of many of the buildings were great patches of black paint where slogans and defiant signs had been written and then painted over.
Oslo breathed defiance even in the orderliness of its behaviour.
Near the station was a small side-turning which had once been Harkenstrasse and had become Libstrasse, the new name sign had been hastily written in red paint.
It was quiet, there.
In the café at 18 Libstrasse, they had their next appointment with active agents of the Marquis.
Stefan and Conroy had already arrived.
Conroy was subdued because his Norwegian was limited and he