Free The Blue Ice by Hammond; Innes Page A

face. Jorgensen. Before the war I was fit and happy. I had a wife and a business. I was on top of the world.’ He sighed and sank back against his pillow. ‘That was before the war. It seems a long time ago now. My interests were shipping. I had a fleet of coasters and four tankers that supplied Det Norske Staalselskab. Then Norway was invaded. The tankers I ordered to British ports. Some of the coasters were sunk and a few got away, but the bulk of the fleet continued to operate. And whilst Jorgensen was entertaining the German commanders in Oslo I worked for the liberation of my country. My house at Alverstrummen was a refuge for British agents. My offices in Bergen became a clearing house for boys slipping out of the country. Then suddenly my house was raided. A British agent was captured. I was arrested and imprisoned in Bergen. That was not so bad. My wife could come and see me and I passed the time binding books. But then the Germans drafted us for forced labour. I was sent to Finse. The Germans planned to build an aerodrome on top of the Jökulen. Did you ever hear of that monumental piece of German folly?’
    â€˜Jorgensen mentioned it to me—’ I began.
    â€˜Jorgensen!’ he exclaimed. ‘What does Jorgensen know about it? He was much too clever.’
    He leaned out of his bunk and got a cigarette from his jacket pocket. I lit it for him. He took several quick puffs. His fingers shook. The man was wrought up. He was talking to steady himself. And I listened because this was the first time I’d got him talking and up there at Finse he had met George Farnell.
    â€˜So you didn’t know about the Jökulen project? Nobody in England seems to have heard about it. So many strange things happen in a war and only a few people outside the countries where they happen ever hear about them. In Norway everybody knows about the Germans and the Jökulen. It is a big joke.’ He paused and then added, ‘But it was not a joke for those who had to work on it.’ He leaned over towards me and grabbed at my arm. ‘Do you know the height of the Jökulen?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜It is the highest point on the Hardangervidda. It is 1,876 metres high – a glacier, perpetually covered by snow. They were crazy. They thought they could make an airfield up there. The snow was blown into waves by the wind. They drove tractors with heavy iron rollers up to the top. And when they found circular rollers packed the snow up in front of them, they made octagonal rollers. There were crevasses. They tried filling them with sawdust. Oh, it is a hell of a fine joke. But we had to work up there and in the winter on the Jökulen there is sometimes as much as fifty degrees of frost.’ He had been talking fast. Now he suddenly leaned back against the pillow and shut his eyes. ‘Do you know how old I am, Mr Gansert?’
    It was impossible to put an age on him. ‘No,’ I said.
    â€˜Just over sixty,’ he said. ‘I was fifty-four then. And I’d never have come down from Finse but for Bernt Olsen. He got six of us away. Packed us into aero engine crates – the Germans were testing engines under ice conditions up by Finse Lake. From Bergen the resistance people got us away to the island of Fedje by boat. And a few days later we were taken off by a British M.T.B.’
    It was an incredible story. I suppose he noticed my surprise, for he said, ‘This came later.’ He indicated the withered arm. ‘After I got to England. Delayed reaction. Paralysis. My wife died that year I was at Finse.’ He struggled on to his elbow. ‘All that, Mr Gansert, because Jorgensen wanted my shipping fleet. It was a family business started by my father. After my arrest the Germans confiscated it. Jorgensen formed a company and bought it from them. And you ask why do I hate the man.’ He lay back as though exhausted, drawing on the cigarette. ‘Remember