replaced them with the letter. Then I carved her name and address on it with the bayonet and went out into the night. As soon as I was outside the door I could feel the heat. The wind tore at my uniform, the sky above me was a dirty yellow vault and the only thing to be heard above the distant roar of flames was cracking glass and the screams of those who no longer had anywhere to flee. It was more or less how I imagined hell to be. The bombs had stopped falling. I went along a street that was a street no more, just a strip of tarmac running through an open area with heaps of ruins. The only thing left standing in the 'street' was a blackened tree pointing up at the sky with witches'fingers. And a house in flames. That was where the screams were coming from. When I was so close that my lungs were scorched by every breath, I turned and began to walk towards the harbour. That was where she was, the little girl with the terror-stricken black eyes. She pulled at my jacket, screaming her heart out as I passed.
'Meine Mutter! Meine Mutter!'
I continued on my way, there was nothing else I could do. I had already seen a human skeleton standing in the bright flames on the top floor, trapped with one leg on either side of the window ledge. But the girl continued to follow me, screaming her desperate pleas for me to help her mother. I tried to walk faster, but her small child's arms held me, would not let go and I dragged her with me towards the great sea of flames below us. We went on, a strange procession, two people shackled together on our way to extinction.
I wept, yes, I wept, but the tears evaporated as soon as they had come. I don't know which of us it was who stopped but I lifted her up, and I turned, carried her up to the dormitory and wrapped my blanket round her. Then I took the mattresses from the other beds and lay down beside her on the floor.
I never found out her name, or what happened to her, because she disappeared during the night. But I know she saved my life. I took the decision to hope.
I awoke to a dying city. Several of the fires were still ablaze, the harbour buildings were razed to the ground and the boats which had come with provisions or to evacuate the wounded stayed out in the Auflenalster, unable to dock.
It was evening before the crew had cleared a place where they could load and unload, and I hurried over. I went from boat to boat until I found what I was looking for-passage to Norway. The ship was called Anna and was taking cement to Trondheim. The destination suited me well since I didn't imagine that the search papers would have been sent there. Chaos had taken over from the usual German order, and the lines of command were, to put it mildly, confused. The SS on my collar seemed to create a certain impression, and I had no problem getting on board and persuading the captain that the orders I showed him implied that I had to find my way to Oslo via the most direct route possible. Under the prevailing circumstances, that meant on Anna to Trondheim and from there by train to Oslo.
The journey took three days. I walked off the boat, showed my papers and was waved on. Then I boarded a train for Oslo. The whole trip took four days. Before getting off the train I went to the toilet and put on the clothes I had taken from Christopher Brockhard. Then I was ready for the first test. I walked up Karl Johans gate. It was warm and drizzling. Two girls came towards me, arm in arm, and giggled loudly as I passed them. The inferno in Hamburg seemed light-years away. My heart rejoiced. I was back in my beloved country and I was reborn for a second time.
The receptionist in the Continental Hotel scrutinised my ID papers before looking at me over his glasses.
'Welcome to the Continental Hotel, herr Fauke.'
And as I lay on my back in bed in the yellow hotel room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the city outside, I tried out our new name on my tongue, Sindre Fauke. It was unfamiliar, but I realised that it might, it could, work.
Nordmarka. 12 July 1944.
… a man called Even Juul. He seems to have swallowed my story whole, like the other Home Front men. And why shouldn't they, anyway? The truth-that I fought at the Eastern Front and am wanted for murder -would be even harder to swallow than my deserting and returning to Norway via Sweden. They have checked their information with their sources and have received confirmation that a person by the name of Sindre Fauke was reported missing, probably a defection to the Russians. The Germans have order in their systems!
I speak fairly standard Norwegian, a result of my having grown up in the USA, I imagine, and no one notices that as Sindre Fauke I have quickly got rid of my Gudbrandsdal dialect. I come from a tiny place in Norway, but even if someone I met in my youth (Youth! My God, it was only three years ago and yet a whole lifetime away) were to turn up I am positive they would not recognise me. I feel so totally different.
What I am much more frightened of is that someone should turn up who knows the real Sindre Fauke. Fortunately, he comes from an even more isolated place than I, if that is possible, but of course he has relatives who could identify him.
I walk around chewing on these things, and my surprise was therefore immense when today they gave me orders to liquidate one of my own (Fauke's) Nasjonal Samling brothers. It is supposed to test whether I have really changed sides or whether I'm an infiltrator. Daniel and I almost burst out laughing-it is as if we had discovered the idea ourselves. They actually asked me to get rid of the people who could blow the whistle on me! I'm well aware the leaders of these pretend-soldiers thought that fratricide was going a bit far, unaccustomed as they are here in these safe forests to the brutality of war. But I have decided to take them at their word before they change their minds. As soon as it is dark I will go down to the town and pick up my gun, which is hidden with my uniform in the left-luggage locker at the station, and take the same night train as I arrived on. I know the name of the closest village to the Faukes' farm, so I have only to ask…
Oslo. 13 May 1945.
Another strange day. The country is still high on liberation fever, and today Crown Prince Olav arrived in Oslo with a government delegation. I could not be bothered to go to the harbour to see, but I heard that 'half Oslo was gathered there. I walked up Karl Johans gate in civilian clothes today even though my 'soldier friends' cannot understand why I do not want to strut around in the Resistance uniform and be given the hero's welcome. It's supposed to be a huge turn-on for young women at the moment. Women and uniforms-if I'm not mistaken they used to love running after the green uniforms in 1940 just the same.
I went up to the Palace to see if the Crown Prince would show himself on the balcony and say a few words. Many more had gathered there too. The guards were changing when I appeared. A pathetic display by German standards, but people were cheering.
I have hopes that the Crown Prince will pour cold water on these so-called good Norwegians who have been sitting like passive spectators for five years without lifting a finger for either side and are now screaming for revenge on the traitors. In fact, I think Crown Prince Olav can understand us as, if the rumours are true, he was the only one out of the King and government who, by offering to remain with Norwegians and share their fate, showed a bit of spine during the capitulation. But the government advised against it. They knew very well that it would put them and the King in a very peculiar light, leaving him in Norway while they themselves made a run for it.
Yes, I have hopes that the young Crown Prince (who unlike the 'latter-day saints' knows how to wear a uniform) can explain to the nation what the soldiers on the Eastern Front achieved, especially since he has seen for himself the danger the Bolsheviks in the east posed (and still do) for our nation. Back in early 1942, as we were preparing to be posted to the Eastern Front, the Crown Prince is said to have had talks with President Roosevelt and expressed concern about the Russians' plans for Norway.
There was some flag-waving, a few songs, and I have never seen the trees greener. But the Crown Prince did not come out on the balcony today. So I will just have to arm myself with patience.
'They've just rung from Vienna. The prints are identical.'
Weber stood in the doorway to the sitting room.
'Fine,' Harry said with an absent nod, immersed in his reading.
'Someone has thrown up in the bin,' Weber said. 'Someone who is very sick. There's more blood than vomit.'
Harry licked his thumb and turned over the next page. 'Right.'
Silence.
'If there's anything else I can help with…'
'Thanks very much, Weber, but that was it.'
Weber inclined his head, but didn't move.
