After the Mountain Fight

(Source)

They went back down the mountain, carrying their wounded, once again the dead were left behind. None of the men were willing to go into the destroyed panzers to remove the dead crewmen. Hartknoch understood and told Jürgen to leave them be.

"The burial parties will be up eventually. The dead are dead, it remains for the living to carry on." Hartknoch looked back to where the dead were lined up, wrapped in their blankets, anonymous now, their steel shod boots protruding forlornly. "It breaks my heart Junge, but it's war. It's terrible and people die. But it bothers me."

"How is your leg Oberfeldwebel?" Jürgen asked, more to change the subject than anything.

"I'll live, the Sani¹ says one of the small bones in my lower leg is broken, apparently the bullet clipped it as it went through. It hurts like Hell, but what can I do? It'll mend. What won't mend is seeing our boys die, and for what? To chase off these reservists who harass us in the hills? We didn't even get a prisoner!" Hartknoch spat towards the edge of the road.

"We did get some paperwork off one of the dead Norwegians, a sergeant I think. So we know the unit, we can also surmise that there was only one weak company in this area, we killed or captured most of them in the village when they ambushed us." Jürgen checked the position of the sun, he wanted to leave, and soon.

Hartknoch noticed, "Yes, it's getting late, let's get moving." Turning to two soldiers nearby he yelled out, "Hey you two, come give me a hand getting down the hill. You wouldn't leave your old Oberfeldwebel up here would you?"

Hartknoch looked back at the dead once more, it was only then that he noticed that the men had wrapped the two dead Norwegians in their greatcoats and had laid them not far from their German enemies. He was somewhat disturbed that the men had thought to keep the dead Norwegians separate. "Even in death they are separated by the uniforms they wear, nothing else," he muttered as the two men helped him to his feet.

Henriksen and his small band, now reduced by two, made themselves as comfortable as they could in yet another hunting cabin in a small valley high up on the mountain. He was still brooding over the loss of Belland and Torvik.

Hildur saw this and was a little concerned. Other than the hunter, Bjørn Mikkelsen, the other men were simple farm laborers. The dead sergeant had handled taking care of the men while the lieutenant made the decisions. Now the young officer had to do both. If she could, Hildur would help as best as she could. She had birthed three sons, one of whom had died young, the other two were off doing their national service. She worried about them, wondering if they were still alive.

"Bestemor, you really should go home. I'm thinking of releasing the men to go home as well, there is no point to this fight now. The Germans are everywhere it seems. I can't imagine what it must be like in the cities." Henriksen spoke softly. The men seemed okay, they had lost two comrades but, as Martin Sundheim had pointed out, people died, it was a part of life.

Henriksen wished he could take such a pragmatic view of things.

"Look here lieutenant, I'm not going anywhere, I can be awfully useful. We must bother the Germans whenever and wherever we can. We can't let them just take our country. It is our country, not theirs. We should resist." Hildur's voice was strong and insistent, Henriksen was reminded of his father's mother, his farmor, She too had been a tough, independent woman, raising his father, his four uncles, and one aunt, after the loss of her husband, his grandfather, at sea during a bad storm.

"How old are you Bestemor?" he asked suddenly.

"I'm old enough lieutenant, don't you worry about me, I'll hike you and your boys into the ground any day of the week." Hildur gave him a look that stopped him from saying anything further about her age. He guessed she was in her mid to late 50s. He wouldn't be wrong.

"Well then, what's next, lieutenant, what are your orders?" Hildur asked.

Henriksen gave her a slight smile, "You sound almost like a sergeant, Bestemor. A good one."

Jürgen looked around the airfield, he was surprised that he was flying back to Germany. He supposed that as there was room aboard the Ju-52², why shouldn't he fly?

He saw a soldier sitting on a crate, a small dog cuddled up to him under the blanket they were sharing. He walked over to the man.

"Is that your dog, soldier?"

The man looked up, saw the insignia marking von Lüttwitz as an officer candidate, and began to stand up.

"Sit, I'm not an officer, not yet anyway. Just a simple Gefreiter as far as anyone's concerned." Jürgen sat on the crate next to the young man. "Does the dog have a name?"

"I don't know what his real name is, I call him Thor."

"He doesn't look like the god of thunder." Jürgen remarked.

"He's a Norwegian dog, I don't know any other Norwegian names." the private said that as if it made perfect sense. And in a way, it did.

Jürgen smiled then looked to the west, movement had caught his eye, he saw swift, moving shapes, coming in low. He thought that they were moving awfully fast to be coming in for a landing at this field outside of Stavanger. Then the sirens began to sound.

"Soldier, you and your dog should get to cover, it's an air raid!"

Jürgen watched from the cover of a shallow ditch as the strange, antiquated aircraft came in low, dropping small bombs as they did so. He saw the transport that was supposed to take him to Germany explode in flames. He guessed that he wouldn't be flying but would go by ship.

The biplanes, he saw they were British, wheeled and came back over the field, their forward guns chattering and the observers firing from the position behind the pilot. The Germans were now firing back and one of the aircraft seemed to stagger in mid-air, then proceeded to dive straight into the ground.

He heard a yelp and turned to see the young soldier chasing his dog. He yelled at the man to take cover but he was too late. The man and the dog both died under the hail of machine gun fire from one aircraft's rear observer.

The planes vanished into the distance. Jürgen stood up and brushed himself off, he sighed as he looked at the body of the dead soldier, clutching the small dog named Thor to his breast.

"Well, you died together and not alone. I suppose that's something."

Turning from the scene he walked towards the marshalling office, he supposed he needed to arrange alternate transport. Pausing to look back at the dead man and his dog, he wondered if that was how the war would go, bit by bit, people dying every day until no one was left to fight.

Suddenly an immense sadness spread through him. He wished he was home, he wished all of them were home, every soldier on the planet, rather than fight this stupid war.

¹ Sani, short for Sanitäter, or medic (German)

² The Ju-52 was a tri-motored Luftwaffe transport.