Hanna #2
As the winter wore on, I focused all my efforts on my work.
Through the dark months, it took every ounce of my determination to stay at the hut, but the messages seemed even more vital now.
I had to try to fight back against the new laws that threatened my sister and her husband.
At last, the first glimpse of the sun peeped over the mountains one morning, bringing with it the promise of an end to the gloom of winter.
I stepped out of the hut to stand in the sliver of light, beyond the reach of the shadows cast by the hills, watching the sun sparkle on the water for the few precious minutes before it sank again.
A sleek dark shape slipped along the edge of the bay, and I smiled: the otter had returned to steal from the fish frame.
Perhaps she was already carrying this spring’s pups, so I didn’t begrudge the theft.
I fetched water from the stream and cleaned the hut from top to bottom, sweeping away the dust and washing the windows, looking forward to the day, not too far off now, when the light would flood in.
That evening, I set up the wireless as usual and transcribed the latest messages to be delivered to my local contacts.
I listened in to other messages, too. The Shetland Bus continued to make its pickups and deliveries back and forth across the sea, and I was aware certain agents had been taken across to be given special training for something big that was being planned.
The details were more heavily disguised than usual, but the operation was code-named GROUSE.
It made me wonder whether it had anything to do with the question Euan once asked me about a rendezvous point near Narvik, when I’d told him about the Grouse Tree, although from the little I gleaned, the target appeared to be elsewhere.
Some sort of secret production facility in the south of the country, I gathered.
A party of four Norwegian agents, local boys with exceptional outdoors knowledge and skills who had recently returned from Scotland, were to be sent to a high plateau between Bergen and Oslo, known as Telemark, to do further training.
If Per were still here, I thought, he’d have been one of the volunteers.
A pang of grief gripped me at the memory of him.
I hoped those other boys would be safe, whatever lay ahead of them.
Among the messages, occasionally there would be one intended for the Storm Petrel. I treasured those, knowing Euan was behind them, reaching out across the ocean that divided us to send me courage and hope.
*
One afternoon in late March, as I was beginning to dig over the vegetable plot, I heard the tonk-tonk-tonk of a fishing boat’s engine and was surprised to see it coming through the skerries into the bay.
It was broad daylight, so I knew this was unlikely to be one of the secret deliveries, which happened only under cover of darkness.
As I walked over to the jetty, I saw a figure standing toward the prow of the boat, strands of her blond hair blowing in the wind.
It was Liv. I raised my hand to wave, but something was wrong.
She looked hunched and scared. I picked up my pace, running across to catch the rope thrown by the skipper and help her off.
She almost collapsed as she stepped onto the pier into my outstretched arms.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Erik. He’s been arrested.” She gasped the words, struggling to regain her self-control.
“They came to the house. We heard they’ve taken others, too.
When the knock on the door came, I was upstairs.
I wanted to run down to him, but his mother made me stay hidden.
It was awful, Hanna. I saw them drive him away.
” She was sobbing now, inconsolable. “Then his father took me to the harbor and told me to come here, to you, where it would be safer.”
She had only the clothes she stood up in, and she was shivering, despite the shafts of weak sunshine that leaped and dazzled over the waves as the fisherman hurriedly cast off and motored away.
As I led her to the hut, she clung to my arm, and seemed too scared to let it go, even when I settled her in a chair beside the stove.
I crouched next to her, murmuring words of comfort. “You’re safe now, it’s all right,” I said, even though neither of those things was true. I gently extracted myself from her grip and began to make coffee, hoping the familiar, routine motions would soothe and calm her.
“Can I stay here with you?” she asked, as I handed her a cup.
“Of course. This is your home just as much as it is mine.” I’d have to come clean about my work, though, if she’d be living in the hut for a while. “But there’s something I have to tell you first…”
Her eyes widened as I explained about the wireless set, and told her there might be some midnight collections and deliveries to and from the hidden compartment beneath the hut.
She scanned my face, her expression serious.
“I knew you were involved in something, Hanna, but I never would have guessed how much you’re doing. ”
“If you want to change your mind about staying here, I will quite understand. You could go to Scotland, Liv. I can arrange it. Maybe the time has come when you should leave…”
She shook her head emphatically. “I won’t leave Norway.
I won’t leave you, and I won’t leave Erik behind, either.
How could I? You are my sun and my moon.
I couldn’t bear to be parted from you both.
As long as I won’t be in the way, I want to stay here with you.
Maybe I can help…or at least I can keep house for you while you’re working. ”
I gave her hand a squeeze, trying to convey reassurance I didn’t feel.
Was it safer for Liv to be here than in Fagernes?
She’d escaped the threat of arrest there, only to land herself in a place where the risks were potentially even higher.
But our hidden kingdom had served me well so far.
The only other threat might be another visit from Captain Stolz, but I hoped he’d found someone more receptive to his advances, these days, if he was even still in the area.
And surely he’d be busier than ever elsewhere, if they really were rounding up teachers as well as all the others.
“Well, then,” I said, “it seems there are now two storm petrels nesting in this hut.”
She shot me a quizzical glance but asked no more questions. Instead of making her more anxious, what I’d just divulged about my work seemed to have given her a new sense of resolve.
When we feel helpless, we are weakened. But when we feel we have been given back some sort of agency, even in a small way, it strengthens us. That is the magical empowerment of hope.