Bonus Scene of the Book

A major goal of my website blog is to share my research of World War II in Norway. With this post, I’m trying something a little different. I’m treating you to a scene written in early manuscript drafts of A Coat Dyed Black. This scene ultimately had to be removed from the book due to space limitations, but it offers a look at the close-in fighting waged against Germans forces just after they invaded Norway. Before the scene, I’m giving you a Norwegian Army soldier’s first-hand account of a shoot-out that the fictional scene is based on. I hope you enjoy reading all this, and I would be interested in what you think about it.

The following excerpt is the true account that inspired my fictional scene. I interviewed the former soldier in June 1984 in Norway. The taped interview was later translated, and the excerpt is the translator’s description of what was said. The soldier who later became a Norwegian resistance fighter spoke on condition he was not named. For this version, I’ll call him Mons. Here is the translated interview:

“One evening, Mons said they were told that some people came in contact with German soldiers not far from where his (Norwegian Army) unit was. The unit commander decided that they were going to go down and wipe the Germans out. They assembled their weapons and gear and went to hunt down the enemy.

“They approached a cluster of houses in the mountains where the German troops were staying. The Norwegians soldiers started shooting at the houses. During the shooting, one Norwegian crawled slowly toward the houses. He got close enough to notice that three Germans were setting up a grenade thrower (mortar). He motioned to Mons to move up and take out those Germans. Mons said he moved up and shot all three.

“The Norwegians eventually stormed the houses. He said more than twenty German soldiers came out with their hands up. Mons and another Norwegian soldier who was from Voss ran into one of the houses. The other Norwegian could speak German and called for the Germans still inside to capitulate.  When they entered, they saw wounded Germans trying to bandage each other. Mons remembers seeing so many bullet holes in the house he wondered how it was hanging together. He remembers one sad story about a young German soldier who had been shot through the stomach. He was screaming and yelling out for his mother.

The Germans didn’t have any water in the house. Mons said he went outside to a nearby well and fetched some water and brought it to the wounded Germans.”

Using that brief excerpt for inspiration, I drafted this fictional scene. Keep in mind that it’s unpolished and in draft form. Here it is: 

Lieutenant Brittvik wore his game face when he spoke to Bjørn and the men of his platoon. They had been in Hagafoss four days fully engaged in intense training, particularly since nearly all of them were green volunteers and recruits.

“The Germans are near,” Brittvik told them. “We’re going to engage them.”

Bjørn felt his stomach seize and squeezed his fists. The barn that was their barracks fell hush. He squinted his eyes slightly to focus on the lieutenant’s words.

“A villager walking in the woods spotted German soldiers who had taken over a vacant hytte not far from here,” Brittvik said. “It doesn’t appear to be a sizeable force. It might be an advance group. They didn’t see the villager, so I believe we have an element of surprise.

“Clean your weapons, fill your ammo pouches and pack very light. Only what you can put in your pockets. Be ready to go in a half-hour.”

At mid-morning, Bjørn and his 53 fellow soldiers marched in a single line on each side the road. They kept that formation until they turned from the road onto a wide trail that went upward through a forest toward the cabin. They proceeded in a single file at a steady disciplined pace. There was no talking.

Bjørn’s gripped his Krag-Jorgensen rifle tight. His nerves played with him. He assumed most of his platoon mates felt the same way. He expected a fight but couldn’t imagine what it would be like. This wasn’t like when he and Jon used sticks as rifles and played in the trees growing up. This was real.

They neared the German-occupied hytte. Brittvik quietly spread his men out along a treeline back from a snow-covered clearing in front of the hytte. They waited for his command to fire.  Bjørn hugged a tree, keeping a side of his head tight against the trunk and staying concealed. He looked right and saw others standing motionless behind the uneven row of trees. Jon was somewhere down the line on the other side.

Bjørn’s breathing seemed heavy and he tried to keep it shallow so the frosty vapors wouldn’t be seen. He held his rifle close to his chest. The barrel was sticking straight up, but he was ready to lower it and put the cabin in his sights.

He finally looked around the trunk of the large fir and saw the hytte about 50 feet away. It was a small one-story place, stubby and compact with a window on each side of the faded green-painted front door located in the center.

A two-foot-high wall ran across the front of the house about 30 feet from the structure. It was made up of piled stones likely dug up when the land was cleared. The wall was about 20 feet from the trees.

Bjørn saw no indications the Germans were aware of an impending attack. Light smoke bellowed from the main chimney and a flue near the back, most likely the kitchen. He speculated the Germans were preparing food. He had his rifle ready and attention focused on hearing Brittvik’s order to fire.

After what seemed like an eternity, he heard a shout that sounded German, followed immediately by a rifle shot. The battle exploded. Gunshots erupted. He didn’t hear any command from Brittvik, but rifle fire compelled him into action. Bjørn immediately poked his head and rifle around the tree and triggered 6.5x55mm bullets into the hytte. He aimed for the windows. Everyone else must have had the same idea because frame and glass were being oblilterated.  Bjørn thought he saw return fire coming from the house and heard bullets whizzing through the trees. The sound was near-deafening.  Loud and rapid.  Bullets from the tree line pulverized the sides of the house.

Any unsettling of his stomach was gone. Bjørn was caught with an eagerness to shoot.  Perhaps it was a blend of adrenalin, fear and hate. He shot until he needed a new magazine. He reloaded and fired again. 

Through the sporadic gunfire, Bjørn heard Brittvik’s order to advance to the wall. The soldiers scrambled from the trees. When he neared the wall, he lunged at it and hit the ground.  He reloaded, sprang up and resumed firing. He saw no enemy soldiers. His aim focused on the house.

From a window came the end of a rifle with what looked like a white towel attached. Brittvik ordered firing to stop. In Norwegian, he ordered the German soldiers to come out with their hands held high.

“Does anyone know German,” Brittvik called out to his troops.

“Ja, I know a little,” one man replied. Brittvik had that soldier repeat his order.  Four German soldiers slowly came out the virtually blown open front door. Their arms extended up.

“Tell them to keep their hands up, move forward in a single line side by side and drop to their knees,” Brittvik ordered.

The order was translated and the enemy troops complied. All in uniform, but all without their double-breasted long coats.

“How many in the house?”

The translation came back that only the dead and wounded, with one soldier tending to the wounded.

Bjørn stared at the hytte. Sections of the wooden clapboard siding were torn apart with gaping holes. Window frames were shot off the sides. He wondered how the building could possibly be still standing. And he imagined the look of the homeowner when they returned.

He looked down each side of the wall and saw fellow troopers with their guns still aimed and ready to fire again. He looked back and saw a Norwegian soldier on the ground not moving. A casualty of war. Bjørn’s heart felt like it was sinking into the bowels of his body.

Brittvik ordered Bjørn and three others to go into the farmhouse. He directed several more to check the barn and a small dilapidated shed. The other Norwegians held their positions and did not lower their rifles as Bjørn’s band of soldiers approached the house.

As he neared the house, Bjørn felt his nerves again. He and the others entered and found bloodshed inside. His mouth fell and he coughed, choking on the smell of blood, torn body parts and death. A scene he’d never before witnessed. It was horrifying, and he knew it would be etched in his memory for a long time.

He counted eight soldiers lying dead on the floor in various contorted positions in pools of blood. Another three lay on the floor wounded, one with his front abdomen soaked red. He was moaning and breathing shallowly. He seemed to be near death. The only soldier inside unhurt talked softly to his dying colleague as he finished applying bandages to a wounded soldier nearby. He wore the international red cross symbol on his arm. He looked up and said, “a sanitatssoldat.” Bjørn didn’t know the word specifically, but it needed no translation.

Bjørn kept his eye on the medic while the others checked the house.  Given the home’s size and condition, it was a simple chore. Two went back out to report to Lt. Brittvik, leaving Bjørn and one other comrade inside.

The medic was comforting the dying German soldier now.  Bjørn pushed hatred aside and found compassion. Even in war, a human being was a human being. He opened his first aid kit and handed a couple of compresses to the attending German.  He noticed a well in the back of the house, so he grabbed a bucket in the kitchen, went to the well and retrieved water. He stepped over a dead German lying dead just outside the back door.

He returned inside and gave water to those of the enemy still living.

Bjørn pointed to the dying German and said to the medic, “What’s his name?”

The medic nodded that he understood and motioned to the dying soldier. “Dieter.”

Bjørn nodded back.

When he joined the rest of his forces outside, he learned two of their own had been fatally shot during the exchange. Like him, they were volunteers. One was named Lars and the other Bjarne. For Bjørn, it tempered the Norwegian rout and put war into perspective. Dying occurs on both sides.

It could have been me, he thought. He shook his head and stared at the ground. He wondered whether he could make it through the war. What would happen when he faced a mainstay of the German force?

The troops trudged back to Hagafoss with the four German prisoners in tow.  Brittvik ordered his troops to grab the German weapons and bring them back to their encampment in Hagafoss. They left the medic and the wounded at the house, which was made uninhabitable from the volley of bullets. When they all returned, the prisoners were locked in an outbuilding of one of the farms in the village, and two troops were assigned to guard them.

They also carried back their dead. After a brief prayer service, buried them in the cemetery behind the church.

The next day, new orders came.