Whale Fjord

Two

10 May 1940

0530. Units of the German 1st Panzer division under General Heinz Guderian cross the Luxembourg border at Wallendorf, leading a column of tanks and infantry-filled trucks stretching back a hundred kilometres. The German invasion of Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and France begins.

0620. 746 men of the British Royal Marines steam into Reykjavík harbour aboard four warships. They land at the docks. An Icelandic policeman asks the crowd on the quayside to make way for them. The British invasion of Iceland has begun.

Captain Neville Pybus-Smith knocked back his fourth whisky and ordered another. The tall blond barman refilled his glass with a hint of a smile. He had seemed stiff and unfriendly when Neville had entered the Hotel Borg with the British Consul and a couple of marine officers two hours before for a swift one. Perhaps the natives were warming up to their new guests? Good to see.

The diplomat and the marine captain had left after just one drink, but a lieutenant of about Neville’s own age named Cranshaw had been happy to stay and keep him company. Like Neville, Cranshaw was not a regular officer, but had joined up at the outbreak of war. Neville had worked at a merchant bank in the City; Cranshaw had sold cars in Bedford. Neville had had longer strings to pull than the likes of Cranshaw and so had managed to join military intelligence with the rank of captain — quite a coup. It was partly down to his fluent German, but mostly to the people he knew.

Like all salesmen, Lieutenant Cranshaw was good company over a drink.

‘Can I get you another, old man?’ Neville asked him.

Cranshaw checked his watch. ‘No, I’d better turn in. Up early tomorrow. Plenty to do.’

‘Right-oh.’ Neville nodded. There certainly was a lot to do. But for now, he wanted to savour their victory. ‘See you in the morning.’

It had been a long, busy, successful day. Being an army intelligence officer, not a marine like the rest of the invading force, Neville had been among the first ashore. The top-hatted British Consul General had been waiting for him as arranged, and, with the escort of a platoon of marines, they had marched up the road from the harbour to the German consulate. It was a small grey house in a little garden set back from the road. A red metal plate with a black swastika was fixed to the wall by the front door. Neville was alarmed to see smoke spilling out of an upstairs window.

He rapped at the door with the butt of his revolver. It was answered eventually by the German Consul General himself in his dressing gown, trembling with rage. The man was imposing: very tall — at least six feet six — blond, his face scored with duelling scars.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

‘We wish to come in,’ the British diplomat replied politely in German.

‘For what purpose?’

‘To take over your Consulate General.’

‘But this is a neutral country!’

‘So was Denmark, Herr Consul General.’

Neville pushed past the German into the house and ran up the stairs. He found a bath reeking of petrol, full of burning documents. He turned on the taps to douse the flames and was able to save some of the papers, which were now safely back on HMS Glasgow in the harbour.

While the British diplomats moved on to meet the Icelandic Prime Minister, Neville began the task of mopping up the Germans in Reykjavík. British intelligence had suggested that there were quite a number of them, and they had been preparing to overthrow the Icelandic government themselves.

That was why Churchill had ordered the pre-emptive invasion of Iceland. He had learned from the last war how important the North Atlantic was to the survival of Britain; if the Germans gained control of the island of Iceland, they would secure a lethal base for their aircraft and submarines to attack British shipping. Iceland was neutral, but then so had Norway and Denmark been, and yet the Germans had invaded them in April, overrunning both countries before the British could properly come to their aid.

Churchill wasn’t going to be caught out like that again.

The British diplomats’ visit to the Icelandic Prime Minister had gone as well as could be expected. Although still a possession of the Danish Crown, Iceland had gained independence over its own domestic affairs. Howard Smith, the new British Minister for Iceland who had arrived with the marines, had explained that Britain had invaded the country to protect her from the Germans, and that the British had no intention of interfering with her government.

Hermann Jónasson, the Prime Minister, replied that he didn’t believe that the Germans would have invaded, but since the British had arrived with good intentions his country would cooperate. It would have been nice to have been asked first. He then made a radio broadcast to his countrymen asking them to consider the British soldiers their guests and to show them all courtesy.

It was unclear how many Germans there were in Reykjavík. Sixty-two had been recently rescued from a sunk German freighter and were now staying in two hotels in the capital. Neville had managed to round up fifty-three of these and send them back to HMS Glasgow. There were no doubt more to find, as well as possible wireless transmitters. Intelligence suggested there were pro-Nazi Icelanders to be dealt with, including, most worryingly, the chief of police.

There was still plenty to do. But for now, Neville would enjoy his whisky.

The Borg was the best hotel in Reykjavík — the only decent hotel in Reykjavík. As the intelligence officer, Neville knew this and had been quick to snag a room.

It was getting late and the bar was thinning out. Curious locals had gathered there to observe the British officers who had dropped in for a drink. Some had spoken to the invaders, mostly telling them they were happy that it was the British and not the other lot who had invaded.

Most of the drinkers were men, but there were a number of women in the bar as well. Neville was already quite taken with the women in Iceland. It wasn’t just that an uncommonly large number of them were blonde and beautiful. It was the way they held themselves — erect, proud, strong — that gave him a frisson of, well, desire.

He had his eye on a table of three Icelanders who had come in soon after him: a lean, spare man in a double-breasted suit, and two women, one blonde and one red-haired. He had noticed the women glancing at him a couple of times, once exchanging a laugh and a smile between themselves. He knew he looked good in his khaki uniform. He was thirty: dark hair, dark eyes and a thin dark moustache which offset his prominent front teeth, or so he hoped. He didn’t exactly resemble Clark Gable, but he looked more like him than the fair-haired oafs of Iceland.

Now, on his fifth whisky, at the end of a day of high excitement, Neville’s thoughts turned to sex.

He had been married for six years to a woman whose good looks had fattened out within a year of their wedding. Peggy didn’t like sex. She put up with it, and their matrimonial duty had produced two very sweet but often annoying daughters. To be honest, Neville didn’t like sex with Peggy much either.

But he did like the idea of sex. Especially with that redhead.

They were leaving. As the redhead passed him on the way to the exit, she looked straight at him. It was a frank, slightly haughty stare.

It was electrifying.

Neville was pretty sure that the man was with the blonde woman. Unless they all lived together, at some point they would split up.

Neville wanted to see where that point was.

He downed his whisky and followed them out of the hotel into the grassy square in front of the Parliament building.

The three figures walked towards the harbour together. They paused in front of the impressive Eimskip shipping company head office, emblazoned with a jarring swastika-like emblem, to wish each other goodnight. Then the couple turned left and the redhead turned right.

Neville wasn’t sure how to approach her, so he followed her discreetly while he came up with a plan. Would she speak English?

Perhaps that wouldn’t matter.

He found the prospect of making love to a woman with whom he couldn’t communicate at all even more exciting.

It was ten o’clock and not yet dark, although the light was fading to gloom under low clouds, leaving a late-evening chill in the air. Reykjavík was a town of corrugated metal — the shops and houses were clad with metal roofs and metal walls on concrete foundations — but Neville was cheered to see lights twinkling inside them, unlike the severe, treacherous blackouts in English cities.

The woman crossed a main road and climbed a hill, entering a narrow street bordered on either side by more brightly painted metal houses. A small squad of marines marched past, bayonets fixed. She stared at them. They stared at her.

She turned into an even narrower lane. Neville realized that she might be close to her destination. It was now or never.

He quickened his pace, almost to a run. ‘I say, excuse me!’ he called.

The woman stopped and turned. A look of puzzlement turned into a frown.

‘Do you speak English?’

‘Ég skil ekki.’

Clearly not. That explained the frown then.

‘I saw you in the hotel,’ Neville said with his most charming grin, made a little more charming by the alcohol.

‘Ég skil ekki,’ the woman repeated. Neville had no idea what that meant.

‘The Hotel Borg?’ No sign of understanding from the woman. She must have known what he meant by ‘the Hotel Borg’.

He pointed to his chest. ‘Neville,’ he said. Then pointed to her. ‘Your name?’

The woman hunched her shoulders and turned away, muttering something to herself.

Neville touched her arm. She shook him off. He grabbed her arm harder.

He wanted this woman. The fact they didn’t speak each other’s language didn’t matter. He would make her understand how beautiful he thought she was, how much he wanted her.

He pulled her around.

She turned and stared at him, her eyes blazing. She said something and tried to break away.

He tightened his grip. ‘You know you are the most gorgeous woman in Iceland,’ he said, realizing as he did so that he had slurred the word ‘Iceland’ to ‘Isheland’.

She slapped him.

He dropped his hand and stared at her. ‘I say, you can’t do that. I’m a British officer!’

‘Sir?’

Neville turned to see a sergeant moving sharply towards him.

He could feel himself reddening. He took a step back from the woman. ‘Sergeant.’

‘Is this woman bothering you, sir?’

The sergeant was a few years younger than Neville, and many ranks lower. But he had that infernal air of authority that regular NCOs in the British Army, or the marines for that matter, managed to convey. He knew Neville wasn’t a proper soldier.

And at that moment his blue eyes were cold with contempt.

Neville drew himself up to his full height. He was an officer, dammit.

‘Would you like me to arrest her, sir?’ the sergeant asked.

Would he? Of course not. Neville felt himself drowning in shame. ‘No. No. That’s quite all right, sergeant.’ He tried and failed to assert some authority. ‘Carry on,’ he said inconsequentially.

The sergeant ignored him. ‘Run along now, miss,’ he said to the woman, his tone firm but kind.

With a final glare at Neville, she hurried up the hill.

‘You never can be too careful with the locals,’ said the sergeant. And with a smart salute that somehow dripped with irony, he returned to his squad of soldiers who had been watching.

Crushed, humiliated, Neville returned to the Hotel Borg and bed.