James Benn: Billy Boyle

The next thing I remember, Rolf had been rolled off me and Anders was washing my face with a wet rag. I was covered in blood. It hurt.

“Can you get up, Billy?”

I tried to focus on him. It was hard to see.

“I think so.” I rolled over, got to my knees, and let Anders help me the rest of the way. He sat me on the bench.

“I’ll get you some water to wash your eyes out with. You’ve got powder burns on your face and dirt in your eyes, as well as cuts and bruises.”

“How long have I been out?” I asked as he brought back a pitcher of water.

“About twenty minutes.”

“You could have been long gone by now. What if some of Rolf’s men came along?”

“Waiting here is not as dangerous as what you did, Billy.”

“Something had to give. I could see he was getting shaky. We were about to lose control.”

I looked over to Rolf’s body. Things were clearing but still a little out of focus. He was a blurry mass of red. It was almost funny. He had come here to do the right thing, to be a good Norwegian soldier and save his country. Instead he’d gotten killed for doing the wrong thing, to the wrong person. I might have been tempted to let him get away with killing Birkeland, but I had to avenge Daphne.

The weapons had all vanished except for a Sten gun slung over Anders’s shoulder. As he set down the pitcher of water on the bench, he let it hang there, like an afterthought.

“I’d say we’re even. You’re a German spy yet you didn’t gun both of us down. That would have been a simple solution for you.”

“Simple, yes. Right, no.”

“Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked, feeling a pang of guilt at talking so matter-of-factly with the enemy.

“I think, Billy, that is a very difficult question for you and me at the moment.”

We sat there a while. There wasn’t much more to say. He got up. “I have to go, Billy. With all this shooting, someone may come up here.”

“Your side or mine?”

“Perhaps we both need to leave. In opposite directions.” Anders went inside the ruined hut. He came out with a blanket and laid it over Rolf.

“Whatever he was, and whatever I am, we were once comrades.” After a minute he went inside and returned with Rolf’s Sten gun and my pistol. He laid them on a rock, removed the clips, and tossed them down the trail. Far enough that by the time I found them, he’d be long gone in the opposite direction. He walked over to me. He had on an old green wool sweater and was wearing a small pack.

“I’m going over the mountain, Billy. Can you make it down the trail?”

“Yeah, I can make it.”

“You have a plan to get back home?”

“Home? No. England? Maybe. I probably shouldn’t say too much about that.”

He laughed. “We both should probably not say too much about this entire affair.”

“I can’t promise what I’ll say,” I said, thinking about how I’d explain all this if I ever got back to England.

“I understand, Billy.” He smiled weakly and reached into his pocket.

“Please accept this gift from Captain Karl Fredriksen.” He handed me the book of poetry. The Edda, it said on the cover, which displayed three Viking warriors holding their shields proudly.

“Karl. OK, Karl. Take care of yourself.” He walked away, then stopped and turned.

“There’s one thing I’d like you to know, Billy. This whole operation was my own idea, to get my father out of Dachau. He’s an opponent of the regime. Not anybody important, just an old man who complained too often and too loudly to the wrong people. He fought in the last war, and did not wish to see his son fight in another.”

“Yeah, same with my father.”

“The difference, Billy, is that in my country opposition meant imprisonment. The Nazis do not like anyone to speak as their conscience dictates.”

“How are you going to get him out?”

“I have a deal with the Gestapo. If I bring them military secrets, he will be freed. When I saw how fast things were falling apart in Norway, I knew I could blend in and end up in England. My mother was Norwegian, and we had spent summers there. No one ever doubted me.”

“You think the Gestapo will uphold their end of the bargain and let your father go?”

“If he is still alive, perhaps. I have no idea if he has survived, but it is the best chance I have. So you see, Billy, I do understand justice for one person.”

Then he was gone.

It was a long journey back to England and to ETO headquarters at Grosvenor Square. I’d walked down the mountain and made my underground contact for the trip back home, just as Jens had planned. This time there was a fishing boat right in the fjord, to take me out to a rendezvous with a Free French submarine. They had two other agents with them and picked up a navigator from a Lancaster bomber, the only survivor from his crew. The return trip was slow, lots of it underwater, which was just fine with me. My eyesight cleared up and most everything healed. All the wounds that had bled, anyway. I spent a lot of time reading that volume of poetry, the only book in English on board.

When I got off the sub at Portsmouth, there was a detachment of American MPs waiting for me. Not an honor guard. They hustled me back to London, escorted me to my room at the Dorchester, and ordered me to dress in my Class A uniform. It was very politely done, they called me “sir” at all the right times, but they made it clear I wasn’t the one giving the orders. A new set of clothes had been laid out on the bed and I dressed, wondering if a court-martial had been organized already. Welcome back, you’re guilty, proceed directly to Leavenworth.

The MPs deposited me at headquarters and I was signed over to the sergeant of the guard like a delivery of Spam. A clipboard with orders changed hands and I tried to sneak a peek, but the MPs were too fast for me. They left, and two sentries with Thompsons slung over their shoulders, leather straps gleaming with polish, escorted me down a hall and up two flights of stairs. One in front, one behind.

Minutes later I was sitting on a hardback chair in a hallway, the two GIs guarding me as if I were Hermann Goring. A door opened and Major Harding stepped out. He snapped his fingers at me like I was a tardy waiter and crooked his finger.

“Boyle, in here.”

“Good to see you, too, Major,” I said.

“At ease, boys,” I said to my guards as I stood. No reason for me to start acting polite now.

“Shut up, Boyle, and get inside.” Harding sounded tired and disappointed. He shut the door behind me as I walked into the room. Curtained windows provided the long, narrow room with an atmosphere of gloom, and a cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the light of a lamp over the table. Along the wall on my right was a large map of Norway, covering it from floor to ceiling, marked with red arrows launched from Scotland and points south. The invasion. I imagined right now “Anders,” or whatever his real name was, might be standing in front of a map just like this, briefing some Kraut generals. They probably looked happier than the trio who confronted me. A large rectangular table dominated the center of the room, with Uncle Ike seated opposite the door. The dark wood, probably walnut, shone; it must have been waxed and polished for a hundred years. I could see Uncle Ike’s reflection in it and he didn’t look any happier there than right side up. He held a cigarette in his hand and tapped it on the rim of a glass ashtray full of butts and ashes. Major Cosgrove sat on one side of him. Harding gestured for me to take the seat opposite the general. He sat on the other side. Uncle Ike studied me as I sat down. I felt the color drain from my face and my heart race. I didn’t want to hear what was coming next. I looked down to avoid their eyes and found my own staring back up at me. I put my hand flat on the table, covering my reflection, and, for the first time, realized what my father had tried to brush away from that tabletop at Kirby’s.