News from Norway
The Mountains Wait. By Theodor l3rOch. .(Joseph. ros. 6d.)
THE chairman of the Narvik U.D.C.—the title of Mayor, which appears on Op title-page, suggests a more traditional office than
that of the Norwegian ordfarer—has a great story to tell. His town, with a working-class population entirely dependent upon the Qfot Railway, which began to disgorge the product of the Kiruna iron mines there in 19o2, was unknown fo 'history—a mushroom growth on the American rather than the European pattern. In two short months it became by turns the object of a surprise attack, the quarters of an invading army, the scene of two naval battles, a besieged fortress, the first reconquered territory of the war, the
victim of an air blitz, and finally an empty shell, with so residents left out of zo,000. The story is also greatly- told. The modesty and reticence of the style sometimes recall Hamsun, but the sense of humour and of proportion are all the author's own. He makes the English reader feel, not how interesting the reactions of these strange people to these strange events, but this is exactly the way in which we should have wished to behave, had a surprise landing like this occurred at Whitehaven or Seaham Harbour.
Twice arrested as a spy, Mr. Broch may claim to have studied at close quarters the German military character in its hour of triumph, when General Died could prophesy, "The British have already sustained one defeat. It is not likely they will return for another," and his adjutant claim financial credit for the invaders on the ground that " We are one day going to make England pay even you." The Germans took hostages, who were to answer for the good conduct of the civil population with their lives. but themselves made use of civilian clothing, -as well as Norwegian uniforms, when on patrol within range of British warships. They brought " Red Cross workers " through Sweden, who were then employed for the expert demolition of the Swedish Iron Company's' Narvik properties. The officers "bent over backwards to please" the Gestapo representative, who was another of the innocent travel- lers along the Swedish railway route. The lightly wounded re- ceived the best of care, but their dead the Germans stuffed into sewers. Such was their first hour ; and, although the whole issue of the • Narvik campaign meant almost nothing in comparison with their contemporaneous triumphs on the Continent, German morale declined as their enemies closed in upon them, down to the final night when the wounded in hospital crept out of bed to watch the Allied bombardment, " realised that they would be prisoners by morning, and became more ill and more polffe."
Though of less immediate interest, it would be unfair to: the author not to mention that the first third of his book paints an un- usually vivid and attractive picture of small-town life in pre7war Norway, redeemed from pettiness by the grandeur of its struggle set between inhospitable rock and northern sea. Hence, too, the nostalgia of the closing chapters, in which Mr. Broch describes how he escaped to Sweden, leaving the little iron-ore port re- luctantly to resume as best it might the trade without which it could not survive; propaganda work in America ; and his joining- up with • te Norwegian Forces in Scotland. " The mountains would wait for us," he concludes. " We had to leave to learn the
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