I hesitated. 'I don't know,' I answered. 'He had just threatened to have you arrested. And you don't exactly conceal your hatred of him.'
'Why should I?' he answered. 'I do hate him.'
'But why?' I asked.
'Why?' His voice rose suddenly. 'Because of what he's done to me. Look at this.' He thrust the withered claw of his arm at me again. 'Jorgensen,' he snarled. 'Look at my face. Jorgensen. Before the war I was fit and happy. I had a wife and a business. I was on top of the world.' He sighed and sank back against his pillow. 'That was before the war. It seems a long time ago now. My interests were shipping. I had a fleet of coasters and four tankers that supplied Del Norske Staalselskab. Then Norway was invaded. The tankers I ordered to British ports. Some of the coasters were sunk and a few got away, but the bulk of the fleet continued to operate. And whilst Jorgensen was entertaining the German commanders in Oslo, I worked for the liberation of my country. My house at Alverstrummen was a refuge for British agents. My offices in Bergen became a clearing house for boys slipping out of the country. Then suddenly my house was raided. A British agent was captured. I was arrested and imprisoned in Bergen. That was not so bad. My wife could come and see me and I passed the time binding books. But then the Germans drafted us for forced labour. I was sent to Finse. The Germans planned to build an aerodrome on top of the Jokulen. Did you ever hear of that monumental piece of German folly?'
'Jorgensen mentioned it to me-' I began.
'Jorgensen!' he exclaimed. 'What does Jorgensen know about it? He was much too clever.'
He leaned out of his bunk and got a cigarette from his jacket pocket. I lit it for him. He took several quick puffs. His fingers shook. The man was wrought up. He was talking to steady himself. And I listened because this was the first time I'd got him talking and up there at Finse he had met George Farnell.
'So you didn't know about the Jokulen project? Nobody in England seems to have heard about it. So many strange things happen in a war and only a few people outside the countries where they happen ever hear about them. In Norway everybody knows about the Germans and the Jokulen. It is a big joke.' He paused and then added, 'But it was not a joke for those who had to work on it.' He leaned over towards me and grabbed at my arm. 'Do you know the height of the Jokulen?'
I shook my head.
'It is the highest point on the Hardangervidda. It is 1,876 metres high — a glacier, perpetually covered by snow. They were crazy. They thought they could make an airfield up there. The snow was blown into waves by the wind. They drove tractors with heavy iron rollers up to the top. And when they found circular rollers packed the snow up in front of them, they made octagonal rollers. There were crevasses. They tried filling them with sawdust. Oh, it is a hell of a fine joke. But we had to work up there and in the winter on the Jokulen there is sometimes as much as 50 degrees of frost.' He had been talking fast. Now he suddenly leaned back against the pillow and shut his eyes. 'Do you know how old I am, Mr Gansert?'