An Incident at War

By H. Turnip Smith

The long-time mayor, Ole Skogstad, turned 62 the same day the Nazis marched into Kronorshaven. For 62 years Skogstad had lived in the same stone house facing the harbor. He and his elk hound had celebrated with much beer in the morning; the Germans arrived at noon. The Norwegian flag flew high over the stone house in the middle of the village that served as the town hall, the mayor's office, and Skogstad's home.

At the head of a detachment of twelve men, Haupt-lieutenant Kolb pounded on the locked door of the mayor's office. No one answered. After a wait of several minutes, Kolb ordered the lock shot off. When the door at last swung Ole Skogstad greeted the Germans in his stocking feet; meanwhile the elk hound growled menacingly.

"Muzzle the dog!" commanded the lieutenant. Unfortunately there was no muzzle available.

"Then shoot the dog," ordered the lieutenant.

Skogstad laid his hand on the hound's skull, quieting him before any shots were fired.

"What's your name?" Lieutenant Kolb's tone was peremptory.

"I do not speak German," replied Skogstad.

"Get a translator," Kolb commanded.

There was a flurry of activity. In a few minutes, a pink-faced German minus any insignia of rank was pushed through the door. He stumbled across the room, throwing a hurried salute.

"Tell the Norwegian trash to lower his flag," Kolb ordered the stumbling translator.

In frightful Norwegian, the fumbling German conveyed the message.

"That would be impossible," Skogstad replied. "The flag is very high."

"Impossible?" cried an outraged Kolb. "Shoot the flag."

A scatter of bullets soon rent the banner, though it still flew.

"Tell him he has 24 hours to remove the flag," Kolb told the translator; then the Germans marched off.

The next day at exactly noon the detachment of Nazis returned. This time Skogstad sat in his rocking chair in front of the stone house. The tattered and shredded flag continued to fly above his office.

"Ah ha," cried Lieutenant Kolb, marching up with his henchmen, "you have defied me."

Skogstad said nothing.

Removing a Mauser from his holster, Kolb stepped forward and crunched Skogstad across the jaw with the handle of the gun. A thin line of bright red bloodd along Skogstad's lip.

"We will return in one hour. The flag will be gone!" Kolb shouted at the translator.

When the German detachment returned in an hour, the flag had not been touched. Skogstad, meanwhile, sat in his rocker, applying ice to his swollen jaw. Immediately Lieutenant Kolb flew into a rage.

"Seize him! You are going for a swim, mayor. Secure a boat."

The waters in the bay that face Kronorshaven hover around 48 degrees Fahrenheit even in mid-summer. Lieutenant Kolb watched with pleasure as both Skogstad and the hound were hustled unceremoniously into the confiscated motor launch and driven a half-mile out in the harbor, then forced into the water.

Shivering with the bitter cold, Skogstad and the hound began the arduous, freezing swim to shore. Swimming powerfully for a man his age, Skogstad eventually made the long pull to shore, but the hound was old and before long drowned. When he reached shore, the exhausted Norwegian lay panting at the lieutenant's gleaming boots.

"So you're still alive?" Kolb said. "Will you take down the flag now?"

Skogstad could say nothing, but he managed to spit on Kolb's gleaming boots.

"Seize ladders," commanded an outraged Kolb. "We shall see just how tough this Norwegian slime actually is."

Two high ladders were, with some difficulty, secured and placed in front of the mayor's office. At gun point Skogstad was forced to climb.

At the top of the ladders Skogstad's hands were tied, and then he was bound to the flagstaff that extended out over the sidewalk. When the ropes were exceedingly tight, the ladders were removed, leaving Skogstad to dangle 60 feet in the air.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Kolb sat under a sun umbrella at a sidewalk café across the street from the mayor's office, enjoying the spectacle immensely. He drank from a pitcher of beer while Skogstad's feet twisted high above adjacent to the flag.

"Will you remove the flag now?" Kolb shouted up to his prisoner.

"Go have sex with yourself and your phoney, so-called leader," is a rough translation of what Skogstad shouted back, sweat beading on his forehead from the unspeakable pain that lacerated his wrists.

Incensed by Skogstad's reply, Kolb leaped to his feet.

"You have insulted me and the fuhrer," cried the lieutenant. "Fire at the prisoner!"

Instantly a great burst of gunfire clattered into Skogstad's body, severing the ropes which bound the Norwegian to the flagstaff. Like a sack of bleeding concrete, Skogstad's bullet-riddled body suddenly took flight. At several hundred miles an hour it bulleted across the street, scoring a direct hit on the lieutenant, exploding into a hundred fragments.

The next afternoon Lieutenant Kolb's maimed body was buried with full military honors in the wind-swept cemetery high atop the village. Hardly a stone's throw distant, a handful of carefully-guarded villagers interred what was left of the remains of the former mayor in a simple wooden box.

That evening the German flag flew menacingly from the flagstaff in the middle of Kronorshaven until a large, spectral elk hound rose from the sea, scaled the side of the mayor's office, and tore down the banner with its teeth.

The next morning at dawn, inexplicably, a shining, new Norwegian flag waved proudly over the village.

About the Author.

Back to the top of this page.

monte carlo cigarettes price