Chapter 15: Prisoners

Travis Shockley had flown out of Cudlow B as soon as he had his bags packed. His final words to Lars were a laughing order to take care of the Vikings until he got back, and to start teaching them English. Lars waved and headed off to the bunkhouse.

Once he got there, he sat down with Torvald, Helga, and some of the other Vikings. He groused, “ Ek em til hvar ru kendir English, ok ek gereigir veit hvernig.” {"I am to teach you English, and I do not know how."}

Torvald laughed and Helga hugged his arm, the others simply smiled and chuckled. Helga said, “Þú meggerar þessi!” {"You can do this!"} Lars simply rolled his eyes, which made the men in the group laugh even more.

Then Lars noticed some of the smaller children playing on the floor between the partitioned sleeping area and the dining area. What caught his attention was that one of the little boys was waving his arm and the little girl across from him said, “Arm!”

The little girl in response shook her left foot and he said, “Foot!”

The pair giggled and moved off to play elsewhere. Lars looked at them and said, “If they can do it, why can’t I?” Why not, he thought! Little kids picked up languages without even thinking about them!

Helga nudged him and said, “Hvat?” {"What?"}

Lars smiled and shook his head. “ Fá hverr maðr út hí inn opnaðinn staðr.” {"Get everybody out here in the open spot."}

“Lars?”

Lars repeated his words to Torvald and Helga and went to the area where the children were playing. He looked down at them and said, “ Viljtilr leika?” {"Want to play?"}

The overwhelming response was “Ja!”

Helga and Torvald came up to him and asked what he was up to. Lars grinned and repeated his request that everybody come out. “ Ef þeir megmunur fregna, svá megþúr! Fá hverr maðr.” {"If they can learn, so can you! Get everybody!"}

Torvald shrugged and brought everybody together. Lars had them line up in several ranks, with the men in the rear, the women in front of the men, and the children all the way in the front. Lars pulled a bench to the front and hopped up on it. He smiled and called out, “Segðeptirr mik!” {"Say after me!"} With a big grin on his face, he raised his right arm and flapped it wildly. “Arm!”

The response was muted. His audience mostly looked at each other in confusion. Lars repeated, himself, “Arm!” and flapped his arm again. “ Segðþatr! Arm! Arm!” {"Say it! Arm! Arm!"}

It was the children who saved him. The little ones giggled and began flapping their arms and singing out, ‘Arm! Arm!’ They were followed by Helga, who laughed and began flapping an arm and calling out ‘Arm!’. She was slowly followed by a few of the other women and her father, and then the rest of the room joined in.

At that point, Lars stopped and balanced on his left foot. He lifted his right leg and shook it. “Leg! Segðþatr! Leg!”

Again, the children started, hopping around on one foot, and shaking a leg, all the while laughing and yelling “Leg!” Their mothers laughed and shook a leg and repeated the word, followed by the men.

From that point, Lars went through body parts. ‘Hand! Finger! Thumb! Elbow! Foot! Knee!’ He repeated each word until the group had learned it. When interest seemed to dip, he tested them. He waved a hand and pointed to one of the children and asked, “Hvat?” When they got it right, he would point to one of the adults and repeat the question. Then he tried tripping them up, by flapping an arm and yelling out, “Foot?” There would often be giggles from the children as they corrected him.

By mid-afternoon, Lars had an audience of British soldiers and contractors watching and laughing. They even joined in, shaking their own arms and legs. The real fun began when he waved his right arm and said, “Right arm!” followed by waving his left arm and saying, “Left arm!” Unfortunately, when he waved his right arm, many of the group waved the arm on the same side. Since they were facing him, they waved their left arms. “ Nei! Nei! Nei!” {"No! No! No!"} Lars turned around so he was facing away from the Vikings and shook his right arm, “Right arm! Right arm!” He looked back over his shoulder to find everybody laughing at him.

Whatever it took...

When the children started to flag, he would get them laughing. Facing away from them, he shook his rear from side to side and slapped it with his hands. “Butt!” The kids laughed uproariously and spanked each other’s butts. He kept it up for two hours before stopping. He promised more lessons after dinner.

Helga gave Lars a hug after the class. “ Þú eru rikkir kendrin, Lars!” {"You are a great teacher, Lars!"}

Lars shrugged. “Vér munu sjá.” {"We will see."}

Bjorn the Elder, one of two Bjorns in the crew of the Frijhof, grumped and said, “Ek munu aldrigh tith kendir þessi.” {"I will never learn this."}

“Bjorn, eru þú góðr farmaðr?” {"Bjorn, are you a good sailor?"}

“Ja.”

“Knáttþúr kendir mik til munu farmaðr?” {"Could you teach me to be a sailor?"}

Bjorn shrugged and nodded. “Kná. Ja.” {"Maybe. Yes."}

“Þá kná ek megkendrin þú English.” {"Then maybe I can teach you English."}

Torvald laughed at Bjorn and said that he would keep learning, or else, which got Bjorn to rolling his eyes.

After dinner Lars did another short lesson, though this related to their dinner. He taught about the table, the table legs, the chairs, the chair legs, the chair back, above the table and below the table, sitting and standing. All the while he had the children in the front, where they considered it a hilarious game. Seeing them laugh made their parents laugh, which made the single men, almost all of whom were related to everybody else, laugh. Slowly, there was some progress.

The next morning things began going to hell. Breakfast was fine, and Lars held another lesson in the open space of the bunkhouse. Mid-morning several helicopters flew in, and suddenly the British staff began to get nervous. Several heavily armed individuals entered the room and looked around and then left, and several took up positions at the entrances. Lars asked one of the mess attendants, “Who are those guys?” He often acted as an interpreter for the dining facility personnel; several of the Viking women helped prepare and serve the meals. The new people neither wore military uniforms nor the standard dress of the QinetiQ support staff. Instead, they wore civilian clothing, body armor, and carried a lot of weapons.

The young man glanced at the entrance and turned away. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” he said quietly.

“Huh.”

Fifteen minutes later a pair of the new people came in and loudly asked for Lars Ropstad. Lars walked over to them. “I’m Lars Ropstad. Can I help you?”

One of them reached out and took Lars’ arm. “Come with us.”

“What’s this about?” asked Lars, not moving.

“I wasn’t asking you. I was telling you. Come with us, now!” He pulled Lars towards the door, as the rest of the room stared. Once outside, they marched Lars to the office wing of the compound. Along the way, Lars stopped when he saw Colonel Bellingham being marched towards a waiting helicopter. He was also in the company of a pair of the new people. The person holding Lars’ arm tugged him forward. “Don’t make the Colonel wait.” He dragged Lars into the office.

Lars was dragged into Colonel Bellingham’s office, only a different officer was using it. “Ropstad, sir.”

“Thank you. We’ll wait until the other one shows up,” was the reply.

Lars asked, “The other one?” but was ignored.

Lars learned the answer a minute later when Jennifer Wiltshire was dragged in by another pair of armed men. “What is going on?” she demanded.

“Shut it!” she was told.

Lars caught her eye and shook his head. He didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t seem a time for yelling.

The officer in front of them sat down behind what had been Colonel Bellingham’s desk. Lars looked around the room and saw that all the other chairs had been removed. The officer said, “I am Colonel Henry Fletch-Finley and I am the new commanding officer of this facility. Colonel Bellingham has been relieved for cause and placed under arrest.”

That didn’t sound promising, but Lars simply said, “Hello. I’m Lars Ropstad.”

“Jennifer Wiltshire,” said Jennifer.

“I know that. What I want to know is why the prisoners are not in custody and what part you two are playing in this travesty.”

“What are you talking about?” replied Lars. Fletch-Finley nodded to one of the men behind Lars, and suddenly Lars’ back felt like it was exploding. He gasped and staggered forward, his knees buckling as a fist hammered into his right kidney. “What the fuck...” Another hammer blow landed; this time Lars was silent.

“Watch your arsemouth,” Lars was warned from behind.

“Now, I am going to ask the questions and you are going to provide the answers. I am here to clean up this mess, so the quicker you answer my questions, the quicker we can clean it up. Now, who are you and what do you do here?”

Lars waited a few seconds before responding. “You already know my name. I’m the interpreter.”

“You speak Viking?”

“No, I speak Old Norse.”

“And now you are teaching them English? Why? Who told you to do that?”

“I was told by my employer, the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The why is to prepare the Vikings for their future somewhere in the United Kingdom. English will probably prove useful when they need to go out to the grocery store, don’t you think?” said Lars. Another hammer blow exploded in Lars’ back. This time Lars whirled on his attacker and said, “KNOCK IT OFF!” he turned back to Fletch-Finley, and asked, “What the hell is going on?”

“What is going on is getting these prisoners under control.”

“What prisoners? They’re not under arrest. They’re being held here for their safety and security,” said Jennifer.

“We’ll get to you next, Miss Wiltshire. In the meantime, practice the art of silence,” Fletch-Finley said. He turned back to Lars. “They most certainly are prisoners! They have committed a lengthy series of crimes, beginning with illegal immigration and an armed incursion into one of Her Majesty’s military installations. Then there is whatever this disk thing is I’ve heard of, which seems to only show up when they are around, and which they have now used to destroy one of Her Majesty’s helicopters and kill six of Her Majesty’s soldiers. That is six counts of murder!”

“This is madness!” replied Lars.

“Mister Ropstad, you may be an employee of the CIA, but in case you haven’t noticed, this is not the United States. This is the United Kingdom, and your employer has no authority here. For the time being, I will continue using you as a translator, however you are no longer to teach the Vikings English. They will not be staying here long.”

“Oh? Where will they be going?”

“We’ll be sending them back, of course.”

“You have a time machine?” asked Lars.

Fletch-Finley sighed. “Don’t be tedious. No such thing exists. We will be sending them back where they came from, Norway, of course.”

“So, you want me to teach them Norwegian? Because Old Norse is not Norwegian. Nobody in Norway will be able to understand them anymore than people here do.”

“That would be Norway’s problem, not ours.”

“And you’ve talked to the Norwegians about this?” Lars asked.

Fletch-Finley ignored this and turned to Jennifer. “And what are you doing here?”

“Oxford was asked to provide an expert on Viking artifacts and culture, and I was given the assignment. You plan on beating me, too?”

“Your participation is no longer necessary. Pack your bags and prepare to leave. Since this is obviously not time travel, then the artifacts are obviously false and not authentic.”

Jennifer looked over at Lars and said, “This is absurd.”

“Not to my kidneys,” Lars commented.

“I have also learned that the prisoners have been allowed to cohabitate, and they have been allowed their possessions and weapons. Whose idea was that?” asked Fletch-Finley.

“They’re not prisoners. They’re families,” protested Lars.

“We will be bringing in wire enclosures to begin with, and then separating the men, the women, and the children.”

“Some of those children are still nursing! Do you plan to have their mothers stick their tits through the bars when they get hungry?”

That earned Lars another punch in the kidneys. “Shut it, arsemouth.”

“Your first task, Mister Ropstad, is to retrieve all the weapons and possessions the prisoners have been allowed to retain. These gentlemen will accompany you and you will interpret for them. Then I will find some other tasks for you.”

“What weapons?”

“I am told they have knives, provided to them, no less, than by Colonel Bellingham! How hard would it be for them to revolt and access the armory?”

“The armory? For what cause? We’re on an island. Their ship is broken and there is no way they can rebuild it. They think the helicopters are dragons and that your rifles are magic crossbows! They are not a threat,” protested Lars.

“You’re insane,” said Jennifer.

“You, Miss Wiltshire, need to begin packing your bags. Mister Ropstad, you have your orders. Good day.” Fletch-Finley made a shuffling motion with his hands and Lars and Jennifer were pulled away.

Two of the armed men sandwiched Lars between them and frog-marched him back to the bunkhouse. The atmosphere inside was noticeably nervous, both among the British and the Vikings. One of the new men pulled Lars into the center of the room. “I want them lined up. Here. Then you are going to order them to strip down. We’ll be doing a strip search while my men remove anything in their ... what do you call them, cubicles? Then we will restrain the prisoners while we install temporary cages.”