World War II Thriller Collection (133 page)

Maybe there was another place he could get cable. But he could not think where. And he was running out of time. The full moon was six days away. That meant he had only four days left to work on the aircraft.

He left the building and headed for the gate, carrying the bags. He was going to return to Kirstenslot—but for what purpose? Without the cable, the Hornet Moth would not fly. He wondered how he was going to tell Karen he had failed.

As he passed the stores building, he heard his name called. “Harald!”

A truck was parked to one side of the warehouse, and Ben stood half-concealed by the vehicle, beckoning. Harald hurried over.

“Here,” said Ben, and he held out a thick coil of steel cable. “Fifty feet, and a bit extra.”

Harald was thrilled. “Thank you!”

“Take it, for God's sake, it's heavy.”

Harald took the cable and turned away.

“No, no!” Ben said. “You can't walk through the gate with that in your hand, for Christ's sake! Put it in one of the bags.”

Harald opened Arne's suitcase. It was full.

Ben said, “Give me that uniform, quick.”

Harald took out Arne's uniform and replaced it with the coil.

Ben picked up the uniform. “I'll get rid of this, don't worry. Now clear off!”

Harald shut the case and reached into his pocket. “I promised you two hundred crowns—”

“Keep the money,” Ben said. “And good luck to you, son.”

“Thanks!”

“Now get lost! I never want to see you again.”

“Right,” said Harald, and he walked rapidly away.

Next morning, Harald stood outside the castle in the gray gleam of dawn. It was half past three. In his hand he held a four-gallon oil can, empty and clean. The tank of the Hornet Moth would take thirty-five gallons of petrol, just under nine canfuls. There was no legitimate way to get fuel, so Harald was going to steal it from the Germans.

He had everything else he needed. The Hornet Moth required only a few more hours of work and it would be ready to take off. But its fuel tank was empty.

The kitchen door opened quietly and Karen stepped out. She was accompanied by Thor, the old red setter that made Harald smile because it looked so much like Mr. Duchwitz. Karen paused on the doorstep, staring around warily, like a cat when there are strangers in the house. She wore a chunky green sweater that concealed her figure, and the old brown corduroys that Harald called her gardening trousers. But she looked wonderful. She called me darling, he said to himself, hugging the memory. She called me darling.

She smiled brilliantly, dazzling him. “Good morning!”

Her voice seemed dangerously loud. He put a finger on his lips for quiet. It would be safer to remain completely silent. There was nothing to discuss: they had made their plan last night, sitting on the floor in the disused church, eating chocolate cake from the Kirstenslot pantry.

Harald led the way into the woods. Undercover, they walked half the length of the park. When they drew level with the soldiers' tents, they peeked cautiously from the bushes. As expected, they saw a single man on guard duty, standing outside the mess tent, yawning. At this hour, everyone else was asleep. Harald was relieved to have his expectations fulfilled.

The veterinary company's fuel supply came from a small petrol tanker that was parked a hundred yards from the tents—no doubt as a safety precaution. The separation would be helpful to Harald, though he wished it were greater. The tanker had a hand pump, he had already observed, and there was no locking mechanism.

The truck was parked alongside the drive that led to the castle door, so that vehicles could approach it on a hard surface. The hose was on the drive
side, for convenience. In consequence, the bulk of the truck shielded anyone using it from view by the encampment.

Everything was as expected, but Harald hesitated. It seemed madness to steal petrol from under the noses of the soldiers. But it was dangerous to think too much. Fear could paralyze. Action was the antidote. Without further reflection he broke cover, leaving Karen and the dog behind, and walked quickly across the damp grass to the tanker.

He took the nozzle from its hook and fed it into his can, then reached for the pump lever. As he pulled it down, there was a gurgling sound from inside the tank, and the noise of petrol sloshing into the can. It seemed very loud, but perhaps not loud enough to be heard by the sentry a hundred yards away.

He glanced anxiously back at Karen. As agreed, she was watching from the screen of vegetation, ready to alert Harald if anyone approached.

The can filled quickly. He screwed on the cap and picked it up. It was heavy. He returned the nozzle tidily to its hook then hurried back to the trees. Once of out sight, he paused, grinning triumphantly at Karen. He had stolen four gallons of petrol and got away with it. The plan was working!

Leaving her there, he cut through the woods to the monastery. He had already opened the big church door so that he could slip in and out. It would have been too awkward and time-consuming to pass the heavy can through the high window. He stepped inside. With relief, he put down the can. He popped open the access panel and undid the petrol cap of the Hornet Moth. He fumbled awkwardly because his fingers were numb from carrying the heavy can, but he got the cap open. He emptied the can into the aircraft's tank, replaced both caps to minimize the smell of fuel, and went out.

While he was filling the can for the second time, the sentry decided to make a patrol.

Harald could not see the man, but knew something was wrong when Karen whistled. He looked up to see her emerging from the wood with Thor at her heel. He let go of the hand pump and dropped to his knees to look under the tanker and across the lawn. He saw the soldier's boots approaching.

They had foreseen this problem and prepared for it. Still on his knees, Harald watched Karen stroll across the grass. She met up with the sentry while he was still fifty yards away from the tanker. The dog amiably sniffed the man's crotch. Karen took out cigarettes. Would the sentry be friendly, and smoke with a pretty girl? Or would he be a stickler for routine, and ask her to walk her dog somewhere else while he continued his patrol? Harald held his breath. The sentry took a cigarette, and they lit up.

The soldier was a small man with a bad complexion. Harald could not hear their words, but he knew what Karen was saying: she could not sleep, she felt lonely, she wanted someone to talk to. “Don't you think he might be suspicious?” Karen had said while discussing this plan last night. Harald had assured her that the victim would enjoy being flirted with far too much to question her motives. Harald had not been as certain as he pretended, but to his relief the sentry was fulfilling his prediction.

He saw Karen point to a tree stump a little way off and then lead the soldier to it. She sat down, placing herself so that the sentry had to have his back to the tanker if he wanted to sit next to her. Now, Harald knew, she would be saying that the local boys were so dull, she liked to talk to men who had traveled a little and seen the world, they seemed more mature. She patted the surface beside her to encourage him. Sure enough, he sat down.

Harald resumed pumping.

He filled the can and hurried into the woods. Eight gallons!

When he returned, Karen and the sentry were in the same positions. While he refilled the can, he calculated how long he needed. Filling the can took about a minute, the walk to the church about two, pouring the petrol into the Hornet Moth another minute, the return journey another two. Six minutes for the round trip, then, making fifty-four minutes for nine canfuls. Assuming he would tire toward the end, call it an hour.

Could the sentry be kept chatting that long? The man had nothing else to do. The soldiers rose at five-thirty, still more than an hour away, and began their duties at six. Assuming the British did not invade Denmark in the next hour, the sentry had no reason to stop talking to a pretty girl. But he was a soldier, under military discipline, and he might feel it his duty to patrol.

All Harald could do was hope for the best, and hurry.

He took the third canful to the church. Twelve gallons already, he thought optimistically; more than two hundred miles—a third of the way to England.

He continued his shuttle. According to the manual he had found in the cockpit, the DH87B Hornet Moth should fly 632 miles on a full tank. That figure assumed no wind. The distance to the English coast, as best he could reckon it from the atlas, was about 600 miles. The margin of safety was nowhere near enough. A head wind would reduce their mileage and bring them down in the sea. He would take a full can of petrol in the cabin, he decided. That would add seventy miles to the Hornet Moth's range, assuming he could figure out a way to top up the tank in flight.

He pumped with his right hand and toted with his left, and both arms were aching by the time he emptied the fourth canful into the aircraft. Returning for the fifth, he saw that the sentry was standing up, as if preparing to move off, but Karen still had him talking. She laughed at something the man said, and slapped his shoulder playfully. It was a coquettish gesture that was most uncharacteristic of her, but all the same Harald felt a pang of jealousy. She never slapped his shoulder playfully.

But she had called him darling.

He carried the fifth and sixth canfuls, and felt he was two-thirds of the way to the English coast.

Whenever he felt scared, he thought of his brother. It was difficult, he found, to accept that Arne was dead. He kept thinking about whether his brother would approve of what he was doing, what he would say when Harald told him about some aspect of his plans, how he would be amused or skeptical or impressed. In that way, Arne was still part of Harald's life.

Harald did not believe in the obstinately irrational fundamentalism of his father. Talk of heaven and hell seemed mere superstition to him. But now he saw that in a way dead people lived on in the minds of those who had loved them, and that was a kind of afterlife. Any time his resolution weakened, he recalled that Arne had given everything for this mission, and felt an impulse of loyalty that gave him strength—even though the brother to whom he owed that loyalty was no more.

Returning to the church with the seventh canful, he was seen.

As he approached the church door, a soldier in underwear emerged
from the cloisters. Harald froze, the can of petrol in his hand as incriminating as a hot gun. The soldier, half-asleep, walked to a bush and begin to urinate and yawn at the same time. Harald saw that it was Leo, the young private who had been so intrusively friendly three days ago.

Leo caught his eye, was startled to find himself observed, and looked guilty. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Harald guessed it was against the rules to pee in the bushes. They had dug a latrine behind the monastery, but it was a long walk, and Leo was being lazy. Harald tried to smile reassuringly. “Don't worry,” he said in German. But he could hear the tremor of fear in his own voice.

Leo did not seem to notice it. Readjusting his clothing, he frowned. “What's in the can?”

“Water, for my motorcycle.”

“Oh.” Leo yawned. Then he jerked a thumb at the bush. “We're not supposed to . . .”

“Forget it.”

Leo nodded, and stumbled away.

Harald stepped into the church. He paused a moment, closing his eyes, getting over the tension. Then he poured the fuel into the Hornet Moth.

As he approached the petrol tanker for the eighth time, he saw that his plan was beginning to fall apart. Karen was walking away from the tree stump, back toward the woods. She gave the sentry a friendly wave, so they must have parted on good terms, but Harald guessed the man had some duty he was obliged to perform. However, he was walking away from the tanker, toward the mess tent, so Harald felt able to carry on, and he refilled the can.

As he carried it into the woods, Karen caught up with him and murmured, “He has to light the kitchen stove.”

Harald nodded and hurried on. He poured the eighth canful into the aircraft's tank and returned for the ninth. The sentry was nowhere to be seen, and Karen gave him the thumbs-up sign to indicate that he could go ahead. He filled the can for the ninth time and returned to the church. As he had calculated, this brought the level to the brim, with some left over. But he needed an extra canful to carry in the cabin. He returned for the last time.