Digby said, “Good night, sir.”
“It can’t go on,” said Churchill. “At this rate, Bomber Command will be finished by Christmas. I need to know who or what Freya is.”
“I’ll find out.”
“Do so with the utmost dispatch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good night,” said the Prime Minister, and he went inside.
PART ONE
1
On the last day of May 1941, a strange vehicle was seen on the streets of Morlunde, a city on the west coast of Denmark.
It was a Danish-made Nimbus motorcycle with a sidecar. That in itself was an unusual sight, because there was no petrol for anyone except doctors and the police and, of course, the German troops occupying the country. But this Nimbus had been modified. The four-cylinder petrol engine had been replaced by a steam engine taken from a scrapped river launch. The seat had been removed from the sidecar to make room for a boiler, firebox, and chimney stack. The substitute engine was low in power, and the bike had a top speed of about twenty-two miles per hour. Instead of the customary roar of a motorcycle exhaust, there was only the gentle hiss of steam. The eerie quiet and the slow pace gave the vehicle a stately air.
In the saddle was Harald Olufsen, a tall youth of eighteen, with clear skin and fair hair brushed back from a high forehead. He looked like a Viking in a school blazer. He had saved for a year to buy the Nimbus, which had cost him six hundred crowns-then, the day after he got it, the Germans had imposed the petrol restrictions.
Harald had been furious. What right did they have? But he had been brought up to act rather than complain.
It had taken him another year to modify the bike, working on school holidays, fitting it in with revision for his university entrance exams. Today, home from his boarding school for the Whitsun break, he had spent the morning memorizing physics equations and the afternoon attaching a sprocket from a rusted lawn mower to the back wheel. Now, with the motorcycle working perfectly, he was heading for a bar where he hoped to hear some jazz and perhaps even meet some girls.
He loved jazz. After physics, it was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him. The American musicians were the best, of course, but even their Danish imitators were worth listening to. You could sometimes hear good jazz in Morlunde, perhaps because it was an international port, visited by sailors from all over the world.
But when Harald drove up outside the Club Hot, in the heart of the dockside district, its door was closed and its windows shuttered.
He was mystified. It was eight o’clock on a Saturday evening, and this was one of the most popular spots in town. It should be swinging.
As he sat staring at the silent building, a passer-by stopped and looked at his vehicle. “What’s that contraption?”
“A Nimbus with a steam engine. Do you know anything about this club?”
“I own it. What does the bike use for fuel?”
“Anything that burns. I use peat.” He pointed to the pile in the back of the sidecar.
“Peat?” The man laughed.
“Why are the doors shut?”
“The Nazis closed me down.”
Harald was dismayed. “Why?”
“Employing Negro musicians.”
Harald had never seen a colored musician in the flesh, but he knew from records that they were the best. “The Nazis are ignorant swine,” he said angrily. His evening had been ruined.
The club owner looked up and down the street to make sure no one had heard. The occupying power ruled Denmark with a light hand, but all the same, few people openly insulted the Nazis. However, there was no one else in sight. He returned his gaze to the motorcycle. “Does it work?”
“Of course it does.”
“Who converted it for you?”
“I did it myself.”
The man’s amusement was turning to admiration. “That’s pretty clever.”
“Thank you.” Harald opened the tap that admitted steam into the engine. “I’m sorry about your club.”
“I’m hoping they’ll let me open again in a few weeks. But I’ll have to promise to employ white musicians.”
“Jazz without Negroes?” Harald shook his head in disgust. “It’s like banning French cooks from restaurants.” He took his foot off the brake and the bike moved slowly away.
He thought of heading for the town center, to see if there was anyone he knew in the cafes and bars around the square, but he felt so disappointed about the jazz club that he decided it would be depressing to hang around. Harald steered for the harbor.
His father was pastor of the church on Sande, a small island a couple of miles offshore. The little ferry that shuttled to and from the island was in dock, and he drove straight on. It was crowded with people, most of whom he knew. There was a merry gang of fishermen who had been to a football match and had a few drinks afterward; two well-off women in hats and gloves with a pony and trap and a stack of shopping; and a family of five who had been visiting relations in town. A well-dressed couple he did not recognize were probably going to dine at the island’s hotel, which had a high-class restaurant. His motorcycle attracted everyone’s interest, and he had to explain the steam engine again.
At the last minute a German-built Ford sedan drove on. Harald knew the car: it belonged to Axel Flemming, owner of the island’s hotel. The Flemmings were hostile to Harald’s family. Axel Flemming felt he was the natural leader of the island community, a role which Pastor Olufsen believed to be his own, and the friction between the rival patriarchs affected all other family members. Harald wondered how Flemming had managed to get petrol for his car. He supposed anything was possible to the rich.
The sea was choppy and there were dark clouds in the western sky. A storm was coming in, but the fishermen said they would be home before it arrived, just. Harald took out a newspaper he had picked up in the town. Entitled Reality, it was an illegal publication, printed in defiance of the occupying power and given away free. The Danish police had not attempted to suppress it and the Germans seemed to regard it as beneath contempt. In Copenhagen, people read it openly on trains and streetcars. Here people were more discreet, and Harald folded it to hide the masthead while he read a report about the shortage of butter. Denmark produced millions of pounds of butter every year, but almost all of it was now sent to Germany, and Danes had trouble getting any. It was the kind of story that never appeared in the censored legitimate press.
The familiar flat shape of the island came closer. It was twelve miles long and a mile wide, with a village at each end. The fishermen’s cottages, and the church with its parsonage, constituted the older village at the south end. Also at the south end, a school of navigation, long disused, had been taken over by the Germans and turned into a military base. The hotel and the larger homes were at the north end. In between, the island was mostly sand dunes and scrub with a few trees and no hills, but all along the seaward side was a magnificent ten-mile beach.
Harald felt a few drops of rain as the ferry approached its dock at the north end of the island. The hotel’s horse-drawn taxi was waiting for the well-dressed couple. The fishermen were met by the wife of one of them driving a horse and cart. Harald decided to cross the island and drive home along the beach, which had hard-packed sand-in fact it had been used for speed trials of racing cars.
He was halfway from the dock to the hotel when he ran out of steam.
He was using the bike’s petrol tank as a water reserve, and he realized now that it was not big enough. He would have to get a five-gallon oil drum and put it in the sidecar. Meanwhile, he needed water to get him home.
There was only one house within sight, and unfortunately it was Axel Flemming’s. Despite their rivalry, the Olufsens and the Flemmings were on speaking terms: all members of the Flemming family came to church every Sunday and sat together at the front. Indeed, Axel was a deacon. All the same, Harald did not relish the thought of asking the antagonistic Flemmings for help. He considered walking a quarter of a mile to the next nearest house, then decided that would be foolish. With a sigh, he set off up the long drive.