“You have to make up your mind!”
“Get ready to turn if I say!”
“I’m ready!”
The car was dangerously close. Harald could see they were not going to lift over it. Karen yelled, “Turn!”
He pressed the left pedal. The aircraft, responding less sluggishly at higher speed, swung sharply off the drive-too sharply: he feared his undercarriage repair job might not stand the strain. He corrected quickly.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the car turn the same way, still aiming to ram the Hornet Moth. It was a Buick, he saw, just like the one in which Peter Flemming had driven him to Jansborg Skole. It turned sharply, trying to maintain a collision course with the aircraft.
But the aircraft had a rudder, whereas the car was steered by its wheels, and this made a difference on the wet grass. As soon as the Buick hit the grass it went into a skid. As it slid sideways, the moonlight momentarily caught the face of the man behind the wheel, fighting for control, and Harald recognized Peter Flemming.
The aircraft wobbled and straightened out. Harald saw that he was about to crash into the petrol tanker. He stamped on the left pedal, and the right wingtip of the Hornet Moth missed the truck by inches.
Peter Flemming was not so lucky.
Glancing back, Harald saw the Buick, completely out of control, slide with terrible inevitability toward the tanker. It smashed into the truck at top speed. There was a booming explosion, and a second later the entire park was lit up with a yellow glow. Harald tried to see if the tail of the Hornet Moth might have caught fire, but it was impossible to look directly behind, so he just hoped for the best.
The Buick was a furnace.
“Steer the aircraft!” Karen yelled at him. “We’re about to take off!”
He returned his attention to the rudder. He saw that he was heading for the mess tent. He pressed the right pedal to miss it.
When they were on a straight course again the aircraft sped up.
Hermia had begun to run when she heard the plane engine start up. As she came into the grounds of Kirstenslot she saw a dark car, very like the one at the station, tearing along the drive. As she watched, it went into a skid and crashed into a truck parked alongside the drive. There was a terrific explosion, and both car and truck burst into flame.
She heard a woman cry, “Peter!”
In the fire’s light she saw the woman in the blue beret. Everything fell into place. The woman had been following her. The man waiting in the Buick had been Peter Flemming. They had not needed to follow her from the station, because they knew where she was going. They had come to the castle ahead of her. Then what?
She saw a small biplane rolling across the grass, looking as if it was about to take off. Then she saw the woman in the blue beret kneel down, pull a gun from her shoulder bag, and aim at the aircraft.
What was happening here? If the woman in the beret was a colleague of Peter Flemming’s, the pilot must be on the side of the angels, Hermia deduced. It could even be Harald, escaping with the film in his pocket.
She had to stop the woman from shooting the aircraft down.
The park was lit up by the flames from the petrol tanker, and in the brightness Harald saw Mrs. Jespersen aim a gun at the Hornet Moth.
There was nothing he could do. He was heading straight for her and, if he turned to one side or the other, he would merely present her with a better target. He gritted his teeth. The bullets might pass through the wings or the fuselage without causing serious damage. On the other hand they might disable the engine, damage the controls, hole the petrol tank, or kill him or Karen.
Then he saw a second woman runnning across the grass, carrying a suitcase. “Hermia!” he shouted in astonishment as he recognized her. She hit Mrs. Jespersen over the head with her case. The detective fell sideways and dropped her gun. Hermia hit her again, then grabbed the gun.
Then the aircraft passed over them and Harald realized it had left the ground.
Looking up, he saw that it was about to crash into the bell tower of the church.
32
Karen thrust the Y-shaped control column sharply to the left, banging it against Harald’s knee. The Hornet Moth banked as it climbed, but Harald could see that the turn was not sharp enough, and the aircraft was going to hit the bell tower.
“Left rudder!” Karen screamed.
He remembered that he, too, could steer. He jammed his left foot down hard on the pedal and immediately felt the aircraft bank more steeply. Still he felt sure the right wing would smash into the brickwork. The aircraft came around with excruciating slowness. He braced himself for the crash. The wingtip missed the tower by inches.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
The gusty wind made the aircraft buck like a pony. Harald felt they could fall out of the sky at any second. But Karen continued the climbing turn. Harald gritted his teeth. The aircraft came around a hundred and eighty degrees. At last, when it was heading back over the castle, she straightened out. As they gained altitude, the aircraft steadied, and Harald recalled Poul Kirke saying there was more turbulence near the ground.
He looked down. Flames still flickered in the petrol tanker, and by their light he could see the soldiers emerging from the monastery in their nightwear. Captain Kleiss was waving his arms and shouting orders. Mrs. Jespersen lay still, apparently out cold. Hermia Mount was nowhere to be seen. At the door of the castle, a few servants stood looking up at the aircraft.
Karen pointed to a dial on the instrument panel. “Keep an eye on this,” she said. “It’s the turn-and-slip indicator. Use the rudder to hold the needle straight upright, at the twelve o’clock position.”
Bright moonlight came through the transparent roof of the cabin, but it was not quite enough to read the instruments. Harald shone the flashlight on the dial.
They continued to climb, and the castle shrank behind them. Karen kept looking to the left and right as well as ahead, although there was nothing much to see but the moonlit Danish landscape.
“Fasten your seat belt,” she said. He saw that hers was done up. “It will save you banging your head on the cabin roof if the ride gets bumpy.”
Harald fastened his belt. He began to believe that they had escaped. He allowed himself to feel triumphant. “I thought I was going to die,” he said.
“So did I-several times!”
“Your parents will go out of their minds with worry.”
“I left them a note.”
“That’s more than I did.” He had not thought of it.
“Let’s just stay alive, that will make them happy.”
He touched her cheek. “How do you feel?”
“A bit feverish.”
“You’ve got a temperature. You should sip water.”
“No, thanks. We’ve got a six-hour flight ahead of us, and no bathroom. I don’t want to have to pee on a newspaper in front of you. It could be the end of a beautiful friendship.”
“I’ll close my eyes.”
“And fly the aircraft with your eyes shut? Forget it. I’ll be all right.”
She was being jocular, but he was anxious about her. He felt shattered by what they had been through, and she had done all the same things with a sprained ankle and a sprained wrist. He hoped she would not pass out.
“Look at the compass,” she said. “What’s our course?”
He had examined the compass while the aircraft was in the church, and knew how to read it. “Two hundred and thirty.”
Karen banked right. “I figure our heading for England is two-fifty. Tell me when we’re on course.”
He shone the flashlight on the compass until it showed the right course, then said, “That’s it.”
“Time?”
“Twelve-forty.”
“We should write all this down, but we didn’t bring pencils.”
“I don’t think I’ll forget any of it.”
“I’d like to get above this patchy cloud,” she said. “What’s our altitude?”