Von Ziegler looked round at him. 'There's no such thing as luck, Baron; only brains and organisation—as I propose to show this afternoon. Come on.' Without another word to the two Norwegians he shouldered his way past them and strode out of the room.
Gregory followed more slowly and, pausing in the doorway, said to the other two conspirators: 'I'm afraid you've made rather a mess of things, gentlemen, and in Germany such mistakes are not readily overlooked. Your only chance is to get out of the country while the going is good. There are still some neutral ships in the harbour and if I were you I should get on to one of them without an hour's delay.'
Having clicked his heels and bowed sharply from the waist he turned and left them.
His advice sounded like that of a sympathetic German who was not whole-heartedly with the Nazis and was sorry for two officers who had bungled a very important operation. Actually, it was a Machiavellian piece of cunning by which he hoped to ensure that those two traitors would get their just deserts.
If they fled up-country—as they probably would have done had he not spoken to them—it was highly probable that they would have evaded capture, for the Germans had only just landed in the capital; but if they followed his advice and went down to the harbour their capture was quite certain. No neutral ship would now be allowed to leave Oslo without German permission and if they were caught trying to get out of Norway the assumption would be that they had made up their minds to go over to the Allies; so what had only been a blunder in the first place would, in German eyes, be aggravated to deliberate treachery, and they would be dealt with accordingly.
Von Ziegler was already half-way across the courtyard when Gregory reached the door. As he followed the German he blessed King Haakon and the Crown Prince. Evidently they had had the wit to see that to present any kind of pass to a sentry on their own doorstep was certain to excite comment, so they had decided not to use the pass but to go out over the wall; and that, Gregory felt, had probably saved his life.
When he caught von Ziegler up the German was climbing in to his car. 'What d'you propose to do now?' Gregory asked.
'Go after them, of course. They can't have got far. Would you like to come with me, or would you prefer to go and let Quisling know how the Norwegians have ruined our admirable plan?'
Nothing was further from Gregory's wishes than to go and see Quisling at that moment, but he hesitated artistically before he said: 'I think perhaps I'd better go with you. It will now be a matter of a hold-up in the open, and as there are two of them you may need my help if they happen to be armed.'
'Right. Are you taking your own car or will you come in mine?'
'If I leave mine here somebody may pinch it, so I think I'll go under my own steam. I'll be close behind you.'
With a nod von Ziegler let in the clutch and his car streaked away. Gregory jumped into his and ran smoothly along behind him, knowing that with the roads now so choked with refugees the adventurous airman would not get very far at the pace at which he had set off. For ten minutes they wound in and out of the slow-moving traffic until they reached the Oslo Police Headquarters, outside which von Ziegler pulled up.
'What now?' thought Gregory. 'Surely the Nazi organisation can't have managed to get the Norwegian police force under its thumb.' But he was mistaken. After he had waited outside in his car for nearly forty minutes von Ziegler came out again and hurried up to him. His blue eyes were shining and a satisfied smile curved his strong mouth.
'We're on to them,' he said. 'Oslo is such a little place that everyone here knows the King and the Crown Prince by sight. I felt certain they'd be recognised by scores of people before they had gone ten miles. We had to wait until we could get reports of them from well outside the town so as to make certain in which direction they were heading. They've taken the road to Eidsvold, a small town about forty-five miles north from here.'
Two minutes later they had joined the stream of traffic heading north and Gregory settled down to what he knew would be a dreary chase. Had he been von Ziegler he would almost have wept with frustration at the impossibility of getting every ounce out of his car, but, as it was, he was quite content to loiter. In fact, he knew that the longer they were held up by the refugees the more chance the King would have of getting away, for even crowds who had been panicked from their homes would make way at the sight of their King, whereas they would certainly not give way to anyone who had the appearance of an ordinary civilian; but in this he had counted without von Ziegler.
Directly they were outside the town and the traffic was a little less congested the German pulled up at the roadside and took two large squares of paper out of his pocket, one of which he proceeded to paste on his own windscreen and the other on Gregory's. Both bore large printed inscriptions in Norwegian, which Gregory could not understand, but the airman said Swiftly: 'No good putting them on before we were out of that crush, but they'll help us a lot now. These notices say: "POLICE—URGENT!" and the small lettering underneath means 'Offence to obstruct".'
'Grand!' said Gregory. 'You think of everything; I couldn't have tackled the job better myself.' And as they went on again he noticed with dismay how the law-abiding Norwegians paid due deference to the placards. Each time that von Ziegler sounded his Klaxon they turned to stare and immediately gave him room to pass.
Even with these aids-to-travel their going was miserably slow, as the way curved and twisted through the mountains, where it was much too dangerous to shoot ahead for any distance with one solid line of traffic blocking half the road, and Gregory reckoned that they could not be making much more than fifteen miles an hour. But the King could not be doing any better, so he had no more than his original lead, which, allowing for their long wait at the police-station, was just about an hour.
Now that spring had come, southern Norway was gradually divesting herself of her winter robe of snow.
All the mountains were still white-capped but the thaw was climbing out of the deep valleys day after day and every stream and river was in spate. The road lay well below the snowline, but it was very chilly and Gregory thanked his stars that he was warmly clad. He pitied the poor wretches they were passing as he felt certain that many of them would not be able to find accommodation for the night, but conditions were nothing like so appalling for them as they had been for the Finns whom he had seen driven out of Helsinki, in the depths of winter, by Russian bombers.
At a quarter to four they entered Eidsvold, a little town that had only one hotel of any size, in its market square. Von Ziegler drew up in front of it and marched into the crowded lounge. As Gregory had not had anything to eat or drink for over eleven hours he got out too, but his hopes were disappointed. Von Ziegler simply produced a Norwegian police-pass, buttonholed the porter and, addressing him in fluent Norwegian, asked if the King was there.
For Gregory's benefit he translated the man's answer. 'No; he's not here, but he passed through about an hour ago on the way to Tangen.' And while he was speaking von Ziegler was already leading the way back to the cars.
It was about another twenty miles to Tangen and for most of the way the road lay along the east shore of the beautiful Mjose Lake, which is not very broad but extends for over forty miles, like a great inland fjord. They had ample time to admire the scenery, as the road was still choked with Norwegian families moving north, who had left Oslo early that morning; but the going along the lake-shore was distinctly better and they reached Tangen by five o'clock.