Hornet Flight (13 page)

She was not willing to leave the set alone for more than a minute or two, so the fishermen brought her tea at intervals, and a bowl of canned
stew at suppertime. While listening, she gazed east. She could not see Denmark, but she knew Arne was there somewhere, and she enjoyed feeling closer to him.

Toward nightfall, Sten knelt on the deck beside her to talk, and she took off the headphones. “We're off the northern point of the Jutland peninsula,” he said. “We have to turn back.”

In desperation she said, “Could we go closer? Maybe a hundred miles offshore is too far away to pick up the signal.”

“We need to head for home.”

“Could we follow the coast southward, retracing our course, but fifty miles closer to land?”

“Too dangerous.”

“It's almost dark. There are no spotter planes at night.”

“I don't like it.”

“Please. It's very important.” She shot an appealing look at Lars, who was standing nearby, listening. He was bolder than his father, perhaps because he saw his future in Britain, with his English wife.

As she was hoping, Lars joined in. “How about seventy-five miles offshore?”

“That would be great.”

Lars looked at his father. “We have to go south anyway. It won't add more than a few hours to our voyage.”

Sten said angrily, “We'll be putting our crew in danger!”

Lars replied mildly, “Think of Carol's brother in Africa. He's put himself in danger. This is our chance to do something to help.”

“All right, you take the wheel,” Sten said sulkily. “I'm going to sleep.” He stepped into the wheelhouse and flung himself down the companionway.

Hermia smiled at Lars. “Thanks.”

“We should thank you.”

Lars turned the boat around and Hermia continued to scan the airwaves. Night fell. They sailed without lights, but the sky was clear and there was a three-quarter moon, which made Hermia feel that the boat must be conspicuous. However, they saw no aircraft and no other shipping. Periodically, Lars checked their position with a sextant.

Her mind drifted back to the air raid she and Digby had been in a few days ago. It was the first time she had been caught out of doors during a raid. She had managed to remain calm, but it had been a terrifying scene: the drone of the aircraft, the searchlights and the flak, the crump of falling bombs and the hellish light of burning houses. Yet here she was doing her best to help the RAF inflict the same horrors on German families. It seemed mad—but the only alternative was to let the Nazis take over the world.

It was a short midsummer night, and dawn broke early. The sea was unusually calm. A morning mist rose from the surface, reducing visibility and making Hermia feel safer. As the boat continued south, she became more anxious. She must pick up the signal soon—unless she and Digby were wrong, and Herbert Woodie right.

Sten came on deck with a mug of tea in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other. “Well?” he said. “Have you got what you wanted?”

“It's most likely to come from the south of Denmark,” she said.

“Or nowhere at all.”

She nodded despondently. “I'm beginning to think you're right.” Then she heard something. “Wait!” She had been scanning upward through the frequencies, and thought she had heard a musical note. She reversed the knob and went down, searching for the spot. She got a lot of static, then the note again—a pure machine-like tone about an octave above middle C. “I think this could be it!” she said joyfully. The wavelength was 2.4 meters. She made a note in the little book Digby had tucked into the suitcase.

Now she had to determine the direction. Incorporated into the receiver was a dial graduated from one to 360 with a needle pointing to the source of the signal. Digby had emphasized that the dial had to be aligned precisely with the center line of the boat. Then the direction of the signal could be calculated from the heading of the boat and the needle on the dial. “Lars!” she called. “What's our heading?”

“East-southeast,” he said.

“No, exactly.”

“Well . . .” Although the weather was fine and the sea was calm, nevertheless the boat was moving all the time, and the compass was never still.

“As best you can,” she said.

“One hundred and twenty degrees.”

The needle on her dial pointed to 340. Adding 120 to that brought the direction around to 100. Hermia made a note. “And what is our position?”

“Wait a minute. When I shot the stars, we were crossing the fifty-sixth parallel.” He looked at the log, checked his wristwatch, and called out their latitude and longitude. Hermia wrote down the numbers, knowing they were only an estimate.

Sten said, “Are you satisfied now? Can we go home?”

“I need another reading so that I can triangulate the source of the broadcast.”

He grunted in disgust and walked away.

Lars winked at her.

She kept the receiver tuned to the note as they motored south. The needle on the direction finder moved imperceptibly. After half an hour she again asked Lars for the boat's heading.

“Still one-twenty.”

The needle on her dial now pointed to 335. The direction of the signal was therefore 095. She asked him to estimate their position again, and wrote the numbers down.

“Home?” he said.

“Yes. And thank you.”

He turned the wheel.

Hermia was triumphant, but she could not wait to find out where the signal was coming from. She went into the wheelhouse and found a large-scale chart. With Lars's help she marked the two positions she had noted and drew lines for the bearing of the signal from each position, correcting for True North. The lines intersected off the coast, near the island of Sande.

“My God,” Hermia said. “That's where my fiancé comes from.”

“Sande? I know it—I went to watch the racing car speed trials there a few years back.”

She was jubilant. Her guess had been right and her method had worked. The signal she had been expecting was coming from the most logical place.

Now she needed to send Poul Kirke, or one of his team, to Sande to
look around. As soon as she returned to Bletchley she would send a coded message.

A few minutes later, she took another heading. The signal was weak now, but the third line on the map made a triangle with the other two, and the island of Sande lay mainly within that triangle. All the calculations were approximate, but the conclusion seemed clear. The radio signal was coming from the island.

She could hardly wait to tell Digby.

Harald thought the Tiger Moth was the most beautiful machine he had ever seen. It looked like a butterfly poised for flight, its upper and lower wings spread wide, its toy-car wheels resting lightly on the grass, it long tail tapering behind. The weather was fine with gentle breezes, and the little aircraft trembled in the wind, as if eager to take off. It had a single engine in the nose driving the big cream-painted propeller. Behind the engine were two open cockpits, one in front of the other.

It was cousin to the dilapidated Hornet Moth he had seen in the ruined monastery at Kirstenslot, and the two aircraft were mechanically similar, except that the Hornet Moth had an enclosed cabin with seats side by side. However, the Hornet Moth had looked sorry for itself, leaning to one side on its broken undercarriage, its fabric torn and oil-stained, its upholstery bursting. By contrast, the Tiger Moth had a sprightly look, with new paint bright on its fuselage and the sun glinting off its windscreen. Its tail rested on the ground and its nose pointed up, as if it were sniffing the air.

“You'll notice that the wings are flat underneath but curved above,” said Harald's brother, Arne Olufsen. “When the aircraft is moving, the air
traveling over the top of the wing is forced to move faster than the air passing underneath.” He gave the engaging grin that made people forgive him anything. “For reasons I have never understood, this lifts the aircraft off the ground.”

“It creates a pressure difference,” Harald said.

“Indeed,” Arne replied dryly.

The senior class at Jansborg Skole were spending the day at the Army Aviation School at Vodal. They were being shown around by Arne and his friend Poul Kirke. It was a recruiting exercise by the army, who were having trouble persuading bright young men to join a military force that had nothing to do. Heis, with his army background, liked Jansborg to send one or two pupils into the military each year. For the boys, the visit was a welcome break from exam revision.

“The hinged surfaces on the lower wings are called ailerons,” Arne told them. “They are connected by cables to the control column, which is sometimes called the joystick, for reasons you are too young to understand.” He grinned again. “When the stick is moved to the left, the left aileron moves up and the right one down. This causes the aircraft to tilt and turn left. We call it banking.”

Harald was fascinated, but he wanted to get in and fly.

“You'll observe that the rear half of the tailplane is also hinged,” Arne said. “This is called the elevator, and it points the aircraft up or down. Pull back on the stick and the elevator tilts up, depressing the tail, so that the aircraft climbs.”

Harald noticed that the upright part of the tail also had a flap. “What's that for?” he asked, pointing at it.

“This is the rudder, controlled by a pair of pedals in the footwell of the cockpit. It works in the same way as the rudder of a boat.”

Mads put in, “Why do you need a rudder? You use the ailerons to change direction.”

“Good point!” Arne said. “Shows that you're listening. But can't you figure it out? Why would we need a rudder as well as ailerons to steer the aircraft?”

Harald guessed. “You can't use the ailerons when you're on the runway.”

“Because . . . ?”

“The wings would hit the ground.”

“Correct. We use the rudder while taxiing, when we can't tilt the wings because they would hit the ground. We also use the rudder in the air, to control unwanted sideways movement of the aircraft, which is called yaw.”

The fifteen boys had toured the air base, sat through a lecture—on opportunities, pay, and training in the army—and had lunch with a group of young pupil pilots. Now they were eager for the individual flying lesson which had been promised to each of them as the climax of the day. Five Tiger Moths were lined up on the grass. Danish military aircraft had been officially grounded since the beginning of the occupation, but there were exceptions. The flying school was allowed to give lessons in gliders, and special permission had been granted for today's exercise in Tiger Moths. Just in case anyone had the idea of flying a Tiger Moth all the way to Sweden, two Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter aircraft stood on the runway, ready to give chase and shoot down anyone who tried to escape.

Poul Kirke took over the commentary from Arne. “I want you to look into the cockpit, one at a time,” he said. “Stand on the black walkway on the lower wing. Don't step anywhere else or your foot will go through the fabric and you won't be able to fly.”

Tik Duchwitz went first. Poul said: “On the left side you see a silver-colored throttle lever, which controls the speed of the engine, and lower down a green trim lever which applies a spring loading to the elevator control. If the trim is correctly set when cruising, the aircraft should fly level when you take your hand off the stick.”

Harald went last. He could not help being interested, despite his resentment of the smoothly arrogant way Poul had swept Karen Duchwitz off on her bicycle.

As he stepped down, Poul said, “So, what do you think, Harald?”

Harald shrugged. “It seems straightforward.”

“Then you can go first,” Poul said with a grin.

The others laughed, but Harald was pleased.

“Let's all get kitted up,” Poul said.

They returned to the hangar and put on flying suits—step-in overalls
that buttoned in front. Helmets and goggles were also given out. To Harald's annoyance, Poul made a point of helping him.

“Last time we met was at Kirstenslot,” Poul said as he adjusted Harald's goggles.

Harald nodded curtly, not wishing to be reminded. Still, he could not help wondering exactly what Poul's relationship with Karen was. Were they just dating, or something more? Did she kiss him passionately and let him touch her body? Did they talk of getting married? Had they had sexual intercourse? He did not want to think about these things, but he could not help it.

When they were ready, the first five students returned to the field, each with a pilot. Harald would have liked to go up with his brother, but once again Poul chose Harald. It was almost as if he wanted to get to know Harald better.

An airman in oily overalls was refueling the aircraft, standing with one foot in a toehold in the fuselage. The tank was in the center of the upper wing where it passed above the front seat—a worrying position, Harald felt. Would he be able to forget the gallons of inflammable fluid over his head?

“First, the preflight inspection,” Poul said. He leaned into the cockpit. “We check that the magneto switches are off and the throttle is closed.” He looked at the wheels. “Chocks in place.” He kicked the tires and wiggled the ailerons. “You mentioned that you had worked on the new German base at Sande,” he said casually.

“Yes.”

“What sort of work?”

“Just general laboring—digging holes, mixing concrete, carrying bricks.”

Poul moved to the back of the aircraft and checked the movement of the elevators. “Did you find out what the place is for?”

“Not then, no. As soon as the basic construction work was done, the Danish workers were dismissed, and the Germans took over. But I'm pretty sure it's a radio station of some kind.”

“I think you mentioned that last time. But how do you know?”

“I've seen the equipment.”

Poul looked at him sharply, and Harald realized this was no casual inquiry. “Is it visible from outside?”

“No. The place is fenced and guarded, and the radio equipment is screened by trees, except on the side facing the sea, and that part of the beach is off limits.”

“So how come you saw it?”

“I was in a hurry to get home, so I took a shortcut across the base.”

Poul crouched down behind the rudder and checked the tail skid shoe. “So,” he said, “what did you see?”

“A large aerial, the biggest I've ever come across, maybe twelve feet square, on a rotating base.”

The airman who had been refueling the aircraft interrupted the conversation. “Ready when you are, sir.”

Poul said to Harald, “Ready to fly?”

“Front or back?”

“The trainee always sits in the back.”

Harald climbed in. He had to stand on the bucket seat then ease himself down. The cockpit was narrow, and he wondered how fat pilots managed, then he realized there were no fat pilots.

Because of the nose-up angle at which the aircraft sat on the grass, he could see nothing in front of him but the clear blue sky. He had to lean out to one side to see the ground ahead.

He put his feet on the rudder pedals and his right hand on the control stick. Experimentally, he moved the stick from side to side and saw the ailerons move up and down at his command. With his left hand he touched the throttle and trim lever.

On the fuselage just outside his cockpit were two small knobs which he assumed were the twin magneto switches.

Poul leaned in to adjust Harald's safety harness. “These aircraft were designed for training, so they have dual controls,” he said. “While I'm flying, rest your hands and feet lightly on the controls and feel how I'm moving them. I'll tell you when to take over.”

“How will we talk?”

Poul pointed to a Y-shaped rubber pipe like a doctor's stethoscope. “This works like the speaking tube on a ship.” He showed Harald how to
fix the ends to earpieces in his flying helmet. The foot of the Y was plugged into an aluminum pipe which undoubtedly led to the front cockpit. Another tube with a mouthpiece was used for speaking.

Poul climbed into the front seat. A moment later Harald heard his voice through the speaking tube. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

The airman stood by at the left front of the aircraft, and a shouted dialogue ensued, with the airman asking questions and Poul answering.

“Ready to start, sir?”

“Ready to start.”

“Fuel on, switches off, throttle closed?”

“Fuel is on, switches are off, throttle is closed.”

Harald expected the airman to turn the propeller at that point, but instead he moved to the right side of the aircraft, opened the cowling panel in the fuselage, and fiddled with the engine—priming it, Harald assumed. Then he closed the panel and returned to the nose of the aircraft.

“Sucking in, sir,” he said, then he reached up and pulled the propeller blade down. He repeated the action three times, and Harald guessed this procedure drew fuel into the cylinders.

The airman reached over the lower wing and flicked the two little switches just outside Harald's cockpit. “Throttle set?”

Harald felt the throttle lever move forward half an inch under his hand, then heard Poul say, “Throttle set.”

“Contact.”

Poul reached out and flicked the switches forward of his cockpit.

Once again the airman swung the propeller, this time stepping back smartly immediately afterward. The engine fired and the propeller turned. There was a roar, and the little aircraft trembled. Harald had a sudden vivid sense of how light and frail it was, and remembered with a sense of shock that it was made, not of metal, but of wood and linen. The vibration was not like that of a car or even a motorcycle, which felt solid and firmly grounded by comparison. This was more like climbing a young tree and feeling the wind shake its slender branches.

Harald heard Poul's voice over the speaking tube. “We have to let the engine warm up. It takes a few minutes.”

Harald thought about Poul's questions on the subject of the base at Sande. This was not idle curiosity, he felt sure. Poul had a purpose. He wanted to know the strategic importance of the base. Why? Was Poul part of some secret Resistance movement? What else could it be?

The engine note rose, and Poul reached out and turned the magneto switches off and on again in turn—performing yet another safety check, Harald assumed. Then the note declined to idling pitch, and at last Poul signaled to the airman to remove the wheel chocks. Harald felt a lurch, and the aircraft moved forward.