I Can't Begin to Tell You (26 page)

‘
Bare rolig
.’ Its owner talked to it softly.

Swearing,
slipping, sliding, the men hauled the container back off the cart.

Having quietened, the horse was persuaded to wheel round to face the road while the men unpacked the container at top speed and stowed the contents in the back: guns, ammunition, plastic explosives, cigarettes.

Erik helped himself to a couple of cartons of cigarettes and threw them on top of the promised parachute which he had stuffed into his trailer. ‘I’ve got to go.’

Upending a couple of bags of turnips, the men spread them out over the haul in the cart. The farmer swung himself onto his seat and snatched up the reins. He urged the horse into a trot and headed off towards the farm outside Haslev. There, for the time being, the arsenal would be hidden under bins of animal feed.

Felix helped to drag the abandoned container under the larches and dumped it in a patch of undergrowth – which was the best they could do for the moment.

A shout made him look up. One of the men sprinted towards Erik.

Trailer rattling, Erik was pedalling away. Far too fast. One hand rested on the handlebars while the other held aloft a flashing torch.

The hairs stood up on the back of Felix’s neck. ‘What the – ?’

Jacob grabbed a fistful of Felix’s jacket. ‘He’s a
stikker
,’ he shouted into Felix’s ear.

Without a second’s hesitation, Felix whipped out the Browning. ‘
Stop
him.’

Erik turned round … a vital second, and his mistake. The bicycle slowed. There was no time for Felix to consider, no time for due diligence, only time to react as he had been taught. He grasped the pistol in two hands, aimed and squeezed the trigger. The bullet pulsed out of the barrel. He fired a second time.

Double tap. One to fell. One to finish
.

Erik
toppled to the ground. The bicycle and its trailer crashed beside him, the wheels spinning madly.

Jacob ran over, knelt down beside Felix, felt for Erik’s pulse and gave a thumbs-down. He scooped up the cigarettes, leaped to his feet and ran back into the trees.

The lookout posted on the Haslev road hared towards them. ‘Cars!’ he shouted.

A posse of headlights was moving along the road from Køge fast enough to suggest the vehicles were petrol-fuelled.

‘Go!’ Felix snatched up the case containing the wireless set. ‘All of you. Enemy.’

One or two of the men panicked and ran this way and that.

The final container was dumped in the wood. The remainder of the team melted away between the tree trunks from where they would make for the back roads.

Erik’s body lay where it had fallen.

Felix assessed his options – he had worked out escape routes earlier from the map. The lie of the land was straightforward but his problem was the moonlight which flooded the drop zone. If he could get across without being picked off, there was an irrigation channel on the other side which would provide cover.

He ran, the case tugging his arm down, banging his legs hard.

Felix was lean and hardened physically. Nevertheless, by the time he arrived at the north edge of the drop zone and rolled down into a drainage ditch, he was near blown. Crouching, he fought for breath.

Short pants. Breathe only in the upper chest
.

They had joked with the instructors that that kind of breathing was practised by women in childbirth.

A convoy of vehicles, some armoured, raced down the road and slewed to a stop. Their doors were flung open, equipment extracted and guns set up. Dogs sprang onto the road.

He rested for five more seconds. A searchlight was already arcing across the drop zone. The dogs bayed. The firing began.

He assessed what he was up against: small arms, machine
guns, small pieces of artillery – textbook German tactics to throw the whole bloody lot into the melee.

He raised his head above the lip of ditch. The firing emanated from the road but he knew that it was only a matter of moments before the sharpshooters fanned out in a circle.

Haslev was the obvious place to make for and, therefore, not an option. Felix dropped his head, turned west and moved cautiously along the ditch. The searchlight moved onwards. Using the dark as cover he upped his pace. Maybe he’d be lucky.

Something punched him in the arm so hard that his vision blackened.

He had been hit.

Clutching his arm, he staggered on a few paces. The strength in his legs drained away. His head buzzed. Death eyeballed him as he fought to stay sensible.

Adrenalin punched in. Thank God. Thank God.

Think, Felix. Keep feet submerged to lose the scent
.

The heavy case dragged him down. The ditch water was thick with mud. On he went, one step after another, reckoning his odds. Against him: a traitor who had given them away; two containers lost; the area crawling with
Gestapomen
and Danish police; a gunshot wound. As yet, thanks to the adrenalin, he couldn’t feel much.

Think
.

The dogs wouldn’t know which scent to pick up first at the drop zone. That gave him one advantage.

Make for Rosenlund.

How many miles?

Far too many.

The adrenalin was thinning and pain was beginning to fan out from a red-hot centre in his arm.

His breath coming and going in agonizing bursts, his heartbeat louder in his head than the Whitley’s engines had been, his arm stiffening, tightening, losing blood, he stumbled on.

At
daybreak, case clutched in his good hand, he slid through the entrance in the north wall of the Rosenlund estate and wove unsteadily beneath the tree cover towards the pigeon loft. Once there, he moved a white feed bucket from the left-hand side of the door over to the right.

He didn’t have to wait too long – but long enough – before Freya discovered him slumped against the wall.

She dropped to her knees beside him. ‘Where are you hurt?’

Felix squinted at her, the pain making it difficult to control his eyelids. Lo and behold, in a tweed suit shot through with soft blues, Freya was transformed into an angel of mercy.

Already she was rolling up his shirt sleeve to expose entry and exit wounds in his right arm. They were blackened at the rim, and the surrounding flesh had puffed up.

‘Where?’

‘At the drop.’

She bent over to inspect the wounds more closely. ‘You’ve caused quite a stir. Apparently, some of the containers came down in a field belonging to a farmer called Nyeman, to the north of Haslev,’ she said. ‘He and his wife tried to hide them but they’ve been arrested. Does this hurt?’ She touched the area above the entry wound and he flinched. ‘What happened? There’s uproar. A man was killed.’

‘I shot him. A
stikker
.’ He pushed out the word with difficulty. ‘There was no choice. Did the other men get back?’

‘I don’t know any more details.’ She was patting and probing, and it hurt like hell. ‘I don’t think the bone’s broken. You should see a doctor.’ Freya got to her feet. ‘Listen, Felix. I’m going to get some things. You have to stay conscious. Do you understand?’

He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

Silence in the pigeon loft.

Where was Hector? Had he flown, his small body battling wind and German potshots?

The
flickering images came and went.

Erik with his pig-painted trailer. How had he failed to spot that Erik had been a
stikker
? Or had Erik been just a brainless idiot only after what he could get? But Felix should have sniffed that out, too.

He had taken another life without due process. How many would be necessary to beat the murderers and thugs?

One of the instructors was bending over him.

Felix! Felix! If you think our methods are not cricket, remember Hitler does not play this game
.

He groaned.

Freya was back, holding a basket. She lifted a bottle of water to his mouth and he drank thirstily. Then she poured antiseptic onto a handkerchief. ‘Are you ready for this?’

He nodded. She dabbed at the wounds and he felt the scream bubble in his throat.

‘I’m being as gentle as I can.’

‘You smell so good, and I smell vile,’ he managed to croak.

‘Well,
I
don’t mind, so be quiet.’

Freya bound up his arm with a piece of white cloth. He eased himself into a more comfortable position. ‘We need to inform London.’

‘Not safe at the moment,’ she said. ‘The place is crawling with police.’

He was unable to think … pain and exhaustion inched through him. The odour of ancient ammonia from long-gone pigeons combined with his own stink was making him nauseous.

‘Send Hector,’ Freya said. ‘It’s time he went. Give me a message, I’ll take it down.’

Felix searched for the last drops of energy. ‘Paper?’

Freya produced paper and pencil. ‘I’ve taken to carrying these around.’

Felix dictated: ‘Drop partial success
stop
lying low
stop
injured
stop
non life threatening
stop
have wireless
stop
Mayonnaise.’

The
coding took more energy. Light-headed from blood loss, he struggled with the first transposition. What was he trying to say? What did he mean?
Partial success equalled bungle
.

Freya copied the letter groups onto the smallest piece of paper they could manage. Then she unlocked the cage. ‘You’re going home, Hector. It’s been a long stay, but you must go.’

The bird’s eyes were bright with apprehension. Somehow, she managed to slot the message into the carrier case and strap it round Hector’s foot.

‘Is he fed and watered?’ he asked.

‘It’s a first-class hotel here.’ With Hector cupped in her hands, she moved over to the door. ‘Do you think he knows, Felix? Do you think he can sense England after all this time?’ Her voice was hushed.

She slipped outside.

Felix rolled to his good side and peered through a crack in the slats.

It was still morning and the light was … he searched for the word … tender. Freya bent over Hector, and they seemed to be talking to each other. She touched the bird’s glossy head, stroked his plumage, her finger coming to rest on the ruff at the base of the neck.

What was she saying to him?

Go well
.

She tossed up her hands. For a second, Hector was in Felix’s line of sight. Then, he had vanished.

Perfectly framed, Freya gazed after him and dashed a hand across her eyes.

She slipped back into the pigeon loft. ‘You must stay here for the moment.’ The tears had vanished and she was collected and practical. ‘But you can’t stay here like this.’ She cupped his face between her hands. ‘Listen to me, Felix. Are you taking this in? Wait here until nine o’clock tonight. Then make your way around the side of the house that overlooks the lake. The steps there lead up to my office. I’ll be waiting. There’s an attic
above it which I’ve had cleared out. You can hide in there until I can make arrangements to take you over to one of our cottages on the other side of the lake.’

‘I can’t miss a second sked,’ he said. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Transmit from the house?’ Her voice faltered and she interlocked her fingers together tightly. ‘Do you know what you’re asking?’

‘A lot.’

‘No,’ she contradicted. ‘You’re asking
everything
…’

The day passed. The pain came and went. Then it returned and stayed.

Felix tried to sort out the situation but his mind wouldn’t work. He knew only three things. One: the drop hadn’t gone well. Two: his arm was useless for the present. Three: he had killed a man.

When nine o’clock came, he hauled himself to his feet and began the long journey.

Spring sunlight filtered lightly through the attic window. Felix turned his head and focused on the flowered quilt that covered him. Poppies in every shade of red. The scarlet splodges floated across his vision.

How had he got here?

Concentrate
.

He closed his eyes.

What could he remember?

Freya hiding the case in a chest under the window and tucking the quilt around him as he drops exhausted onto the floor.

‘You must sleep.’ She tilts back his head and gives him brandy from a glass. ‘Drink as much as you can. I will fetch you in the morning.’

He is already a little drunk, and her touch soothes him. A little.

The
image of Erik toppling over onto the road returns.

‘Felix, the wireless set is in the chest. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

Save for the pinpoint of torchlight, it is dark in the attic and Freya moves cautiously.

She bends over him. ‘Felix?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it like? The plane. Did it look – English?’

Opening his eyes again Felix looked at his watch: eleven o’clock. Avoiding putting pressure on his arm, he manoeuvred himself into a sitting position and propped himself against the wall.

Even in this state, the reflexes kicked in.

Never enter anywhere unless there is an escape route
.

Low-ceilinged, narrow and, except for a window under the eaves, no obvious alternative route out. Sweating, he got to his feet, shuffled over to the chest under the window and stepped up onto it in order to see out of the window. A man could haul himself out onto the roof. Just. But its steep slope offered little cover.

He slumped back.

Eat. He must eat and he reached for the bread and cheese which Freya had left. At first, he retched but, after a couple of mouthfuls, his stomach quietened.

He wanted to weep. He wanted to laugh. Yesterday, he had killed. How easy it was to take a life. Send a message. Or just raise an arm and pull a trigger. But he had also flirted with death and survived.

His elation at his survival vanished when he thought of the mistake he had made with Erik. Persuaded by the neediness of the man, he forgot that the Germans paid well for information. ‘My family is suffering …’ Erik spun the story. Stinking of tobacco, his overalls threadbare, the man was obviously in trouble. ‘Look at what the Germans are doing to us. I want to
do something for Denmark.’ It had been bad judgement on Felix’s part.