World War II Thriller Collection (120 page)

That was new. They had not patrolled in pairs before, and there had been no dogs.

He dropped flat. The two men did not seem especially alert. They were strolling, not marching. The one holding the dog was talking animatedly while the other smoked. As they came nearer, Harald could hear the voice over the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. He had learned German in school, like all Danish children. The man was telling a boastful story about a woman called Margareta.

Harald was about fifty yards from the fence. As the guards approached the nearest point to him, the dog sniffed the air. It could probably smell Harald, but did not know where he was. It barked uncertainly. The guard holding the lead was not as well trained as the dog, and he told the animal to shut up, then carried on explaining how he got Margareta to meet him in the woodshed. Harald lay completely still. The dog barked again, and one of the guards turned on a powerful flashlight. Harald hid his face in the sand. The beam of the flashlight played along the dunes but passed over him without stopping.

The guard said, “Then she said all right, but you'll have to pull it out at the last minute.” They walked on, and the dog became quiet again.

Harald lay still until they were out of sight. Then he turned inland and approached the section of the fence that was concealed by vegetation. He feared the soldiers might have cut down the trees, but the copse was still there. He crawled through the bushes, reached the fence, and stood up.

He hesitated. He could back out at this point, and he would have broken no law. He could return to Kirstenslot and concentrate on his new job, spending his evenings in the tavern and his nights dreaming of Karen. He could take the attitude that war and politics were none of his concern, as many Danes did. But even as he contemplated that line, he was revolted. He imagined himself explaining his decision to Arne and Karen, or Uncle Joachim and cousin Monika, and he felt ashamed just for thinking about it.

The fence was unchanged, six feet of chicken wire topped by two strands of barbed wire. Harald swung his satchel around to his back, to keep it out of the way, then climbed the fence, stepped gingerly over the barbed wire, and jumped down the other side.

Now he was committed. He was inside a military base with a camera. If they caught him, they would kill him.

He walked quickly forward, treading softly, keeping close to bushes
and trees, looking around constantly. He passed the searchlight tower, and thought with trepidation how utterly exposed he would be if someone decided to switch on the powerful beams. He listened hard for patrolling footsteps, but heard only the constant hushing urged by the waves. After a few minutes he descended a gentle slope and entered a stand of conifers which provided him with good cover. He wondered for a moment why the soldiers had not thought of chopping down the trees, for better security; then he realized that they served to conceal the secret radio equipment from prying eyes.

A moment later he reached his destination. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see quite clearly the circular wall and the big rectangular grid rising from its hollow core, the aerial slowly rotating, like a mechanical eye scanning the dark horizon. He heard again the low hum of the electric motor. On either side of the structure he could make out the two smaller shapes, and now in the starlight he saw that they were miniature versions of the big rotating aerial.

So there were three machines. He wondered why. Might that somehow explain the remarkable superiority of German radar? Looking more closely at the smaller aerials, he thought they were constructed differently. He would need to look again in daylight, but it seemed to him they might tilt as well as rotate. Why would that be? He must make sure to get good photographs of all three pieces of apparatus.

The first time he was here, he had jumped over the circular wall in a fright, after hearing a guard cough nearby. Now that he had time to think, he felt sure there must be an easier way in. The walls were needed to protect the equipment from accidental damage, but engineers surely needed to get inside for maintenance. He walked around the circle, peering at the brickwork in the dim light, and came across a wooden door. It was not locked, and he passed through, quietly closing it behind him.

He felt a little safer. No one could see him from outside. Engineers would not do maintenance at this time of night except in an emergency. If someone did come in, he might just have time to leap over the wall before he was spotted.

He looked up at the great revolving grid. It must pick up radio beams reflected off aircraft, he guessed. The aerial must act like a lens, focusing the
signals received. The cable protruding from the base carried the data back to the new buildings Harald had helped to construct last summer. There, presumably, monitors displayed the results, and operators stood ready to alert the Luftwaffe.

In the half-dark, with the humming machinery looming over him and the ozone smell of electricity in his nostrils, he felt he was inside the beating heart of the war machine. The struggle between the scientists and engineers on both sides could be as important as the battlefield clash of tanks and machine guns. And he had become part of it.

He heard an aircraft. There was no moon, so it was not likely to be a bomber. It might be a German fighter on a local flight, or a civilian transport that had got lost. He wondered if the big aerial had detected its approach an hour ago. He wondered whether the smaller aerials were pointed at it. He decided to step outside and take a look.

One of the smaller aerials faced the sea, in the direction from which the aircraft was approaching. The other pointed inland. Both were tilted at angles different from previously, he thought. As the aircraft roared closer, he noticed the first aerial tilt more, as if following it. The other continued to move, though in response to what he could not figure.

The aircraft crossed Sande and headed inland, the aerial dish continuing to follow it until after its sound died away to nothing. Harald returned to his hiding place inside the circular wall, musing on what he had seen.

The sky was turning from black to gray. At this time of year, dawn broke before three o'clock. In another hour, the sun would rise.

He took the camera out of his satchel. Arne had shown him how to use it. As daylight strengthened, he moved quietly around inside the wall, figuring out the best angles for photographs that would reveal every detail of the machinery.

He and Arne had agreed he would take the shots at about a quarter to five. The sun would be up, but it would not be shining over the wall into the installation. Sunshine was not necessary—the film in the camera was sensitive enough to record details without it.

As time went by, Harald's thoughts turned anxiously to escape. He had arrived at night, and entered the base cloaked by darkness, but he could not
wait until tomorrow night before leaving. It was almost certain that an engineer would routinely inspect the equipment at least once during the course of a day, even if nothing went wrong. So Harald had to get away as soon as he had taken the photos—when it would be full daylight. His departure would be a lot more dangerous than his arrival.

He considered which way to go. To the south of where he was, in the direction of his parents' home, the fence was only a couple of hundred yards away, but the route lay across open dunes without trees or bushes. Going north, retracing his steps, under cover of vegetation much of the way, would take longer but might be safer.

He wondered how he would face a firing squad. Would he be calm and proud, keeping his terror under control, or would he break and turn into a gibbering fool, pleading for mercy and wetting himself?

He forced himself to wait calmly. The light grew stronger and the minute hand crawled around the face of his watch. He heard no new sounds from outside. A soldier's day started early, but he was hoping there would not be much activity before six o'clock—by which time he would be gone.

At last it was time to take the pictures. The sky was cloudless and there was a clear morning light. He could see every rivet and terminal of the complex piece of machinery in front of him. Focusing the lens carefully, he photographed the revolving base of the apparatus, the cables, and the grid of the aerial. He unfolded a yard rule from the monastery tool rack and placed it in some of the pictures to show scale—his own bright idea.

Next he had to go outside the wall.

He hesitated. In here he felt safe. But he had to have pictures of the two smaller aerials.

He cracked the door. All was still. He could tell, by the sound of the surf, that the tide was coming in. The base was bathed in the watery light of a seaside morning. There was no sign of life. It was the hour when men sleep heavily, and even dogs have dreams.

He took careful shots of the two smaller aerials, which were protected only by low walls. Thinking about their function, he realized that one of them had been tracking an aircraft that was within visual range. The whole point of this apparatus was to detect bombers
before
they came into sight,
he had thought. Presumably the second small aerial was tracking another aircraft.

Snapping photographs, he turned the puzzle over in his mind. How could three devices work together to increase the kill rate of Luftwaffe fighters? Perhaps the large aerial gave advance warning of a bomber's approach and the smaller one tracked the bomber within German airspace. But then what did the second smaller aerial do?

It occurred to him that there would be another aircraft in the sky—the fighter that had been scrambled to attack the bomber. Could the second aerial be used by the Luftwaffe to track
their own aircraft
? It seemed crazy, but as he stepped back to photograph the three aerials together, showing their placement relative to one another, he realized it made perfect sense. If a Luftwaffe controller knew the positions of the bomber and the fighter, he could direct the fighter by radio until it made contact with the bomber.

He began to see how the Luftwaffe might be working. The large aerial gave advance warning of a raid so that the fighters could be scrambled in time. One of the smaller aerials picked up a bomber as it came closer. The other tracked a fighter, enabling the controller to direct the pilot precisely to the bomber's location. After that, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

That thought made Harald realize how exposed he was: standing upright, in full daylight, in the middle of a military base, photographing top secret equipment. Panic surged through his veins like poison. He tried to calm himself and take the last few photos he had planned, showing the three aerials from different angles, but he was too terrified. He had taken at least twenty shots. It must be enough, he told himself.

He thrust the camera into his satchel and started walking quickly away. Forgetting his resolution to take the longer but safer route north, he headed south, across the open dunes. In that direction the fence was visible, just beyond the old boathouse he had bumped into last time. Today he would pass it on the seaward side, and it would hide him from sight for a few paces.

As he approached it, a dog barked.

He looked around wildly but saw no soldiers and no dog. Then he realized the sound had come from the boathouse. The soldiers must be using the derelict building as a kennel. A second dog joined the barking.

Harald broke into a run.

The dogs excited one another, more joined in, and the noise became hysterically loud. Harald reached the building then turned seaward, trying to keep the boathouse between himself and the main buildings while he sprinted for the fence. Fear gave him speed. Every second he expected a shot to ring out.

He reached the fence, not knowing whether he had been seen or not. He climbed it like a monkey and vaulted over the barbed wire at the top. He came down hard on the other side, splashing in shallow water. He scrambled to his feet and glanced back through the fence. Beyond the boathouse, partly obscured by trees and bushes, he could see the main buildings, but no soldiers were in view. He turned away and ran. He stayed in the shallow water for a hundred yards, so that the dogs could not follow his scent, then he turned inland. He left shallow footprints in the hard sand, but he knew the fast-moving tide would cover them in a minute or two. He reached the dunes, where he left no visible trace.

A few minutes later he came to the dirt road. He glanced back and saw no one following. Breathing hard, he headed for the parsonage. He ran past the church to the kitchen door.

It was open. His parents were always up early.

He stepped inside. His mother was at the stove, wearing a dressing gown, making tea. When she saw him she gave a cry of shock and dropped the earthenware teapot. It hit the tiled floor and the spout broke off. Harald picked up the two pieces. “I'm sorry to startle you,” he said.

“Harald!”

He kissed her cheek and hugged her. “Is my father at home?”

“In the church. There wasn't time to tidy up last night, so he's gone to straighten the chairs.”

“What happened last night?” There was no service on a Monday evening.

“The board of deacons met to discuss your case. They're going to read you out next Sunday.”

“The revenge of the Flemmings.” Harald found it strange that he had once thought that sort of thing important.

By now, guards would have gone to find out what had disturbed the dogs. If they were thorough, they might check nearby houses, and look for a fugitive in sheds and barns. “Mother,” he said, “if the soldiers come here, will you tell them I've been in bed all night?”