To his surprise, Petersen chuckled. “Magnus, our machinist, is very skilled.”
McKay smiled. “I never was much good with engines.”
“Nor I. Again, I thank you.”
Petersen turned to go, and McKay said, “I need to see the dam.”
Petersen turned again and looked at McKay. He placed a hand on the wheelhouse just below the boat’s nameplate and leaned. McKay watched. The man may not have brought up his fists like McKay just had, but he had tensed.
“You will see it.”
“I need to see it as soon as I can. Preferably after we’re unloaded and settled in.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“Impossible.”
“I have to see it at least once before we attack.”
“Again, I say you will. But it cannot be so soon.”
“Why not?”
“I must refuel the boat. We have been sailing almost a full day now. We did actual fishing, you see, so that if the Germans stop us we are not sailing with four strangers and an empty hold.” He looked at McKay’s pistol. “Four armed strangers, also.”
“I appreciate that, but do we have to go by boat? Take me there by train or car.”
Petersen looked at the sky and laughed. “Impossible. No, you must wait.”
McKay levered himself away from the bulkhead and stepped forward. He was about to ask why it was impossible, by any means, to visit their target, when from the dark behind them came a noise like a great guywire snapping and the whole boat flooded with white light.
McKay froze. Petersen hissed something in Norwegian, grabbed McKay bodily and shoved him toward the cabin door. They stood in the lee of the light, in the shadow thrown by the cabin and wheelhouse superstructure, and McKay shoved him back. He looked around. The crewmen in the bow had risen and turned to look aft and shielded their faces in the glare. Petersen was pushing at his shoulder again, whispering.
“Patrol boat—get inside.”
McKay looked at him, at the crew. The light played slowly across the men and the deck, rounding their shapes against the blackness as the spotlight circled the boat at a distance.
A voice carried through the tunnel carved by the light, first in Norwegian, then in German: “Fishing boat Hardråde, halt for inspection. Fishing boat Hardråde—”
“Inside, I beg you.”
McKay started to strip his pistol belt. If he could not have his patrol to the dam, he wanted to see this, to get an idea up close what the German Navy looked like in this part of Norway. But he stopped almost as quickly. If they boarded, they would search him, and he had no papers. If they spoke to him, he had no Norwegian. He let go of his belt and looked at Petersen.
“Will they search the wheelhouse?”
“They will if they board us.”
McKay swore. If the Germans boarded them, nothing would matter. “I’ll be there anyway.”
He yanked open the door the cabin, said, “Patrol boat—be ready,” to his startled team, ducked out, and took the ladder in two steps just as the spotlight came broadside to them. He heard the fishing boat’s engine slow. He ducked into the wheelhouse and Jørgen looked at him and said something in Norwegian.
“Shut up,” McKay said. It worked. He pressed himself into the corner and looked sidelong through the dirty porthole.
The E-boat glided through the water untroubled by chop or roll. The craft was enormous, over one hundred feet long with decks several feet higher than the Hardråde’s. It had no towers or aerials that McKay could see, and its wheelhouse lay low along the top of the hull, near the center of the boat, with angular windows like eyes. Two torpedo tubes were sunk into the aerodynamic sweep of the hull near the prow, and at the back stood a flak gun. He could not tell in the dark, but it looked like a 20mm machine cannon. He had seen E-boats—which the Germans called Schnellboote, fast boats—in harbor before, but never on patrol. German sailors in their helmets and winter gear stood on deck. Two stood manning the spotlight, two more a heavy machine gun trained on the fishing boat, and two more ready by the flak cannon. From this distance, and through this window, they looked confident, ready, and at their ease. Professionals. McKay did not like that.
The voice hailed them in Norwegian again, halting, accented, and omitted the German. McKay saw Petersen below the wheelhouse, waving, and one of the Germans waved back. McKay pressed himself harder against the bulkhead and edged closer to the porthole.
The Germans, circling, lay almost dead ahead now, showing the Norwegians their broadside and all their weapons—crossing the T. Again McKay thought of Iron Bottom Sound. The spotlight flashed and burned against the front window, and he froze. He saw Jørgen in silhouette, his only concession to the spotlight being to turn his head, and then the light swept back onto the deck as the boat continued its circle.
The E-boat’s engine growled and the Germans turned, brought the stern of the great craft around behind itself and coasted alongside the fishing boat with two feet of clearance. The pilot of the boat was skilled—he handled the monstrous vessel not just easily, but gracefully. The German pilot throttled back again and the E-boat at first slowed to a stop, then seemed to continue past. McKay scuttled to the other side of the wheelhouse and took up the same position at the starboard porthole, watching. In the stillness, McKay could hear the fishing boat’s engine.
“We’re still moving?” McKay said.
“Shh,” Jørgen said. He had not turned away from the window. “Slowly, yes.”
“What—”
“Shh. Josef is in control.” And then, to McKay’s surprise, “Pray.”
McKay did.
The E-boat gurgled and reversed, moving slowly backward beside the Norwegians. The men on the spotlight swept the decks again and shut it off. Without it, the dark thickened.
The officer stood at the gunwale again, and Petersen had crossed to the starboard side of the Hardråde boat to speak with him. McKay ducked to the wheelhouse door and inched it open.
“We must coax it along constantly,” Petersen was saying, in German, “give it at least a knot or two always, or it will die and not crank back up.”
“Fine,” the officer said. He stood in an opening in the gunwale and looked down at the gap between the two boats. Three or four sailors stood behind him, waiting. McKay drew his Browning.
“I hope to replace most of the parts in spring.”
“Fine.”
“If the Kriegsmarine ever cares to sell such a fine fast boat to a fisherman, do please post me a letter!”
“All right, good, you have explained why you did not stop when we hailed. That’s enough.”
“Sorry, Herr Lieutenant. And how are you this evening?”
“Fine, yes, thank you. I still need to inspect your boat. Can you make no slower speed?”
Petersen shrugged. Jørgen, in the wheelhouse, muttered, “I have something he can inspect.”
McKay would laugh later.
“What are you doing out? This is not the best season for fishing, no?”
“Out deeper, maybe. My cousin in Lofoten is sick. It is easiest to visit by boat—he has a dock on the leeward side of Vestvågsøya, on the fjord.”
“I see. You are Petersen, correct?”
“Correct. We did do a little fishing while we were out. I do not drag my crew and my brother—” he gestured at the wheelhouse, and McKay tensed, “—out of their houses just for a trip to see a sick cousin.”
“I see.”
“Care to come aboard?”
McKay felt sick and gripped the Browning tighter, but the German ignored this invitation.
“You return to Narvik?”
“To Grettisstad, yes—home.”
“Good enough.” The officer seemed more and more bored. “Stand by to be searched. I will have our pilot bring our boat against yours.”
“Too dangerous, Herr Lieutenant!” Petersen shouted, and waved at Jørgen, who wheeled a degree or so to port and widened the gap
between the boats to ten feet.
The German had stood on the verge of leaping down to the Hardråde’s deck but caught himself. He swore and shouted, and another German—probably a petty officer—joined in. Petersen apologized and gestured but Jørgen held steady ten feet away from them. The Lieutenant was still frothing.
“Verdammter Scheißkerl—Come alongside!”
This had been meant for the E-boat’s pilot. The boat’s engine revved and the hull, still cruising slowly backward, angled and slid closer.
“Please, Herr Lieutenant, my hull will be ruined!” He waved at Jørgen again, and the two boats now angled through the water parallel to one another.
“Stand by to be boarded!” the German shouted.
They would search the deck and the cabin first, McKay thought, and so immediately find the three strangers. Their most damning gear lay hidden in the hold, but it would still be obvious to the German. McKay swallowed and thumbed off the Browning’s safety. His whole body rigidified, coiled. If it came to a fight, he would cross to the other side of the wheelhouse, climb down in its cover, and open fire.
Behind him, Jørgen: “Pray.”
This did something that no Japanese or German had been able to in the moment before attack—it distracted McKay. He looked back at Jørgen, who still stared through the wheelhouse window.
“What?”
Jørgen said nothing.
The German lieutenant had stopped shouting. McKay turned back to the slit in the door and watched and listened. Another sailor aboard the E-boat spoke softly to the officer, who, McKay could see even in the poor light, had turned red and drawn his pistol. The officer and the other sailor spoke for a while, and then the petty officer said something. Petersen stood on deck, waiting.
The hushed talk ended, and the officer turned, placed both hands on the gunwale, and leaned over toward Petersen. As he spoke, he holstered his pistol, and McKay waited, prayed.
“Report immediately to Narvik for a search of your vessel. We will radio ahead. If you do not report to the harbor office in the morning, Petersen, we will find you. Understand?”
“Of course,” Petersen said, and actually placed his hand over his heart and bowed.
“And get that shitty motor of yours repaired. All right.”
He gestured to the low cabin of the E-boat and the engine rumbled, roared, dug into the sea at the stern and lifted the prow above the water and carried them back off into the darkness and left nothing but a bright wake slapping and splashing against the fishing boat’s hull behind them.
Petersen looked up at the wheelhouse from the deck and twirled a finger. Jørgen brought the engine back up to its habitual ten-knot tonk-tonk-tonk, and McKay’s entire body went slack. He raised himself, leaned a shoulder against the bulkhead and safed his pistol. He breathed. The door crashed open and McKay grabbed for the pistol again, but stopped when he saw Petersen.
The Norwegian did not slam the door back, but he used more force than necessary. He crossed the room in two strides, threw his back against the bulkhead, and crossed his arms. McKay watched him a moment, then holstered the Browning and eased himself into a lean.
Petersen said nothing, and McKay could glean nothing from his face but anger.
After a time, McKay said, “I’m going to check on my men.”
Petersen nodded. McKay let himself out.
He climbed down to the deck where the crew had returned to their nets and turned to go into the cabin. He wished he could listen to the two Petersens—if they talked. He would not have been surprised, after the last few hours, to learn that they never spoke in more than grunts.
All three men still had their pistols out when McKay entered the cabin.
“Bloody hell,” Graves said after McKay had closed the door. He put his pistol away, and Ollila did as well. Only Stallings, McKay noticed, did not put his weapon away.
“Y’all all right?” McKay said.
Graves and Ollila said yes. Stallings said nothing. McKay watched him. Stallings stared at the tabletop and thumbed absently at the safety catch on his Colt. Had they been in any other place at any other time, McKay would have assumed he was bored. It had not taken much to bore him at Clemson. Graves and Ollila looked at Stallings, too. Before McKay spoke, Ollila caught his eye, the way he had on the plane. He looked away almost immediately, but he had looked—worried? McKay spoke.
“Grove.”
Stallings took a little too long to look up. “Yeah?”
“You all right?”
“Bout shit myself.” McKay watched him. Stallings said, “Those Krauts?”
“Yeah.”
Stallings nodded. “How’d they know we were here?”
“Patrol boat. Just happened on us, I guess.”
Stallings said nothing more, but finally seemed to realize he still held his pistol and slowly put it away. Graves looked at McKay. The man seemed worried for the first time.
McKay looked at the floor a moment and said, “We’re still several hours out of Narvik. The Germans want this boat to report as soon as we arrive. We’ll take care of that. Until then, y’all rest up. Graves.”
“Sir?”
“Come with me just a second.”
They stepped out onto the deck and McKay closed the door behind them.
“Just how hard did he hit his head?”
“You’ve seen it, sir. May I?” He held up a cigarette.
“Sure. We’re fishermen.”
“Bloody good.” He lit the smoke and inhaled. “Damned good. Right, well, I was aboard by then, so I didn’t see the accident—not well, anyway. But he hit hard enough to knock him out straightaway, and hard enough for us to have to wake him up. You’ve known him some time?”
“Since college.”
“And he’s behaving strangely?”
“At first he was acting drunk. He, uh—drank a lot.” McKay thought of the last time he had seen Stallings, in the office of the college president. “But now… I seen plenty of head injuries, and this is starting to look like one of the worse ones.”
Graves inhaled, tilted his head back, and savored it. “Hm.”
“You and Ollila make sure he don’t do anything stupid, or hurt himself. And what I said about liquor will definitely be in effect once we reach our destination.”
In McKay’s experience, local resistance liked to show its appreciation with booze, food—the quality stuff scarce but lavished on foreign friends—and women. His thoughts ran ahead of him. He was about to speak again, to give Graves some kind of order and send him back inside, when he noticed Graves staring over his head, far into the distance. A dull light had begun to play across his features, across the boat as a whole.
“Sir…” Graves said.
For a moment, McKay felt sick. The E-boat had gone off several miles, turned back, and was punching back toward them through the dark on the beam of its light. He turned on his heel, hand to his pistol belt, and stopped. The sea lay quiet and empty around them. Graves pointed, and he looked up.
Overhead in the black, long soft lines of green had found cracks in the sky and ridden through them. McKay watched, and thought of the Australian’s blood tracing the tilework of the pub floor. The green light flowed like syrup, slow, taking its time, thickening and spilling its banks and fogging upward and outward into twisting ribbons a hundred miles high. There rose layers of them, curtains of light, moving high over boat and fjord and ocean. The lights moved slowly, with the unhurry of millennia, and the two men stood and watched, staring up at the sky while the boat’s crew worked away.
7
Petersen said nothing after that. McKay tired of waiting for talk and went down to the cabin, where he slept soundly for three hours before waking. He had been dreaming—something about Guadalcanal, maybe digging in. The sounds of the engine suggested it. He listened to the engine and marked the speed. Petersen had quickened the pace. The tinny, even noises of the Hardråde came in faster tempo. McKay imagined Snow White’s dwarfs hust
ling to make quota.
He stretched and stood, took his copy of Thucydides—untouched on the table where he had left it for Stallings—and stepped outside. By then the lights had almost gone—only a faint green glimmer along the mountaintops far to the north remained—and the sky was black and flecked with stars. He put the book into his pocket. He had half expected brightening morning light, to be able to read in the cold of the deck. He checked his watch. 0800. He would have to set it ahead an hour, now that they had arrived in Norway, but even in London the winter dawn was near enough to feel at this time. Here, nothing but midnight darkness.
The fjord had narrowed. Dark mountains rose to starboard and port as they sailed through a neck in the Ofotfjord, visible only thanks to the faint glow of the descending sickle-moon and their heavy capes of snow.
He stood on deck until he could barely feel his nose, and then climbed into the wheelhouse. Jørgen was there but Petersen himself was not. McKay sat and read and waited, and thought.
His short sleep had been good, but something had kept him awake a long time before drifting off. How’d they know we were here? Stallings had asked him, and Care to come aboard? Petersen had asked of the German. He had been sure it was a bluff—Jørgen had worked the entire time to keep the E-boat from dropping its boarding party into their laps—and yet… He wondered how often the Germans patrolled the Vestfjorden, how often they stopped and searched fishermen, especially this far north, where Howarth’s Shetland operation rarely reached. And what about the odds of the E-boat happening upon them in the dark? The Germans were paranoid—he had heard what they did to partisans behind the lines in Russia—but how paranoid must they be in Norway?
He did not read for long. Petersen may have kept silent, but his brother had decided it was time to talk. He had traveled to America, New York, where he had attended seminary. That explained the exhortation to prayer, McKay thought, and the facility with American idiom. He tried to imagine the helmsman as a preacher or priest. But not for long.
“I got the boot,” Jørgen said. He shrugged. “Women. And the booze.”
Dark Full of Enemies Page 11