I Can't Begin to Tell You (38 page)

‘Shut up,’ said Tanne.

She and Felix leaned against the rail and regarded the passing English countryside. Tanne couldn’t stop herself smiling. She turned her head towards him and thought she would die of happiness.

‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he said, touching her arm. ‘But there are always exceptions to be made.’

‘Good.’

‘How did it go?’ He peered at her. ‘You look different, Eva. Which is what happens, I suppose.’

‘I am different, but so pleased you are here. Really, really so happy, Felix.’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said. But he moved closer. ‘I wanted to see you before … well, before. I have much to thank you for.’

For a second she was panicked. Was it only gratitude that made him seek her out?

Their faces were very close together. His eyes seemed to pierce her through and through. In the old days she might have ducked her head away from such a truth-seeking scrutiny. But she was beyond the restraints of her previous existence. She knew how important this moment was. She knew, too, that he had risked the wrath of the instructors to talk to her.

‘I couldn’t go without this …’ He placed a finger on her lips.

‘You mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not my mother?’ She took a breath. ‘I have sometimes wondered.’

Felix understood what Tanne was asking. ‘She’s special …’

Tanne thought of her blonde, beautiful, scented mother. How could she match up?

‘But no.’

Tanne smiled.

‘So, you’ve survived what those sadists have thrown at you?’

She grinned. ‘Ask me about the Bone Crusher!’

‘Ah, the Bone Crusher. An old friend.’

‘Your arm?’ She could see that he was holding it a little stiffly.

‘Good as new.’ Felix wasn’t being quite truthful. ‘Are you ready for the parachuting?’

She grimaced. ‘I dread it.’

The compartment door was open and, eavesdropping unashamedly, Lars and Otto were being vastly entertained.

Lars
leaned over and said in a stage whisper: ‘You should know there are multilingual psychologists on the train monitoring our conversations. You two will be for the chop.’

‘Don’t look at me,’ said one of the Poles in a thick accent.

To the sound of ribald laughter, Felix reached out and shut the compartment door.

As the train approached their station, Felix said: ‘This really is goodbye, Eva.’

‘So soon.’ She heard her voice falter. ‘I thought you might be coming with us.’

‘I’m brushing up on a few things for a couple of days.’

‘But when do you go?’

He shook his head.

She stole a look at his face. She didn’t know anything about Felix and perhaps she never would. She didn’t know his name, or where he came from, or what he did. But she knew what mattered to her: the way he slept, the way in which he dealt with pain and discomfort. His courage.

Those were enough.

‘Do you mean
på gensyn
or
farvel
?’

So long. Or goodbye for good?

‘Your choice,’ he said. ‘Which do you prefer?’

He was asking her if she wanted him.

Conscious that they were being watched, she placed her hand on his uniformed chest, imagining she could feel his heartbeat. ‘Not
farvel
, Felix.’

After a moment he nodded. ‘
På gensyn
it is, then.’

The sign greeting the group on their arrival at STS51 read: ‘You Are No Bloody Hero’.

She pondered this welcome as she lay sleepless and longing in her bed that night.

Who were they all?

Who was Felix? Where was her faith that they would meet again?

She
was far from Rosenlund, chilly and homesick. No, lovesick. Eventually, she got up and pulled on a thick jumper over her pyjamas.

She imagined Felix in bed. Probably in one of the dark, narrow, attic rooms that were crammed with ancient iron bedsteads. She willed him to steal downstairs to her.
Please
. Forbidden, of course. Should she find him? Did the English always forbid sex in a crisis? Lars had told her that the whole nation had a peculiar relationship with it. How did he know?

Felix
was
going back into the field. He had made that clear. Would he see her mother? Despite their conversation, the thought of Felix with her mother introduced the tiniest speck of grit into her happiness.

Would he see Rosenlund?

She wished she could go with him.

When she got up the next morning, she felt in her bones that Felix had left.

The pace of the training ratcheted up to the relentless.

During this stage, the instructors paid no attention to the fact that she was a woman. They just made her run harder and tote a twenty-five-pound load on her back that much further.

‘Keep your bloody feet together, number forty-two,’ yelled the sergeant who was instructing them. ‘It doesn’t matter if the plane is burning. It doesn’t matter if you are being popped at by Gerry. It doesn’t matter if you’re surrounded by the entire Luftwaffe. Keep your fucking legs together …’

The practice parachute drops were hell. With a parachute pack on her back, Tanne jumped twelve feet from a specially built wooden construction and practised jumping through a mocked-up Joe Hole. Next up, was a proper jump from a Halifax, which had sounded so easy when the instructors had outlined the procedure.

But when she sat on the edge of the hole, with the roar of
the Halifax’s engines ringing in her ears, fear reduced her to jelly. She couldn’t do this. She would rather crawl to Denmark than do this.

The dispatcher stood over her with a raised arm. His arm fell and he shouted, ‘Go,’ and Tanne discovered there wasn’t any choice.

There was a terrific rush, a savage jerk through her body, then a joyous silence and she found herself floating through the air, wishing she could stay there peacefully for a long time. For those few seconds, she ruled the world.

She landed perfectly. Feet together. The hardest part was battling to undo the straps and to keep the deflated parachute under control in the teeth of a stiff breeze.

The sergeant loped towards her. ‘Well done, number forty-two.’ He ran an expert eye over her. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were one of the chaps.’

She grinned.

‘Listen, I have a pretty little ditty for you. I keep it for my favourites. Learn it.’

‘It
is
a pretty ditty,’ she said.

Finally, they endured another punishing train journey across England to Finishing School: STS35.

Waking on the first morning in a bungalow with a view across the sea to the Isle of Wight, she heard aircraft haring out across the English Channel. They had disappeared by the time she had drawn back the curtains.

‘Today,’ said their new instructor, ‘we’ll teach you the different German uniforms, ranks, regiments and so on. You’ll also
learn how to concoct an alibi when you’re embarking on an operation.’ He paused, milking the drama. ‘I can’t impress on you enough that it’s the detail that counts.’ A smile crossed his mouth. ‘But tonight you are allowed to go into town. Eat, drink, enjoy yourselves.’

After an excellent night out in Bournemouth, and a little drunk, Tanne returned with the others. A dogfight was going on over the sea. She watched and wished she hadn’t. Engines screamed and black smoke obscured the moon as one of the planes corkscrewed towards the water.

Halfway through the night, she woke with a start. A torch shone in her face.

‘Get up.’ The order was in German.

Three men in SS officer uniform had their guns trained on her. Groggy with sleep and beer, she moved slowly. Two of the men frogmarched her down to a small, fetid cellar lit by a spotlight. Lars was already there, tied to a chair. They did not look at each other.

The harsh light was directed onto their faces.

‘
Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
’ demanded one of the SS officers, his accent immaculate.

The SS uniforms looked authentic, too. Where did they get them from? Dead Germans?

Irrelevant thought.
Concentrate
.

She felt outrage beating below the surface of her calm exterior and a slight nausea from the evening’s excesses.

‘Answer.’

She thought rapidly. Her German was almost perfect but if she asked for an interpreter it would give her an extra few seconds to think.

‘No.’

One of them, groomed and pale, switched into English.

‘Where were you yesterday evening?’

‘I went into town.’

Never give too much detail
.

‘How?’

‘On the bus.’

‘What did you do there?’

Be dull
.

‘I went to the cinema and ate fish and chips …’

‘How many uncles do you have?’

Cunning. Slipped in
.

‘What time was the film?’

The interrogation lasted for hours. Her hands remained tied painfully behind her back and she wasn’t allowed to move.

At first, she thought with a slight contempt:
I can cope with this. It’s a lie
. But, as her discomfort increased, doubt insinuated itself. Was it going to be as easy to hold on as she had imagined?

Lars had been taken away to another room and she could hear sounds as if he was being beaten up. Would they really beat him up? Would he get through?

She could not be sure and she discovered that not being sure was almost as bad as the discomfort.

‘I need to go to the lavatory.’

‘Tell her to go in her knickers,’ one of them ordered her interrogator in German.

Urine ran down her legs and she ground her teeth at the humiliation. It soaked her clothes, too, and very soon the tender places between her legs began to smart.

Again, she told herself that it was not real. It was a lie.

They shoved a map under her nose. ‘Give us the detail of where you went.’

She obliged and they threw the same questions at her over and over again.

‘What did the conductor look like?’

‘Who served you the fish and chips?’

As the hours wore on, her body grew stiff with tension and ached from the strain of holding out. To her alarm, she felt herself weakening. What on earth was she doing in this strange
organization? What did they want from her? How far would they go?

She told herself:
There is no point. Give up
.

Cancel all knowledge of the instructors and the techniques and mental tools which they had so carefully taught her. Cancel thoughts of the family. Cancel thoughts of Denmark and what was happening there. This exercise was pointless.

She smelled of urine.

She thought of walking through the streets of Køge. She thought of Felix.

Surrender?

She lifted her eyes and encountered those of the pale German-speaking officer. He didn’t bat an eyelid. Getting to his feet, he walked over to Tanne and slapped her hard on the face.

Her mind was swept clean of everything except anger. If she had to die, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of making a noise, or giving a reaction.

Her cheek burned with shock and the impact of his hateful hand on her flesh. Bending her head, she looked down at her lap and her jaw tightened. This was the moment she would summon her resistance to bullying, violence and a dictatorship of souls – plus, she was damned if she would let them know how much she hated them. She must strip away her feelings. Concentrate on being the operative – hard, unsentimental, clever.

She lifted her head.

It was late morning when, without a backward glance, the officers got to their feet and filed out, leaving Tanne, still tied to the chair, alone in the cellar for another couple of hours.

Exhausted, she permitted her head to slump over her chest.

This was only the beginning. From this moment on, Tanne knew she was required to dig into her reserves of body and spirit, to peel away the layers that made up who she was, and to step out of the skin of the girl she had been – that girl who had
so blithely gone to fetch a doctor. She must understand what people did in war.

Never more, never again, would she whistle to the dogs at Rosenlund and set off with them, light and innocent of heart.

All gone.

These were the bitter lessons of this charade.

Later the instructors went over their respective responses piecemeal. ‘You were inconsistent here … You were unconvincing there …’

Even later, discussing the ‘interrogation’ with Lars, who had been as shaken as she had been, they speculated about the real identity of the ‘SS’ officers. Lars thought they were agents probably destined for active service in Germany, but no one could be sure.

That idea was enough for Tanne to forgive them. But only just.

The day before he went back into the field in early September 1943, Felix was summoned to The Firm’s London headquarters for a briefing with Colonel Marsh, head of the Danish section, and Major Iversen, a recently appointed senior Intelligence officer. Both looked unfit and had the waxen pallor of those who spent too much time indoors.

The colonel went straight to the point. ‘We don’t really know how the mass of the population thinks. But we have had some pointers. The general strike in August, being one. However, for us the balance is tricky. Significant resistance activity in Denmark will keep Jerry busy and preoccupied, which will give our Russian friends some relief on the Eastern front and is desirable. On the other hand, we don’t want a mass uprising before …’

Felix helped him out. ‘Before the Allies invade?’

‘Something like that.’

Major Iversen moved restlessly around the room. He had large feet and his shoes creaked.

‘So, you’re telling me that the Allies might invade through Denmark?’

The two men exchanged glances. ‘Who knows?’ said the major.

Felix leaned over the desk. ‘I don’t believe you. You know, and I know, that it’s highly unlikely. You’re just giving me that to keep up the smokescreen about the invasion.’

The colonel’s expression was as blank as a virgin blackboard. ‘We rule nothing in and we rule nothing out. Whatever the scenario, it’s vital that you, and we, keep control of all resistance activities. Otherwise advantages may be lost and our grip
weakened. But it is true … one of the things we want is for you to spread the idea that the Allies may invade through Denmark, which hopefully will result in large numbers of German troops being tied up there.’

‘But I’m not to know the real situation.’

The colonel shrugged as if to say:
Don’t be so naive
.

‘Many Danes don’t relish the idea of being directed from London,’ Felix was very dry.

‘Make ’em,’ said Major Iversen from his position by the window.

Felix said, ‘Throwing dust in our eyes is not always the best way.’

He was curt and dismissive and, in response, Iversen emitted a gusty sigh. ‘You must remember that Denmark’s official policy of neutrality gives us problems. But we must concentrate on the positives. Getting this organization up and running has taken a bit of effort. We’ve made mistakes. We have had to feel our way. But the time for heroic amateurism is over.’ With a creak of shoes, he turned round to face Felix. ‘We’ve done a good job so far. What we need now is a tough, professional fight using whatever means, however unconventional, to bring Germany to its knees. Your task is to coordinate and support that struggle.’

‘Through the British?’

The two men looked at Felix. ‘Well, if you’re sitting here, it would suggest that’s the case,’ said the colonel.

There was a chilly silence eventually broken by Felix. ‘Then bring me up to speed. I’m out of touch.’

The colonel coughed, a phlegmy unhealthy rasp. ‘You probably know that on the twenty-ninth of August martial law was declared, the Danish government resigned and Danish military personnel were interned …’ He laid out some facts, placing them in a narrative as carefully as if they were the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. ‘Intelligence reports suggest that the German defeat at Stalingrad has given new heart to the resistance in Europe.’

Felix
nodded.

‘We welcome the increase in the Danish resistance but that balance I spoke of is crucial.’ Was there a touch of impatience? Hostility, even? Felix couldn’t be sure. ‘We don’t want it to become so big that a mass uprising takes place which would sting the enemy into a complete lockdown. That’s why we are so keen to control the resistance activity from London. But we’re happy with sabotage directed against shipyards and factories producing materials for the enemy.’

Felix drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘So far you have sent a total of four wireless operators into Denmark, two of whom have been taken out. Thirteen sabotage instructors, of whom one had to be eliminated. And thirty-two containers have been dropped in various locations. Hardly huge.’

The colonel sent Felix a long, cool look. ‘We are doing our best.’

There was more discussion, and then Felix said: ‘It’s agreed, then, that I operate on Zealand and build up the circuit from København. My task is to bring together the resistance factions and weld them together. Until I get radio contact up and running, I will send messages to Sweden, via our fishermen friends. I understand other agents will shortly be sent into Jutland and they will make contact with Vinegar and use him.’

‘That’s about it,’ said the colonel. ‘The agents are being trained at the moment.’

‘You are sure Vinegar is up and running?’

There was another silence. Three minds were working around tricky questions to which there were no sure answers.

The colonel asked sharply: ‘Any reason why you are querying it?’

‘The silence. A feeling.’

‘He’s transmitting.’ The colonel sounded just a touch patronizing. ‘I understand how hard it must be not to become too paranoid in the field.’

You bugger
, thought Felix.

Iversen
intervened. ‘Can you retrieve your wireless sets?’

Felix nodded. ‘With a bit of luck. My first one’s hidden up in København. The second I had to leave with Freya. I’m sure it will still be there.’

As Felix left the room, Colonel Marsh called out, ‘Felix …’

Felix turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘
Tak
.’

Thank you.

Felix returned to Denmark with a couple of other Joes via a complicated route similar to the one he and Eva had taken to escape. They endured being stuffed into the back-end of a bomber that flew them to Stockholm, a train journey to the coast and a nightmare few hours in a fishing boat.

When the boat nosed discreetly into Rødvig harbour, he staggered ashore and breathed in the stink of fish, salt and seaweed. It was good to be back.

He and the Joes sat out the rest of the night under cover of the woods outside the town. Near dawn, a German vehicle appeared from nowhere, cruising down the road. The three men flung themselves flat in the undergrowth. The car halted. A searchlight beamed out of its back window. Felix’s fingers clawed into the earth, digging deep into bark and pine needles. Digging into Denmark.

He was not fucking well going to be captured within a couple of hours of arriving.

The car moved on.

In the distance, dogs barked.

Once the sun was up, they filed down to the stream and shaved as best they could, taking turns with the razor. They dampened their hair and rubbed their shoes before separately making for the station, where they bought tickets to different destinations. They were all aboard their trains before the German guard turned up at seven-thirty for duty.

It was back to life on the move, never sleeping more than a
couple of nights in the same place. No two days were the same, and he tackled this lack of routine by treating every move calmly, as if it was the most banal of activities. He became a master at scanning every face for clues. Who were they? Them or us?

In København, he tapped up his contacts and ‘sleepers’ and made plans to meet each one. Activating a funding arrangement that had been organized with the bank by London, he set about building necessary bridges with other resistance groups.

It was Jacob who told him Freya was on the run and moving between safe houses in Nørrebro, one of the districts of København and he sent a message to her. After that, he contacted Odin and asked for soundings on the state of the Danish army. Was it with the resistance or not?

Late one afternoon, he and Odin rendezvoused near the Torvegade bridge. Fog wisped over the water and there was an autumn chill in the air.

They walked along the waterfront.

Odin was as persuasive as ever. ‘London’s making a mistake by not taking us into their confidence. My contacts don’t like it and the lack of trust compromises our relationships. Some of my army colleagues, very senior ones, were forced to do a runner to Sweden the other day.’ Odin came to a halt. A tug was chugging slowly downstream and its hooter echoed across the flat grey water. ‘Someone betrayed them. The interesting question is: who? Some idiot in London? Or in Sweden, which is even leakier? Or was it here?’ He was twisting a packet of German cigarettes between his fingers. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Odin had changed. There was an edginess, a bitterness, which Felix had not seen before and it made him wary. It was true, he didn’t know Odin … or what drove him … and, in this game, no one ever really knew what the other was up to. For that, you had to be led by instinct, your experience and your ‘nose’. Plus, questions had to be asked. All the time.

He
listened to Odin carefully – sorting out the details, storing away information, searching for the weak spots.

German intelligence-gathering had become highly efficient, in particular the Direction-Finding Signals Unit, Odin reported. But, as far as he knew, he was still trusted by his contacts in the Abwehr. Occasionally, General Gottfried shared operational details with him and some of it was useful, including the intelligence that parachute drops in the Aarhus area were almost all ending in disaster for the agents.

‘Betrayed?’

‘What do you think?’

Felix considered. ‘The Aarhus area, you say? It’s possible.’

Vinegar?

‘There are limits to what I can find out.’ Odin’s gaze travelled thoughtfully up and down the waterfront. ‘What’s happening with the new wireless sets?’

‘Nothing to report.’

Not true but Odin didn’t have to know that. On his return, one of the good pieces of news to greet Felix had been that Johan and his team had, after several bad setbacks, which included a raid on their underground workshop, almost completed the task to manufacture the smaller, lighter wireless transmitter.

‘I dare say London won’t be happy about the new wireless sets.’

‘They took some persuasion,’ Felix replied. ‘The British like to think they’re the best at everything.’

‘Crystals? Transmission schedules? Codes? What about those?’

Again the evasion. ‘We’ll know in good time.’

‘Pig shit,’ said Odin. ‘We don’t have time.’

The fog was deepening over the waterfront. Water slapped monotonously against the moorings.

A group of students were walking towards them and Odin gestured that he and Felix should turn aside.

‘I
have a proposition. Our ever-tidy German cousins have decided to marry the archives in the German Chamber of Commerce here with those in Aarhus. It’s planned for next Thursday. We should snaffle it before it’s locked away in a Nazi stronghold.’

Again, they fell into step.

‘We don’t need the archive.’

‘You’re a fool, Felix. It’s a treasure trove. It’ll tell us who’s cooperating and for how much.’ He tapped Felix’s shoulder. ‘Think of the blackmail opportunities.’ He flashed Felix an unpleasant grin. ‘Get stuff on your enemy. I might even check up on the family and see what I can get on them.’

The joke was not funny and almost painful.

Yet Odin was right.

‘One more thing,’ Odin added. ‘You should know that the word is the Nazis plan to round up the Jews quite soon.’

At the junction with Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard they parted. ‘Get the archive,’ were Odin’s parting words.

Felix watched his retreating figure. The instructors on his refresher course had been emphatic.

Question every friend or foe. Especially every friend. Trust only very sparingly. Question motives thoroughly. Avoid a direct answer.

At three o’clock the following day, Felix entered the Café Amadeus and took a seat under a portrait of the young Mozart. He had dusted talcum powder onto his hair, parted it on a different side, and stuffed his cheeks with torn-up bits of sponge.

Seeing Freya would be a boon, and good for him, but it was her younger version – the wild-haired, bold, tender companion of his flight – who preoccupied him.

Felix’s appearance was bad enough but when Freya slid onto the banquette beside him, he was shocked.

The long blonde hair had been replaced by a page-boy bob with a fringe. Worse, it had been dyed red-brown although, here and there, a few blonde streaks stood out from the brown.
A pair of large, unflattering, dark-rimmed spectacles could not disguise that she had lost her healthy glow.

She wouldn’t have it any other way, Freya assured Felix. Life had become difficult at Rosenlund. Impossible, even. She recounted the story of the dying tortured man – ‘He haunts me,’ she said – and told him what happened with the Gottfrieds, with Arne, her subsequent escape and life on the run. ‘War has freed me,’ she said.

That struck Felix forcibly. Maybe it was true for all of them. Maybe, in its subversion of ordinary life, war was liberating.

‘And your husband?’

The grey eyes narrowed with distress. ‘You always have to pay something, don’t you?’

Freya was someone else now. Johan had procured forged papers identifying her as Lise Lillelund, infant school teacher. Born on Funen. Widowed. Currently recovering from a bout of TB that required frequent journeys into the country for recuperation.

‘Tell me about the man who died. Was there any clue to his identity?’

Their table hugged the wall and there was no one within earshot but she moved closer. ‘I
think
he was one of us. But who he was working for I don’t know. He was being transferred from Aarhus to København.’

‘Aarhus!’

‘He was brave, Felix. They’d tortured him for a long time.’

‘Anything that would give us a clue. Anything?’

‘Despite being beaten up, his hands hadn’t been touched. It struck me as odd. Don’t they usually go for the fingernails?’

Piecing together intelligence required lateral thinking … the sixth sense which pounced on a tiny detail, the scantiest of hints, perceived its import and set it beside another tiny detail.

‘Some of his injuries were months old,’ Freya continued. ‘I wondered whether it might have been Vinegar.’

During
the silence that followed, Felix looked around the café. To an onlooker, this was such a normal scene. The white coffee cups. The half-full ashtray. Waiters. Chatter. A man and a woman huddled together on a café bench.