by Mal Peet
“Yes,” van Os said. “Pork.”
Two nights later, Tamar returned to Sanctuary Farm. He had been riding the knackered bike for more than five hours. His spine and crotch were in torment. His feet were wet and very cold. Every time he had seen lights or suspect shadows on the moonlit roads he had dismounted and dragged himself and the bike into wet ditches or the denser shade of trees. Crouching in such places he had held the pistol against his shoulder with both hands and struggled to steady his breathing. Twice, German motor patrols had sped past.
Throughout all this he had been reciting, memorizing, Ruud van der Spil’s messages for London. Thinking about how to shorten them so Dart would not panic about the time he had to stay on air. One image had haunted his journey: Dart, frantic, his finger stabbing the Morse key, knowing the Germans were tracking his signal. Dart in the attic at the Marionette House waiting for the slam of car doors, boots on the stairs . . . Or at the farm. No, not the farm. He would tell Dart that there must be no more transmissions from there. The thought of Marijke being taken, of losing her, made his brain reel. Dear God, if that were to happen now, with the British and the Canadians so close . . .
And it was unworthy of him, but the truth was he didn’t want Dart at the farm anymore. The man tainted the air with his . . . his tetchiness. He had become both sullen and as taut as a stretched wire. You never knew how he would react. Like when he had come to the farm after the thaw and they had told him of Oma’s death. He had been so distant. No sign of human sympathy at all. But at the same time it was as though he was accusing them of some sort of negligence. As if to say that it might not have happened if he’d been there, even though he’d said from the start there wasn’t much he could do. The Benzedrine was part of it. Christ, the amount the man had asked London for! The signs were familiar; Tamar knew of other WOs who’d gone the same way. And the man was terribly lonely, of course. There was no mistaking the way he looked at Marijke. Or wouldn’t look at her. Might he have guessed? No reason to think so. They had been careful.
Despite his exhaustion, his aching need to shape his body around Marijke’s and fall asleep, Tamar was extremely cautious when he reached the farm. From the road he studied the blacked-out house closely for a full minute. Then he pushed the bike down the track, holding the revolver against his thigh. When he lifted the awful machine through the door of the big barn, one of the surviving hens made an irritable noise like a rusty clock being wound up.
In the yard he put his thumb and second finger into the corners of his mouth and let out a long whistle something like an owl call. He heard the door bolts clack, and then he was in the dark hallway, holding her. They stood locked together, silently; five days had passed since they had last done this. Then Marijke freed her arms and brought his face down to hers.
She kissed him twice, then whispered, “Ernst is here.” Sensing his dismay, she added quickly, “He’s had a phone call.”
“What?”
She took his hand. “Come. I’ll heat some food for you.”
The soup was thin, but it had beads of rich fat in it and, miraculously, small dumplings that glistened in the candlelight. Marijke stood with her hands on the back of Tamar’s chair, urging him to eat, when Dart’s news threatened his appetite.
Dart paced back and forth among the shadows, smoking. “It’s that crazy bastard Koop,” he said. “You know the problem with him? He’s got no fear. You’ve got to have fear in this business. It’s what keeps us alive. Without fear there’s no discipline, no checks; there’s just damn chaos. Koop thinks this is the bloody Wild West and he’s Billy the Kid.”
“Who called you?” Tamar asked.
“Bobby.”
“From Apeldoorn?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“About thirty, maybe forty, minutes ago,” Dart said.
Tamar put down his spoon. “I don’t understand. You were at the asylum?”
“Of course.”
“So how did you get here so fast?”
“I used the motorbike.”
“You what?” Tamar glared at him.
The bike was a German courier’s. It had been found in a ditch beside the Zutphen road three weeks earlier. Despite the skid, it had been in perfect working order — unlike its rider, who had come to rest ten metres from the machine with his neck broken. A couple of local amateurs had pinched it. They had some connection with Albert Veening, so they’d had the bright idea of stashing it at the asylum. Tamar had wanted rid of it. Anyone caught using it was as good as dead. That his own wireless operator had taken that risk was incredible.
Dart said defiantly, “I decided that this was an emergency. It goes without saying that I was extremely careful.”
Tamar swallowed his anger with a spoonful of soup. “So what did Bobby say?”
Dart came to face Tamar across the table. “It seems that Koop knows someone who works at the abattoir at Epe. This person told Koop that three tonnes of pork are hanging there. It’s for the German army, of course. God knows where it came from. Anyway, Koop ups and decides that this pork would be better used elsewhere. So he thinks it would be a good idea to steal it.”
Despite himself, Tamar grinned.
“It’s really not funny,” Dart said. “Koop’s idea is to hijack a German truck, drive it to Epe, talk his way into the abattoir and make off with the meat.”
“Hijack a truck? How?”
“A roadblock,” Dart said.
Tamar’s spoon clattered into the almost empty bowl. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” There was a bitter note of satisfaction in Dart’s voice, and Tamar heard it.
“Does Bobby know when Koop’s planning to set up this roadblock?”
“Tonight. On the Arnhem road over the heath.”
“Oh, dear God,” Tamar said. “They’re going to find themselves up against half the Wehrmacht. At least two divisions are moving up to Apeldoorn tonight and tomorrow.”
“I know that,” Dart said. “Which is why I came on the motorbike.”
The two men stared at each other, then Dart put his hands down flat on the table and leaned towards Tamar. “You were supposed to put a stop to this kind of shit,” he said.
Tamar felt as though he had been struck in the face. His own suppressed rage flared like a stoked fire. “Don’t you . . . Do not tell me what I am supposed to do. You have no idea what I . . .” He lifted a hand. “Never mind. There are things that do not — must not — concern you.”
“Really? I’m supposed to sit in that damned madhouse while the Germans look all over the place for me and not be concerned that cowboy operations are going on just up the road? Cowboy operations that will have the Gestapo swarming all over us. Cowboy operations you’re supposed to prevent.”
Dart’s eyes were moist, and there was no mistaking the hate that glittered briefly in them. Tamar saw it and recognized it. It shocked and frightened him. He was unable to speak.
It was then that Marijke went over to Dart and took his head in her hands, turning his face towards her own. She moved her right hand to his mouth and touched his lips with the tips of her fingers. When Dart forced his eyes to meet hers, she shook her head slightly and murmured “Shh” just once. It was something you might do to soothe a child, and Dart immediately became childlike. His body slumped slightly, his lower lip trembled, and he released his breath in short gasps. Marijke pulled out a chair and pressed down gently on Dart’s shoulders until he sat. He inhaled shakily, then rummaged in his pockets for cigarettes and lit one.
“I’m sorry,” he said, letting the words out in a wreath of smoke. “I’m not losing my nerve. Don’t think that. But we all know that the average life expectancy of WOs in the field is three months. I’ve lasted five. I feel like I’m riding my luck as it is, even without crazy bastards like Koop screwing everything up.”
Marijke’s hands were still on Dart’s shoulders, but she was watching Tamar’s face.
Tamar stood up.
He had that look of weary determination that was all too familiar to her. “Where’s the motorbike now?”
“In the dairy,” Dart said.
“How much petrol is there in the tank?”
Marijke took her hands from Dart. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no.”
Dart glanced up at her, then looked at Tamar and shrugged. “It’s half full, maybe more.”
Marijke moved round the table and grasped Tamar’s wrists tightly. “Listen,” she said. “Don’t be stupid. There’s not a road you could take that’s safe. If the Germans catch you on that bike . . .” She was unable to finish the sentence.
Tamar said, “I’ll go along the canal path and then take one of the tracks across the heath. I can’t imagine the Germans will stray from the main road, not in armoured cars and trucks. There’s just enough moon. I won’t need to use the headlight. I’ll be okay.”
Now there was anger as well as fear in Marijke’s voice. She shook his wrists. “Listen to me! We’ve no idea where Koop is. Are you crazy enough to think you can cruise along that road looking for him and his stupid roadblock? For all we know, he and the others might be dead by now anyway. And if they are, well . . .”
“Well what?”
“Well, it’s too bad. We have to live. We have to carry on. Especially you. You’re too important to risk your life for crazies like Koop.”
Tamar opened his mouth, but before he could speak Marijke said, “You are too important to me.”
So here it was, at last. Exposed. It felt to Tamar that the truth was a huge, breathing presence that had entered the room, crowding it. He stared into Marijke’s fierce wet eyes because he couldn’t find the nerve to look at Dart. When at last he managed to, it seemed that Dart hadn’t reacted at all; he hadn’t even lifted his head. Now he merely reached out and carefully extinguished his cigarette in the little heart-shaped ashtray.
If Marijke was aware of what she had said, there was no sign of it in her face.
Tamar cleared his throat. “I have no choice. Even if Koop and his men get away with this stunt of theirs, even if they do it without killing anyone, there’ll be hell to pay. Remember what happened at Putten. Not a single German died in that ambush, but Rauter still burnt half the village and shipped six hundred people off to concentration camps. If Koop shoots up a few Germans, we’ll lose a lot of people. People we need will be lined up and shot. All for a truckload of pork. I have to stop him. I have to try.”
Dart, his head still lowered, said, “I have a scheduled transmission from the asylum at eight twenty. Do you by any chance want to tell me what to send?”
“I’ll be back before dawn,” Tamar said. “We’ll go through it then.”
“And if you’re not?”
“If I’m not, you know what to do. Send the signal that we are blown, and get the hell out.”
Dart counted one and two and three in his head, then said, “And Marijke?”
Tamar said, looking into her eyes, “Take her with you.”
At the kitchen door Tamar checked the Sten and gave it to Marijke while he wrapped his scarf twice around his neck and buttoned the shabby jacket.
He said to Dart, “Please go and see that everything’s okay.”
Reluctantly Dart took his revolver from his coat and went outside.
When she heard the outer door close, Marijke said, “I know what I said. I’m sorry. I meant it.”
“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I suppose —”
“I beg you. Please don’t go. Please, please, don’t go.”
Tamar took her face in his hands. “Marijke, you mustn’t do this.”
She was still holding the gun across her body, between them.
She said, “I’m pregnant.”
Tamar stared at her blankly, as if she had spoken in Greek or Japanese. Everything around him seemed to sway slightly. Eventually he said the stupid thing that men always say.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. And if you get killed now, I’ll never forgive you.”
He kissed her on each eyelid to stop her looking at him.
Then Dart came back in. “Everything’s fine,” he said.
SS Lieutenant General Hanns Albin Rauter, head of internal security for Holland, was unhappy. This was by no means unusual. Indeed, Rauter considered happiness to be a form of mental deficiency. He had observed so-called pleasures such as dancing, drinking, and sex, and found them stupid and grotesque. As one of very few people gifted with a cool and analytical mind, he knew that only a small number of individuals were strong enough to reject happiness and gratification in order to shape the history of the world, and he was one of them. There was nothing arrogant in this, of course. The Nazi Party and the Third Reich were an unstoppable force for good, and he was merely its servant. There was no doubt in his mind about any of these matters. However, he had a problem; one that he was trying to deal with calmly and rationally. To put it simply, his problem was that Germany was going to lose the war.
He had spent the day of 6th March at the front line, now very close to the German border. It was here, he was sure, that the final battles would have to be fought. Unless, as he fervently hoped, the Americans saw sense and joined with the Führer to defeat the barbaric Russians. Inevitably, though, Germany’s armed forces would have to regroup to defend the fatherland. Protecting them as they did so might be difficult. Sabotage of road and rail routes by terrorists could be a problem, and Rauter had met senior officers to discuss this. Although he hadn’t said so, he thought the Dutch resistance was crap. It was divided into all sorts of quarrelsome factions, and a good dose of public executions had taken the edge off their appetite for defiance. Also, it seemed to him, the Dutch were unlikely to rise up and take on the Wehrmacht. For one thing, they were too damn hungry — he’d seen to that. They were more likely to keep their heads down and wait for the Americans to turn up with chocolate and cigarettes. All the same, you could never be sure that some self-appointed hero wouldn’t crawl out of the woodwork and blow up a vital road or bridge.
But what really bothered Rauter was that he hadn’t managed to get all the Jews out. There were still several hundred of them — plus some queers and other rubbish — in the concentration camp in Westerbork. He’d been trying to get them shipped off to the east since September, but the damned trains still weren’t running. And now it was probably too late. Even more worrying was that his special groups were still — still — finding handfuls of Jews in Amsterdam and elsewhere. Incredible. They hung on like worms in the gut. He was reconciled to the idea that he might be the last good man to leave Holland. But the idea that a Jew might emerge from its rat hole to wave him good-bye sickened him.
Burdened by such thoughts, Rauter got into his car at dusk and was driven back to his headquarters in Didam. There, alone, he ate a large meal of soup, roast chicken, and apfelstrudel. Then, drinking his coffee, Rauter made the decision that ended his career. His weekly conference in Apeldoorn with Artur von Seyss-Inquart, the Reichskommissar for the Netherlands, was scheduled for the following afternoon. In addition, he had to attend a meeting at army headquarters earlier in the day. It occurred to him that it would make sense to travel to Apeldoorn now and get a good night’s sleep in his usual hotel. He was, understandably, tired.
He summoned his valet. “Run me a bath. Lay out my other uniform and clean underwear.”
“Sir.”
“Then tell what’s-his-name, the driver, to have the car outside at ten o’clock. And pack my laundry. I’ll have it done in Apeldoorn, since no one here seems to know how to iron a shirt properly.”
The car was a big BMW convertible painted a dull greygreen without markings or insignia. The roof was folded back, and a large suitcase containing Rauter’s dirty washing was strapped on top of it. His orderly, Lieutenant Exner, sat in the back. Rauter was a very large man — two metres in height and weighing almost a hundred kilos — and chose to sit in the front where he had more legroom. His new driv
er was a young Austrian corporal recently invalided and back from the Russian front, where he had lost half his right ear to frostbite. Exner passed forward one of the two Schmeisser machine pistols from the backseat. Rauter placed it across his lap. When the car pulled away, the driver had some trouble with the unfamiliar gearbox, and Rauter cursed him.
Koop and his men had been busy since nightfall. Getting across the town was no safe or simple matter. In recent days the Nazis had been behaving unpredictably. Sometimes they didn’t bother to police the curfew; sometimes they had patrols on almost every street. Tonight the resistance men had been lucky. They made their rendezvous without seeing a single German.
Using the scrapyard to hide the stolen Nazi staff car had been Eddy’s idea. Stealing the car had been such a brilliant thing to do, such fun, that it had taken them some time to realize the horrendous problems that came with it. Oskar’s cousin, cautious Willy Vekemans, thought they should just dump it, but the others were against him. Then Eddy, who was driving, had said, “Listen. If you want to hide, do you hide in an empty place or in a crowd?”
“What are you saying?” Koop had asked.
“I’m saying that if we are going to keep this damn thing, we need a place where there are other things like it. Where it looks like it belongs.”
“So what do you have in mind? A German transport depot?”
Eddy had grinned and said, “That would be perfect, but actually I was thinking about the scrapyard.”
Before the war, the yard had been a tidy little family business. There’d been a petrol pump in front of the house, a couple of workshops out the back, and a small field populated by dead and cannibalized machinery. In 1941 the father and the two sons had been taken as forced labour to Germany. They had never been heard of again. The mother had struggled on for a while, then packed up and gone to live with relatives in Rotterdam. Ironically, the abandoned yard was fuller now than it had ever been. The German and Dutch police used it to dump wrecked military and civilian vehicles that obstructed key roads. Farmers used it to dispose of bits of shot-down aircraft that had landed inconveniently in their fields. There was so much wreckage that it had burst through the hedges.
