When Pam reached the edge of the compound, faint traces of pink were showing in the east. Here and there a bird had begun to twitter. With the first kiss of real sunlight the trees would be alive with chatter, and Pam’s opportunity would be past. She figured she had maybe thirty minutes to find her pigeons and get out.
The whitewashed buildings gleamed against the backdrop of the trees. As a ghostly half-light washed over the clearing, the outline of the buildings grew familiar. They were pigeon lofts, rows and rows of them. Anxiety pressed hard against Pam’s chest. How would she ever find her pigeons among all these birds?
Careful to keep her movements slow and soundless, Pam crept into the nearest loft. The sleepy pigeons stirred on their roosts, making throaty sounds that soothed Pam’s nervousness. In the presence of animals Pam never doubted herself. Her pigeons weren’t in this particular loft, but she would find them; she was sure of it.
The next building was a breeding loft, lined on three walls with nesting compartments. Although Pam didn’t expect to find her birds here—Arminger wouldn’t have had time to mate them—she peered quickly into each nest box just to be sure. One overzealous father, eager to protect his youngsters, rushed at Pam and pecked her on the cheek.
Her hand flew to the wound. “Ooww!” she cried out. Pigeons boiled out of their boxes, fussing loudly at the disturbance. Immediately Pam froze, knowing they would calm as soon as they realized she was no threat to their babies. She prayed that Arminger and his comrades were heavy sleepers.
Once the birds were quiet, Pam tiptoed out and went on to the next loft and the next. Every building was the same: scores of slim, sleek homers, but not hers. As bright daylight seeped steadily into the clearing, Pam began to get worried. Arminger would surely be waking any time now, and she still had one more row of lofts to go through, those closest to Arminger’s cabin.
She chided herself for saving these lofts for last. She should’ve searched them first, while she still had darkness as an ally. If anything happened in these lofts, like another irate pigeon attack, Arminger would hear the ruckus and come on the double. Pam’s stomach churned as she debated whether to take the risk of checking these lofts. What kind of treatment could a trespasser expect at the hands of German spies?
Then she thought of Caspian with his sharp, fiery eyes, and Orleans, and little Toulouse, and she burned with determination to get them back. She had come this far. How much time could it take to search a few more lofts? Anyway, she had a feeling about one of the lofts, the second one in the row. It was the only one in the compound that was sheltered by myrtle bushes. Almost as if Arminger had set out to design a loft where her pigeons would feel at home. She had a hunch that was where she’d find her birds.
Confidently Pam stepped inside, but disappointment rushed over her as she realized the loft was filled with youngsters, hardly more than squeakers. Some were not even fully feathered. Why had she been such a fool as to think Arminger would take any pains to comfortably house the pigeons he had stolen? No telling what he had done with her birds. Maybe they weren’t in the compound at all.
The thought plunged Pam into despair. What gave her the idea she could outwit a German spy? This whole expedition had been a waste of time. Mama would be furious with her, and Pam had put herself at risk for nothing. All for nothing. There was no use to even check the other lofts, nor was there time. Specks of dust were dancing merrily in the sunlight that streamed through the window.
Then Pam gasped. Footsteps, outside the loft! A voice, singing jauntily. It was Arminger!
Pam scanned the room, looking for a place to hide. In a pigeon loft? No such thing! She could hear the words to Arminger’s song clearly, something in a foreign language. He was on the other side of the wall. Surely he could hear her heart pounding.
Panic washed over her in waves. If she didn’t move now, do something … she didn’t even want to think about it. Her only chance of escape was to run for the woods. In the woods she could hide; there were hundreds of places to hide.
If she could make it out of the compound.
Quickly she calculated her chances. She was an excellent runner, but she was only a girl. Arminger was a grown man. And a spy Wouldn’t he as soon shoot you in the back as look at you?
The footsteps came closer. They were right outside the door. One more minute’s hesitation and she’d be caught. Pam hurled herself against the door with the force of a hurricane. She startled someone, a man. He staggered backward, cried out.
Pam streaked past, flew down the rows of white lofts. She heard shouting behind her. Was it Arminger? Did he have a gun? Her legs pumped.
Can’t look back, she thought. Run. Run!
Doors slammed. Pigeons squawked. Feet pounded behind her, gaining on her. Closer. Closer.
Arms seized her, pulled her to the ground.
CHAPTER 11
CAPTURED!
The map on the wall was of Currituck. Pam had recognized it the second Arminger brought her into the cabin. Nothing on the map was labeled; there was only a series of oddly shaped rings and numbers scattered across its face. Pam was sure, though, it was meant to be Currituck. The bodies of water, the shoreline, the islands offshore called the outer banks—she recognized them all. She felt a chill in the marrow of her bones. What awful fate did Arminger plan for her home?
And what fate did he plan for her?
He hadn’t treated her roughly, hadn’t confined her in any way—yet. Only sat her down at the table and proceeded to putter at the stove, stoking the fire and setting the coffeepot on to boil. He sent his partners away, told them to wait outside. Pam wondered for what.
He got bread from the pie safe, sliced it, slid it in the oven to toast. He was whistling a tune Pam knew but couldn’t quite place. He went back to the pie safe for jam, put it on the table. Tension mounted inside her like an incoming tide. Why was he ignoring her? Was it part of his tactic to wear her down, to break her by means of her own anxiety?
He took mugs from the cabinet—two—and poured steaming coffee into each. He pushed one across the table to Pam. She shoved it away.
“What? You don’t drink coffee?”
Pam held her chin high. “I drink coffee. But not spies’ coffee.”
“Oh, I’m a spy, am I? And you the one prowling in my pigeon loft.”
Pam’s eyes flashed. “And you’ve been lying to everyone. About why you came here, where you’re living, what you’re using the lumber for—everything. You told me you were thinking of raising a few birds. You have hundreds. And your map.” She cocked her head toward the wall. “It’s Currituck. What is that for?”
Arminger made no attempt to answer. Instead he nodded slowly and sipped his coffee. Him so unflappable—it infuriated Pam. There was no use even trying to talk to him.
Then, suddenly, he leaped to his feet. Pam braced herself for a blow, but Arminger bounded in the other direction, toward the stove.
“The toast!” he exclaimed. He yanked the oven door open to a cloud of black smoke. He grabbed the pan with his bare hands, then cursed in a foreign language when he burned himself. The bread, black as the smoke, slid off the pan and bounced to the floor. Arminger retrieved it and tossed it in the trash. The scene was comical, but Pam didn’t laugh.
Arminger, sheepish, turned back to Pam. “Not much of a cook, am I? And that’s all I had for you to eat. We planned to go to town first thing Monday for supplies.”
“I’m not hungry,” Pam replied stiffly.
“Not hungry. I see. That’s the way it’s going to be.” Arminger sank to a chair and sucked his burned fingers. “Okay, the spy business then.” He took a deep breath. “It’s true I planted some misleading information around town about my business here—”
Pam cut him off. “Not misleading information. Lies.”
“Yes. Lies. But necessary ones.” He paused. “Yet lies and a map on a wall don’t make spies.” His eyes locked onto Pam’s.
Pam thought of her own map and of th
e lies she had told in the last few days, and she squirmed a little. Like him, she had thought her lies necessary at the time. But the comparison stopped dead there. She was an American; he was a German. Let him try to explain that away. “Germans make spies,” she said emphatically. “Your accent is German.”
“So it is,” Arminger said, without batting an eye. He looked into his coffee for a second, then back up at Pam. “I can see how you would draw such a conclusion based on that evidence.”
His confession threw Pam off guard. She had a sense of floundering in water above her head. “Then you are a spy,” she heard herself say.
“Well,” said Arminger, bracing himself on the table and half rising, “no.”
He pushed his chair back and stood upright. He looked directly at Pam, but his eyes weren’t focused and she had the feeling he was thinking very hard about something else and not seeing her. When his attention snapped back to her, his eyes were burning with intensity.
“It seems to me, Pam, that you’re an extraordinary girl, and that’s why I’ve decided to share some extraordinary information with you about our operation here. What we’re doing here is classified, and it is very important for the war effort. And I am working for the government, but not a foreign one. My partners and I are working for the U.S. Army to develop a secret weapon—night-flying homing pigeons.”
A rush of air heaved into Pam’s lungs. Pigeons—a secret weapon! That would explain … but no! It was too far-fetched. This was just one more of his clever tricks—using her pride in her birds to take her in. She knew too much now to be so easily duped. “You just admitted you were German. Now I’m supposed to believe you’re working for the American government. How simpleminded do you think I am?”
“You misunderstood me,” he snapped. There was a fierce undertone in his voice. “I never said I was German. I’m as American as you are.”
Then he sighed. “I’m sorry. It hasn’t been easy through this war having my loyalty constantly questioned. I come from a group of people called the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Dutch is really Deutsch, which means German. They came here from Germany centuries ago, probably before your own ancestors, but their religion calls for them to seclude themselves from the world. They live in isolated communities, and many speak only German. Those of us who have left the faith can’t shake our accents, as much as we would like to.
“I don’t think you’re simpleminded, Pam. Far from it. But I understand your not wanting to trust me. Let me show you something.”
He strode over to a trunk that sat at the foot of one of the bunks and rummaged inside, then returned with a bulging folder, which he placed on the table in front of Pam. Confidential was stamped across the front.
Pam’s pulse quickened. It looked official. And it was in English.
“Open it. Just to the first page,” Arminger said. “The rest is classified.”
Pam willed her fingers not to tremble as she lifted the cover of the folder. Inside was a thick pamphlet marked in large letters Property of U.S. Army: For Official Use Only. Pam’s heart began to race as her eyes skipped down to the small print below:
Instructions
on Reception, Care and Training of Homing Pigeons in Newly Installed Lofts of the Signal Corps, U.S. Army
“What is this?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Orders directing our operation here. Our secret operation. Hence my need for an alibi, or my lies, as you call them. Currituck is a perfect location—isolated, yet near our source of supplies at the shipyards in Norfolk.”
His eyes were animated. “Our little homing pigeons are remarkable creatures, yah? They’ll fly hundreds of miles at incredible speeds across unfamiliar territory to return to their home. That makes them excellent messengers, as you know.”
“But what would the army want with them?” Pam asked.
“Reliable message carriers are crucial to an army. Battle plans must be relayed from one unit to another, orders changed, distress signals sent—all kinds of things. A tiny pigeon flying high in the sky can get through where other messengers fail. The army considers homers vital to their communications, but pigeons have one weakness—a major one to armies fighting around the clock—and it’s my mission to overcome it. You know what that weakness is, Pam.”
A door flew open in Pam’s mind as she understood. “You want night flyers.”
“Yah. Yah,” Arminger said, getting excited. “That’s why I was so excited about discovering your birds. How much easier would my job be if I could breed from birds that already have this ability?”
This seemed a question not meant to be answered. Pam waited to hear more.
“The army considered me an expert pigeoneer, which is why I was drafted for this project. I, in turn, hand-picked my partners for their pigeon know-how. The three of us must take all these birds—over a hundred, and more coming every day from Norfolk—and turn the cream of the crop into night flyers, birds that can fly in the dark across all kinds of terrain. Hence the topographical map there”—he pointed—“showing the land formations and swamps around Currituck. Our night flyers will then be shipped to Europe to aid our boys in the trenches. Pigeons winging through the thick of battle with important messages have saved many lives in this war, Pam, and the night flyers we’re raising here will save many, many more. Think of it. One of these birds could even save your own father’s life.”
Pam’s mind was swimming. These birds … save your father’s life. She wanted to say something, but words jumbled themselves in her brain, and she was still too stunned by Arminger’s revelation to separate them. All she could do was shake her head.
“Oh, I know it’s a lot to hit you with all at once, but I wanted you to understand why I felt I had to have your birds.”
His words angered Pam anew. Suddenly she found her tongue. “Yes, sir, I understand how you felt, Mr. Arminger, but that still didn’t give you the right to steal the birds after I wouldn’t sell ’em to you.”
Arminger looked baffled. “Steal them? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I gave up on getting your pigeons when you refused to sell them to me. Someone else in town did offer to sell me some birds—said they were better than yours—but the one bird I saw didn’t interest me; it was pretty ordinary. And I have access to ordinary birds by the hundreds, as you can see.” His eyebrows knit together. “Your birds disappeared?”
“A few of ’em. My best ones. You remember Caspian, the one that took a shine to you?”
“Yah. The red cock with the snappy eyes.” He clucked his tongue. “That’s a shame. He had the makings of a champion flyer. And you thought I had taken him. Which is why you were prowling in my loft.”
Pam felt herself blush. She pulled her eyes from his and stared at a crack in the table. “Well … yes.”
“You have no other suspects?”
Without looking up, Pam shook her head. Her face was burning with embarrassment. What a silly little child she’d been, jumping to one wild conclusion after another. Arminger was probably glad he hadn’t done business with her. All she wanted now was to crawl out of here and get home to Mama. “Look, Mr. Arminger,” she started, but he broke in.
“That’s a shame, yah. About your bird. Perhaps you’ll find him.” It was the sort of offhand comment adults made when they were really thinking about something else.
Pam knew it didn’t matter how she responded. “Yes, sir,” she said, and waited.
“Pam.” He paused, as if he was mulling his very decision to speak. When he spoke again, there was conviction in his voice. It reminded Pam of a preacher at a tent revival. “I’m a man of my word. I made a promise to your mother not to offer again to buy your birds, and I won’t break that promise, even though I think you might consider selling now that you know our purpose. But the eggs of your night flyers … would you sell me those? On the condition, of course, that you come help train the squeakers?”
“Me?” Pam was flabbergasted. “You want me to train pigeons for the
army?”
“Yah, to help. The techniques we’ve been experimenting with, you’ve already perfected. You could train us to train the birds. If you’re willing.”
Pam felt as if she’d stepped from a stifling room into an ocean breeze. Arminger thought enough of her ability with animals to ask for her help with his project! She was breathing so fast she could hardly reply. “Yes, sir, I’m willing,” she managed to say. Then, as a happy pride washed over her, she exclaimed, “Wait until Henry Bagley hears about this! He’ll never sneer at my birds again.”
Alarm leaped onto Arminger’s features. “No! This operation depends upon secrecy. No one but your mother can know. Understand?”
“Oh.” For a moment she felt let down, but it didn’t last. So what if she couldn’t tell anyone? She would know inside herself that Mama had been right all along—her gift with animals was of value. The U.S. government thought so! “I can keep a secret,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“Good. Then we’re in business, if your mother agrees. I’ll run you home in the truck right now and explain everything to her.” Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, he added, “How did you get out here anyway?”
“I took the canoe. It’s moored on a creek a ways back in the woods. I’ll need to take it on home, I reckon. Maybe you could come by later to talk to Mama.”
“Yah,” he said, nodding. “I have a Red Cross board meeting this afternoon in town. I’ll stop by your place afterward.”
Pam’s shoulders rose and fell mechanically as her paddle dipped into the creek’s brown water and lifted again, dipped and lifted. The current did most of the work—a good thing, because her mind was miles away. Arminger’s words tossed about in her head:
Someone else tried to sell me pigeons … said they were better than yours.
Who would make such a claim? she wondered. Every year for as long as she could remember, the Lowder pigeons had taken first prize at the county fair. Other pigeon keepers in the county bought breeding stock from her. They all knew Pam raised the best homers around. Besides, the pigeon keepers were country folks; they all lived even farther out in the boondocks than the Lowders. They only came to town on Saturdays to shop, and that rarely. They would have no way of knowing that Arminger had been trying to buy her pigeons. Unless one of them had just happened to be in town on a weekday, which was unlikely.
The Night Flyers Page 8
