kitchen he looked surprised and disappointed. She poured tea into a big cup and he took it gratefully enough.
Hermia, Sten, and Lars walked down the hill to the quay a few minutes before three o’clock. Two more Danish men were waiting at the dockside. The
Dawn was breaking as the little vessel threaded its way through the defensive minefield at the mouth of the harbor. The weather was fine, but they encountered a swell of five or six feet as soon as they left the shelter of the land. Fortunately, Hermia was never seasick.
Throughout the day, she tried to make herself useful around the boat. She knew no seamanship, so she kept the galley clean. The men were used to preparing food for themselves, but she washed their dishes and the frying pan in which they cooked almost everything they ate. She made sure she talked to the two crewmen, speaking Danish, getting on terms of respectful friendliness with each of them. When she had nothing else to do, she sat on the deck and enjoyed the sunshine.
Toward midday they reached the Outer Silver Pit, on the southeast corner of the Dogger Bank, and began to trawl. The boat reduced speed and headed northeast. At first they could not find the fish, and the nets came up almost empty. Then, toward the end of the afternoon, the fish started running.
At nightfall, Hermia went below and lay on a bunk. She thought she would not sleep, but she had been up for thirty-six hours, and tiredness got the better of tension. She dropped off within minutes.
During the night she was awakened, briefly, by the volcanic rumble of a flight of bombers overhead. She wondered vaguely whether it was the RAF heading for Germany or the Luftwaffe going the other way, then drifted off to sleep again.
The next thing she knew, Lars was shaking her. “We’re approaching our nearest point to Denmark,” he said. “We’re about a hundred and twenty miles off Morlunde.”
Hermia took her suitcase receiver up on deck. It was already full daylight. The men were hauling in a net full of flapping fish, mainly herrings and mackerel, and tipping them into the hold. Hermia found it a gruesome sight, and looked away.
She connected the battery to the radio and was relieved to see the dials flicker. She fixed the aerial to the mast with a length of wire thoughtfully provided by Digby. She let the set warm up, then put on the headphones.
As the boat motored northeast, Hermia roamed up and down the wireless frequencies. As well as the BBC’s broadcasts in English, she picked up French, Dutch, German, and Danish radio programs, plus a host of Morse transmissions which she presumed were military signals from both sides. At the first pass up and down, she heard nothing that might have been radar.
She repeated the exercise more slowly, making sure she missed nothing. She had plenty of time. But once again she did not hear what she was listening for.
She kept trying.
After two hours she noticed that the men had stopped fishing and were watching her. She caught the eye of Lars, who said, “Any luck?”
She pulled off the headphones. “I’m not picking up the signal I was expecting,” she said in Danish.
Sten replied in the same language. “The fish were running all night. We’ve done well-our hold is full. We’re ready to go home.”
“Would you motor north for a while? I must try to find this signal-it’s really important.”
Sten looked doubtful, but his son said, “We can afford it, we’ve had a good night.”
Sten was reluctant. “What if a German spotter plane flies overhead?”
Hermia said, “You could throw out nets and pretend to be fishing.”
“There are no fishing grounds where you want to go.”
“German pilots don’t know that.”
One of the crew put in, “If it’s to help free Denmark. .”
The other hand nodded vigorously.
Once again, Hermia was saved by Sten’s reluctance to appear cowardly in front of others. “All right,” he said. “We’ll head north.”
“Keep a hundred miles off the coast,” Hermia said as she put the headphones back on.
She continued to scan the frequencies. As time went by, she became less hopeful. The likeliest place for a radar station was at the southern end of Denmark’s coast, near the border with Germany. She had thought she would pick up the broadcast early. But her hopes fell by the hour as the boat headed north.
She was not willing to leave the set alone for more than a minute or two, so the fishermen brought her tea at intervals, and a bowl of canned stew at suppertime. While listening, she gazed east. She could not see Denmark, but she knew Arne was there somewhere, and she enjoyed feeling closer to him.
Toward nightfall, Sten knelt on the deck beside her to talk, and she took off the headphones. “We’re off the northern point of the Jutland peninsula,” he said. “We have to turn back.”
In desperation she said, “Could we go closer? Maybe a hundred miles offshore is too far away to pick up the signal.”
“We need to head for home.”
“Could we follow the coast southward, retracing our course, but fifty miles closer to land?”
“Too dangerous.”
“It’s almost dark. There are no spotter planes at night.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Please. It’s very important.” She shot an appealing look at Lars, who was standing nearby, listening. He was bolder than his father, perhaps because he saw his future in Britain, with his English wife.
As she was hoping, Lars joined in. “How about seventy-five miles offshore?”
“That would be great.”
Lars looked at his father. “We have to go south anyway. It won’t add more than a few hours to our voyage.”
Sten said angrily, “We’ll be putting our crew in danger!”
Lars replied mildly, “Think of Carol’s brother in Africa. He’s put himself in danger. This is our chance to do something to help.”
“All right, you take the wheel,” Sten said sulkily. “I’m going to sleep.” He stepped into the wheelhouse and flung himself down the companionway.
Hermia smiled at Lars. “Thanks.”
“We should thank you.”
Lars turned the boat around and Hermia continued to scan the airwaves. Night fell. They sailed without lights, but the sky was clear and there was a three-quarter moon, which made Hermia feel that the boat must be conspicuous. However, they saw no aircraft and no other shipping. Periodically, Lars checked their position with a sextant.
Her mind drifted back to the air raid she and Digby had been in a few days ago. It was the first time she had been caught out of doors during a raid. She had managed to remain calm, but it had been a terrifying scene: the drone of the aircraft, the searchlights and the flak, the crump of falling bombs and the hellish light of burning houses. Yet here she was doing her best to help the RAF inflict the same horrors on German families. It seemed mad-but the only alternative was to let the Nazis take over the world.
It was a short midsummer night, and dawn broke early. The sea was unusually calm. A morning mist rose from the surface, reducing visibility and making Hermia feel safer. As the boat continued south, she became more anxious. She must pick up the signal soon-unless she and Digby were wrong, and Herbert Woodie right.
Sten came on deck with a mug of tea in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other. “Well?” he said. “Have you got what you wanted?”
“It’s most likely to come from the south of Denmark,” she said.
“Or nowhere at all.”
She nodded despondently. “I’m beginning to think you’re right.” Then she heard something. “Wait!” She had been scanning upward through the frequencies, and thought she had heard a musical note. She reversed the knob
