Hornet Flight

Ignoring bemused questions from Tik and Mads, he walked back to the guard post. He knelt in front of it with the paint and the stick. He heard Tik say something in a warning voice, but ignored him. With great care, he wrote in black paint on the concrete wall:

THIS NAZI

HAS NO

TROUSERS

ON

He stepped back to admire his work. The letters were large and the words could be read at a distance. Later this morning, thousands of Copenhageners on their way to work would see the joke and smile.

“What do you think of that?” he said. He looked around. Tik and Mads were nowhere to be seen, but two uniformed Danish policemen stood immediately behind him.

“Very amusing,” said one of them. “You’re under arrest.”

He spent the rest of the night in the Politigaarden, in the drunk tank with an old man who had urinated in his trousers and a boy his own age who vomited on the floor. He was too disgusted with them and himself to sleep. As the hours went by, he developed a headache and a raging thirst.

But the hangover and the filth were not his worst worries. He was more concerned about being interrogated about the Resistance. What if he were turned over to the Gestapo and tortured? He did not know how much pain he could stand. Eventually he might betray Poul Kirke. And all for a stupid joke! He could not believe how childish he had been. He was bitterly ashamed.

At eight o’clock in the morning, a uniformed policeman brought a tray with three mugs of ersatz tea and a plate of black bread, thinly smeared with a butter substitute. Harald ignored the bread-he could not eat in a place like a toilet-but he drank the tea greedily.

Shortly afterward, he was taken from the cell to an interview room. He waited a few minutes, then a sergeant came in carrying a folder and a typed sheet of paper. “Stand up!” the sergeant barked, and Harald leaped to his feet.

The sergeant sat at the table and read the report. “A Jansborg schoolboy, eh?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You ought to know better, lad.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you get the liquor?”

“At a jazz club.”

He looked up from the typed sheet. “The Danish Institute?”

“Yes.”

“You must have been there when the Krauts closed it down.”

“Yes.” Harald was confused by his use of the mildly derogatory slang word “Kraut” for “German.” It jarred with his formal tone.

“Do you often get drunk?”

“No, sir. First time.”

“And then you saw the guard post, and you happened to come across a can of paint. .”

“I’m very sorry.”

The cop grinned suddenly. “Well, don’t be too sorry. I thought it was pretty funny, myself. No trousers!” He laughed.

Harald was bewildered. The man had seemed hostile, but now he was enjoying the joke. Harald said, “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing. We’re the police, not the joke patrol.” The sergeant tore the report in half and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.

Harald could hardly believe his luck. Was he really going to be let off? “What. . what should I do?”

“Go back to Jansborg.”

“Thank you!” Harald wondered if he could sneak back into school unnoticed, even at this late stage. He would have some time, on the train, to think of a story. Perhaps no would need ever find out about this.

The sergeant stood up. “But take a word of advice. Keep off the booze.”

“I will,” Harald said fervently. If he could get out of this scrape, he would never drink alcohol again.

The sergeant opened the door, and Harald suffered a dreadful shock.

Standing outside was Peter Flemming.

Harald and Peter stared at one another for a long moment.

The sergeant said, “Can I help you, Inspector?”

Peter ignored him and spoke to Harald. “Well, well,” he said in the satisfied tone of a man who has been proved right at last. “I wondered, when I saw the name on the overnight arrest list. Could Harald Olufsen, graffiti writer and drunk, be Harald Olufsen, son of the pastor of Sande? Lo and behold, they are one and the same.”

Harald was dismayed. Just when he had started to hope that this dreadful incident could be kept secret, the truth had been discovered by one who had a grudge against his whole family.

Peter turned to the sergeant and said dismissively, “All right, I’ll deal with it now.”

The sergeant looked resentful. “There are to be no charges, sir, the superintendent has decided.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Harald felt he could weep. He had been on the point of getting away with it. This seemed so unfair.

The sergeant hesitated, seeming disposed to argue, and Peter said firmly, “That will be all.”

“Very good, sir.” He left.

Peter stared at Harald, saying nothing, until at last Harald said, “What are you going to do?”

Peter smiled, then said, “I think I’ll take you back to school.”

They entered the grounds of Jansborg Skole in a police Buick driven by a uniformed officer, with Harald in the back like a prisoner.

The sun was shining on the old redbrick buildings and the lawns, and Harald felt a stab of regret for the simple, safe life he had lived here over the last seven years. Whatever happened now, this reassuringly familiar place was not going to be a home to him much longer.

The sight aroused different feelings in Peter Flemming, who muttered sourly to the driver, “This is where they breed our future rulers.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said neutrally.

It was the time of the midmorning sandwich, and the boys were eating outside, so most of the school was watching as the car drove up to the main office and Harald got out.

Peter showed his police badge to the school secretary, and he and Harald were immediately taken to Heis’s study.

Harald did not know what to think. It seemed Peter was not going to hand him over to the Gestapo, his worst fear. He was reluctant to let his hopes rise too soon, but all the signs were that Peter regarded him as a mischievous schoolboy, not a member of the Danish Resistance. For once he was grateful to be treated as a child rather than a man.

But in that case, what was Peter up to?

As they walked in, Heis unwound his lanky frame from behind his desk and stared at them, with vague concern, through the glasses perched on his beaky nose. His voice was kindly, but a tremor betrayed his nervousness. “Olufsen? What’s all this?”

Peter did not give Harald the chance to answer the question. Jerking a thumb in his direction, he said to Heis in a grating tone, “Is this one of yours?”

The gentle Heis flinched as if he had been struck. “Olufsen is a pupil here, yes.”

“He was arrested last night for defacing a German military installation.”

Harald realized that Peter was enjoying the humiliation of Heis, and was determined to make the most of it.

Heis looked mortified. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“He was also drunk.”