Harald arrived in Morlunde late the following day. He left the steam bike in a car park next to the ferry dock, feeling it would be too conspicuous on Sande. He had nothing with which to cover it, and no way of locking it, but he trusted that a casual thief would be unable to figure out how to make it go.
He was in time for the last ferry of the day. As he waited on the dockside, the evening slowly dimmed, and stars appeared like the lights of distant ships on a dark sea. A drunk islander came staggering along the quay, peered rudely at Harald, muttered, “Ah, young Olufsen,” then sat on a capstan some distance away and tried to light a pipe.
The boat docked and a handful of people got off. To Harald’s surprise, a Danish policeman and a German soldier stood at the head of the gangway. As the drunk boarded, they checked his identity card. Harald’s heartbeat seemed to falter. He hesitated, scared, unsure whether to board. Had they simply stepped up security after finding his sketches, as Arne had forecast? Or were they looking for Arne himself? Would they know Harald was the brother of the wanted man? Olufsen was a common name-but they might have been briefed on the family. He had an expensive camera in his satchel. It was a popular German make, but all the same it could arouse suspicion.
He tried to calm his mind and consider his options. There were other ways of getting to Sande. He was not sure he could swim two miles in the open sea, but he might be able to borrow or steal a small boat. However, if he were seen beaching the boat on Sande he would be sure to be questioned. He might do better to act innocent.
He boarded the ferry.
The policeman asked him, “What is your reason for wanting to travel to Sande?”
Harald suppressed a feeling of indignation that anyone should presume to ask such a question. “I live there,” he said. “With my parents.”
The policeman looked at his face. “I don’t remember seeing you before, and I’ve been doing this for four days.”
“I’ve been away at school.”
“Tuesday is a strange day to come home.”
“It’s the end of term.”
The policeman grunted, apparently satisfied. He checked the address on Harald’s card and showed it to the soldier, who nodded and let Harald on board.
He went to the far end of the boat and stood looking out to sea, waiting for his heart to stop racing. He was relieved to have passed the checkpoint, but furious that he had to justify himself to a policeman when moving around his own country. It seemed a silly reaction, when he thought about it logically, but he could not help feeling outraged.
At midnight the boat left the dock.
There was no moon. In the starlight, the flat island of Sande was a dark swell like another wave on the horizon. Harald had not expected to return so soon. In fact, when he left on Friday he had wondered if he would ever see the place again. Now he was back as a spy, with a camera in his bag and a mission to photograph the Nazis’ secret weapon. He vaguely recalled thinking what a thrill it would be to become part of the Resistance. In reality, it was no fun at all. On the contrary, he was sick with fear.
He felt worse as he disembarked on the familiar quay and looked across the road to the post office and the grocery store that had not changed since he could remember. His life had been secure and stable for the first eighteen years. Now he would never feel safe again.
He made his way to the beach and began to tramp south. The wet sand gleamed silver in the starlight. He heard a girlish giggle from an unseen source in the dunes, and he felt a pang of jealousy. Would he ever make Karen giggle like that?
It was near dawn when he came within sight of the base. He could make out the fence posts. The trees and bushes inside the site showed as dark patches on the dunes. If he could see, so could the guards, he realized. He dropped to his knees and began to crawl forward.
A minute later he was glad of his caution. He spotted two guards patrolling inside the fence, side by side, with a dog.
That was new. They had not patrolled in pairs before, and there had been no dogs.
He dropped flat. The two men did not seem especially alert. They were strolling, not marching. The one holding the dog was talking animatedly while the other smoked. As they came nearer, Harald could hear the voice over the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. He had learned German in school, like all Danish children. The man was telling a boastful story about a woman called Margareta.
Harald was about fifty yards from the fence. As the guards approached the nearest point to him, the dog sniffed the air. It could probably smell Harald, but did not know where he was. It barked uncertainly. The guard holding the lead was not as well trained as the dog, and he told the animal to shut up, then carried on explaining how he got Margareta to meet him in the woodshed. Harald lay completely still. The dog barked again, and one of the guards turned on a powerful flashlight. Harald hid his face in the sand. The beam of the flashlight played along the dunes but passed over him without stopping.
The guard said, “Then she said all right, but you’ll have to pull it out at the last minute.” They walked on, and the dog became quiet again.
Harald lay still until they were out of sight. Then he turned inland and approached the section of the fence that was concealed by vegetation. He feared the soldiers might have cut down the trees, but the copse was still there. He crawled through the bushes, reached the fence, and stood up.
He hesitated. He could back out at this point, and he would have broken no law. He could return to Kirstenslot and concentrate on his new job, spending his evenings in the tavern and his nights dreaming of Karen. He could take the attitude that war and politics were none of his concern, as many Danes did. But even as he contemplated that line, he was revolted. He imagined himself explaining his decision to Arne and Karen, or Uncle Joachim and cousin Monika, and he felt ashamed just for thinking about it.
The fence was unchanged, six feet of chicken wire topped by two strands of barbed wire. Harald swung his satchel around to his back, to keep it out of the way, then climbed the fence, stepped gingerly over the barbed wire, and jumped down the other side.
Now he was committed. He was inside a military base with a camera. If they caught him, they would kill him.
He walked quickly forward, treading softly, keeping close to bushes and trees, looking around constantly. He passed the searchlight tower, and thought with trepidation how utterly exposed he would be if someone decided to switch on the powerful beams. He listened hard for patrolling footsteps, but heard only the constant hushing urged by the waves. After a few minutes he descended a gentle slope and entered a stand of conifers which provided him with good cover. He wondered for a moment why the soldiers had not thought of chopping down the trees, for better security; then he realized that they served to conceal the secret radio equipment from prying eyes.
A moment later he reached his destination. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see quite clearly the circular wall and the big rectangular grid rising from its hollow core, the aerial slowly rotating, like a mechanical eye scanning the dark horizon. He heard again the low hum of the electric motor. On either side of the structure he could make out the two smaller shapes, and now in the starlight he saw that they were miniature versions of the big rotating aerial.
So there were three machines. He wondered why. Might that somehow explain the remarkable superiority of German radar? Looking more closely at the smaller aerials, he thought they were constructed differently. He would need to look again in daylight, but it seemed to him they might tilt as well as rotate. Why would that be? He must make sure to get good photographs of all three pieces of apparatus.
The first time he was here, he had jumped over the circular wall in a fright, after hearing a guard cough nearby. Now that he had time to think, he felt sure there must be an easier way in. The walls were needed to protect the equipment from accidental damage, but engineers surely needed to get inside for maintenance. He walked around the circle, peering at the brickwork in the dim light, and came across a wooden door. It was not locked, and he passed through, quietly closing it behind him.
He felt a little safer. No one could see him from outside. Engineers would not do maintenance at this time of night except in an emergency. If someone did come in, he might just have time to leap over the wall before he was spotted.
He looked up at the great revolving grid. It must pick up radio beams reflected off aircraft, he guessed. The
