“Did your friend say anything about more ships passing?” she asked him.
He looked up and shook his head. “He only mentioned those. That was a few hours ago, though. More may have gone by him since then.”
Evelyn handed the binoculars back to Anna and stared pensively out over the dark fjord.
“There could be many more behind them,” Anna said.
“I’m sure there are,” Evelyn said, turning away from the rise and looking at her. “They’ll land forces all up the western coast, not just in Oslo.” She looked at Peder again. “Will you be able to reach London?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying. Before I left, I made a crystal for the radio with your frequency. It will help, and make any connection more stable. Do you know that someone will be there to receive it?”
“Yes. Someone will receive it. We just won’t get an answer right now.” She shook her head and glanced back over the dark water far below them. “By the time they find out what’s happening, I have to be well away from here. I think Sweden is the only real option. After we get through to London, how quickly can we reach the border?”
“A couple of hours,” Peder replied.
“Good. I just might make it.”
“I think we should consider something else,” Anna said slowly. “I’m not sure going straight to the border is the best thing.”
Evelyn stared at her. “Why on earth not?” she demanded. “If we can make it in a couple of hours, I can cross the border well in advance of the Germans even getting a foothold on land.” She lowered her voice. “You know I can’t be caught here by the Gestapo or the SS.”
Anna nodded, her brows pulled together in a frown.
“I know, and that is my worry. If, for some reason, we don’t make it to the border in a couple of hours, you will be trapped. If we go east, we are severely limiting where we can go if we don’t make it in time. And, even if we do, there is no guarantee that we will be allowed to cross the border.”
“What do you mean?” Peder asked, looking up. “Why wouldn’t we be allowed to cross?”
She looked from one to the other, then sighed.
“I’ve heard some rumors at the embassy,” she said reluctantly. “Sweden was very willing to help Finland against the Soviets, but the general feeling is that they won’t be as sympathetic to us. If that thinking is correct, they could very well close the border as soon as they realize Germany is invading. And even if they don’t, there’s nothing to say that we will be at liberty once we’re in Sweden.”
“Meaning?”
She shrugged. “They could put us in a holding camp, and then hand us over to the Germans. Who knows. That’s what Romania did to the Polish.”
Peder scowled. “I don’t think that is something that will happen. The Swedes aren’t like the Romanians,” he muttered. “And she’s not even Norwegian,” he added, nodding to Evelyn. “They wouldn’t dare detain a British national.”
Evelyn pressed her lips together, her mind spinning. If even part of what Anna suggested was possible, she couldn’t take the risk. Her identity couldn’t be discovered, not here and not in Sweden. And especially not by the Germans.
“What, then?” she finally asked, looking at Anna. “What do you suggest?”
“I think we should go north, at least until we can determine if the border is a possibility,” Anna said. “If they keep it open, we can cross to it further north. In the meantime, we’ll be ahead of the German forces.”
“That will depend on where they land,” Evelyn pointed out. “If they land up the coast, they will be coming inland as we are going north.”
“Actually, she has a point,” Peder said thoughtfully. “It takes time to land troops, and they will have to get past our army before they can come inland. We’ll have a start on them. It could buy us enough time to learn what the situation is on the border.”
Evelyn looked from one to the other and then shivered as a gust of biting wind blew in off the water. As far as she could tell, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. She could risk being trapped near the eastern border or in the middle of Norway. Neither option appealed to her.
“And if we can’t make it to the border at all?”
“Then at least you will be moving north and closer to the coast. It will be up to your people to get you out.”
“I’m through!” Peder suddenly announced, looking up again from his radio. “I’ve connected to London. What do you want to send?”
Evelyn went over to him quickly and crouched down beside him.
“German invasion force outside Oslo Fjord. Swedish border in doubt. Heading north. Will attempt to make contact again once safe. Sign it Jian, as before.” She paused and squinted down at her watch in the moonlight. “It should be more heavily encoded, but I wasn’t given instruction for this eventuality.”
Peder glanced at her. “This simple encoding will be sufficient for the invasion forces,” he assured her. “They won’t be worried about single messages going out like this.”
She was silent and stood up again, turning away. Under normal circumstances, Peder would have been right. The incoming troops would have more important matters on their minds over the next few hours. This wasn’t a normal circumstance, however, and if the SD were monitoring radio signals out of Norway in advance of the invasion, she had just sent up a flare.
Shaking her head, another shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the cold. It couldn’t be helped. While she had been given very cursory training in sending encoded radio transmissions, she hadn’t been given a current codebook or even a list of coded phrases to alert Bill to an invasion. She was completely unprepared to be caught in the middle of a German offensive, and there was absolutely nothing she
