The question had of course been meant for Sybilla at the next table. She placed her arms on her husband’s shoulders, hence hiding her mouth from view and replied, “I can’t be sure. His German is good, better than mine, but his grammar is poor. Of course, that could be deliberate.”
“What about accent?” asked Erik, continuing the charade with the man across the table.
“Certainly different from the Germans here, but they are mainly Northerners. I’m not sure about the accent in Mosel.” Gunnar bent forward and kissed Sybilla lightly after she finished speaking as if some tender moment had passed between them.
“The injuries? What about the injuries? Are they genuine?” asked Erik.
“Without question,” answered Sybilla. “But you know how determined the Germans can be. Would they not be prepared to suffer so that they could infiltrate the group?”
“Possibly,” answered Erik, “but I think there has to be a limit. Perhaps we should let Otto Amundsen have a look at those injuries. Otto spent some time in England before the war. Perhaps he can advise us on the injuries and comment on the Englishness of your new friend.”
“In any event,” Gunnar spoke for the first time, apparently directly to his wife, but meant for the little group as a whole, “we need to make a decision. If we think he is a German spy, then we have to hand him over to the Germans stating our belief that he is a British spy. That should deflect suspicion from Sybilla and me.”
“And if we believe him to be a genuine English sailor?” asked Sybilla with an edge to her voice.
“Then I think we still hand him over,” said the fourth man, Thomas Borg. He sat up and waved at a friend across the room. “We can’t be too careful.”
“No!” said Sybilla, a little too loudly. Catching herself, she lowered her voice. “What is the point of this group if we don’t help the allies who are trying to liberate us?”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed much activity in that respect,” Borg said, with a touch of sarcasm.
“Sybilla’s right,” said Erik. “The English may have made only a token gesture to liberate Norway, but they are helping in other ways. Any help we can return is a step closer to liberation.”
The meeting ended and Erik and Borg moved away to join another group of workmates. Gunnar was left looking thoughtfully at his wife. Sybilla was clearly distracted.
Kelly awoke with a start at the sound of the key turning in the lock. Without thinking about what he was doing and ignoring the pain, he was out of the bed and underneath it in seconds.
Peering out from under the bed he recognised the slim ankles and beautiful legs of Sybilla as she strode into the room.
“Dan?” she called in a loud whisper, anxiety clear in her voice. “Where are you? Oh no!” She almost sobbed in panic and was turning to leave the room when Kelly moved.
Suppressing his embarrassment as best he could Kelly eased himself painfully out from under the bed, concealing his nakedness but not his embarrassment as he did so. Realizing that Sybilla was staring at him, he turned half sideways and wriggled back into bed, under the duvet.
Behaving as though nothing had happened, Sybilla told him, “I’ve brought the Doctor.” Peeping round the door, she called gently, “Otto!”
Doctor Otto Amundsen was a small man with receding hair and small metal-rimmed spectacles. Unlike the majority of his countrymen, Amundsen had grey eyes; penetrating and intelligent grey eyes.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant Kelly.” Amundsen shook the young sailor’s hand. “I understand you have had a slight mishap? Perhaps if Sybilla could leave us I might examine your injuries without you dying of embarrassment.”
Sybilla giggled slightly as she left the room. A little late for modesty now, thought Kelly wryly.
“Lieutenant Kelly?” Amundsen started to say something but stopped abruptly. He gazed deeply into Kelly’s eyes. “May I call you Dan?”
“Of course,” said Kelly.
“Dan,” the doctor continued, “let me explain to you that I am a doctor of medicine. I don’t care what you are or who you are, I am here to help you. I have no other interest in you than that. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” replied Kelly.
“That said, could you tell me precisely how you came by these injuries so that I can the better treat them?”
Kelly recounted the tale in as much detail as he could, leaving out the name of his ship only. All the while the doctor gazed at him with those penetrating eyes, magnified by the spectacles.
After Kelly had concluded his tale, Amundsen continued to regard him for some minutes before finally speaking. “What an extraordinarily resourceful young man you are.” He lifted the duvet back and began to examine the wounds.
“Who on earth bandaged your feet?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Kelly. “That’s how I found them this morning.”
“It must have been Gunnar,” said the little doctor. “He was a fisherman before the war. I never met a man who could splice a rope better than Gunnar, but I wouldn’t trust him to bandage a cut finger.”
Kelly chuckled. “No, you’re probably right. It doesn’t look like something Sybilla would have done.”
The doctor stopped removing the bandages and looked steadily at Kelly for a moment, then without a word continued with the task. The bandages removed, the doctor opened his bag and produced a black bottle and some wadding.
“This will hurt for a moment,” he said as he began to gently apply the liquid to the soles of Kelly’s feet.
Kelly sucked in a breath. It hurt for more than a moment.
As the doctor worked, he talked to Kelly about England and his adventures there as a young undergraduate and later when he had returned to carry out postgraduate research. To their mutual amusement they found that both had attended Cambridge. The doctor had an easy manner and interposed his anecdotes with questions to Kelly about the areas he was describing. “Has it changed?” “Is such
