A black-booted foot protruded at a curious angle from beneath a cone of plaster and fallen beams. Lorens swayed stupidly staring at it. A black boot — there had been a man wearing black boots — the Ober-Lieutenant! Well, by the looks of this he would never stand in doorways again, as he had just before the final crash — nor come demanding interviews with dying men either.
Of Schweid there was no sign at all. But then that part of the room where he had last been was one huge gaping wound. There was no reason to suppose that he had escaped the result of the mistaken aim of flying countrymen. Really, Lorens’ jaw moved, and he uttered a queer broken sound, he, of all men, should be grateful to Schweid. If the Gestapo agent had not pushed him away from the window he might be missing too.
It hurt him to make that broken sound, rasped his dust-scraped throat, but he couldn’t stop it. With his blackened, blood-sticky hands pressed across his lips to imprison the sound, he lurched on, over the wreckage into the outer hall.
Here was wrekcage, too, but not so much. On the lowest step of the wide staircase sat Steinhaltz. And he would not rise for a long time, for across his legs lay the suit of armor which had always guarded the door of the drawing room. His big head wobbled loosely on his shoulders, and he was opening and shutting his mouth without a sound, although Lorens thought that he could hear those noiseless screams echoing in his own spinning head. Everywhere, making a thick fog, was the drifting haze of falling plaster and wood dust.
“Mijnheer Lorens!”
There was one man left who could move freely through this splintered world. Klaas came toward the boy, as unruffled and unmoved as if the past quarter hour had never been.
“Mijnheer Lorens, we had better go; fire has started in the left wing.”
“My grandfather — ”
“The old Tuan is dead, Mijnheer Lorens. He was dead before that offal set foot within his room. Come.” His hand closed about Lorens’ arm, and he pulled the boy toward the open door.
“But he isn’t dead.” Lorens broke away and limped toward Steinhaltz. “If the fire is coming we must take him too — ”
Klaas’ straight mouth became a sword dent in bronze. “He is not worth your thought, the black traitor!”
But Lorens was tugging at the armor. “We pride ourselves that we are not as they are, without pity, therefore we shall not act as they would. Come, help me lift this.”
With a shrug Klaas bent to help. “It is useless. His back is broken, he is already a dead man — ”
But Lorens was speaking, not to Klaas, but to that moving mouth which could not shape a sound, to the protruding eyes before him. “We will do what we can.”
As the Milan-wrought steel was lifted away, Klaas was proved right. Steinhaltz huddled down on the steps, his slack mouth still at last. Only then did Lorens leave at the Eurasian’s urging. Warm air puffed through the broken rooms, and they could hear the crackle of the fire which was eating into seasoned oak, licking up time-faded fabrics and the furniture polished by generations of oil-using housemaids. The last stronghold of the House of Norreys was being eaten alive.
Lorens and Klaas stood together in the forlorn reaches of the formal garden watching the yellow line of the fire advance from window to window, room to room. There was no hope of fighting it, nor had there ever been.
“What happened — a bomb?”
Klaas pointed to a blackened mass on the now skeleton roof of the left wing. “It was one of their bombers out of control. They dumped their bombs in the field, and one in the lower garden, and then tried to make a landing in the water meadow. But instead they crashed on the roof and blew up.”
“And how did you escape?”
The Eurasian shrugged. “Because it was not yet my time to die, Mijnheer Lorens. No man can cheat the fate written on his forehead at birth. I have yet to live, praise be to Allah, since I have a debt to settle. But now, it grows late, and perhaps more of these carrion-eaters may be drawn here by the fire. It is time for us to go.”
However, they went no farther than to Klaas’ own small cottage at the edge of the canal. There Lorens scrubbed the blood and soot off his hands and face and changed his ripped coat for an old jacket belonging to Klaas, allowing the man to bandage his glass-cut hands. Klaas himself shed his usual formal house clothes to put on a seaman’s dress of dark trousers, jersey, and thick, short coat. In his belt was a long sheath knife, and he openly put a revolver into his coat pocket.
Before they left, he twisted up in a square of rough linen a full loaf of bread from the cupboard and half a strong-smelling cheese. After a last glance around the room, he motioned Lorens out, closing and locking the door behind them. The key he snapped onto the end of a thick watch chain. He might have been any householder about to set out on a short trip.
“This way — ”
And “this way” was down the canal bank to a small skiff in the shadow of the wall.
“Keep close to this bank,” Klaas cautioned. “We do not have the dark to hide us.”
And that was true. For when they got beyond the flaming beacon of the house, there was the blood-red sky over the city beyond, where the droning planes had come in regular formation to wheel, dip, drop their loads of death. No night now in all the Netherlands, only an endless day of flame, fear, and life in death.
They sculled along at a good speed. In spite of his smarting cuts, Lorens insisted upon taking one of the oars into his bandaged hands. As he bent his body in the regular swing, he was able to think only of that, to keep his mind upon the exact entrance of an oar into the water and the right moment for the second swing.
Somehow he could not believe that he was awake and really living through these hours, that he, Lorens van Norreys, on short leave from school in Leyden, had actually lived through this May 14, 1940. This was some fantastic dream, and he would awaken to find it so. Bombers, his grandfather’s last talk with him, the coming of the Nazis to Norreys, that odd conversation about propaganda with Schweid, those were the sort of things which happened to one in dreams. Even that red sky of hate was not true —
“Down!”
Klaas, with one great effort, sent the boat hurtling under a low bridge, swinging a long arm above to hold them steady there. Lorens could hear the whining sound of a car driven at speed, and the louder rip of motorcycle engines. Then the cavalcade was thundering over the bridge, over their heads.
Klaas held the boat there until the procession was well on its way.
“I said that would draw them.” Lorens saw his companion’s head silhouetted against the water as he looked back toward the still burning house. “Perhaps Allah will put it into their thick heads to believe that we are safely roasting in there. It may be some time before they discover the truth.”
On they went down the deserted canal which curled, a ribbon of metallic glistening water, toward the city in flames. But long before they reached the city, Klaas brought them ashore. Lorens crawled up the bank to the path across the marshes while the Eurasian hammered out the swollen bung and pushed the skiff out into the canal. Twice it whirled around, then drifted on, the water rising fast within it. Klaas watched until it sank, then shouldered their bag of provisions and joined Lorens.
“Now we shall find Wim,” he announced, setting off at a pace the boy found hard to match.
It was a difficult path they followed, sometimes plowing through knee-deep mud and water, sometimes scrambling along cultivated field ruts. Then it became sand over which they slipped and slid, and the rank, strong wind from the sea beat them in face and body.
Once they threw themselves face down in a patch of coarse grass in the lee of a dune as a plane coasted over, the black cross of its shadow slipping across their bodies. When it was gone, they got to their feet and plodded on.
They were heading away from the city now, along the coast, and the fire glow was at their backs. Klaas was careful to keep to the hollows of the dunes, making use of every patch of shadow. Once he laughed, and at Lorens’ q
uestion, barked again: “It was just that I thought, Mijnheer, how a man’s youth sometimes returns to him. It was just so that the Tuan and I used to go traveling in the days which are past. I have not forgotten my old tricks yet — as those sons of Satan shall discover. And there is Varlaam, Mijnheer Lorens. Now we shall find Wim.”
3
WIM SMITS, FREE TRADER
Apparently Wim Smits must not be sought openly, for Klaas avoided the cobbled main street of the fishing village, turning off into a shadow-choked, muddy lane. This hugged the back steps of a half dozen unlighted houses and ended in a flight of sagging wooden steps leading up to the floor of a wharf where an unusually large warehouse squatted.
Here Klaas curbed his pace, making a faint scuffing noise as if he were feeling his way along. A black patch appeared in the smooth wall as the Eurasian pushed open a door, and the hiss of his voice ordered Lorens to follow. As he crossed the threshold, Klaas snapped the door to, and there was the faint click of a lock tumbler falling into place.
“Come!”
Klaas’s knotted, sinewy fingers found and closed about Lorens’ wrist, and he drew the boy along after him over a route he seemed to have no trouble in finding even in that velvet blackness. They scraped by and bumped into barrels and boxes, then Klaas stopped so short that Lorens stumbled into him.
“Wait!”
Lorens obeyed the whisper and in the dead silence heard the soft series of taps which made a regular pattern. In answer a line of faint bluish light cut across the floor some inches beyond their feet, and Lorens identified the edge of a trapdoor which was slowly rising. Klaas dropped down so that his mouth was close to that widening crack.
“Norreys.” He dropped the word into the depths.
And those below answered by swinging the square of planking all the way up. Lorens clambered down behind Klaas into a box of a room walled with water-warped boards. Four men were waiting there, three of them not much older than Lorens himself. All wore the nondescript clothing of seamen and proclaimed their business as well by the wind-weathered red of their skin.
“Ach, so, Klaas, you have come to us at last!” The older man heaved his thick body up from the upended barrel where he had been sitting and held out a pudgy hand. One of the boys had swung up the ladder and pulled the trapdoor down, and now the blue lantern light was brighter. “And the Jonkheer, how is it with him?”
“He has passed, and the swine fired Norreys about him. This is his grandson, Lorens van Norreys — ” Klaas was no upper servant now; he had shed his quiet manners with the well-pressed broadcloth of his black house coat. Lorens sensed that while Klaas might have brought him here, what happened from now on was none of his affair.
The fat red hand of Capt. Smits closed about the one Lorens advanced in greeting, and the grip with which it folded its flesh about his was a crushing one.
“Glad I am to see you, Mijnheer. Many times has the Jonkheer spoken of you to me. Yes, he knew me — Wim Smits — well. He was always longing for the sea, and often in the old days he would go out for a day with the nets in my Trudie. Then after he took to his bed he would have me in for a yarn. He was a great man, the Jonkheer. We may never see his like again. But maybe it is better that he will not live to see our Netherlands in days to come. He never had a patient temper with thieves.”
“He sent me to you, told me to follow your orders — ” began Lorens, when Capt. Smits interrupted.
“Yes, that was decided between us when we saw this hurricane blowing up. He knew that we would do our best to start his plans sailing. And if wind and water favor us we’ll have you across the Channel by this time tomorrow. Jaap, you go out and look about. There have been some hounds sniffing along that open trail already — ” he added to Klaas.
“So? Well, we made it deep and plain enough for them to find and follow without trouble,” commented the Eurasian unconcernedly. “It should keep them busy so that they will not go casting about for other scent.”
Capt. Smits shook his head in warning as the trapdoor thudded down again after his son. “Do not think all of the black coats stupid, Klaas. Never does it gain a man to underestimate his enemy. In angling for sharks, do you use a trout hook? There are brains in men of all nations, and when we forget that, we ask for trouble to meet us but a quarter of the way. So we shall keep up our watches — ”
“But, listen, Capt. Smits,” Lorens broke in, more intent upon his own problem. “I can’t allow you to risk setting me in England — ”
“Risk?” A hearty chuckle coming from the depths of that barrel body became an open roll of laughter. “What risk is there for my Trudie in such business? She is a stout lass and keeps well to her course. And it will not be the first time she has beat along that path.” To Lorens’ bewilderment one of the Captain’s eyes closed in a slow wink.
Klaas’ quick answering bark of sound could hardly be termed a laugh. “The young Mijnheer will not understand you now, Wim — ”
“Ach, so?” The blue eyes and rounded lips were exclamation points of astonishment. “That I can hardly believe of the Jonkheer’s breed.”
Dim hints, half-forgotten stories of less reputable chapters of family history clicked together in Lorens’ mind to make a completed pattern for the first time. Why, that would explain such an outsize warehouse in a small fishing village, the existence of this very room, the tie between Capt. Smits and the House of Norreys.
“Smuggling,” he said.
Capt. Smits made what he meant to be an airy gesture with one of his large hands. “Myself, I prefer the older name for the business, Mijnheer — free trading.”
“But I thought that was all done with a hundred years ago!”
The Captain’s face assumed an almost wistful expression. “Well, it is true that it is not what it was in my great-grandfather’s time — and in your great-great-grandfather’s, Mijnheer — when an honest man could run a good cargo across and live six months on his profits. But we have managed to keep in practice enough to remember most of the tricks of the trade. And the time is now here when we shall be needing every trick and twist we can remember to think up — and that’s as true as I’m a Dutchman!”
Klaas nodded. “Yes. And that is one of the reasons why the old Tuan sent you here to Capt Smits, Mijnheer. Those black hounds may think that they will stop every hole, but there are men along the coast who are bred to this business, even as you of Norreys are bred to your buying and selling of jewels. They know every twist and turn of the coast from the North Sea to the Bay of Biscay, every spit of sand and reef of rock, every bribable guard and dishonest harbor policeman, as well as the child knows the words of his primer. And — ”
“And,” breathed Wim Smits beatifically, his hands folded over his middle, “such a hook as we shall be in their jaws! Such nets for their feet! How stupid shall we be, how poorly shall we be able to carry out orders of this master race! But how willing, oh, so very willing! Always shall we do our best, and will it be our fault if Fate is almost always against us? It is a game such as we played in the days when we drove out the Spanish. And we have had practice in playing it. But, of course, we shall need some contacts on the other side of the board. That is where you can help, Mijnheer. There is a man in London — well, two years ago he would have given much to run us down, but now I think that he will be very, very glad to see and talk with anyone we might send to him. You will go to him, taking certain papers. We have made plans for this time, you see.”
Wim Smits’ unshaken confidence in the future and the success of his ‘plans’ was convincing — at least as long as the Captain’s voice was to be heard.
“I’ ll do what I can — ”
But the Captain took such an answer as that for granted. It was only very natural that anyone would consent to play whatever role he pointed out to them. He had already turned to one of his sons.
“You, Flip, get your fat carcass above ground — unless your flat feet have grown roots here. Find Jaap and see whether our way is
clear yet. We should be away on the tide if we can. You know,” he continued as Flip popped up out of sight, “it was we seamen who cleared the land of the strutting Spanish in the old days — the Sea Beggars. That old name is as good today. If the Nazi vultures have their way, we’ll all be beggars soon enough.”
“It is clear,” the whisper floated down from the roof.
“That Sparkenboom has gone off on the marsh road, Heeny saw him. And there has not been any sign of the black coats nosing around. Flip has the skiff waiting.”
“Good, good! Then it comes time to go — ”
“And who may this Sparkenboom be?” Klaas lounged lazily on the upturned box in the corner. He was playing idly with the knife he had taken from his belt, turning the silver blade over between his fingers.
Capt. Smits raised his wide shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “For sure we do not know. But we do not care for the cut of his sail. There are those who have been yapping for a new master. And Sparkenboom talks much — to say nothing. Then he listens to what others say. Now, Corny, you will stay here — ”
Before the youngest son of the house of Smits could voice his instant protest against that order, Klaas again interrupted.
“Neit!” He got to his feet loungingly, stretching his lean body to its full height. Then he did not look like an old man — as Lorens had always thought him, or even a middle-aged man — he looked a distinctly dangerous man. “I shall stay here, Wim.”
“But aren’t you going to England?” Lorens would have liked to add “with me”. But somehow he didn’t quite want to say that aloud, it sounded too much as if he did not want to go alone. And to this new and disturbing Klaas he did not care to show anything which might smack of weakness.
“No. Here there is work for one such as me to lay hand to — that Sparkenboom, perhaps. And what could I do in London? I shall go underground and make myself useful until the day comes to strike. When I was but a boy, younger than you stand now, Mijnheer Lorens, the Tuan Joris took and cut me to his use, even as he took and cut his jewels. And now I follow my schooling. Here I will stay until you come again, then I shall be ready — ”