They disappeared rapidly, except for Dirk, who held Lorens by the arm.
“May I dare to ask where we are going?” Lorens inquired with what he hoped was proper meekness.
“You may. Whether we shall answer or not is another question. Now forward, my men.”
Kip, with his usual unobtrusive tact, cut his ordinary long-legged stalk to a pace which matched Lorens’.
“If you want the truth,” Dirk cut in from the other side, “we came in here to do a job — ”
“A job?”
“Yes. Do you know Martiaan van Nye? That big fellow with the black hair and the little fish tattoed on his hand?”
Lorens nodded. “Not well, though.”
“Well, Martiaan had a letter today, and now he is not good company for himself, you understand. So we go to find him before he thinks too many dark thoughts. He is good in the air, better than me, and I, Dirk Heims, say that. And he is not going to be spoiled of his chance to get back at those over there. So now we shall go along the streets and hunt us out Mr. van Nye before he does something foolish.”
It was in the fourth cafe that they entered that Cadet van Nye sat alone at the stained table in the last booth of all, where the amber light made of his broad boyish face an oddly flat mask He wasn’t drinking as Lorens had expected. Instead he was staring fixedly down at some round objects he had set out in a line before him.
“Hello, van Nye.” Kip slid onto the other bench in the booth.
The dark boy did not raise his eyes. And Lorens saw that what he regarded so fixedly were buttons, the large gold buttons which are the never-forgotten part of a fisherman’s dress.
“We wear these at home” — his calm, emotionless voice might have been delivering a lecture to some tourist — “so that if a man is drowned and washed ashore away from his home, these can always be sold to insure him Christian burial. Gold they are, and two hundred years have they belonged to van Nye men.” He moved one a fraction so that now the line was mathematically straight.
“Arne, he died in the marshes when they let in the sea; he was wounded, and they forgot him until too late” — his forefinger flecked two of the buttons out of line. “Luis, he must have gone down with the Pride of Leyden, she was never heard of after she dropped out of the Atlantic convoy.” Two more of the buttons moved away. “And now — now Rudolf is — is — The verdammt dirty traitor!” He sent the buttons flying with a single sweeping blow, and Lorens caught the shine of tears on his cheeks.
“Are you sure? There is always a chance — ” Kip’s quiet voice cut through the lowering sense of melodrama.
“Today I was made sure! See, there is that — that unspeakable thing who dares to say that he was once a van Nye — to our everlasting shame. Look, all of you!”
Kip smoothed out the crumpled photograph van Nye tossed at him. It was only a snapshot, but it was a very clear one of three young or youngish men in a strange uniform.
“Weer Afdeeling!” Dirk breathed down Lorens’ neck.
“Ja! Nazi swine, storm troopers. And that is Rudolf. From London my uncle sent me this so I may know what evil has happened to my brother. May I live to strip that coat from his coward back!”
“You can do that, you know. If you don’t throw away the chance,” Kip said.
“Ja? Oh, now I see, you have come so that the little boy will not do some foolish thing. Well, I promise that he shall not. But tonight I am not good company, you will excuse please my going, gentlemen.” He arose and bowed with a dignity which did not seem foreign even to his lumpish figure, and had turned away when a man at the next table hailed him.
“Say, soldier, did’ya drop this?” It was one of the buttons he was holding out.
Van Nye stared down at it for a long moment, then he shrugged. “For that I no longer have use, Mijnheer. It is nothing. Thank you.”
He tramped stolidly out, his boots rapping out a somber rhythm as he went.
“Will he be all right?” Dirk asked Kip.
“Yes. He will keep his promise, there will be no foolishness as we had feared. But I cannot say if Martiaan van Nye will ever be all right again. Rudolf is his youngest brother, and they were very close. Why do you want that?” he ended as Lorens picked up the snapshot.
“I don’t. But I fancy van Nye wouldn’t care to leave it here. And now that you are no longer concerned about van Nye, and we are in the town to which you have been trying to drag me for so long, suppose we celebrate.”
“That” — Dirk brought his broad hand down on Lorens’ shoulder in a hearty smack of approbation — “is what I call having a head on your shoulders and using it!
And the day before yesterday was pay-day, so yet there is money in the pocket. We shall show you this town in — in — How is it these Americans say it, Kip?”
“In style.”
“In style — right. So now let us go — ”
And go they did. The clock in the room showed its hands very close to twelve when Lorens came into Piet’s quarters, an ague sense of guilt bringing him in on tiptoe.
“So? And what shade of crimson did you paint the town tonight?” Piet laughed at him over the edge of a book.
“A very light shade.” Lorens sat down carefully. “Perhaps that last soda was a slight mistake. Or maybe I should have ordered pineapple instead of chocolate — as Dirk advised.”
“Dirk Heims? Never follow any of that flutterhead’s advice and you will do all right in this world. I have waited up just to tell you that at last I have remembered who your van Oster is — or rather who he might be.”
“And that is — ?”
“Our Aunt Lisa took herself a husband out of one of the border provinces. That is why the Jonkheer was never friendly with her after. And her man was a van Oster. She had a son, I think, who went to Germany for his schooling and never let anyone forget it after. He was more Junker than a Prussian officer, had him a proper dueling scar across the jaw and all. But we” — Piet’s voice took on a touch of unconscious arrogance until its usual drawl sounded much like the Jonkheer’s cool tone — “have never concerned ourselves with them. I wouldn’t know any of the family if I met them face to face. And have you decided when you are going to see Kruber?”
“Yes. I go Friday.”
“Good. And you will let me know as soon as possible how the interview goes.”
Lorens got up. “Be sure that I shall. And now I am certain that that last soda was a mistake. If I am to be fit to travel Friday, I must keep away from Kip and Dirk.”
He left Piet still laughing as he closed the bedroom door behind him.
11
TICKET TO LONDON
Lorens dropped his battered overnight bag between his feet and mopped his face. He preferred to think that it was the unseasonable heat of the New York day which made his skin so moist — not nervousness. The lobby of the office building was floored with grimy tile, and there was a strong odor of dust mixed with machine oil and yellow soap which tainted any scrap of breeze.
Slightly to his right was the door he had come so far to enter, its ground-glass window bearing in very discreet lettering the legend ‘Grauford and Son, Importers’. But what Mr. Grauford and his heir might be engaged in importing was left to the imagination of the passerby. Lorens glanced once more at his watch for reassurance, then opened the door.
The gray-haired woman who occupied the cramped desk space of the outer office glanced up impersonally.
“Yes?” Her remote voice must have been purposely pitched to put in his rightful place any intruder.
“I have an appointment, for ten this morning.”
“Ten.” She ran her forefinger down the page of a business diary on the desk. “And you are from — ?”
“Jackson, Mississippi.”
“Go in. You are expected.” She indicated the door behind her.
It was a very ordinary, plainly furnished room he entered. A cheap desk had been placed between the two windows. And there were only two chair
s, the one behind the desk and another directly opposite it.
The man at that desk had the general appearance of any one of hundreds of middle-aged clerks, or he might have been a senior bookkeeper. He had been looking out of the window, and as Lorens came in he swung his chair around.
“I have an appointment at ten,” began Lorens, a little uncertainly.
“Oh, yes. You are the young man from Jackson. Sit down.”
Lorens might have been a junior clerk in quest of a position. He was vaguely dissatisfied. This fell far short of both his expectations and his preconceived ideas of such an interview.
The man at the desk had picked up some sheets of legal foolscap fastened together with a paper-clip.
“Your proposal was passed to this office a week ago. It has its points, but so far the personal element does not strike us as a good idea. In other words, you have come here today to convince me that you are the only one who can handle this matter properly, and, I warn you, I do not believe that at all. We have trained men on the spot who are fully capable of doing all there is to be done — ”
“Except that they cannot open the safe. Only one person can do that without damaging the contents,” Lorens countered. He did not like this quiet, colorless man.
“All anyone needs to do that is the knowledge of the key word.”
“Just so — the key word.”
His interviewer arranged the papers in a neat pile, being careful about the squareness of the corners. Lorens allowed the silence to linger on, until the man himself was ready to break it.
“You are very young, my friend. I can appreciate your desire to carry through this mission yourself. But you have been away from the scene of action for two years, you have no conception of how life there has changed. It would be rank folly to send a green man into occupied territory now. You need only be recognized by some former neighbor to be marked down.”
“To the best of their knowledge I am a dead man. Norreys was fired the night I escaped, and they must have believed me trapped there.”
“Please, no names, not even here. Perhaps what you say is true. But, on the other hand, they may have discovered that error by now. Because of your unique position they had already marked you down, and they are thorough — perhaps the most thorough workers in the world today. There is an excellent chance that they know very well just where you are and what you are doing at this moment. To go ahead with your plan is out of the question.”
“If” — Lorens leaned forward across the edge of the desk — “I do not go back with your help, then I shall go on my own. Do — you — believe — that?”
The eyes beneath the other’s gray brows were curiously light and shallow, as if anything which might lie in their depths was protected by a film.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I do. A man learns in this business when he is against a wall.” He chuckled and the sound in no wise resembled a laugh. “Because we need what you have to offer we shall support you up to a point.
Here” — he pushed over an envelope — “ are your tickets to Halifax. You will reach there by Wednesday and report directly to this address. There will be an army bomber en route to England. Once in London, go to the place where Capt. Smits sent you, they will take care of the rest.”
“You seem prepared for my going, after all,” Lorens couldn’t resist observing.
“I have had contact with the temper of your family before. Now, since you have been away so long, it would be well for me to bring you up-to-date on local affairs.
“There are two major underground groups at work — The We Remember Clubs which began in De Jordaan quarter of Amsterdam. They are interested primarily in Bijltjesdag — ”
“Hatchet Day!”
“Just so. They have been helpful in preparing statements of the invaders’ crimes, in listing cases of outrage and so forth. I believe that they have also a roster of those who will be dealt with — drastically — at the proper time.
“De Geuzen, the Beggars, are a revival of the old organization for the freeing and protecting of the homeland. And they have a finger in every pie which will aid the cause in any way. What part they play in backing the underground papers — Vrij Nederland and the rest — we don’t know, but it must be a large one. Their rumored leader is ‘Colonel Verdun’, who may be one man or a score of men working by a common plan.
“Opposed we have the Wolfsangel, the Weer Afdeeling, and, naturally, the Gestapo. Of these three the latter is to be feared the most. Our renegade storm troopers do not care much for our company. Unless they are greatly in the majority, they do not even venture on the streets — in uniform.
“The trouble with the Nazis” — he had dropped his papers and sat fitting one fingertip precisely to another, he might have been a college professor lecturing to a class — “the trouble is that they do not understand psychology except as it applies to the German nation. They have built up an empire of fear and blood, and they are bewildered because it does not work smoothly. They cannot understand people who grow stubborn under pressure instead of breaking. First they become angry at continued resistance and then they are afraid. Afraid, because every Nazi in his heart knows that his is the losing side, that Bijltjesdag will come as sure as the sun rises in the morning. And that fear walks by his side and sleeps in his bed. So now we play upon raw nerves. Such little things can do that — a song in the street, words chalked on the wall, ostracization. Yes, this is a war of nerves, but whose nerves, ours or the Nazis?
“You are going into a clotted mess of suspicion, of plot and counterplot, of the wildest sort of action. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe that, sitting here in this office. But it is very true. And you must keep in mind that you are going for one purpose only, to get what you left behind and bring it safely out. You must not allow yourself to be drawn into any other project. You must close your eyes and ears to anything which would draw you from your course. And there will be much. Chivalry and decency must be laid aside, you cannot afford them, any more than you can afford vengeance. And that is a lesson very few men can learn, unless they have passed through the fires of the Hell the Nazis have created. I do not question your courage to act, but do you have the courage not to act? Not to act when every decent emotion you have bred in you urges you to?”
Lorens shifted under the probing of those shallow eyes. “I don’t know,” he replied slowly. This was something new, something he had never thought of before.
“Then you had better find out! Remember, it may not be your life only which you hold in your hands. We seldom resort to arms and open fighting. Men just disappear and the accounting comes later. Can’t you see that the risk of allowing you freedom to do as you wish might endanger much greater plans afoot? Our enemies have made a fine art of degenerate barbarism. Ordinary human beings cannot understand the depths of such foulness. And we, who must play the game after the rules they have set, do you think that we can win free with unstained hands? Yes, I am honestly trying to frighten you now. There is a time when it is good for a man to be afraid. Because I am sure that if you go the same man will not return — ”
“I am going!”
The man without a name shrugged. “All right. I will spend no more time in useless argument. Let us get to facts. Here” — he whisked out a map which covered most of the desk top — “is the district for which you are bound. The exact house you have in mind is still in ruins. And this section of the countryside is no longer so populous. How you will be delivered there I cannot say now, but you may have only an hour or two to work. How well do you know the district?”
“I spent most of my boyhood there. I’ve fished and swam in the canal and ridden those roads. I know almost every soul in the village — ”
“Then keep out of it! This is certainly no time for renewing old contacts — if there are any left to renew. After you secure your package, you will get back to England by the manner those on the spot will suggest to you. What makes this a particularly dangerous trip is that we have re
ason to believe that the Nazis are looking for the prize, too. There has been some activity in that direction just recently. Perhaps dear Herman desires to acquire another art treasure for his famous collection. Also the Gestapo man in that district is both young and zealous, with ambitions. He must possess the equivalent of an uneasy conscience since he follows Seyss-Inquart’s example and seldom spends more than one night at a time under the same roof.
“His headquarters are in this place, about a mile on the other side of the village — ”
“That is the Leenders house!”
“Hugo Leenders was one of the hostages shot last January. His house is now naturally the property of the Reich.”
“Shot last January!” Why, Mijnheer Leenders, that tall, always smiling man who made a custom of calling in the village children to attack his cherry trees at will, who used a cane to limp his way down the road for his evening game of chess with Father Ritmeester, had no life apart from the house he loved so well. But that was true — Mijnheer Leenders had now no life.
The man by the desk had been watching him, and now he nodded as if Lorens had successfully given the answer to some difficult question.
“So that makes you realize that there are changes? Yes, there have been quite a few.”
“Father Ritmeester?”
“You will not find him either. The church has no favor with this new state. I believe that even the actual building was accidentally fired one night. There were supposed to be some military supplies temporarily cached there. Doubtless one of the sentries was smoking against orders.”
Lorens smiled. “How unfortunate!”
“Yes, it was inconvenient and caused the authorities a great deal of trouble. It led to some arrests, too. But later there was a small prison delivery so the scales were properly unbalanced again. There was some talk of removing the Gestapo section head. But he apparently had a strong counter-argument. However, it increased his restlessness to an annoying pitch. We have our little problems.” He was speaking now with an almost playful intonation.