Jock stared. A grin as big as all outdoors slowly plastered itself across his face. "Well, up me arse if it ain't, Sarge!"
Doing their best impression of Stukas, the English fighter-bombers dove on the advancing tanks. They dropped their bombs. Then they climbed and dove again; their machine guns chattered as they shot up the Fritzes moving forward with the tanks.
"That'll scramble 'em!" Jock said exultantly.
"It will!" Walsh said. That kind of treatment had scrambled English and French troops often enough-no, too bloody often.
But the Germans, unlike their Allied counterparts, didn't stay scrambled long. With what might have passed for majestic deliberation, the Skuas climbed and dove yet again, and then one more time still. That last pass proved one too many. Majestic deliberation turned out to be only a synonym for too goddamn slow.
Messerschmitts roaring up from the south tore into the Skuas. The English planes streaked back toward the carrier that had launched them. It was, unfortunately, a slow streak, at least by the standards the 109s were used to. Wolves killing sheep could have had no easier time than the German fighters. One Skua after another tumbled out of the sky in smoking, flaming ruin. A couple of parachutes opened, but only a couple. Walsh reminded himself that each English plane carried not one but two highly trained young men.
Quietly, Jock said, "That's murder, is what that is."
Walsh nodded. "Nothing else but. Whoever expected them to be able to fight in those sorry machines ought to come up on charges. They haven't got a chance."
"Like Bren-gun carriers against proper tanks, ain't it?" Jock said.
"It's just like that, by God," Walsh answered. "How the bleeding hell are we supposed to fight a war if the equipment they give us is ten years behind what the Nazis have?"
"Isn't that what they call muddling through?"
"That's what they call fucking up," Walsh said savagely. In the last war, the Germans had said their English counterparts were lions commanded by donkeys. Some things didn't change from one generation to the next.
More German planes appeared overhead: broad-winged He-111s and the skinny Do-17s that Englishmen and Germans both called Flying Pencils. The level bombers ignored the troops outside of Trondheim. They started pounding the docks. Thick black clouds of smoke rose. Walsh wondered what was burning. The town? Or the ships that kept the defenders supplied? Which would be worse? The ships, Walsh judged. You couldn't keep fighting without munitions.
Or, for that matter, without food. Maybe you could live off the land in summertime, but summer in this part of Norway was only a hiccup in the cold. The Fritzes could bring things up from the south. The defenders had to do it by sea… if they could.
A Heinkel spun toward the ground, flame licking across its left wing. It blew up with a hell of a bang: it hadn't got rid of its bombs. Several Tommies cheered. Walsh wasn't sorry to watch the bugger crash, either-not half!-but how much difference would it make? Any at all?
Chapter 20
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
What the devil was that from? For the life of her, Peggy Druce couldn't remember. She'd studied way too much literature in college, but how much good did it do her? She could remember the quote, but not the source. Her professors would have frowned severely.
Well, tough shit, she thought. Even if she couldn't remember who'd written the line, it fit her all too well. The Nazis had even extended their hell to keep her in it. She'd thought getting into Denmark meant escaping. Sadly, just because you thought something didn't make it so.
No more flights from Copenhagen to London. No more ships plying the North Sea from Denmark to England, either. The Nazis were acting as mildly as anybody could after invading and overrunning the country next door. They loudly proclaimed that Denmark was still independent. If you listened to them, they were only protecting the Danes from invasion by England or France.
If.
Had any Danes invited them to protect the country? "Not fucking likely!" Peggy said out loud when she first thought to wonder. She was having lunch in a seaside cafe at the moment. Her waiter did a double take worthy of Groucho. Peggy's cheeks heated. She'd already seen that a lot of Danes spoke English. Quite a few of them spoke it better than your average American, in fact. She couldn't just let fly without scandalizing somebody. She left the waiter a fat tip and got out of there in a hurry.
Moments later, she wished she hadn't. A couple of dozen Danish Fascists were parading down the street behind a Danish flag-white cross on red-with the words FRIKORPS DANMARK in gold where the stars would be on an American flag. She wasn't the only person staring at the collaborators. Every country had its Fascist fringe, but now the Danish loonies enjoyed Hitler's potent backing.
Slowly and deliberately, a tall blonde woman turned her back on the homegrown Fascists. One by one, the rest of the people on the street followed her example. Peggy was slower than most. She got a good look at the Danish would-be Nazis. By their expressions, they might have bitten into big, juicy lemons.
From behind them, somebody called out something in Danish. Peggy didn't understand it, but the local traitors did. Their faces got even more sour. She hadn't dreamt they could. More and more people took up the call, whatever it was. As the Fascists rounded a corner and disappeared, a helpful Dane who must have noticed Peggy's blank look spoke a few words of English: "It means 'Shame!'-what we shouted."
"Good for you!" she said. If she'd known the word, she would have yelled at the goons herself.
The worst of it was, she had to deal with the Germans again. Her disappointment seemed all the crueler because she'd thought she'd escaped both Nazis and Wehrmacht forever. No such luck. No luck at all, as a matter of fact. The Germans might say Denmark was still independent, but the "free" Danes had no control over travel between their country and neighboring Sweden. The occupiers damn well did.
Knowing Nazi arrogance, Peggy would have expected the Wehrmacht to take over the royal palace and to run Denmark from it. But General Kaupitsch or his aide had better sense than that. King Christian X went right on reigning. Even his Danish bodyguard remained intact. The Germans administered their new conquest from a drab modern office building three blocks away.
If that was where they were, that was where Peggy had to go. She wished Hitler had issued her a letter instead of calling her on the phone to let her know she could go from Germany to Denmark. (And had he been laughing up his sleeve when he gave her that permission? Sure he had! He must have known his own army would be only a few days behind her.)
No big swastika flag flew over or in front of the German headquarters. The Wehrmacht wasn't going out of its way to be hated… unless you counted invading Denmark to begin with, of course. Peggy would have bet the Germans didn't. She had no doubt whatsoever that the Danes damn well did, and always would.
She displayed her American passport and told one of the sentries, "I want to see General Kaupitsch. Sofort, bitte." Sofort sounded a lot more immediate than immediately.
"Why?" one of the Germans asked. Under the beetling brow of his helmet, his features were blank.
"Because the Fuhrer said I could come to Denmark so I could go on to the States, and this invasion has screwed things up. That's why," Peggy answered. "Do you understand that?" Or shall I bounce a rock off your goddamn Stahlhelm and wise you up?
Both sentries' eyes widened. One set was blue, the other brown. You're a crappy Aryan, kid, Peggy thought, feeling how far out on the ragged edge she was. "Please wait," the one with the blue eyes said. He disappeared into the office building.
If he didn't come out pretty damn quick, Peggy was going to lay into his buddy with both barrels. But he did. He conferred with Brown Eyes, who spoke up: "I will take you to Major von Rehfeld."