Hornet Flight Read Free Page B

came closer. It was twelve miles long and a mile wide, with a village at each end. The fishermen’s cottages, and the church with its parsonage, constituted the older village at the south end. Also at the south end, a school of navigation, long disused, had been taken over by the Germans and turned into a military base. The hotel and the larger homes were at the north end. In between, the island was mostly sand dunes and scrub with a few trees and no hills, but all along the seaward side was a magnificent ten-mile beach.
    Harald felt a few drops of rain as the ferry approached its dock at the north end of the island. The hotel’s horse-drawn taxi was waiting for the well-dressed couple. The fishermen were met by the wife of one of them driving a horse and cart. Harald decided to cross the island and drive home along the beach, which had hard-packed sand—in fact it had been used for speed trials of racing cars.
    He was halfway from the dock to the hotel when he ran out of steam.
    He was using the bike’s petrol tank as a water reserve, and he realized now that it was not big enough. He would have to get a five-gallon oil drum and put it in the sidecar. Meanwhile, he needed water to get him home.
    There was only one house within sight, and unfortunately it was Axel Flemming’s. Despite their rivalry, the Olufsens and the Flemmings were on speaking terms: all members of the Flemming family came to church every Sunday and sat together at the front. Indeed, Axel was a deacon. All the same, Harald did not relish the thought of asking the antagonisticFlemmings for help. He considered walking a quarter of a mile to the next nearest house, then decided that would be foolish. With a sigh, he set off up the long drive.
    Rather than knock at the front door, he went around the side of the house to the stables. He was pleased to see a manservant putting the Ford in the garage. “Hello, Gunnar,” said Harald. “Can I have some water?”
    The man was friendly. “Help yourself,” he said. “There’s a tap in the yard.”
    Harald found a bucket beside the tap and filled it. He went back to the road and poured the water into the tank. It looked as if he might manage to avoid meeting any of the family. But when he returned the bucket to the yard, Peter Flemming was there.
    A tall, haughty man of thirty in a well-cut suit of oatmeal tweed, Peter was Axel’s son. Before the quarrel between the families, he had been best friends with Harald’s brother Arne, and in their teens they had been known as ladykillers, Arne seducing girls with his wicked charm and Peter by his cool sophistication. Peter now lived in Copenhagen but had come home for the holiday weekend, Harald assumed.
    Peter was reading Reality. He looked up from the paper to see Harald. “What are you doing here?” he said.
    â€œHello, Peter, I came to get some water.”
    â€œI suppose this rag is yours?”
    Harald touched his pocket and realized with consternation that the newspaper must have fallen out when he reached down for the bucket.
    Peter saw the movement and understood its meaning. “Obviously it is,” he said. “Are you aware that you could go to jail just for having it in your possession?”
    The talk of jail was not an empty threat: Peter was a police detective. Harald said, “Everyone reads it in the city.” He made himself sound defiant, but in fact he was a little scared: Peter was mean enough to arrest him.
    â€œThis is not Copenhagen,” Peter intoned solemnly.
    Harald knew that Peter would love the chance to disgrace an Olufsen. Yet he was hesitating. Harald thought he knew why. “You’ll look a fool if you arrest a schoolboy on Sande for doing something half the populationdoes openly. Especially when everyone finds out you’ve got a grudge against my father.”
    Peter was visibly torn between the desire to humiliate Harald and the fear of being