Dark Full of Enemies(59)

“Extra fuel? For the Vestfjorden?”

Petersen stroked his beard and, to McKay’s surprise, smiled. “No.”

McKay left it at that. He went straight to the cabin below the wheelhouse and found it packed. He had not thought such a small room could hold so many men or so much equipment. Petersen’s crew had removed the table and chairs to hold all of them.

Stallings, Graves, and Ollila stood there with five others, all in heavy coats and the intricately knitted sweaters of the Norwegians, with scarves bundling their necks and fisherman’s caps or toboggans on their heads. Two wore oilskins. All of them wore leather cartridge belts on the British or German pattern and carried hand grenades and guns.

The boat throttled up and its tonk-tonk-tonk began. McKay and his team lurched and caught themselves. The Norwegians, showing their sealegs, rocked and held steady.

Petersen and Magnus squeezed in behind McKay and shut the door. He spoke briefly in Norwegian—McKay understood this as his introduction—and led McKay to the first man—tall, rangy, a face like handmedown leather. He carried a German Mauser and a Walther PP in a mismatched holster. Petersen introduced him as Fredrik. McKay shook his hand.

“The pistol he got from a Gestapo officer,” Petersen said.

“You kill him?”

Petersen translated. The man laughed.

“Unfortunately, no, but he doubts the theft has ever been reported.”

McKay laughed.

“You know Magnus, of course,” Petersen said, “and this is H?kon.”

McKay shook his hand. H?kon stood eight inches shorter than McKay and carried an unsilenced Sten, a puny weapon even for a submachine gun. But the man looked tough and uncompromising, with a face weathered by the sea and a nose broken at least twice. McKay had seen the look before—a certain set of the jaw, a glint in the eyes—in about half the Marines that left Parris Island. We can use that, he thought.

Bj?rn came next, a bigger man, as his name—Bear, familiar to McKay from his Viking history—implied. He carried a Mauser and a British revolver, a Webley.

The next men, Einar and Amund, were brothers. Both carried P-38 pistols taken from dead Germans in the fighting of 1940. Like Fredrik, Einar carried a Mauser. Amund, a bigger man than his brother, carried the prize.

“I love the gun,” Amund said, and slapped the receiver of the big Bren gun. The Bren was Czech light machine gun, fed from an upside-down magazine on the top. The British had adopted it and had airdropped them, along with thousands of Stens, to resistance groups all over Europe. McKay had never seen one in action, and doubted it could equal the Browning Automatic Rifle that his Marine squads relied upon, but he was glad to find more firepower than rifles and stolen pistols.

“Glad to hear it,” McKay said. “We can use that.”

“And you have already seen this,” Petersen said, and held up his Sten. McKay had—a Mark II, with a built-in silencer—and McKay had also noted the Enfield revolver on Petersen’s belt—a solid, reliable pistol.

“Y’all have enough ammunition for everything?”

“We have enough.”

“Explosives?”

“We have given them to Sergeant Graves.”

“Outstanding.” McKay nodded to Graves. “The Colour Sergeant has a special assignment for your men—any pair who are willing to climb down the rail bridge to the waterline.”

Graves, after a moment of surprise, took on his most wolfish, hungry look.

“You have what you need to mine the bridge?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Outstanding.” McKay looked once more over the group crowded into the dingy-aired cabin. “You’ve brought a party of seven. Thank you.”

“You are welcome, but no—my men are six. I am coming with you, to the dam.”

McKay was too tired to be surprised. He said, “Why?”

“I escaped Keener’s attempt because I was on the heights, fighting. I do not know why Keener failed or what went wrong, but I want some role in controlling this raid.”

McKay looked at him. Petersen’s face was set. He stood stony and huge, seemed to fill and possess the cabin entire. His cap, McKay noticed for the first time, almost brushed the ceiling. The yellow bulb shone full in his face, and Petersen did not blink. His mind brought forth eagles staring into the sun, something from his medieval reading, but he pushed the thought aside.

“All right,” McKay said. “But you take orders from me.”

“Gladly,” Petersen said, and broke into a smile. He almost looked cheery.

McKay turned to the others in the cabin and said, “How many can speak English?”

H?kon and Amund raised their hands, and Amund said, timidly, “Only little.”

“That’s fine. Na gut, wie viele Deutsch kann?”

H?kon kept his hand up, and Fredrik and Bj?rn raised theirs.

“I work at the shipyards with the Germans,” Bj?rn said.

“All right, but no more. The less I know you the better.”

Bj?rn nodded, glanced at Petersen and nodded thoughtfully again. McKay had hoped for a few days or even weeks in which to pick up a smattering of Norwegian. He preferred to talk directly to his contacts, either in English or their own language, but this would be good enough—better than he had expected. He continued in German.