Hornet Flight by Ken Follett Read Free Book Online Page B

moments later, Mads Kirke sat next to Harald. Mads was in the same year. He came from a distinguished military family: his grandfather a general, his late father a defense minister in the thirties. His cousin Poul was a pilot with Arne at the flying school.
    The three friends were science students. They were usually together, and they looked comically different—Harald tall and blond, Tik small and dark, Mads a freckled redhead—so that when a witty English master had referred to them as the Three Stooges, the nickname had stuck.
    Heis, the head teacher, came in with the visitor, and the boys stood up politely. Heis was tall and thin with glasses perched on the bridge of a beaky nose. He had spent ten years in the army, but it was easy to see why he had switched to school teaching. A mild-mannered man, he seemed apologetic about being in authority. He was liked rather than feared. The boys obeyed him because they did not want to hurt his feelings.
    When they had sat down again, Heis introduced the parliamentary deputy, a small man so unimpressive that anyone would have thought he was the schoolteacher and Heis the distinguished guest. Agger began to talk about the German occupation.
    Harald remembered the day it had begun, fourteen months ago. He had been woken up in the middle of the night by aircraft roaring overhead. The Three Stooges had gone up on the roof of the dormitory to watch but, after a dozen or so aircraft had passed over, nothing else happened, so they went back to bed.
    He had learned no more until morning. He had been brushing his teeth in the communal bathroom when a teacher had rushed in and said, “TheGermans have landed!” After breakfast, at eight o’clock when the boys assembled in the gym for the morning song and announcements, the head had told them the news. “Go to your rooms and destroy anything that might indicate opposition to the Nazis or sympathy with Britain,” he had said. Harald had taken down his favorite poster, a picture of a Tiger Moth biplane with RAF roundels on its wings.
    Later that day—a Tuesday—the older boys had been detailed to fill sandbags and carry them to the church to cover the priceless ancient carvings and sarcophagi. Behind the altar was the tomb of the school’s founder, his stone likeness lying in state, dressed in medieval armor with an eye-catchingly large codpiece. Harald had caused great amusement by mounting a sandbag end-up on the protrusion. Heis had not appreciated the joke, and Harald’s punishment had been to spend the afternoon moving paintings to the crypt for safety.
    All the precautions had been unnecessary. The school was in a village outside Copenhagen, and it was a year before they saw any Germans. There had never been any bombing or even gunfire.
    Denmark had surrendered within twenty-four hours. “Subsequent events have shown the wisdom of that decision,” said the speaker with irritating smugness, and there was a susurration of dissent as the boys shifted uncomfortably in their seats and muttered comments.
    â€œOur king continues on his throne,” Agger went on. Next to Harald, Mads grunted disgustedly. Harald shared Mads’s annoyance. King Christian X rode out on horseback most days, showing himself to the people on the streets of Copenhagen, but it seemed an empty gesture.
    â€œThe German presence has been, on the whole, benign,” the speaker went on. “Denmark has proved that a partial loss of independence, due to the exigencies of war, need not necessarily lead to undue hardship and strife. The lesson, for boys such as yourselves, is that there may be more honor in submission and obedience than in ill-considered rebellion.” He sat down.
    Heis clapped politely, and the boys followed suit, though without enthusiasm. If the head had been a shrewder judge of an audience’s mood, he would have ended the session then; but instead he smiled and said, “Well, boys, any