The Legion of the Lost, стр. 29
Brian passed a dozen compartments, with three or four people in each, before he stopped. From the next carriage someone came towards him, completely blocking his view.
Brian smiled widely and raised a hand.
‘Looking for someone?’ he asked in German.
‘Don’t be a fool!’ said Stefan Andromovitch, but he chuckled. ‘I have managed to secure an empty compartment not far along but it will not remain empty for long.’
They reached the compartment as the crowds began to surge into the corridor. Once inside, they closed the door and pulled down the blinds. The handle shook under a dozen impatient hands, but Palfrey held it to prevent the door from opening.
‘I was watching when you arrived at Osterbro,’ said Stefan, ‘a man came up and took the car away. I do not know where he stranded it.’ Stefan glanced out of the far window – that nearest the platform had the blinds drawn – and added: ‘Which reminds me, Sap, have you passed on Olga’s message?’
Palfrey stared, then smiled and confessed: ‘I’d forgotten it! I’m glad you reminded me.’ He smiled still more amiably at Erikson and went on: ‘Olga Loffler asked me to make sure that I told you she helped you to get away. It seemed to amuse her.’
‘Olga Loffler!’ exploded Erikson. ‘The shameless creature, the infamous—infamous—’ he hesitated and Palfrey likened his amazement to Raffleck’s at mention of the villainous-looking Orleck. ‘Are you serious, Doctor? That Jezebel, she—but she helped me to get away? She assists in such things?’
‘May we hear more?’ asked Palfrey mildly.
‘Of course, I am sorry to be so slow,’ said Erikson. ‘I worked for a long time to try to abolish houses of ill-fame in Copenhagen, but no matter how I tried to catch that woman she evaded me and laughed in my face.’ He raised a hand helplessly. ‘How one’s values change,’ he added, ‘how they change! But I shall continue to do all I can to abolish such brothels,’ he added sharply. ‘I shall not allow my deep sense of gratitude to interfere with my principles, although—’
He broke off abruptly as Conroy said with relish: ‘You’ll deal more leniently with her, I guess?’
Erikson gulped and brushed a hand over his forehead, then seemed to shrink back in his corner. Palfrey did not think it was a sudden realisation of personal danger which affected him, so much as a sudden vision of the old Copenhagen, when he had tried so hard to put through reforms, compared with the conditions in the city now.
‘What were you doing at the palace?’ Palfrey asked, quietly enough to make the words seem like a continuation of the other subject. ‘I was intrigued by the lumps of fat.’ He raised his brows interrogatively. ‘And—’ he paused. ‘Was it skimmed milk?’
Erikson drew a deep breath and passed his hand over his eyes, before he said slowly: ‘No-o, not skimmed milk. A mixture of water and chemicals made to look and taste like skimmed milk. I was experimenting in the admixture of vitamins and calories. And the fats were ersatz fats. My stomach heaves when I think of them, but they were the only materials which the Nazis gave me to work on. They believed that I would do all I could to put some goodness into them for the sake of my own people, of course. Whether they would have allowed a useful compound to be distributed in Denmark before going to Germany, I do not know. I hardly think it likely. But—’ he looked appealingly at Palfrey. ‘I had to help. I had to try. There was always a chance that it would do some good.’
It was nearly dawn when they reached Fredericia. It was pitch dark outside and Palfrey saw that it was just after five o’clock; they were three-and-a-half hours late. The awareness of danger was sharpened by the coldness of the early morning and the others were also affected. They climbed out of the train in company with hundreds of other people, all weary-eyed, stretching, yawning, grunting.
There was a hold-up at the barrier and Palfrey was afraid that the hue and cry for them would be on by then. He called Stefan aside and said: ‘We’d better split up. You take Erikson, Conroy can take Ohlson—it will make less of a contrast in sizes and they’ll be looking for one long and one short.’
The patient crowd went towards the barrier slowly, sometimes without moving up for ten or fifteen minutes. Dawn was visible before he and Brian reached the barrier. He saw that there was an armed guard of four men, with two others who were shining torches into the face of every man and woman. Time and time again, the people were pushed on roughly; they accepted the roughness patiently.
As he drew nearer he saw that on a small table at which an officer was sitting, were two photographs, pinned to it. The officer, his face like a ghoul’s in the light of the lamp which cast intermittent shadows over his features, kept referring to the photographs. Palfrey craned his neck to try to see them, convinced that they were of Ohlson and Erikson.
A torch was thrust into their faces, preventing Palfrey from seeing the features on the photographs. A man asked for his papers and he fumbled for them – he was described then as a Danish doctor and had authority to travel. Brian’s identity card declared him to be a Swedish national. In spite of that, Brian was pushed through roughly although he was asked a few questions. A dozen were flung at Palfrey and he answered quickly if nervously. The glitter of the torch was no longer in his eyes, but on the photographs.
They were of Erikson and Ohlson.
His heart was beating so fast that he hardly heard the curt command to pass on. Dawn was breaking but there was no way at all in which he could