The Unlikely Allies (27 page)

“Why did you let them go?” Mallory burst out. She had wondered this ever since that night in the mountains, and now her voice was sharp, yet there was a trace of something
else in it. “We expected you to turn us all in. Why did you let us all go?”

“I saw something in the Jewish woman’s face, and I couldn’t do it, Mallory,” he said, his voice full of unconcealed emotion.

“Why not? What did you see?”

“A woman came to my office a few weeks ago. She had known Rachel.” He related how the woman had led Rachel to the Lord and how the woman had brought him a letter from Rachel, in which she declared her love for Derek and expressed her faith in Christ. He hesitated, then shook his head. “It did something to me, Mallory. The woman looked a little like Rachel. You know how I felt about her death. You knew that the night I broke down and wept. But then to find out that she loved me in spite of my betrayal and went to her death loving me . . . I . . . I couldn’t take it all in. It doesn’t seem possible.”

“I’m glad she came to know Jesus, Derek. That should be a comfort to you. You can be sure she’s in heaven now.”

“Maybe it should be a comfort, but it isn’t. All I can see is my failure. I’ll never be able to think of her without tearing myself apart inside.” He dropped his head, and his voice was almost imperceptible. “Some things never die, do they?”

Suddenly Derek looked up and said, “I have to tell you something—but you won’t believe it.” She stared at him, but before she could speak, he said, “Not long ago I was alone in a room in a little village called Harstad. . . .” His voice was quiet, but his face was different—more peaceful than Mallory had ever seen it.

“I know exactly where that is. It’s not far from Narvik.”

“Yes that’s right.” He related how he had asked God to forgive his sins. “It sounds like a story a man would make up to get a woman to put her gun away, doesn’t it? But since that moment, I’ve been different, Mallory. You spoke once of the peace of God, and I had no idea what you meant. But now I do.”

Silence filled the room, and then Derek said, “I was tearing
myself apart over my guilt over Rachel. I didn’t think God could forgive a thing like that—but He has.”

Mallory had forgotten the gun now. She still held it loosely, but it was hanging down at her side. “What would you do if you could do it all over again?”

“I’d save her or die trying.”

At that moment Michael stretched and looked up at the man sitting in the chair. He did not like strangers, and he walked away to disappear into the darkness of the other room.

Derek suddenly leaned toward her with a look of urgency on his face. “You’ve got to get away from here, Mallory.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Colonel Ritter read a story in a magazine about your mother. I don’t know who sent it to him, but it says that she’s half Jewish.”

“That’s right. Her father was Jewish, although her mother wasn’t.”

Derek’s voice was grim. “You must leave right away. Ritter sent me here to arrest you, and you know what that means. It’ll be a death sentence. They’ll either send you to a concentration camp, where you’ll die like Rachel, or they’ll hang you here on some other pretense.”

Mallory felt a tinge of fear. She did not fear death, but she did fear going through some of the things others had endured at the hands of the Nazis. “How can I believe you, Derek?”

“You don’t have any choice, Mallory. If I don’t bring you in, they’ll send somebody else. You can believe that. But that must not happen.” He got to his feet and stepped closer to her. She did not lift the gun. She had forgotten it. “Let me help you get away,” he said urgently. “There’s little time.”

Mallory did not know what to think. The revelation had come so suddenly! She was still thinking when she heard a car engine, and she was spared the necessity of making an instant decision. “That’s Lars and Eva.”

“What will you tell them?”

“I’ll tell them just what you told me.” She turned to face him squarely. “They’ll have to decide what happens to you.”

They heard the footsteps and voices as the two approached, and then the door opened. Shock washed across both of their faces as they saw Derek standing there in his uniform. Instantly Lars reached inside his coat for his revolver, and Eva said, “What are you doing here, Major?”

“I was sent to arrest Mallory,” Derek said evenly.

“Well, you’re not going to do it!” Lars shot back. His voice grated, and he lifted the pistol and aimed.

“Wait!” Mallory said. “You haven’t heard all of it.” She looked at Derek and saw no fear at all in his face. “Derek let the Goldsteins and all of us go because of something in his past. He came here to warn me, not to arrest me.”

“Did he tell you that?” Eva said, her voice cold and her eyes filled with suspicion.

“Yes. He says that I’ve got to get away.”

“I know you don’t believe any of this, but it’s true. Colonel Ritter will be expecting Mallory to be under arrest tomorrow morning. When he finds she’s not, and I’m missing, he’ll know something’s wrong.”

“He’s just trying to talk his way out of this,” Lars said.

Eva shook her head. “I’m not sure. Why did he let our people go? I’ve been thinking about that ever since.”

“You have no reason for believing me,” Derek told them, “but I’m leaving the army. There’s no excuse for what Hitler’s doing. I’ve known it for a long time. A lot of us have, I think. We Germans have a talent for following the wrong leaders for the wrong reasons. And you won’t believe this either, but I’ve given my life to God. I don’t know how I can possibly convince you of that. Do what you will with me, but I beg you to get Mallory out of here. And you’ll have to leave too. They know she’s been living with you, and they won’t let you go free.”

Mallory suddenly believed that Derek was speaking the
truth. She put the pistol back in her belt and said, “We have to trust him.”

Derek nodded his head and said, “Thank you, Mallory. I wouldn’t have you hurt for anything in the world.”

Lars and Eva silently struggled with their options, and finally Eva made up her mind. “I don’t know why I should believe anything a Nazi says, but I do somehow.” She turned to Mallory. “Can we get a plane in to escape?”

“No. Everything’s grounded.”

“When I said get Mallory away, I meant
now!
” Derek said. “Ritter has already doubled the guards along the Swedish border and along the coast.”

“There’s no way out then,” Lars said. He too replaced his revolver. “We’ll just have to make a run for it.”

“I think there’s one way that might work,” Derek said. “I think if you and Eva can hide out with friends for a couple of weeks, they’ll stop looking for you. As for Mallory, I know that the guards are placed thickly along the Swedish border in the south, but in the mountain country in the north they’re spread out pretty thin. There just aren’t enough men to cover it. I know where they’re located, and I think I can thread the needle.”

“You mean go north and then turn east and go to Sweden that way?”

“That’s the only chance I can see.”

“But how will we get there?” Mallory asked.

“We’ll take the truck I came in. I’ll keep my uniform on. There’s no alarm out yet, so if anybody stops us, I can use my rank to get us through. By tomorrow it will be different. I’ll have to put on some other clothes.”

“I think you could wear mine,” Lars said with a nod. “They’ll be a little small on you, but it’ll be better than that uniform.”

“We have to go now. Right away,” Derek urged.

“All right. Let’s just load everything you can use,” Eva said quickly.

The next thirty minutes was taken in loading the truck. At Derek’s suggestion, they took skis in case they would have to go across country. Mallory took a small radio and batteries so that they could trace any calls Ritter would send out, and of course, they took warm clothes and blankets.

Finally they stood outside in the darkness, and Mallory embraced both Eva and Lars. “You’ve got to get away,” she said. “They’ll be looking for you.”

“Don’t worry about us. We have plenty of places to hide,” Eva said. She turned to Derek and said, “I never thought I’d trust a Nazi.”

Derek shook his head, and the shadow of a smile touched his lips. “You’re not trusting one now.”

“You’d better get going,” Lars said. “Go as far as you can tonight, but if I were you, I wouldn’t travel in daytime. It’d be easy for a plane to spot you.”

“I think you’re right.” Derek put out his hand. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said simply. The two men shook hands, and then he turned to Eva. “I’ll take the best care of her I can.”

“See that you do.”

The two got in the truck, and as it moved down the street and disappeared into the darkness, Eva turned and put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Did we do the right thing, Lars? It’s so hard to know.”

He put his arm around her, and the two embraced. “I think it is. I think the man is what he says.”

“I think he’s more than that. I think he’s in love with Mallory—and I think she’s in love with him too.”

“Well, they’ll need each other if they make it out of this mess. Come on. We’ve got to get out of here ourselves!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“We’ll Hang Her in the Square”

Leaning forward and narrowing his eyes, Derek peered into the darkness. The snow had stopped for a time, but with no moon and no stars, he could barely see five feet ahead of the truck.

“If I go off the road, we’ll be in real trouble,” he lamented over the sound of the laboring engine. “And there’s not much road to go over.”

Even as he spoke, Mallory glanced over to her right, where she saw a sheer wall of rock that seemed to plunge into a bottomless pit. The mountain road Derek had chosen was not one often traveled. She could well believe that and couldn’t help but imagine the horrors of falling off such a road. They were headed for the crest of the mountain, and the road was only wide enough for one vehicle. “What happens if we meet somebody coming down?” she asked.

Derek did not take his eyes off the road but laughed softly. “Somebody would have to back up a long way—or else get pushed over the edge.”

“How much farther?”

“We ought to get to the top in another fifteen minutes, but the road down is even worse, if I remember correctly.” He turned the wheel slightly, and they spun on the packed ice and snow. “I’m surprised we can even get up this incline. One good thing about it, though. There won’t be many people out looking for us.”

They had been on the road for two long days. The farther
north they went, the less daylight they had to worry about, and the longer they spent driving. Now the first hints of daylight were beginning to appear, so they needed to find a safe place to pull off the road so they could get some much-needed rest.

“When do you think they’ll discover that you’re gone?” Mallory asked.

“By ten o’clock, I suppose. Then they’ll send someone to find you. With both of us gone, Ritter or Stahl will put two and two together.”

“I hope Eva and Lars got away.”

“I’m sure they did. They’re pretty shrewd operators.”

“What will we do in daylight?”

“I’m hoping we’ll get to the farthest mountain before it’s too light. Then we can pull off and hide.”

“There aren’t many trees to hide in.”

“No, and we’ll leave tracks in the snow. We’ll just have to hope for the best, I guess.” They were silent for a time, and then he said, “You know, I was just thinking, there aren’t many things you can lock up and put away and believe that they’ll always be safe.”

“That’s true, isn’t it? Life is pretty uncertain.”

“I read a poem once that said, ‘Hopes are like children who go out to pick flowers in the field—and never come back.’

“I don’t like that. It’s too gloomy. But I guess life is pretty gloomy. All the people I love best have shoved off from my life like lifeboats leaving a ship.” He suddenly turned to her and laughed. The pale light that was beginning to light the east illuminated his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so mournful.”

“Make up a poem for me, Derek.”

“A poem about what?”

“Oh, about how good things come.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s see . . .

“How do you just make up things like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know how I do it. It’s like your working the radio. I’ve worked at studying poetry until finally I know a bit about how it comes together.”

“It’s not like a radio. That’s technical. There are rules.”

“There are rules to poetry too.”

“I know. Like making it rhyme.”

“For me it’s harder to make poems that don’t rhyme. Rhyme is easy.”

“I suppose anything is easy if you know how to do it. We’re getting mighty philosophical, aren’t we? But really, writing doesn’t come easily to me.”

“It’s the hard things that make us what we are,” Derek said. “Raking leaves is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.”

Mallory laughed. “You want me to think you’re wise, don’t you?”

He grinned. “Why don’t you tell me a poem? You know lots of poetry.”

“All right. How about this one:

His shoulders shook as he laughed. “Did you write that yourself?”

“No. At soccer games in Kenya, the boys that sold peanuts used to call that out.”

They talked for a while, and finally she said, “What’s the most poignant poem you know, Derek?”

He thought for a minute and then said, “Probably Byron’s ‘So We’ll Go No More a Roving.’ ” He quoted all three verses and then said, “But that poem’s not altogether sad to me. I love one line in particular: ‘The night is made for loving.’ ”

She did not answer, though his tone invited her to respond. “We must be crazy to be spouting poetry when our lives are in danger.”