“IT WASN’T LONG after my first foray with the Holger Club that we received an alarming message,” Britta says the next morning. “There had been an explosion at Professor Koch’s home. Thankfully, the professor and his wife, Bodil, weren’t at home, and they were safe and unharmed. An alert went out to members of the Holger Club to meet at Jan Andersen’s house that evening. After considerable begging, Grethe permitted me to come along, but before we left, my father pulled me aside.
“‘You seem to be getting more involved in Grethe’s group,’ he said. I shrugged it off. ‘Not really,’ I answered. ‘She lets me tag along to some of her meetings.’ He locked eyes with me. ‘Do you think that I am so out of touch that I don’t know what you did last week? When you didn’t come home until two in the morning?’
“‘You knew?’ I said.
“‘Grethe is old enough to make her own decisions, and I suppose she has the right to place herself in jeopardy if that is where her passion leads her. I respect that. Denmark would be well-served with more souls like Grethe and Lukas. But you are sixteen. The time has not yet come for you to make such decisions.’
“My father shocked me. Not only was it a surprise that he knew about Lukas’s activities, but that he tacitly endorsed Grethe’s participation. He never ceased to amaze me. ‘Are you saying that I can’t go to the meeting tonight with Grethe?’
“He smiled. ‘I don’t want to quash that homeland spirit. Go, but on one condition; if any retaliatory activities are contemplated, you are to come home.’ I agreed.
“Jan Andersen was a little older than most of the members. He had been there from the beginning, when Lukas and Grethe formed the club. He lived in a house in Frederiksberg, a suburb of Copenhagen, with his wife and child. He was a tradesman, an electrician, I think. This evening there were about fifteen of us, and once assembled, Jan called the meeting to order. ‘We have learned that the National Socialist Workers Party of Denmark, the Danish Nazi Party, is claiming credit for the bombing of Professor Koch’s home. Apparently, Frits Clausen, their leader, has boasted about it. The professor and Mrs. Koch have gone into hiding for the time being,’ Jan said to the group, ‘and until we are certain it is safe for them to come out, they will stay there.’
“‘Do we know the identity of the person who set the explosive at the professor’s home?’ Lukas asked. Jan shrugged. ‘Not for certain. We think it may have been Billy Hendricksen. Somebody said they saw him in the area. As far as we know, he had no business there; he lives on the other side of town.’
“‘I thought Billy was in the Frikorps?’ another member said. I was unfamiliar with the term and I looked at Grethe. She leaned over and whispered, ‘Frikorps Danmark is a military unit which has pledged to fight for Germany.’”
“Free Corps?” Liam says, repeating the phrase phonetically. “I’m not aware of them. That’s probably something I should look into.”
“Of course,” Britta says. “I would expect you to do that.”
Liam is taken aback and smiles. “And that I will, but you haven’t mentioned it previously. Perhaps the pace of the narrative might pick up a little and—”
“That’s enough, Liam,” Catherine interjects. “The pace is just fine.”
Britta nods. “Frikorps Danmark. Some Danes sided with Germany in the early years of the war, believing that Germany, which was then in total control of Europe, was unstoppable. Many wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Billy Hendricksen was supposedly one, although people said he dropped out when the group was going to be deployed and sent to Russia.”
“What about Ole?” Catherine says. “Was he in the Frikorps?”
Britta shakes her head. “Not that I knew. I think he would have been too young. Nevertheless, Jan suggested that somebody follow up on Billy Hendricksen. Then Jan said, ‘We have a new assignment, a very important one.’ He looked down at me with concern. ‘This is highly confidential.’ He pointed at me as if to say it’s not for my ears. ‘She’s solid,’ Lukas said. ‘She was there with us the other night when we secured the shipment. You don’t have to worry one bit about Britta Morgenstern.’”
“That must have made you feel proud,” Catherine says.
“What was the new assignment, Bubbe? What did Jan tell the club?”
“There was to be another British commando raid on the Atlantic Wall. The best information we had was that the attack would be on the industrial site at Glomfjord, Norway. We knew that the German army stationed in northern Denmark would rush to protect the site. The Holger Club and two other clubs were going to sabotage bridges and roads leading to the coast, making it difficult for the Germans to get to the site and attack the commandos. Indeed, the heavy crate that I helped to bring to Lukas’s car contained materials that were going to be used to sabotage Nazi routes to Norway. We were told to listen to the BBC, to listen for ‘Greetings for Melody’ and we would know the operation was on.
“The message came two nights later. ‘Greetings for Melody. Listen Again.’ No matter how hard I pleaded, my father would not let me participate. Grethe left with Lukas. They were gone for an entire day and night. Lukas brought Grethe to the house early the next morning. She looked sickly, as she had before. He said the ride back was hard on her, but she said it was just a queasy stomach.” Britta stops to calm her lips, which are quavering. She swallows hard. “We lost Jan Andersen and six other members on that mission. They were on their way to set an explosive on the Struer Bridge, a critical path from a Nazi base. They were killed because they were informed upon by a traitor. A squad of German soldiers was waiting for them and killed them on the spot.”
Britta stops again. Her jaw will not stop shaking. She takes a deep breath. “They were informed upon because one of the members who was scheduled to go to the bridge let it slip out in a conversation at the Three Bells Bar. It was said that he was talking to a friend he trusted, but that he was careless. There were others standing in earshot, one of whom was Ole Hendricksen.”
Catherine, Liam and Emma are stunned.
“At the next meeting of the Holger Club, Lukas was unanimously chosen to succeed Jan as leader of the group. The first line of business was to determine who informed on our operation. We concluded it had been Ole Hendricksen. The other tavern bystanders that night were identified. We knew them all, and none of them would have been so treacherous. Hendricksen was an outsider, rather friendless. How shall I say—socially unwelcome. In a public setting, he would float from one group to another, remaining on the perimeter. That is what the bystanders recall of that evening.” Britta pauses again. When she resumes, her voice is tremulous. “When the confidential plan was accidentally and quietly discussed, Ole was slinking around the group and he heard it. That is what the people in the bar remembered, and by elimination, they determined that Ole Hendricksen was the informer.”
Catherine sits back. “Well, now we have something. We have an allegation we can put into a pleading.”
Emma is hesitant. “We can allege it, but how can we prove such a thing? Bubbe heard it from someone who heard it from somebody else. That’s third-party hearsay.”
Britta’s muscles continue to twitch. She sternly shakes her index finger back and forth. “The proof will be there! It will be there! I am not finished! There is more to come.” She pauses and takes a few short breaths. Emma rises and quickly moves around to hold her grandmother. Britta looks up, smiles at Emma and nods. “It will be there, I promise.”
Emma looks over at Catherine and says, “Maybe that’s enough for today.” She helps Britta to rise.
“It will be there,” Britta repeats with tears in her eyes.
“I know it will, my Bubbe, but that’s enough for today.”
“SHE’S RIGHT, YOU know, it’s hearsay, many times removed,” Catherine says to Liam once Emma and Britta have left. “I’ll insert the event in the affirmative defense, and the allegation that he informed on the resistance will allow us to survive for another day, but without more…”
“More will come, Cat, I can feel it,” Liam says. “She has asked us to be patient. Some facts were given today, and I feel confident that she’ll give us more as she goes along.”
“I hope so, but if it is the same quality—that is, what she was told or what she heard from someone else—it will be stricken as hearsay.”
“What if we can corroborate the hearsay with another witness—maybe one of those bystanders?”
“Well, that is certainly the million-dollar challenge, isn’t it? What concerns me much more is the state of Britta’s health. You saw her today; she was shaking. She seems to grow weaker by the day, and I believe that the stress of this case is making it worse.”
Liam nods. “If she would cut to the chase, just give us the CliffsNotes version of the Henryks bad acts, it would benefit all concerned.”
Catherine shakes her head. “It’s not going to happen. You and I have already concluded that this narrative is for Emma’s benefit, like a Britta Stein memoir. The whole story is going to come out eventually. Of that I have no doubt. If our narrator lives long enough.”