Even if the Germans had doubled the electric lines at the border, it surely would have been easier than this.
Nothing for a blissful few minutes. Or perhaps it was hours; time was still foggy.
“Holland.” Rémy, at his side, whispered the word as if he were looking at God Himself.
Edward gazed in the same direction. The sun . . . so it hadn’t disappeared after all. There it was, finally shedding light on the eastern horizon. When had the light first appeared? Edward couldn’t recall. He saw a windmill in the distance and his heart lightened. Holland—only minutes away!
Then Edward saw something else. A thick wire was strung just above the width of the river, straight in their path at the approximate height of the prow. Edward dropped the wire cutter, eyeing the origin of the wire. There was no cutting that.
It was bare electric. If the voltage was high enough, the dampness permeating the metal and wood boat would be enough to destroy them. If it hit the steel smokestack, it wouldn’t even need the dampness to conduct its deadly current.
Orders from the tug’s captain showed no cowardice. The engine blasted and in a moment shouts sounded from the right bank. Edward ducked, preparing for gunfire that always accompanied German cries. And yet it didn’t come. He looked at the bank. Soldiers were there, all right, and they were armed. But they simply stood there. Watching the boat approach the wire.
And so did Edward; so did everyone else on that deck.
The wire disappeared below the line of the prow. Edward closed his eyes, preparing at the very least for a jolting shock.
But it didn’t come.
The wire struck the boat and acted like nothing more than a rope holding back the powerful little tug. The engine raced and the boat slowed. It raced again and the wire pulled them to one side—to the left, away from the suddenly erupting bullet fire—but suddenly it didn’t seem to matter. They hit a shallow spot and scraped the river’s bottom. For one breath-catching moment, Edward thought they were lost in spite of the inadequate electric line. They were stuck in icy muck like a soldier caught in the mud of no-man’s-land.
He saw a pair of soldiers run to the box from which the wire emerged. They must have been as surprised as those aboard to see the wire hit and do no damage.
But the tug still floundered, listing to the side. The engine chugged as the tug tried to reverse while the muck held fast. Then the tug reeled and they were wondrously free—headed into the line of German fire. The boat’s pilot steered starboard, headed to Holland, the harmless wire caught beneath the tug’s prow.
Edward looked back at the pair of soldiers bending over the voltage box. If they found the sabotage of the voltage box and repaired it before the boat pulled free of the wire, that would be it. He spotted the wire cutters: metal from tip to grip. The voltage might be too low to conduct through the damp wood of the prow, but he wasn’t sure a direct hit with metal would be as ineffective. Yet, if that would save them . . .
The tug engine still churned, struggling against the taut wire. He started toward the prow, but just as he picked up one of the wire cutters, something else caught his eye. The pole holding the wire tottered in its place, and the two soldiers below were already looking up. The tug kept swaying against the wire attached to that shivering beam and in a moment it crashed down, barely missing the two soldiers below.
The suddenly unconfined wire sprang upward in a mad dance across the river, away from the prow. Abruptly the engine of the tug roared with freedom, with one last burst and a rapid pitch forward.
Then the clink of bullets hit the smokestack again and everyone plunged to the deck. But it ceased in seconds.
Dutch guns protecting their side of the border covered them now.
“Full speed ahead!” Never had a captain’s yell been so heady, so full of gusto.
Unabashed cheering rose from every corner of the ship, then from Edward himself—and the Major. Only when they burst into song did Max grow quiet beside him, perhaps not knowing the words of the Belgian patriot hymn “La Brabançonne.” Still he smiled, leaning against the rail.
The deck flocked with people; men’s strong voices lifted the song ever higher. Edward sang but his eager gaze sought just