The Sword is Drawn by Andre Norton

It's 1940, and Nazi Germany is invading the Netherlands. The House of Norreys, merchants of gems and uniquely created jewelry, is having to deal with the problem of the Nazis, who will seize the business for their own interests. To forestall this, Joris Van Norreys, the current head of the house, has been slowly selling off and divesting himself of the business, in secret, and with the moneys thus generated placed where they will not fall into Nazi hands or be suborned for their use.

As for Lorens Van Norreys, his grandson and heir, Joris has let it be known that he does not trust the young man, and made sure that all those who deal with the house of Norreys know the Lorens should not be considered the heir or allowed into any part of the family business. But in private, Joris meets with him and tells him what he has done. There remains only one order of business: Hiding the famous "Flowers of Orange", a gaudy necklace that is the closest thing the Netherlands has to crown jewels. Joris has purchased a safe that opens using a word instead of numbers, and once opened, cannot be opened again until a period of two years have passed, or the safe fills with acid and destroys its contents. This, he hopes, will keep the jewels safe until Lorens can retrieve them.

Lorens, though, wants to fight for Holland, and is impatient with his grandfather. But Joris promises to allow him to fight... not for the Netherlands, but against the Nazi threat elsewhere, with money from the House of Norreys, but only if he agrees to his grandfather's plan. Lorens does agree, and hides the jewels before the Nazi occupiers make their way to the house. The Nazis have the assistance of one of the clerks of the House of Norreys, but he is saved when a crippled Nazi bomber strikes the house, klling the Nazis within and setting it on fire. Lorens leave with Klass, Joris' last remaining servant, knowing that his grandfather died before the Nazis even arrived.

From there, he is smuggled across the channel to England, and goes to Java, then known as the Dutch East Indies, to work for his cousin Piet in his air service. But with the Japanese entering the war, they conquer Java, and he is forced to flee for Australia, but is injured when the plane he is on is shot down, and he becomes essentially crippled for the rest of the story.

Further on, he travels to America, where he enrolls in a course to help him overcome his physical difficulties and encounters stories of a relative named Van Oster, who is seeking him. But he has bigger fish to fry. It is coming on two years since he opened the safe, and he must ensure he returns to the Netherlands and the safe to retrieve "The Flowers of Orange", But with the Nazis aware of the location of the Flowers, and the workings of the safe, how can he sneak in and get the Flowers without them interfering? Especially when it turns out that "Van Oster" is working on the side of the Nazis?

This is vintage Andre Norton, originally written in 1944 and supposedly written by a man (Her real name was Mary Alice Norton, but she adopted the Pseudo-male moniker because Adventure and Sci-Fi stories written by women would not have been purchased back then). Romance is nowhere in the cards for our hero, even when he encounters an American woman of Duch Descent and spends a lot of time with her. The hero is only 18 at the start of the novel, so it's not like this would seem unlikely... But in true adventure stories of that era, it was meant for men to read, and men aren't interested in romance, unless it meant SEX. And Andre Norton doesn't do sex.

On the whole, Lorens Van Norreys appears rather cold and bloodless if we judge him by the standards of today's heroes. He's more a calculating type, even in the midst of battle. The closest he comes to an emotional outburst is when he's upset about being crippled, and is promptly told to suck it up by his cousin (not in such pithy terms, of course, this is 1944!), because, well, he could be dead.

The ending of the book is a bit of a puzzler, as we're not quite sure if the Nazis got the Flowers of Orange or not, but Lorens is free and returns to England, while having discovered that his cousin Van Oster is the traitor all the Dutch resistance is looking for, even if the woman closest to the traitor doesn't believe him.

So, not bad for a straight adventure book of this era. Next in the series is "At Sword's Points" and the last is "Sword in Sheath". I read the first long ago, and I just finished reading the second, so it will be next.

Two last interesting things about this book: first, it won an award from the Netherlands government for its portrayal of how the Dutch went to war with the Nazis and how they lived and fought under the occupation, and second, it also brings to light a little known program called the Cleveland Press World Friends Club, where schoolchildren from the Greater Cleveland area wrote to other children around the world and intended to create goodwill and an understanding of how children lived in other places. Each part of the story is bookended in supposed letters written by Lorens to his friend, Lawrence, who lives in America and was part of this program with Lorens.