Grey Wolves (6 page)

‘Who says?’ the guard shouted bitterly.

‘You’ll get cesspit duty,’ the driver teased. ‘Elbow deep in shit, and a smell that doesn’t wash off.’

‘I’ll probably meet your mother down there,’ the guard yelled, as he raised the striped wooden gate.

‘Happy shovelling!’ the driver shouted, as he gunned the engine, leaving guard and queue choking in exhaust fumes.

The guard was steaming. Henderson feared his wrath, but the young face told a different story. This German wanted to be home eating his mum’s cooking and hanging out with his mates. He shoved the papers back in Henderson’s face and waved him off, hardly able to speak. Henderson sighed with relief, but his paperwork wasn’t up to scratch and the Germans might stop him again.

*

It was tough to breathe, tough to see through the coal dust. Marc’s ankle hurt as he charged behind Edith. A German had blocked the easy exit through the hole, but Edith knew another way. They raced over the base of coal heaps with the huge dockside wall skimming past. Fat Adolf was in his fifties, heavy and slow, but the other officer was younger and gaining fast.

Edith was aiming for a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire to make Marc’s life even more perfect. He was older, stronger, and could have outrun Edith, but only she knew the way to their rendezvous with Henderson and the fishermen at Kerneval.

‘Gotcha!’ a big German shouted.

Coal crunched noisily underfoot, so they hadn’t heard the third German running on the other side of the coal heaps near the water’s edge. Edith was skin and bone beneath her baggy trousers and the German plucked her up one-handed, then slammed her brutally into the wall.

Marc spun and gave the German an almighty boot in the balls. Edith’s eyes rolled about in her head as the German crumpled in agony. The German who’d been chasing was now right behind. Marc launched a roundhouse kick, but his injured ankle was weak and his foot twisted in the shifting coal. The German grabbed Marc’s flying leg and twisted it painfully as the boy crashed down on his back.

Edith soon had a sleeve clamped around her neck. The man Marc had kicked in the balls took pleasure in wrenching his arm painfully behind his back. Breathless and limping, Fat Adolf stumbled through the black dust clutching his chest. It wasn’t his real name, just what the kids called him because of his bulk and Hitleresque moustache.

‘How many times?’ Adolf shouted, getting right in Edith’s face, but sounding more frustrated than angry.

Edith was dazed from being slammed into the wall, but she managed to turn on the charm for an old adversary. ‘Got any chocolate for me today, boss?’ she asked.

‘You don’t understand the grief I’m getting over you kids,’ Fat Adolf shouted. ‘Important men go over the other side and inspect the new bunkers. They see kids running around over here and I get it in the neck. How many times have I caught you here now? Eight, nine?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Edith said, as she rubbed the back of her head and felt blood. ‘If you let me go, I
swear
it’ll be the last time.’

‘I’ve got new orders,’ Fat Adolf said. ‘Hands against the wall, legs wide apart.’

Edith did what she was told, but one of the younger Germans kicked her legs further to put her in a stress position. Then he pulled a long, wooden nightstick, swung hard and smashed her in the ribs.

Edith squeezed up her face, and tried hard not to moan. A second blow hit her across the back of her legs, knocking her down on her knees.

‘You like that, little boy?’ the big German said, grinning sadistically at Marc. ‘Plenty more coming.’

The next blow hit Edith across the shoulder and knocked her flat. The German planted his boot on her back and hit her across the thigh. She’d been in a daze before the beating started and the big man looked like he was just warming up.

‘You’re teaching her a lesson, not killing her,’ Fat Adolf yelled. ‘That’s enough.’

Now it was Marc’s turn. He was stronger and managed to stay upright, but he took four heavy blows and when it was over he was clutching his ribs and fighting for breath.

Before he had a chance to recover, they’d been dragged up to the fence and thrown through a wire gate. Edith had tears streaking down her filthy face and sobbed noisily.

The one who’d done the beating spoke to Fat Adolf in German, unaware that Marc could understand. ‘We’ve got to teach these brats a lesson, sir.’

‘Shut your idiot mouth,’ Fat Adolf spat back. ‘Go back inside. Look for more kids, and frighten ’em, don’t kill ’em.’

As the two younger men skulked off, Edith clutched her injured thigh and scowled defiantly. ‘You said your daughter’s the same age as me,’ she spat. ‘I hope your house gets bombed and she
dies
.’

‘You must stay out of here,’ Fat Adolf said, clenching his fists with frustration. ‘You’re
only
kids. You’re
only
stealing a bit of coal, but it all mounts up to a
lot
of coal. My orders are to capture or shoot anyone seen in the coal yard. There won’t be any more warnings. Spread the word to all the other kids before one of you ends up with a bullet in the back.’

As Fat Adolf spoke, Marc felt around to make sure he hadn’t lost anything. He felt his ID document, felt his knife and the matchbox camera. They’d got the photos, they hadn’t been searched. The pain was bad but he could take it.

‘Here,’ Fat Adolf said, as he held out three boiled sweets wrapped in gold foil. ‘I’m sorry.’

Edith didn’t take them, so Fat Adolf dropped them on the cobbles and she scooped them up grudgingly the moment he was out of sight.

*

The Kriegsmarine had moved the local fishing fleet away from the U-boat dock at Keroman, to a small natural harbour at Kerneval, one and a half kilometres along the coast. Henderson found it bustling with small boats, and interrupted a boy hauling up a net of fish with a dockside pulley.

‘I’m looking for Alois Clement,’ Henderson said.

The boy pointed out a shabby bistro. Alois wasn’t there, but the waitress told him to wait. The outdoor tables had a good view over the harbour and the afternoon sun was warm enough to sit outside. Henderson got coffee, which tasted like battery acid, and a shot of brandy to settle his nerves. The man who joined him shortly afterwards was ancient-looking with a ragged beard, leathery skin and rubber boots spattered with fish blood.

‘Hortefeux?’ he asked.

Henderson nodded. The man said he was Nicolas. His brother Alois was arranging a boat and would arrive shortly. Then he told the waitress to throw Henderson’s coffee away and bring two cups of the good stuff.

Henderson pointed at three large boats across the harbour. They looked modern, but were rusting badly. ‘Why are the big boats laid up?’

‘Diesel engines with no diesel to put in ’em,’ Nicolas explained. ‘Not much coal either, so we’re mainly back to sail-boats.’

‘But you must get a decent price for your catch with so little food around.’

‘It’s a living, but not much of one,’ Nicolas said, as two fine-smelling espressos arrived. ‘Rules up to our ears: daylight fishing only, got to stay within six kilometres of the coast, which keeps us out of the best fishing grounds. Most of our young men are held prisoner. I’m seventy-three and my crew is two grandsons aged seventeen and fifteen.’

As they kept chatting, Henderson took in details, from women standing on the dockside gutting fish, to the unmanned 20mm cannons mounted on the jaws of the harbour. When the cups were dry, Nicolas glanced at his pocket watch and stood up.

‘Don’t know what’s keeping Alois,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a walk around to his workshop.’

Fishing had kept the old man fit and Nicolas moved briskly up a cobbled street, took a right and then ducked under an overhead door. It was a workshop, with tool racks, engine parts and the smell of shaved metal and lubricant. A man stood up by the workbench, but Henderson didn’t see the one lurking behind until the shotgun barrel was being waved in his face.

A chair slammed down. Henderson got frisked before they ordered him to sit in it. They found his gun and ID papers, but missed the small knife in the lining of his jacket. Alois led the interrogation. He was thuggish and at least ten years younger than his brother, with hairy nostrils and grease-blackened hands.

‘Madame Mercier is too trusting, Mr Hortefeux,’ Alois began. ‘If that
really
is your name.’

‘My real name is Henderson.’

Alois laughed. ‘You claim to have come ashore last night, but you’ve got no boat and no radio.’

Henderson shifted uneasily. ‘If I was a German trying to catch you out, it would be easy enough to have those pieces of equipment.’

‘And the boy, what is that all about?’

‘Father and son is less suspicious,’ Henderson said.

‘The photograph of the three men in front of Big Ben looks fake,’ Alois said. ‘I think the three Poles were captured at sea and interrogated by the Gestapo. They spilled Madame’s name under interrogation and rather than arresting her, they’ve sent you here to see who else you could unearth.’

Henderson tried to keep his cool as Alois picked up a large wrench.

‘That’s plausible,’ Henderson said. ‘Do you have a background in police work?’

Alois was flattered. ‘I’m smart enough to know when something is fishy, Mr Henderson, or whatever your name is. You’re an Englishman, yes?’

‘Born and bred,’ Henderson said.

‘Get our man,’ Alois shouted.

A door from a side room came open. The man had a ferocious-looking burn over his right cheek and the upper part of his neck. He wore a French peasant’s shirt and trousers, but Henderson immediately spotted RAF flying boots and a neat moustache that was characteristically English.

‘Hello, old man,’ Henderson said in English. ‘Shot down I suppose?’

‘Ran out of fuel and ditched,’ the airman said. His accent was upper crust and he seemed wary, having been told that Henderson was probably a Gestapo agent. ‘We were damned lucky to get pulled out of the sea by this lot.’

‘
We
?’ Henderson said. ‘How many others are there?’

A look from Alois stopped the airman from answering.

‘They want me to ask you some questions,’ the airman said. ‘Things that only an Englishman should know. Are you a cricket man, by any chance?’

‘More football,’ Henderson said. ‘Grammar school boy, you see. Rather fond of the Arsenal.’

‘That’s awkward,’ the airman said, scratching his moustache and looking disappointed. ‘I was going to ask you the names of the squad that played the last Ashes series.’

‘I can tell you who won the cup last year,’ Henderson said. ‘Portsmouth four, Wolves one.’

‘Association Football’s not my cup of tea,’ the airman said. ‘I’m just trying to think. Could you tell me the last four University boat race winners?’

Henderson smiled. ‘I’d be prepared to narrow it down to either Oxford or Cambridge.’

‘National anthem, third verse?’

Henderson racked his brain. ‘Not in God’s land alone, but be thy mercies known?’

‘That’s the fourth verse,’ the airman said. ‘How about the rest of that verse?’

‘Used to sing it on Empire Day at school twenty years back. Can’t say it’s in my head now.’

Alois looked impatiently at the airman. ‘Well?’

The airman’s French was absolutely awful. ‘Difficult,’ he said warily. ‘He’s speaking like London. If he is German, he’s a good actor.’

Henderson had two problems. First, Alois had clearly staked his credibility on the idea that he was a Gestapo spy. Second, there was no piece of information about Britain that couldn’t be memorised by a German.

Alois waved the giant wrench. ‘I say we tie an anvil to this bastard’s ankles and throw him in the harbour.’

‘If the Gestapo are on to us, it wouldn’t make any difference,’ Nicolas pointed out. ‘He would have told people that he was coming here. They might even be watching us right now.’

‘
Exactly
,’ Henderson said hopefully, as he pointed at the airman. ‘You’ve nothing to lose by taking a chance on me being who I say I am. You trusted the airman, didn’t you?’

Nicolas managed a tense smile. ‘We found them half drowned in the Atlantic. The Krauts would have had a hell of a job setting that up.’

Everyone looked around as the side door opened again. The three Frenchmen were half expecting a Gestapo raid and were relieved to see the waitress from the café, with Edith and Marc. Marc hurt from the beating, but sensed the tense atmosphere and felt for the knife in his pocket.

‘What are you old lunatics doing?’ Edith yelled, eyeballing Alois furiously. ‘They’re here to help us.’

‘He’s Gestapo,’ Alois shouted. ‘I’d bet my right bollock on it.’

‘The Germans just beat him half to death,’ Edith said, pointing at Marc. ‘He took pictures of the bunkers.’

‘They’re cleverer than you think,’ Alois said. ‘It’s a scheme to root out as many of us as possible.’

‘In which case we’re doomed anyway,’ Nicolas repeated. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose by trusting them, apart from your pride, Alois.’

While the Frenchmen bickered, Marc plotted. They didn’t think he was a threat and hadn’t bothered searching him. If he stabbed the man with the shotgun, Henderson ought to respond quickly and take out Alois. Nicolas didn’t look too fast, so they’d probably be able to get away.

‘The Englishman can’t prove he’s English,’ Alois shouted.

‘How can I
prove
it?’ Henderson said. ‘He said I had a perfect accent.’

Marc’s hand tightened on the knife, but he was only going to move if he had to. There were too many things that could go wrong, with Edith, and the waitress, and the airman.

The airman
.

Marc thought he looked familiar and spoke desperately, in his heavily accented English. ‘Have you got a brother named Walters? He’s also a pilot. Looks just like you, maybe a year or two younger.’

The airman shook his head, but then raised a curious eyebrow, as if he’d just worked something out.

‘My name is Jarhope, but when I was training the instructor mentioned a man named Walters,’ the airman said uncertainly. ‘Apparently he’d been through training a few months previously and the fellow looked just like me.’