Henderson's Boys: The Escape (23 page)

‘Really?’ Potente said warily.

Father Doran placed a mug of coffee on the dining table. ‘Do sit down, Mr Henderson.’

Paul looked up as Potente took a chair. ‘You and my father were on the same ship for a while, weren’t you?’ he asked.

‘
HMS Manchester
,’ Rosie added.

Potente nodded. ‘It was a long time ago, but I’ll tell you some stories once we get going. Your father was a great man.’

Hugo chose this moment to push his chair back and get down from the table. The six year old was stunned by the sight of Yvette leaning into the doorway and aiming the barrels of a shotgun at Potente’s head. The youngster’s expression was enough to make Potente swivel around just as Yvette pulled the trigger.

The blast sent a shower of pellets into Potente’s back and shoulder, but shotgun pellets are less deadly than weapons that fire a single projectile and Potente grabbed his revolver as the old lady reloaded.

‘Our dad never served on the
Manchester
,’ Paul shouted, as he scrambled away from the table.

Yvette took a step closer as she pulled the trigger again. This time the pellets were spread over a tighter area and tore a huge hole in Potente’s back. As the German’s head hit the dining table, Father Doran was the first to realise that there had been two shots at the same moment.

Hugo slammed into the kitchen dresser as a bullet hit him in the armpit. The projectile kept going, passing through the soft tissue of his lung and shredding his ribcage as it exited through the front of his chest.

‘Hugo,’ Rosie screamed, as the boy collapsed in front of the cabinet.

Hugo tried to scream as Yvette dropped the shotgun and ran towards him, but blood was flooding his lungs and all he could do was heave the warm liquid into his mouth. Paul couldn’t bear to look and he grabbed the back door and stumbled outside, on to crumbled earth with chicken coops on either side of him.

Potente crashed off the dining chair as Rosie snatched the revolver from his dead fingertips.

‘Oh Hugo, I’m sorry,’ Yvette sobbed, as Father Doran stepped one way then another, unsure what to do. ‘We should have kept you out of the way, but … I’m so sorry.’

Paul peeked back around the door and watched as the old lady took Hugo’s limp body and drew him into a bloody hug. It seemed impossible that the little lad who’d been filling his cheeks with bread and pulling faces across the table two minutes earlier was dead.

Marc hardly slept because of the pain in his mouth, but Henderson had been on his feet for days. He crashed out on Miss McAfferty’s bed and slept like the dead. When it got light Marc found tinned fruit and English baked beans in a cupboard. He’d now mastered using a tin opener and once the cans were open he mashed the contents because he was too sore to chew.

He tried the radio, but the apartment hadn’t been occupied for two months and the battery was flat. It was undeniably a lady’s apartment, with flowery wallpaper and a smell like talcum powder and cats.

‘It’s almost lunchtime,’ Henderson complained, scratching his arse as he wandered into the living room. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

Marc sat in an armchair flicking through a bird spotters’ manual.

‘I did wonder, but I thought you’d probably shout at me.’

‘I might have done,’ Henderson said with a smile. ‘I’ve popped a dozen Benzedrine pills to stay awake over the last week. My head’s banging like a drum.’

‘Makes two of us,’ Marc said, baring his lips to show Henderson the bloody sore inside his mouth.

‘Did you gargle saltwater like I told you last night? You don’t want to get an infection.’

‘Three times,’ Marc said, nodding. ‘So is there a plan for today or are we winging it again?’

‘Bit of both, I expect,’ Henderson said, rubbing his eyes with his palms before stretching into a yawn. ‘I know where I’ve got to go, but I’m not a hundred per cent on the details. Have you eaten?’

‘Just some tinned stuff. There’s loads in the cupboard.’

‘I’ll eat something, then we’ll get going. Have you had any thoughts about your plans?’

Marc sounded surprised. ‘I’m sticking with you aren’t I? I mean … if that’s OK.’

‘I meant longer term. Assuming our message got to the retired priest before Herr Potente, I should be picking up Digby Clarke’s kids and catching the boat to England. You don’t have any documents, but I can probably pull some strings and get you on board too.’

Marc smiled. ‘Really?’

‘You were at my side when it counted in the hotel. I’m not sure what my superiors will say when I bring home a stray, but they’ve never liked me much anyway and once you’re on the boat they can hardly send you back.’

Marc was happy enough with this. Making friends and moving to Britain was more than he’d dared hope for when he ran away from the orphanage.

They’d pushed the motorbike into a canal the previous night and once he’d eaten, Henderson decided against wearing the Gestapo uniform. He’d been able to bluff his way past a teenaged soldier to get inside the telephone exchange, but he didn’t have the paperwork to make it through a security checkpoint in daylight.

Henderson abandoned his usual smart clothing and dressed like a peasant. He ended up looking like Marc, in working boots, corduroy trousers held up with braces, a white shirt and a broad-rimmed hat to keep the bright sun out of his face.

At first glance they were a father and son; peasants seeking refuge with relatives in the south. Unlike peasants though, Henderson had a silenced pistol in a holster strapped to his chest and his suitcase contained pills, poisons, two grenades and fifteen ingots of twenty-four carat gold. Marc walked with his pigskin bag over his back and a case filled with a light load of clothing and a few tins of food.

The pair walked through Paris’ southern suburbs at a brisk pace. It was tiring in the heat, but Marc didn’t mind because aching legs took his mind off the dull pain in his mouth. Every so often, they were passed by Germans in Kübelwagens or riding horseback, but the shock of the previous day had worn off and Paris was returning to an uneasy normality. It was a Saturday and children chased through the streets or stood in line at the cinema, while their mothers joined grimmer lines and waited for eggs, milk and bread.

It took an hour to reach the city limits, but the main road south towards Tours was blocked by a German checkpoint. A French car had been parked across one lane and its tyres sliced to stop it from being easily moved away. The open lane was guarded by six German troops who waved military traffic through while turning away civilian vehicles or anyone on foot.

‘Don’t stare at the checkpoint,’ Henderson said sharply, as he tugged Marc across the road and towards a small corner café. ‘It looks suspicious.’

Marc glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot. ‘We could go cross country,’ he said quietly. ‘It looks pretty rural and surely they can’t guard every single field.’

‘That’s true,’ Henderson agreed. ‘But I want to get to Tours in a day or two at most. If we’re forced to walk it will take a lot longer than that.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘We watch and learn,’ Henderson said quietly, as they stepped between the lines of empty tables outside the café.

‘I have no bread,’ the owner said apologetically, the instant they stepped inside. ‘Just coffee and a few scraps I made into soup.’

Henderson was content with black coffee, while Marc asked for the soup and regretted it because it was made mostly with potato and bitter-tasting sausage that left a skin of grease on the surface. They lingered for an hour, saying very little but all the while keeping an eye on the traffic passing through the checkpoint.

The owner kept stepping out, looking forlornly down the street for his delivery of bread. Eventually he made a phone call and Henderson overheard the head baker telling him that the Germans had commandeered the bakery and were sending all bread supplies to their advancing troops.

Minutes later a German from the checkpoint purchased half a dozen coffees and carried them across to his comrades on a tray, returning fifteen minutes later with the empty cups and saucers.

‘How’s it going, Grenadier?’ Henderson asked. ‘That sun’s a killer.’

The soldier – who, like most German infantrymen, seemed barely out of his teens – smiled. ‘You speak good German,’ he said.

‘I’m an Alsatian,’ Henderson lied, by way of explanation. ‘I grew up speaking German, though I moved away from the border many years ago.’

‘Ahh,’ the soldier said uninterestedly.

‘We get no news,’ Henderson said. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’

The soldier laughed. ‘Do you think I get any more news standing out there than you get sitting in here? All I know is that the tanks are advancing and it’s the usual struggle to get enough fuel and food up to our troops to keep things moving.’

Henderson smiled. ‘I bet you’re happier back here than up at the front.’

‘Too bloody right,’ the German said, nodding. ‘I was one of the first over the border at Sedan. I’ve had my share of fighting, and hopefully it will be over soon.’

‘I hope so too.’ Henderson smiled at him.

As the German wandered back to his post the proprietor came across to the table and announced that he was closing.

‘You and the Boche are the only custom I’ve had in the last two hours,’ he explained. ‘It’s not worth staying open with no bread, no eggs and sausage that’s hardly worth the name.’

‘Fair enough,’ Henderson said, as he grabbed his hat off the table and stood up. ‘This bakery – you wouldn’t happen to know where it is?’

‘Of course,’ the proprietor said, as he began lifting chairs on to the tabletops. ‘It’s less than a kilometre – you must have passed by as you came towards us. But there’s no way you’ll get any bread. The master baker told me that the Germans are taking every loaf and ordering him to run the ovens flat out. They’re threatening to shoot anyone who stops working or asks to go home. He says he’ll be out of flour by tomorrow.’

Henderson left a decent tip and Marc followed him outside into the sun as three trucks crammed with troops roared past on the cobbles. They were waved through the checkpoint without slowing down.

‘What can we do?’ Marc asked, as the pair began walking towards the bakery.

Henderson wanted Marc to start thinking for himself and tested the boy as they walked. ‘What did you notice about the checkpoint?’

Marc shrugged. ‘They weren’t stopping anyone unless they were French.’

‘Exactly.’ Henderson nodded. ‘And any vehicle that either looked German or had a German at the wheel got waved through. Plus, most of the trucks only had one man in the cab.’

Marc smiled. ‘Which makes them easy to pinch if the driver steps out.’

Henderson nodded again. ‘The soldier mentioned a basic flaw in the German tactics. It caused them problems in the east last year and with luck it might make our journey across the front line a lot easier than it would have been to cross the trenches during the Great War.’

Marc was confused. ‘What flaw?’

‘The Germans fight by advancing rapidly with massed armour. Tanks, motorised artillery, etcetera. The trouble with this is that their armour charges ahead, but if it goes too far too fast it outruns the supply lines and ends up stranded without food to feed the men and diesel and ammunition to feed the tanks.’

‘Is that why the advance stopped north of Paris for three weeks?’ Marc asked.

‘That’s right. So all we have to do is stop a bread truck or a fuel tanker, bash the driver over the head, put on his tunic and we should be able to get right up the German lines. They’re advancing too quickly to build fortifications, so if we find a country lane or a flat field, we might be able to keep right on going into French territory.’

‘But won’t the French troops shoot when they see us come towards them?’

Henderson nodded. ‘Without a doubt,’ he said seriously.

The bakery was one of the most modern in Paris, with a steel-framed building set behind brick walls and three aluminium chimneys venting the smell of warm bread across the neighbourhood. Germans guarded the front gate and an elderly man in a white overall was laid out in the shaded portion of the courtyard, apparently suffering from heat stroke.

At the rear, three trucks stood in line – one German and two requisitioned from local businesses. A procession of soldiers and exhausted-looking bakery workers ran between the rear entrance and the back of the leading truck. Each person carried a basket of hot loaves, which were unceremoniously thrown into the back of the leading truck until it was piled high. All the while an overweight German logistics officer bawled at everyone to work faster.

When the truck was filled, the canvas awning over the back was tied in place to stop the bread toppling out. A German infantryman with his shirt drenched in sweat climbed up to the cab and slammed the door. He wanted to mop the beads of sweat running off his bald head, but as he reached towards the tunic thrown across the passenger seat he noticed the boy crammed into the footwell with a pistol aiming right at him.