Rosie nodded as Henderson clambered over the ridge. He kept low as he crept through reeds behind the corrugated metal guard hut. When he reached the back, Henderson found a cable which led up to a radio aerial on the roof. It was vital that the guards didn’t send out an alert, so he snipped it with wire cutters.
As Henderson poked his head around the side of the hut, the front door slammed and a German stepped outside.
‘Four aces, you cheating bugger,’ he shouted bitterly, as he stepped up to the edge of the pier and unzipped his trousers to piss over the edge.
‘You’re a rotten loser,’ Manfried replied from inside.
The third man laughed inside the hut. Rosie shook as a deep rumble and a pulse of light made the loudest bang of the night.
‘Oooh, big one,’ the pissing German shouted to his comrades. ‘Sounds like an ammo dump or something. Those heavy British bombers are nasty buggers. Say your prayers when you see them coming.’
Henderson had his gun aimed at the German, but the bullet would knock him into the sea and his comrades would hear the splash and come running out. So he waited two intense minutes, as the German peed, then walked over and checked the fishing rods.
‘Another dumb idea of yours, Manfried,’ he shouted. ‘Corned beef again tonight.’
As the lanky German turned back across the pier towards the hut, Henderson shot him from the side. The range was less than three metres, but somehow Henderson conspired to miss and the German yelled out.
Henderson pulled the trigger twice more, hitting the German in the back and hip. Manfried and the third man burst outside as Henderson retreated around the side of the hut.
‘He’s over there,’ the bleeding German groaned, as the other two cocked their machine guns.
Manfried spun around. More in hope than expectation he sprayed half a magazine of ammunition into reeds and sand as Henderson dived behind and backed into Rosie.
‘Can’t believe I missed,’ Henderson gasped furiously. ‘Go around the other side, shoot anything that moves.’
Henderson heard Manfried creeping around the side of the guard hut.
‘Can’t see them,’ Manfried shouted. ‘Get back in the hut, call for help.’
As Manfried moved deeper into the reeds, Henderson shot two silenced bullets. The first hit the soldier in the gut, the second passed through his skull.
‘Manfried?’ the third German shouted from within the hut. He didn’t fancy getting trapped inside and backed out.
Rosie realised that if he had any brains, the soldier would head away from where Manfried had been shot. Henderson was over that side, so only she could stop him getting away.
She dived out from behind the building and fired at a running shadow. The first blast missed, but the second hit his body and sent him careering across the pier into a wooden post on the water’s edge. Horrified and shaking, she took two steps forward and aimed down.
The soldier’s eyes begged and his hands came up in front of his face. Rosie knew she had to squeeze the trigger, but the soldier was barely out of his teens and looked so desperate that she wanted to hug rather than kill him.
Two dull thumps came from a silenced muzzle behind her. Rosie shuddered as the young German splashed into the water. As she staggered away in shock, Henderson rushed to the edge of the pier and pumped a third bullet into the floating soldier.
‘I couldn’t,’ Rosie gasped, looking towards Henderson as she lowered her gun. ‘I’m sorry.’
After a quick glimpse to make sure the German was dead, Henderson walked back and smiled slightly as he placed a hand on Rosie’s wrist.
‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘You did great.’
20:44 Dunkirk
Of the three hundred and thirty-seven bombers targeting the northern coast of France that night, eighty-eight would target Dunkirk, each carrying between three and a half and five tonnes of bombs. Eugene’s ears started to ring when the first bomb went off, and twenty more landed within seconds. Then the next pair of bombers made their run, then the next.
Some dropped bombs, others sprayed mug-sized incendiaries that burst into flames upon impact. There was fire and heat on all sides, as the two dripping teenagers looked for an escape route.
The bombs were far from accurate. Eugene and PT found a damaged section of the chain-link fence and cleared the dockyard, but remained at risk on artillery-shelled streets that had seen some of the heaviest fighting during the last phase of the British evacuation.
‘What now?’ PT shouted, as the pair slumped against a wall.
‘Head for the barracks, maybe,’ Eugene suggested. ‘Steal a car, or another motorbike. It’s only a couple of kilometres.’
‘Yeah, but which direction?’ PT screamed.
As a huge blast erupted less than five hundred metres away, a burning Halifax tore overhead as bricks rained down.
‘We’re in hell,’ Eugene shouted. ‘We died already and didn’t notice.’
The Halifax was getting lower, and its flaming right wing was breaking away.
‘That’ll teach you to bomb me, you bastard,’ PT shouted, punching the air.
‘They’re on our side,’ Eugene said, as he stood up to start walking again. ‘Come on, we can’t stay here.’
‘If they’re bombing me, they’re the bloody enemy,’ PT said, as the pair moved off.
The blasts and smoke had disorientated them and with the streets covered in rubble it was impossible to gauge direction. The bomber’s wing tore away and the unstable fuselage flipped end over end before thudding into the remains of Dunkirk’s largest cinema, several hundred metres ahead of them.
Before the next turning the road itself had collapsed, exposing cellars filled with shattered wine bottles. By the time PT and Eugene had negotiated their way around they’d reached one of the small number of roads that the Germans had cleared to allow traffic to and from the docks. A black car sped towards them as the ground trembled again.
The dust and heat had dried PT’s mouth and he was fighting a cough as the car slowed and came to a halt fifty metres shy of the crashed aircraft. A pair of Germans stepped out and aimed torches into the rubble.
‘They’re SS,’ Eugene said. ‘Probably hunting downed airmen.’
‘Surrender,’ the Germans shouted, as they moved unenthusiastically over chinking bricks.
But it didn’t take much more than a glance to work out that nobody could have survived the crash and the black-uniformed pair swung their torches around and headed back for the car.
‘Excuse me,’ Eugene shouted, as he jogged towards them.
PT was shocked by Eugene’s boldness, but realised the Germans were their only chance of getting out of the bombing zone quickly.
‘We’re from the docks,’ Eugene explained. ‘Can you give us a ride out of here? We’re desperate.’
The two SS men didn’t understand much French, but their expressions made it clear that they weren’t in the mood to pick up passengers.
‘Walk, you lazy French scum,’ one officer shouted, as he pointed along the clear road.
Eugene and PT’s youth and peasant clothing meant that the Germans dismissed them as dockworkers, or some of the crazed locals who continued to live in the bombed-out town centre. They certainly didn’t regard the boys as a threat and seemed far more concerned with brushing the dust off their black uniforms.
‘Kill them,’ Eugene mouthed to PT as he pulled his gun.
PT pulled his gun too, and it was only as he pulled the trigger that he remembered that both guns had been underwater. He got the horrible feeling that it was about to jam or explode in his hand. But it didn’t.
Eugene had been a top-ranked marksman in the French army and he’d shot both Germans clean through the heart as PT’s shot skimmed the falling bodies and ricocheted off rubble.
‘That’ll teach them to be so vain.’ Eugene smiled. ‘Bloody fascists.’
21:23 The Harbour
After pushing the three dead Germa
ns into the sea, Henderson drove the truck to the edge of the pier and hauled three sacks of coal up towards a tug called Madeline IV. He then climbed aboard and felt a pang of nostalgia for his days in the regular navy as he went below deck to stoke up the boiler.
Rosie sat on a stool at the base of the pier with a German machine gun resting on her lap. She reached out to grab it when she saw a figure moving on the cliffs.
‘Only me,’ Paul said, as he came scrambling down the clifftop with one arm held up rather limply. ‘Shampoo,’ he added, as he remembered the password.
‘My god,’ Rosie said, when she saw the grazes all down his arm and across his face. ‘The state of you! What happened?’
‘I don’t exactly remember,’ Paul said. ‘The explosion knocked me off the bike. Then I was sitting on the pavement with all these people around me. I’ve got a bump on the back of my head, and the bike was smashed to pieces where it went under a car.’
‘Smashed!’ Rosie gasped. ‘So how’d you get here so quick?’
‘The German officer who ran me over. I was all confused and said I had no way to get home, so he put me in the car and gave me a ride to the farm. He dropped me off down on the main road. I started walking towards the house, then doubled back and came here once he was out of sight.’
‘You’re so lucky.’ Rosie smiled as she shone a torch at her brother’s cheek and felt around the back of his head. ‘You’ve got quite an egg back there, but the grazes are nothing to write home about.’
‘The whole front of the bike was mangled,’ Paul said. ‘The woman who picked me out of the road said the front tyre barely missed my leg.’
‘And now we’ve got a boat ride to look forward to,’ Rosie said warily.
The sinking of the was still fresh in both of their minds.Cardiff Bay
‘Don’t jinx it,’ Paul said. ‘Besides, we can’t get sunk twice in a row. What are the odds of that?’
‘Henderson said he wants whoever gets here first to start carrying everything in the truck up the pier to the tug, but you should sit down if you don’t feel up to it and I’ve made sandwiches if you’re hungry.’
Paul shook his head. ‘I’m a bit queasy, but I can take some of the lighter stuff up to the boat.’
The truck was parked less than five metres away and the back flap was already down from where Henderson had grabbed the coal sacks. Paul looked inside and saw his case, along with everyone else’s and the documents Henderson had stolen from headquarters. But he quickly realised something was missing.
‘Rosie, where’s my tins?’ he asked.
Rosie laughed. ‘Paul, I packed your clothes, your drawing stuff and all the money you’ve made, but we’re not lugging dozens of tins of food across to England. I left them on the kitchen countertop with a note telling the prisoners to take them.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Paul moaned. ‘You said you were going to pack them for me.’
‘Don’t be an idiot!’ Rosie said. ‘Why don’t we take Lottie and the chickens while we’re at it?’
‘I’m going back to the cottage,’ Paul said bitterly.
‘How are you gonna carry them? And besides, you just got whacked on the head – you should probably rest.’
Paul glowered at his sister. ‘I got here early. I can easily get to the house and back before Marc and PT arrive.’
‘Henderson won’t like it if you break his plan.’
But Paul was determined. ‘I can’t carry all the tins of fruit, but I’m getting the two big tins with my strawberry jam and the dark chocolate sauce.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ Rosie said angrily, as her brother started walking back up the cliff. But she didn’t go after him because she had the machine gun and Henderson had ordered her to guard the dock.such
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
21:27 The Harbour
Rosie was still annoyed at her little brother when she saw the big Mercedes drive down the approach road towards the harbour. She was sure it was the car that had dropped Marc off at the farm a few times, but she backed cautiously into the reeds beside the guard hut and kept the machine gun ready until she saw the two African men coming out of the back.
‘Khinde and Rufus,’ Marc said, as Rosie shook each of them by the hand. ‘This is my sister Rosie.’
‘A beautiful name,’ Khinde said. Rosie was overawed by his massive physique and a hand that enveloped half her arm.
‘I think we can stop pretending to be brother and sister now,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘Did you get here all right?’
‘Wasn’t bad,’ Marc said, nodding. ‘Sailed through the checkpoint in Boulogne without getting stopped and the one on the coast road wasn’t manned. I think they must have legged it when the bombing started. The only problem was a cratered road near Marquise. I had to turn back and divert through this crummy village. Windy little roads, pitch black, and it took to find the main road again.’for ever
‘Making it’s what matters.’ Rosie smiled. ‘Henderson’s gonna set a timed fuse to blow the harbour after we leave. If you start wiring up the charges, Khinde and Rufus can carry the stuff up from the truck.’
21:32 The Farm
Paul had taken the walk between the beach and the cottage hundreds of times and knew the way even in pitch dark. His cuts stung and his head hurt, but his mind was focused on his anger at Rosie for not packing the tins in the truck – she knew how many drawings of Germans he’d had to do to get them. But he was also slightly scared. He thought Henderson might shout at him for breaking with the plan and leaving the harbour, but he reckoned it would be OK as long as he got back before everyone else arrived.
Paul was shocked when he headed out of the trees and saw the blazing headlights of a police car lighting up the front lawn. Vivien Boyle stood by the car, alongside a gendarme who bore a strong family resemblance. Paul remembered one of Dumont’s many boasts: that his uncle was a local policeman who’d let him off after several burglaries.
‘They’ve packed up and gone,’ Vivien explained tearfully, as she walked up to the side of the cottage. ‘Dumont hasn’t been seen since lunchtime, so I sent Luc up to see if he was here. I waited an hour, then I walked up here and found the whole place empty. Just as I was leaving I saw Luc’s bike abandoned on the driveway.’
Having been in Calais all day, Paul had no idea that Luc and Dumont were tied up in the cowshed. The gendarme adopted a slightly superior tone, as Paul backed into the bushes and listened intently.
‘I didn’t like it when that lot turned up,’ the officer said. ‘The whole set-up seemed odd. I saw that Maxine in the village. She was no farmer’s wife to my eyes, with her boutique clothes and a Jaguar.’
‘I know,’ Vivien said. ‘But they acted decently enough, and when this Charles fellow called, out of the blue, offering to bring Lucien and Holly home, what choice did we have?’
The officer leaned into his car and grabbed a torch. ‘I’ll take a quick look around. If we don’t find anything we’ll drive into the village and form a search party.’
‘The family must have been here earlier,’ Vivien explained. ‘The chickens had fresh food and the cow’s udders are empty. There’s also a note on the counter telling the labourers to take whatever tins they want and to see what they could find in the cowshed.’
‘Did you go up there?’ the policeman asked.
Vivien shrugged. ‘Why would I? It’s probably just butter or cheese.’
‘You never know,’ the gendarme said. ‘Let’s start up there.’
Paul knew that whatever had happened to Luc and Dumont, the last thing the rest of them needed was a search party. He had to go back and warn Henderson, but he was less than twenty metres from his prized tins, so as Vivien and her brother set off on the hundred-metre walk towards the cowshed, Paul darted out of the bushes and kept low as he raced across the lawn and into the kitchen.
It was pitch black and Paul flew up into the air in fright as Lottie bleated noisily and crashed into the kitchen table before running out
side.
‘Damned goat,’ Paul whispered to himself.
He felt blindly around the worktop until he found one of the large tins of jam and the distinctive barrel-shaped tin containing dark chocolate sauce. With one large can under each arm, Paul raced out of the door and headed back for the bushes as he heard Vivien scream out.
‘Dumie, my poor baby! Oh my god, are those teeth marks on your nose?’
Paul was mystified and decided to wait. There seemed no point going back to warn Henderson without a clearer idea of what had happened to Dumont and Luc Boyle.
‘They’re blowing up the harbour and then leaving on a tug,’ Luc shouted furiously, as he staggered out of the barn, glistening with cow shit. ‘I don’t know why they’re doing it, but as Charles dragged me out here, the girl Rosie asked him a question about how many charges they’d need to blow up the harbour.’
‘The harbour hasn’t blown up,’ Vivien said. ‘We’d have heard it from the village.’
Paul was still baffled as to how Luc and Dumont had got involved, but Rosie and Henderson clearly knew and his priority was now to run back and warn them.
‘I’ll drive into the village and warn the soldiers who drink at the bar,’ the gendarme roared. ‘treats members of my family like this!’Nobody
21:46 The Village
Eugene knew that the forty-kilometre drive between Dunkirk and the farm a few kilometres west of Calais took roughly an hour. In theory this gave them twenty spare minutes, even with the delay caused by the loss of the motorbike – but with a soundtrack of explosions as hundreds of bombers pounded the coastline and the real possibility that roads would be blocked off or damaged he drove as fast as darkness, acrid smoke and regulation covered headlamps allowed.
Their worst moment came at a snap checkpoint where they’d abandoned SS helmets and presented the travel permits Henderson had given them for the truck. Fortunately, the bored looking guard didn’t notice the discrepancy in registration numbers.
Henderson's Boys: Eagle Day: Book 2 Page 25