Scorched Earth

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘There’s a few guards on either end, but they’re just standing around looking bored,’ Daniel told the others. ‘The river’s less than six metres wide.’

  Marc was worried by this. ‘Tanks might be able to ford that. Were the embankments steep?’

  ‘Pretty steep,’ Daniel said.

  PT tutted. ‘I don’t mind risking my life, but not if we blow the bridge only for the tanks to roll down the embankment and drive across the river bed.’

  Marc looked at the sun. ‘You’re the boss, PT, but you’d better decide soon. It’s getting murky and it’ll be light by o-five-thirty.’

  ‘Plus the tanks can’t be more than an hour away,’ Luc noted.

  ‘Maybe we’re thinking about this the wrong way,’ Edith said. ‘If we wait until there’s a tank, or better still two tanks crossing, they’ll be destroyed. There’s also bound to be a hold-up while the rest of the convoy works out another way to cross over to this side.’

  ‘And we’ve got our little artillery gun,’ Luc added. ‘Thirty-seven-point-five millimetre shells won’t penetrate heavy armour, but if we set up a good firing position we could blow tank tracks to shit, maybe damage the wheels as well.’

  ‘You’d have to be fast,’ Edith said.

  Luc nodded. ‘If it’s a surprise I reckon you could get three or four good shots in before a tank fires back and destroys the position.’

  PT smiled. ‘Now this is starting to sound like a plan. Daniel can sit up in the tree and act as our lookout. He can’t shout without alerting the Germans, so Edith waits at the bottom and acts as our messenger. It’s gonna take some muscle setting up that artillery piece on the riverbank. I’ll handle that with Michel, which leaves Marc and Luc to sneak under the bridge and lay the explosives.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Marc said, as he started walking back to the truck to get their equipment. ‘Let’s get cracking.’

  *

  The boatyard was pitch black and its puddled floor a minefield of rotten wood, nails and paint tins. Sam sliced his arm on a piece of rusted metal as he charged blindly between coal-barges with rust holes big enough to fit your head through.

  A single German Kübelwagen had gone after them, but the men inside either thought his team had died when the shell blew up the truck, or didn’t have the appetite to charge into a boatyard that might be crawling with resistance.

  The explosions in the fuel dump had destroyed the refuelling equipment and set men and vehicles on fire. But cut-off valves prevented any kind of blowback into the main tanks.

  Sam clutched the gash through his bloody shirt-sleeve as he reached the gently lapping river, joining in a gasping pack with Henderson, Paul and his brother Joel.

  ‘Is it bad?’ Joel panted.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sam said, as he undid his cuff button and pulled up the sleeve.

  As Joel inspected his brother’s bloody-but-not-particularly-large cut, Henderson looked upriver, seeing a bridge silhouetted against first light.

  ‘I’ve got the name of two places where I can potentially contact the local resistance,’ Henderson said. ‘Maxine reckons they’re a funny lot though.’

  ‘Communist?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Mostly,’ Henderson said. ‘But we’ve got no equipment and the Germans are gonna be looking for me.’

  ‘You want this?’ Joel asked, offering Henderson the machine gun.

  Henderson shook his head. ‘I’ve got my silenced pistol. Just try keeping that thing out of sight and don’t waste any ammunition.’

  As he spoke, Henderson flung his brown OT jacket into the part-flooded hull of a rowing boat. Then he ditched the matching brown tie and pulled his shirt out of his trousers. He could now pass as a Frenchman, provided you didn’t look too closely at his German military boots, or ask to see his papers.

  ‘You three have civilian ID,’ Henderson said, though this comment made all three boys check their pockets to make sure they hadn’t left them aboard the exploded truck. ‘Nobody knows what you look like and curfew ends at sunup. So we walk north. After a couple of kilometres—’

  Henderson stopped talking because an air-raid siren had kicked in. Things got a little darker as lights went out across the river.

  ‘Think they’re after the same thing as us?’ Paul asked, as he eyed the sky warily for Allied planes. ‘Did you send a message saying the 108th was on the move?’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘I would have got Edith to send a radio message if we hadn’t been forced out of the woods, but it doesn’t matter. I expect London will have had a dozen messages from spies and resistance groups by now, all telling them that the 108th is heading west.’

  Joel spoke thoughtfully. ‘If you figured out that they’d stop here to refuel, chances are the intelligence analysts in Britain came to the same conclusion. Those planes could be after the fuel depot.’

  ‘Heavy bombers aren’t exactly accurate,’ Paul said anxiously, as he recalled a mission he’d undertaken the previous summer. ‘I’d like at least an extra kilometre between me and that fuel dump before I feel safe.’

  ‘They’re probably only a couple of minutes away,’ Sam added.

  Henderson saw how nervous the three boys looked and spoke firmly. ‘Never burn yourselves out worrying about things that you can’t control,’ he warned. ‘Assuming the siren isn’t a false alarm, it’ll take German minds off searching for us, and give us an opportunity to move towards town while the streets are quiet.’

  ‘Then what?’ Joel asked.

  ‘We take a brisk walk north to the city centre. When we get close I’ll split off and try to contact the local resistance. I’ll let them know what’s going on. Hopefully they’ll have men and equipment and we can work out a plan to carry on harassing the 108th. I’ll set up a meeting point and if I’m not back within three hours, I want you three to assume the worst and board a train or bus. You all know how to contact the Ghost Circuit when you reach Paris?’

  The boys all nodded.

  ‘What about going to Beauvais?’ Paul asked.

  Henderson shook his head. ‘Jean was furious with me and we’ve no idea what happened to the Maquis after we left. Beauvais is the absolute last place any of you should go.’

  When Henderson’s voice tailed off they could all hear the hum of aircraft engines over the sirens.

  ‘Heavies,’ Paul said warily. ‘Sounds like a lot of them too.’

  As they climbed out of the boatyard and began a brisk walk down behind a row of mooring sheds, an American Mustang spotter plane skimmed overhead at less than 100 metres. Its noise made Rouen’s anti-aircraft guns and flak batteries begin blasting chunks of exploding metal into the sunrise.

  *

  France had long feared invasion by Germany. The ability to blow up bridges quickly in front of an invading army was crucial and a law dating back to the 1870s meant that every bridge in France had to be fitted with a mining pan. This large metal shelf was designed to be loaded with explosives beneath the bridge’s weakest point.

  Marc and Luc had no problem identifying the pan as they crept down an overgrown embankment next to the riveted iron bridge, with packs full of plastic explosive on their backs. Unfortunately, the sun was determined to keep rising and four German guards were now stationed up on the road, less than 5 metres away.

  The Germans were having a conversation about sex, joking about each other’s wives and the youngest of the quartet being a virgin. The mix of teasing and laughter was lively enough to mask sounds the boys made below. Luc was stronger than Marc, so he clambered 3 metres up into the bridge’s iron framework.

  A truck rumbled overhead as Luc found a footing next to the pan, which was crusted in thirty years of rust and bird crap. Marc passed up a large rectangular charge first. This comprised two dozen sticks of dynamite with a wired mining detonator at its core. After this, Marc gave Luc balls of plastic fitted with sympathetic fuses that would be set off by the dynamite blast.

  Luc put most of these on the pan, b
ut also reached around and placed a couple on the surrounding beams. Marc was passing up the final three charges when a bearded guard stepped up to the edge of the bridge and whipped out his penis to urinate.

  Marc ducked under the bridge, but Luc couldn’t move without making a clanking noise. A slight breeze blew the urine against a beam above Luc’s head and sent a fine yellow mist into his face. When he turned away, it drizzled through his hair and down the back of his shirt.

  By the time the guard shook off Luc was soaked. As the German headed back, Marc gasped with relief, then reached up to Luc with the last of the explosive. But Luc was so furious that he jumped down.

  ‘That’s plenty,’ he spat.

  While Luc crawled up the embankment in a vile mood, Marc kicked the last balls of explosive under the bridge, then knelt down to complete the final wiring.

  As they planned to blow the bridge when a tank – or better still two tanks – rode across, Marc had decided on a wired electric detonator. This gave him precise control over the explosion, but the significant disadvantage of having to hide a trail of electrical wire in the undergrowth as he crawled up the embankment to a safe spot 60 metres away.

  Luc sat in tall grass unbuttoning his sodden shirt as Marc arrived. Marc was relieved that they’d completed the riskiest part of their job and couldn’t hide how much he’d enjoyed seeing Luc get pissed on. To avoid Luc catching his smirk, Marc looked towards a position further from the bridge to see how PT and Michel were getting on with setting up the little artillery gun.

  ‘If you say one bastard word to anyone about this,’ Luc warned, as he wagged his finger ominously.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As Henderson predicted, British intelligence had received dozens of radio messages about the 108th’s move west. At the Bletchley Park code-breaking centre in southern England, teams of women transcribed coded Morse signals sent on the battalion’s radio frequencies, then fed the results into a mechanical computer that filled a large hall.

  Once the 108th’s daily code was cracked, thirty-four American Mustang spotter planes were dispatched into the air over France. These lightly-armed aircraft could radio information on German movements to British Tempest fighters armed with tank-busting rockets. Most dramatically of all, a planned raid on German industry was postponed and eighty Flying Fortress bombers were diverted to attack the fuel depot south of Rouen.

  As Henderson reached the workers’ entrance at the side of the Gare de Rouen train station, the sun was up and a thousand bombs had pounded the city. Most landed to the south, damaging crucial roads, destroying a bridge and hitting vehicles belonging to the 108th. But high-altitude bombing was rarely accurate and there were fires all over the city.

  Even with the Nazis’ grip on France slipping, resistance groups still needed tight security. Ever since he’d been assigned the task of stopping the 108th, Henderson had known he might end up in Rouen. Maxine’s Ghost Circuit had some minor dealings with the Rouen resistance and she’d told him the Gare de Rouen was the best place to contact them.

  Security was always tight around stations. With no documents, Henderson kept a hand close to his silenced pistol as he stepped through a grimy hallway and approached a counter where workers logged in and out. Two coal-blackened stokers signed off their shift before Henderson reached the grilled counter and used a pre-arranged phrase.

  ‘I’m here to fix the gas lighting.’

  The man raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Are you indeed? Take a step to the side and I’ll fetch someone.’

  Railway workers were a powerful force in the resistance. Their jobs gave them ready opportunities to smuggle men and equipment, network with groups in other areas and sabotage German railway operations.

  Several minutes passed before a small man wearing a train-driver’s uniform arrived. ‘Are you the Englishman?’ he asked sniffily. ‘Ghost said you might show up when the 108th moved, but I need to see this.’

  The train driver tapped his lower teeth, and Henderson obliged by popping out his denture plate.

  ‘My name is Gaspard,’ the man said, starting to walk now that he was satisfied he’d met the real Henderson.

  They passed through a locker room where men showered off coal dust. Spiral stairs took them up to platform level, before a grander staircase brought Henderson to a cobwebbed café. Its soot-caked windows looked down on steaming trains and passengers queuing to have their documents checked before boarding.

  ‘You must have had a busy night,’ Gaspard said, as he pointed Henderson towards the only booth that didn’t have chairs standing on the tabletop. Judging by the dust, the café had been closed for at least a year. ‘I have some excellent coffee. An order sent to German headquarters in Paris that got misdirected.’

  A pair of thuggish-looking young men smiled awkwardly as Henderson joined them at a table. Gaspard served Henderson a splash of coffee in an espresso cup and offered him a pick from a basket of freshly made rolls.

  ‘White flour,’ Henderson said, as he broke a still- warm roll apart and enjoyed the smell. ‘And real coffee.’

  Gaspard was in his forties. His two goons maybe half that age. There was a prickliness about the whole situation and Henderson sensed that the food had been brought out to impress him, rather than as a show of genuine hospitality.

  This impression was confirmed when Henderson sipped his coffee. It hadn’t been stolen from any German military consignment, it was the same stuff he’d been drinking in the woods for the past three months. It came by parachute courtesy of the United States Air Force, along with peanut butter and beef jerky.

  ‘How may we help you?’ Gaspard asked.

  ‘I lost my civilian back-up identity when our truck blew up,’ Henderson said, trying to keep the mood light as he raised one leg. ‘And less Germanic boots might help.’

  ‘Boots, no problem,’ Gaspard said. ‘Identity is tricky, but I can easily get you a railway-worker’s uniform and put you on a train to Paris. I’m sure the beautiful Maxine will sort you out when you get there.’

  Henderson drained his coffee and gave a thin smile as his empty cup clattered the saucer. ‘I have a task to perform,’ he said. ‘The 108th has fifty-four heavy tanks. The Tiger is the one German weapon that Allied armies can’t handle in the field.’

  One of the younger men snorted, then spoke for the first time. ‘The Soviet Union has been fighting Tigers well enough. Britain and America just need to show some grit.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s what underground communist newspapers will have you believe,’ Henderson said irritably.

  ‘So communists are liars?’ Gaspard spat, as the two younger men bristled.

  Henderson realised it had been a poor decision to snipe at Soviet propaganda in front of three communists, but he’d missed a night’s sleep and his mind was fuzzy.

  ‘There are thousands of French soldiers in Normandy as well,’ he pointed out.

  Gaspard leaned forward. ‘Look here, Mister English Officer,’ he said firmly. ‘We have our own way of doing things here in Rouen. Your operations could disturb the balance of things.’

  ‘I’d rather wait for the Red Army to liberate France,’ one of the younger men added sourly. ‘Do you think the Allies will liberate France? It might be liberation for aristocrats and politicians, but what about working men?’

  ‘The Soviet Union is one of the Allies,’ Henderson said. ‘And for someone who despises Americans, you seem very willing to drink their coffee, and make your bread with US Department of Agriculture flour.’

  Gaspard looked upset that Henderson had caught his lie, but his tone didn’t change.

  ‘What they send has already been stolen from impoverished American workers,’ he said.

  Communists always pissed Henderson off. He’d visited Soviet ports when working for Royal Navy intelligence before the war. The poverty and brutality of the Soviet system bore no resemblance to the teams of happy workers portrayed in France’s underground communist newspapers.

/>   ‘I’m not asking for men,’ Henderson said, deciding on one last try for help. ‘I need civilian ID, some ammunition and a small quantity of explosives. Your group has clearly received plenty of equipment in US parachute drops.’

  One of Gaspard’s goons leaned forward and jabbed his pointing finger against Henderson’s shirt.

  ‘What will happen to our supplies if this Englishman reports that we didn’t cooperate?’ the goon asked.

  Henderson didn’t like where this was going. Communist resistance groups were notoriously ruthless, and now they’d floated the idea that he might stop their supplies, they’d surely conclude that the best option was to kill him.

  It was three against one, so Henderson had to make the first move. He sprang from his seat, unholstered his silenced pistol and clinically shot the two young men in the foreheads. It was a calculated risk, because he had no idea where the nearest German station guards were, or if the communists had back-up ready to storm out of an adjoining room.

  Gaspard was so shocked that he tilted backwards off his chair and started crawling towards the bar. Henderson swung one of his German boots at Gaspard’s stomach and yanked the groaning driver to his feet.

  ‘You’re only alive because I need your equipment,’ Henderson sneered. ‘Where is it stored?’

  Gaspard hesitated.

  ‘Mess with me, and I’ll make sure your death is slower and nastier than it was for your two friends.’

  ‘I can get what you need,’ Gaspard croaked.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  With the sun up, Daniel’s big concern was getting spotted in the tree. He’d tucked himself in the thickest leaves close to the trunk and a caterpillar dangled off a branch in front of his face as he pushed Luc’s binoculars through rustling leaves.

  There was a decent view down two of the roads leading to the bridge, but he was picking up sound from a third route which was shielded by trees. He spoke down to Edith.

  ‘I can’t see, but there’s a lot of dust and exhaust smoke.’