Secret Army (29 page)

‘I’m not proud,’ McAfferty smiled. ‘I am the senior officer, but Commander Henderson is in control of operations and most people think of this as his unit. Besides, CHERUB has a nice ring to it. EMERUB sounds like an ointment for foot fungus.’

Henderson finally read the full telegram. ‘
To all at CHERUB. Am delighted to hear of success in training. Expect great things of your unit and urge you proceed to full operational status with all speed. Furthermore, expect command changes at SOE soon which will be to your liking
.’

Paul smiled, then paused for thought. ‘Have you any idea about the command changes?’

Henderson nodded. ‘Nothing has been announced, but it seems likely that Air Vice Marshal Walker will be getting the boot in a matter of days.’

‘Just deserts,’ Paul said cheerfully.

‘I understand the straw that broke the camel’s back was a training exercise getting out of hand,’ McAfferty said. ‘
Apparently
, a bus hit an archway at King’s Cross station. The damage to the side wall and roof supports is so severe that one platform and a sorting area used by the Royal Mail will be closed for up to three weeks. The Postmaster General is fuming and all mail between London and the north is having to be rerouted.’

‘Will Luc get punished for that?’ Paul asked hopefully.

‘There will be a review of the operation,’ McAfferty said. ‘But it was the Pole who crashed the bus, not Luc.’

‘I’ll be having individual chats with Luc and all the others when they wake up,’ Henderson added.

‘So what happens to Group A now?’ Paul asked.

‘I want all of you to have a complete two-week rest,’ Henderson said. ‘Your group was severely handicapped by weak to non-existent driving skills during the operation, so before you go on to operations I’m going to devise extra training so that you’re able to handle vehicles, in the same way that we’ve trained you to handle guns.’

‘What about my parachute training?’ Paul asked.

‘If you’re fit, we’ll send you up to repeat the course with Group B in five weeks’ time,’ McAfferty said. ‘Because of your accident, Sergeant Parris says they’ll give you some extra leeway if you’re nervous.’

‘Do you think you’ll have a problem with jumping again?’ Henderson asked.

Paul shrugged. ‘I think I’ll be OK, but I guess you can’t know for sure until you’re standing on that platform ready to jump off.’

‘Of course,’ Henderson smiled. ‘I think that’s a realistic attitude. And unless you have any questions, I think we’re about done.’

‘The insignia,’ McAfferty interrupted.

‘Oh, good god!’ Henderson said. ‘I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on. You’re a bit of an artist, aren’t you, Paul?’

‘Yes sir,’ Paul agreed.

‘I’d assumed that Rosie and the lads who passed jump training would get parachute wing badges, but I checked with the training school and it’s a military badge for enlisted men and women only.’

Paul looked disappointed. ‘That’s a bit naff. We did the same training as everyone else.’

‘I totally agree,’ Henderson nodded. ‘So I was hoping that you’d turn your artistic skills to drawing a little insignia for Espionage Research Unit B. We could have an embroidered badge, or have it stamped on a metal disc to be presented to all trainees when they finish training.’

‘What sort of badge?’ Paul said.

‘It’s up to you,’ McAfferty said. ‘A parachute maybe, or a child. Perhaps you can do a couple of different designs and see which one everybody likes.’

‘I like the name CHERUB,’ Paul said. ‘Cherubs are like babies with wings, in Renaissance paintings and stuff, which ties in with parachute wings.’

Henderson smiled. ‘Paul, you’d know more about Renaissance art than I do, but I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with something good.’

*

Luc was the last person to be debriefed by Henderson. It was after lunch and McAfferty was out, taking Paul to a local hospital to have a check-up on his broken nose.

‘Take a pew,’ Henderson told Luc, as he looked up from a sheet of notepaper covered with messy handwriting.

Luc held his back and moaned as he sat down. Henderson studied the boy across the desktop: short hair combed neatly, a huge neck and thick arms ending in man-sized fists.

‘I’ve been reading the report you wrote on the train back from London yesterday. It looks more like a horror novel than a debriefing document.’

Luc looked mystified. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’

Henderson read from the lined paper in front of him: ‘
I picked up a big blob of molten glass with sharp bits of slate stuck in it and gave him a good smash in the head with it. His teeth flew in all directions
. Luc, reading this not only makes me feel queasy but I get the feeling that you
enjoyed
doing it.’

‘I just wrote what happened,’ Luc said. ‘That’s what Miss McAfferty asked us to do.’

‘And was it necessary to smash the Pole in the face with a jagged object as he came down the ladder? You had the advantage of surprise. You could have choked him, or at least hit him with a blunt object.’

‘It seemed reasonable to me,’ Luc said. ‘Three adults versus one kid. I had to even up the odds.’

‘Did you enjoy hitting him?’ Henderson asked. ‘Because, frankly, I think you did.’

Luc paused for a few seconds before drawing a long breath. ‘And what if I did enjoy it?’ he asked. ‘I got the job done. Isn’t that what counts?’

‘Not entirely,’ Henderson said. ‘What you achieved over the last two days was outstanding, but the way you did it was disturbing and before sending you on a mission I need to be certain that I can trust you.’

Luc shot up furiously and placed both palms against the desktop. ‘I did the job I was asked to do. I thought I was training for a war, not a ladies’ tea party.’

‘Sit
down
,’ Henderson snapped. ‘And lower your voice.’

‘My dad’s dead,’ Luc steamed, ignoring the order to sit down. ‘My mum pissed off with some bloke when I was four. The only one who ever looked out for me was my big brother. But he was conscripted into the army and got blasted when the Germans invaded. Nobody in the world cares about me and I don’t care about any of them.’

‘Do you seriously think that nobody here cares about you?’ Henderson asked.

Luc laughed as he finally sat back down. ‘I don’t see a lot of love coming my way.’

‘So what
do
you care about?’

Henderson hoped his question would make Luc pause for thought, but the answer came instantly. ‘The only thing that I care about is parachuting back into France and massacring as many of the German bastards who killed my brother as I can.’

‘Luc,’ Henderson said softly. ‘I can understand why your past makes you reluctant to form close attachments, but if you treat other people with decency you’ll come to learn the value of—’

‘Decency!’ Luc interrupted, before making a loud snort. ‘Who the hell are you to lecture me about decency? Marc has told me plenty about you: how you machine-gunned an unarmed man in a bath tub and threw a grenade into a room filled with Germans.’

‘In a war situation when there was no other choice,’ Henderson roared, as he stood up. ‘The difference is, you won’t find me beating up a training comrade in the toilet just for the fun of it.’

‘What about your poor little wife, then?’ Luc asked, as he shot up again and stood eyeball to eyeball with Henderson. ‘Joan went mental after your daughter died, but you still went off to work in France. Everyone knows you cheated on her with a woman called Maxine and god knows how many others.

‘Then you came back and got your wife pregnant. When you’ve pissed her off so much that she wants you dead, you incinerate all her pets and have her thrown in the loony bin. So what kind of person are
you
to question
my
decency and ask whether you can trust
me
?’

Henderson reached across the desk and grabbed Luc around the neck. ‘You have no business speaking about my wife like that,’ he hissed. ‘You poisonous little shit.’

Luc was gasping, but he was determined not to look weak and stretched his lips into a thin smile.

‘Touched a nerve, did I?’

‘I ought to thrash the daylights out of you,’ Henderson said, as the phone on the desk between them started to ring.

‘No matter how much you thrash me, it won’t make me wrong, will it?’ Luc sneered.

Henderson’s whole body trembled with rage as he looked down at the ringing telephone, then up at Luc, who was starting to turn blue. He shoved Luc violently away and snatched the receiver.

‘Henderson speaking.’

He recognised the voice of Admiral Hammer as Luc thumped against the wall. The boy rubbed his injured back and gulped air.

‘I hear one of your boys took out an entire Polish unit on Walker’s training exercise,’ Admiral Hammer said jovially.

Henderson found it hard to focus on the conversation so soon after losing his temper. ‘Yes, Admiral,’ he said stiffly. ‘Everyone in Group A did exceptionally well.’

‘Good,’ Hammer said. ‘Because the Prime Minister is taking a keen and detailed interest in Special Operations right now. He wants all SOE training programmes scaled up and at least twenty agents dropped throughout occupied Europe within six weeks.’

‘That’s excellent news,’ Henderson said, as he eyed Luc warily across the room.

‘We’re meeting in Baker Street at ten on Wednesday morning to discuss missions. I want you and McAfferty there and be warned that the PM will sit in if his schedule allows.’

‘I’ll try and behave myself, sir,’ Henderson said.

After exchanging goodbyes, Henderson put the phone back in its cradle. He felt guilty about the red marks he saw on Luc’s neck and couldn’t decide whether to hate or pity him.

‘Don’t ever speak to me like that again,’ Henderson said calmly.

‘I don’t care if you’re gonna kick me out,’ Luc said, trying to sound casual but coming over as desperate.

Henderson shook his head. ‘You’re too
damned
good to kick out,’ he explained reluctantly. ‘You’re a vile creature. I’m probably a vile creature too. So I suppose it’s best if we don’t probe too deeply into each other’s heads from now on.’

Luc nodded and gave a surly, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ve got two weeks to rest, relax and have fun. Try to act like a member of the human race and when you come back you’re going to help us to win this damned war. Now get the
hell
out of my office.’

READ ON FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER
OF THE NEXT HENDERSON’S
BOYS BOOK,
GREY WOLVES
.

Sunday 20 April 1941

Marc Kilgour had jumped out of aeroplanes, belted around the countryside on an old Triumph motorbike, shot a straw dummy through the heart with a sniper rifle, studied the correct procedure for attaching limpet mines to the hull of a boat, survived in the wild on berries and squirrel meat, stuffed dead rats with dynamite, swum freezing lakes and done physical jerks until he was as fast and strong as any thirteen-year-old was likely to get.

But training counts for nothing if you lose your head, and Marc felt uneasy squatting in the two-man canoe with damp trousers, an oar resting between his legs and Commander Charles Henderson seated behind.

It was near midnight on a moonless night – the only kind dark enough to infiltrate occupied France by boat. The sea was calm, the air had bite and the blacked-out French coastline was a total mystery. They might have been fifty metres from shore, or a thousand.

They’d trained to drop into occupied France by parachute, but the RAF refused to spare prized bombers for espionage work. A fast torpedo boat for the long voyage down France’s western coast would have been second best, but the Royal Navy was no more willing.

In the end they’d made the two-day journey from Porth Navas Creek in Cornwall aboard
Madeline
, an elderly French steam tug designed for harbour work rather than open sea. Their canoe was a leisure craft that had spent years hanging from the ceiling in a Cambridge junk shop, before being discovered by Henderson, who patched its cloth hull with fish-glue and pieces cut from a coal tarp.

The rest of their equipment was no better. The radio transmitter was an unreliable beast. Twice the weight of more recent sets, it left the canoe precariously low in the water and compromised the amount of equipment they could carry. Henderson had kicked up a stink, but Britain was fighting alone against a Nazi empire and CHERUB wasn’t the only unit muddling through with scraps.

‘Nerves holding out?’ Henderson asked quietly, as his oar cut into a wave.

‘Just about,’ Marc said.

Henderson was the one thing that gave Marc confidence. He was a flawed human: drinker, womaniser, a short-tempered maverick who rubbed senior colleagues up the wrong way. But as some men turn genius when you give them a football, or set a maths problem, Henderson had a gift for espionage. He was completely ruthless, able to speak the five major European languages in a variety of accents, and had a magical ability to devise practical and sophisticated operations.

‘Are those young eyes seeing things I can’t?’ Henderson asked.

Marc squinted, but could barely see beyond the end of the boat. ‘What if the tide’s carrying us further out?’ he asked. ‘I mean, are you even rowing in the right direction? Shall I take a compass bearing?’

Henderson gave a restrained laugh. ‘You don’t have much faith in my nautical skills, do you? Listen to the gulls. Are they getting louder or quieter?’

‘Louder,’ Marc said, realising that the gulls lived in colonies onshore.

Marc felt foolish: he might have been blind in the dark, but Henderson had been using his other senses to navigate.

‘Clever old goat, aren’t you?’ Marc said cheekily.

A dark mass loomed beyond the bow. Marc thrust his oar out ahead of the canoe, then pushed hard against rocks jutting from the water. The boat tilted as its canvas side-scraped barnacles. Henderson threw himself sideways to counterbalance, but with the canoe so heavy it wasn’t enough to stop water spilling over the side.