Grey Wolves (11 page)

After eating, the kids listened to the BBC Forces Programme while taking turns at a snooker table. Troy, Marc, Paul, Rosie and Joel had all grown up in France where tables were rare, and had fun competing over who was the most hopeless. PT had played a few games in bars when he’d worked aboard a steam ship, but he was annihilated by Boo, who’d grown up with a table in the family castle. She regularly rattled off breaks of fifty or sixty, while complaining that the game wasn’t much of a challenge on a half-sized table.

Henderson sat in an armchair facing the Brigadier, drinking whisky and admiring Boo when she bent over the table. There was a ten o’clock curfew on campus, and the kids kept expecting him to send them to bed, but they kept on playing until eleven thirty when the BBC shut down and everyone stood for the national anthem.

The room seemed eerily quiet when the anthem ended, and Brigadier Ouellet’s boots tapped the parquet floor as he stepped across to turn off the set.

‘Have you all been revising your identities for the mission?’ the Brigadier asked.

The kids were intimidated by his formal tone, medals and epaulettes, so their nods and
yeses
came stiff and uncomfortable.

The Brigadier pointed at a clock on the mantelpiece. ‘In a few moments, you will retire to bed. When it turns midnight, you will take on the identities you have been given for your mission. You will speak only in French. You will address one another by the names given in your French identity documents. You could be tested on your back story at any time and if you make a slip-up there will be consequences. Goodnight, and sleep well.’

Boo, Rufus and Henderson stayed in the house, while the six youngsters went out the back door and found their way across the lawn. They kept quiet until they were all under the curved metal roof of the Nissen hut, sitting on their narrow bunks pulling off shoes and unbuttoning shirts. Rosie was the only girl, but after more than six months of living together on campus, nobody thought about modesty.

‘Brigadier whatsisname seems weird,’ Marc said, as he burrowed through his suitcase looking for pyjama bottoms.

‘Drunk as a skunk,’ Joel said. ‘Him and Henderson practically emptied that bottle between them.’

‘Did you see Henderson eyeing up Boo?’ Rosie said. ‘He’s got
such
a dirty mind.’

Troy cocked his leg and cracked a huge fart.

‘Better than a dirty arse,’ Marc said, as he gave Troy a dead arm.

‘Henderson just has appetites, like all men do,’ PT said. ‘Most of you are too young to understand.’

‘I know how to fertilise a girl,’ Paul said, always anxious not to be seen as the baby of the group.

‘A man either gets what he wants, or goes somewhere else for it,’ PT said. ‘That’s the way of the world.’

‘Not if you’re a married man it isn’t,’ Rosie said furiously.

Joel laughed. ‘Well, well: the two lovebirds are speaking to each other again.’

‘Believe me,’ PT said. ‘I spent over a year crewing boats around the Mediterranean and when men go ashore, the ones who are married act no different to the ones who ain’t.’

‘Lots of men behave decently,’ Rosie said. ‘They’re not all animals like
you
.’

‘Can you two bicker tomorrow?’ Joel asked. ‘I’ve been up since half four, I’m getting the light. Is everyone ready?’

Everyone was either under the covers or ready to get in, so he popped the light off. Troy did another noisy fart as Joel walked back to his bed.

‘Aww you stink,’ Paul complained, as Troy laughed under his sheets.

Marc’s eyes shot open as a hand clamped across his mouth. He thought it was Troy getting revenge for the dead arm, but Troy wasn’t strong enough to pull him off his bunk and throw him over his shoulder. It was pitch black, but he could hear men dragging the others out of bed. Ironically, out of the six it was Paul – the smallest – who gave the most trouble by jumping up, swinging from a roof beam and giving his assailant a two-footed kick in the teeth.

‘Name and age?’ the man screamed in English.

Marc remembered what the Brigadier had told them before bedtime. ‘Marc Hortefeux, thirteen years old.’

‘So you speak English?’ the man said, as he pinched Marc’s cheek.

The pinch hurt, but the realisation that he’d fallen for a simple interrogator’s trick by answering a question in the language it was asked hurt more. The light in the room came on, and he glimpsed Paul wriggling through a window as PT was dragged outside with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Marc had a canvas bag thrust over his head. It smelled like mildew and its drawstring handle was pulled around his neck, not strangling him but enough to make breathing hard.

‘Walkies!’ the man said. His accent sounded slightly American, so Marc guessed that he was Canadian, like the Brigadier.

Marc couldn’t see, but he felt mud under his soles as two men frogmarched him across a field at jogging pace. His breath and the dank smell made it stifling inside the mask. After a minute his feet moved on to tarmac. He heard a large door open, like a barn door. His feet were swept off the ground and suddenly he was plunged into a freezing bath filled with slabs of ice.

He kicked and slapped his arms in the water as his head was held under for a minute. Shivering uncontrollably, he was forced to kneel with his forehead resting against something hard, then his hood was ripped off. Marc saw that he was knelt against the front of a car and a second later the headlamps were switched on, shining directly into his eyes.

‘Welcome to Gestapo headquarters,’ one of the Canadians said.

Marc heard a groan to his right, and saw that Troy was in an identical position, knelt against the other headlight.

‘Don’t think we’re going easy because you’re kids,’ another Canadian said.

Marc couldn’t tell if there were three or four of them.

‘How can kids go undercover? You’ll break in two seconds flat.’

‘Go screw your mothers,’ Troy shouted.

Marc heard Troy get slapped.

‘Now I know which one to electrocute first,’ someone said.

‘You can call me God,’ the biggest man said. ‘I’m setting an alarm clock to go off in twenty minutes. Every time you make an admission, the other boy gets an electric shock. If either of you wants to quit before the twenty minutes are up, you can beg for mercy. But if you can’t stand this for twenty minutes, you’re not gonna be tough enough to face the real Gestapo, are you?’

‘No, sir,’ Marc said.

‘No, God,’ Troy said.

God grabbed Marc’s muddy foot and twisted his big toe. ‘What do you call me?’

‘God,’ Marc said, gasping.

‘OK, boy. You’re going to admit that yellow is your favourite colour.’

‘Am I bollocks,’ Marc said.

‘Give him something to drink,’ God ordered.

Two men grabbed Marc. As one ripped his head back by pulling his hair, the other forced a rubber hose into his mouth and turned a wall-mounted tap, firing a powerful jet of water down his throat. The water triggered his gag reflex, but the vomit shooting up his throat was blocked by the water flooding his mouth and nose. He was drowning and vomiting at the same time. As he fought to break loose he could feel water splashing down his chest and a sense of dread, worse than anything he’d ever felt before.

The voice of God counted out the seconds, each one feeling like a month. ‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.’

The hose was ripped out and Marc crashed forwards. He spat the water and thrashed about, coughing up chunks of vomit lodged in the back of his mouth.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ God demanded.

Marc remembered what Henderson had taught them: if you’re being tortured, do everything you can to slow the process down. Cough for twice as long as you need to. Clear your throat three times. Look as if you want to speak, but make rasping noises and beg for a drink.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ God shouted. ‘Tell me that your favourite colour is yellow, or the pipe goes back in, this time for a full minute.’

Marc tried not to think about it. Once the pipe went in, you couldn’t move or speak. He’d have to take the full minute. But he didn’t want to look weak. What kind of sign was he giving if he gave in after one attempt?

Marc was hauled up off the dirt floor.

‘Well?’ God asked. ‘Is yellow your favourite colour?’

Marc gritted his teeth. ‘Always preferred red.’

‘Right,’ God shouted.

The other two grabbed Marc and tipped his head back. This time his fear made him fight much harder, refusing to open his mouth even when they pinched his nose. But Marc realised he’d only made it worse for himself, because he was already short of breath when the pipe went in. He managed to push his tongue back to stop the jet making him vomit, but the water seemed colder this time and after the struggle his neck was bent back painfully.

‘Twenty-three … twenty-four …’

Marc tried telling himself that this was part of his training, they weren’t really going to let him die, but that wasn’t how he felt as the water choked him.

‘Fifty-seven … fifty-eight …’

The tube came out and he slumped on to his chest, sobbing with pain and gasping for air.

‘No delaying tactics,’ God told him, as he placed his boot on Marc’s back. ‘Tell me in three seconds or the tube goes down for a minute and a half.’

‘Yellow,’ Marc sobbed. ‘I love yellow.’

Troy yelped as one of the other Canadians delivered his electric shock.

‘OK, Troy,’ God said, as the other men positioned Marc back on his knees with the headlamp blazing in his eyes. ‘You once owned a pet rabbit called Fluffles.’

One of the Canadians clipped a wire linked to the shock apparatus to the waist of Marc’s sodden pyjamas, and another to the bottom of the leg.

Troy had watched Marc’s suffering. He fought as the men pulled his head back, but chickened out when he saw the pipe, which still had chunks of Marc’s puke stuck to it.

‘I once owned a rabbit called Fluffles,’ Troy shouted.

Marc went into spasm as the electric shock fizzed through his wet pyjamas. It wasn’t too painful, but he turned angrily towards Troy. ‘You can’t even hold out for one little squirt?’ he shouted. ‘You useless wimp!’

‘That’s what they want you to say,’ Troy shouted back. ‘They’re trying to set us against each other.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Marc shouted.

‘Well isn’t this fun?’ God said. ‘This time it’ll just be electric shocks, but we’ll up the current from fifty amps to four hundred. Marc, tell me that your favourite actress is Vivien Leigh.’

‘Yeah she is,’ Marc said, pointing at Troy. ‘I love her. Adore her. She’s my favourite, now zap him.’

There was a fizz of electricity and the much more powerful shock made Troy howl with pain. The Canadians had backed off so that they didn’t catch the shock and Troy – who also remembered what he’d been taught about delaying the interrogation process – jumped up and made a run for it.

He only got about three steps before one of the Canadians got him around the neck, swept his legs away and slammed him to the floor.

God was distracted and Marc saw his opportunity, standing up and jumping on to the bonnet of the car. He slid over the polished metal and jumped down beside the passenger door. The headlights were on, so Marc figured that the key was in the ignition. He went to get in the driver’s seat, planning a daring charge through the wooden doors, but was gutted to see piles of bricks where the front wheels were supposed to be.

Instead he turned to the apparatus used for giving electric shocks. The device was on wheels and had been adapted from a rack used for charging car batteries. As a Canadian who’d run around the back of the car closed in, Marc gave it an almighty shove.

The apparatus toppled forwards, making the lead that was connecting it to the mains electricity pull tight, before lashing forwards with such force that the plug ripped the socket out of the wall. The bulbs on the ceiling flickered, then went out, plunging the barn into darkness, apart from the two narrow headlight beams which were powered by the car battery.

‘That’s the main fuse,’ someone shouted.

Marc’s path to the exit was blocked by God, but there was nowhere else to go so he made a run for it. Within three steps, he was sandwiched between God and the man who’d run behind the car. Marc’s backward kick didn’t connect, and he was soon flat on his chest with a knee pressed against his back and Troy’s face close enough for the boys to feel each other’s breath.

‘Little shits,’ God shouted, as he leaned over the shock apparatus. ‘This is wrecked. You two are dead, you hear me, dead?’

‘I’m not scared of you,’ Marc shouted. ‘Do your worst, I reckon you’ve got eight minutes left before you have to let me go, and you can’t zap us because I broke your toy.’

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’ the man pinning Troy to the floor asked.

Troy whispered to Marc. ‘Sorry I wimped out.’

‘You bloody should be,’ Marc replied bitterly.

‘We’ve still got the hose and the ice bath, sir,’ said the man holding Marc down. ‘Or we could cuff ’em and hang ’em on the wall by their wrists.’

Marc saw someone new come through the door, and recognised his voice.

‘And what exactly will that prove?’ Brigadier Ouellet asked. ‘You’re not here to torture them. You’re here to see whether these boys have got what it takes to stand up to an interrogator, and I think they’ve made their case, don’t you? Give ’em both a kick up the arse and send them back to bed.’

*

Henderson decided to let his team lie in until nine. When they came along to the house for breakfast, he sat at a long dining table, dipping bread soldiers into a soft-boiled egg and enjoying the act rather more than anyone older than ten was supposed to.

‘Sleep well?’ Henderson asked, stifling a smile.

‘What do you think?’ Marc said bitterly. ‘You could have warned us.’

‘Where would the fun have been in that?’ Henderson asked.

The room filled with the sound of grating chairs as the kids took their places. The cook brought over two bowls of eggs and a steaming pot of tea.

‘Soft-boiled, hard-boiled,’ she explained. ‘Go easy on the milk, we’re almost out.’