Henderson's Boys: Eagle Day (21 page)

‘Good,’ Ohlsen said. ‘I’ve got a call to make, so you’d better hang up. You stay by that phone and I’ll let you know if there’s a hitch.’

*

The translator exited the interview room, leaving Luc and Vivien crying. Maxine felt horrible, knowing that Marc and PT faced a much less serious fate, but it was still a shock when Vivien turned on her.

‘My Dumont has never been in trouble before he met your two,’ she snapped.

Maxine knew Vivien was hurting and ignored the jab. ‘Let’s try to stay calm, eh?’

‘Oh, that’s so easy for to say,’ Vivien screamed. ‘You’ll have your boys back in a few days, but my Dumont will be dead.’
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‘I’m so sorry,’ Maxine said. ‘I know this is horrible. I wish I could say something that would help.’

‘It was your two who put Dumont up to it,’ Vivien said. ‘Like that first night when you arrived at my house. Straight away those two little devils of yours had him sneaking the wine and my Dumont was up being sick all night afterwards.’

Maxine was irked, but stayed calm. ‘I don’t think that’s entirely fair.’

This innocuous remark pushed Vivien over the edge. She broke free of her husband’s grasp and lunged for Maxine’s neck.

‘Prostitute!’ Vivien screamed, as Maxine thumped back against the wall.

Vivien carried more weight, but Maxine was half her age. Maxine felt pity, but had to defend herself from the attack. She reached out and ripped her long nails down Vivien’s cheek.

‘Bitch!’ Vivien shouted, as her husband tried to prise the women apart. ‘Your brats killed my Dumie. As good as murdered him.’

‘Calm down,’ Luc said, as he pulled Vivien away from Maxine, but she instantly turned on her husband.

‘So now you take her side, you old bastard?’ Vivien wailed, as she thumped on Luc’s chest.

Maxine realised her best option was to leave the room but as she grabbed the door, Henderson pushed it inwards, hitting Maxine in the face and knocking her back within hair-pulling distance of Vivien.

Henderson bundled into the fray as Vivien wound Maxine’s long hair around her hand and pulled with all her might.

Maxine screamed so loud that nobody heard Henderson shouting, ‘It’s going to be OK, I’ve sorted it.’

*

Marc shuddered as the cell door came open and an Unteroffizier
¹¹
walked into the room. He had bright red hair, but after three hours of beatings Marc found himself judging fist and boot size before anything else.

‘Can you walk?’ the Unteroffizier asked. ‘I can,’ Marc said, using German because the Unteroffizier’s French was terrible. ‘The other two won’t get far. Where are we going, anyway?’

‘Out,’ the Unteroffizier said, as he moved across to help PT stand up. ‘Your parents are waiting in the reception area, I believe.’

Marc was elated, but didn’t let it show in case it was a trap.

‘I thought …’ Marc began, but the German cut him dead.

‘Release papers are posted.’

PT could just about walk, but the German had to call one of his colleagues and the pair dragged Dumont down the hallway to a lift. The Germans shoved him into the lift and when it reached the ground-floor lobby Luc and Henderson rushed over to pick him up.

At the same moment, Major Ghunsonn came out of an office and went berserk.

‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘Who authorised the release papers? Where in the name of Christ is my custody officer?’

Once Dumont was on his feet his parents supported him. Henderson gave PT his arm and Maxine gave Marc a quick hug. But as they reached the former hotel’s entrance, Major Ghunsonn sent two armed men to block their path.

‘Somebody tell me what is going on,’ Ghunsonn demanded, as a worried-looking officer presented three sets of release papers. ‘Oberst Ohlsen! What has this got to do with that bald cretin?’

Ghunsonn stormed over to Henderson and pointed at Marc. ‘Your boy said that you’re a wealthy family. How much did you bribe Ohlsen?’

Henderson spoke in his politest German. ‘That’s a very serious accusation to make about a senior officer in a public place, Major. If you feel aggrieved, I’d suggest putting your accusation in writing to General Schultz.’

The major was turning bright red. He eyeballed Henderson for several seconds, before looking at the two guards blocking the exit. ‘Get them out of my headquarters.’

Luc took a deep breath and looked at Ghunsonn. ‘The valet has the keys to my car – can you arrange—’

Ghunsonn sensed a chance for revenge and waggled the release papers under Luc’s nose. ‘I see papers for three boys. I have papers for a car, in fact I believe that the only car that I saw has been requisitioned for essential use by the occupying forces. Now get out of my headquarters before I have the whole lot of you locked up for loitering.’
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Marc was delighted to breathe outdoor air as they moved down the front steps of the hotel.

Luc turned towards Henderson as he struggled down the steps with Dumont. ‘You clearly have some influence. Can you do anything about my car?’

Henderson smiled dryly. ‘I got your son out. I’m not pushing my luck by calling back and asking to save a car.’

Vivien had bloody claw marks down her face and gave Henderson an evil look as Marc looked up and down the deserted street. The streetlights were off and the windows blacked out to prevent air raids.

‘So how do we get home?’ Marc asked. ‘PT and Dumont can hardly walk, it’s thirteen kilometres and we’ve got no papers to be out after curfew.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ Henderson said wearily, as PT’s weight dragged on his back. ‘I always do, don’t I?’

¹¹
Unteroffizier – a mid-ranked German soldier, equivalent to a British or American corporal.

Henderson stepped into Oberst Ohlsen’s office holding one of the best bottles from Luc Boyle’s cellar.

‘Compliments of me and the rest of the Boyle family,’ Henderson said. ‘And I’d personally like to show my gratitude by offering to buy you lunch.’

‘You look bloody awful,’ Ohlsen noted, as he tipped back his chair and studied the label on the bottle.

‘I had to come here and practically beg the night staff to set me up with a set of curfew papers,’ Henderson explained. ‘My nephew Dumont took a real hammering, so my brother Luc and his wife stayed in Calais with friends. It was nearly two by the time I’d walked thirteen kilometres home with my boys.’

Henderson obviously didn’t add that he’d had to stay up another hour to listen out for the return message from McAfferty. After walking back from the barn, he’d ended up getting into bed less than two hours before he had to get up for work.

‘The wine is appreciated,’ Ohlsen said. ‘But I’ll have to decline lunch in case people talk. Major Ghunsonn came to my quarters in a furious temper, accusing me of taking bribes. He only calmed down when I reminded him of his rank and threatened to court martial him for insubordination. Ghunsonn is well connected and the type who bears a grudge, so you your boys had better steer clear of military police from now on.’
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Henderson nodded. ‘Marc and PT have been told that if they put one toe off my farm they’ll be getting a thrashing like they’ve never had before.’

‘Do you know, my wife complains if I thrash my boys too severely,’ Ohlsen said, as he aimed a hand at the picture of two fit-looking lads. ‘But boys need discipline. It worries me what they get up to when I’m all the way over here.’

‘Never did me any harm,’ Henderson agreed. ‘My father kept a cane in an umbrella stand by the front door. He only had to look towards the hallway for all thoughts of mischief to go up in smoke.’

The Oberst laughed. ‘One thing came up when I was speaking with Ghunsonn. He said that the youngest of your boys spoke in German and even had the cheek to try bribing him.’

‘That’ll be Marc,’ Henderson said, nodding. ‘I tried with all three of my kids, but he’s the only one who showed an aptitude for languages.’

‘And he can hold a decent conversation?’

‘Reasonably well,’ Henderson said, wary because he didn’t know where this was leading. ‘He isn’t fluent, but he gets by well enough.’

‘You can’t imagine the earache I’ve been getting since that landing demonstration went wrong yesterday. Goering’s told everyone in Berlin that our invasion plans are a shambles and the general’s made it clear that my career prospects will take a sharp slide if things don’t come right. Our single biggest problem remains a lack of decent translators and I couldn’t help wondering about your boy.’

‘He’s only twelve,’ Henderson said. ‘I think he’d struggle with the kind of intense translation work that’s expected of us. And the hours – I have a thirteen-kilometre bike ride to and from headquarters and some nights I don’t finish work until gone seven.’

‘I realise he’s young,’ Ohlsen said. ‘But I had one specific task in mind. We have a naval architect named Kuefer. He’s working on barge conversions, but he wastes a lot of time trying to communicate with the local shipbuilders. It’s creating a bottleneck, but I don’t have enough translation staff to give him someone full time. Your boy might fit the bill.’

Henderson instantly understood the intelligence potential of the position, but he didn’t know how Marc would cope with the job.

‘Perhaps you could give him a trial,’ Henderson suggested. ‘The thing is, I only have one bike. With the ban on us French purchasing petrol I can’t use our car.’

‘I can arrange papers and fuel tokens,’ Ohlsen said. ‘And Marc will be paid the going rate for translation. We don’t have any other boys so I expect he’ll be paid the women’s rate.’

‘A trial then,’ Henderson said warmly. ‘It’ll keep the boy out of mischief, might even do him some good.’

*

Maxine ironed a set of clothes for Marc before subjecting him to a severe haircut and a barely warm bath. Henderson roused him at six the following morning and made him put on the smart boots he’d stolen two days earlier, before an instantly forgotten lesson in the art of knotting a tie.

Henderson had lugged a can of petrol home the previous night and after a short battle to get Maxine’s Jaguar started he blasted across empty countryside with the roof down and the speedometer touching seventy miles an hour.

After a brief stop at a regular checkpoint on the edge of Calais, the Jaguar created a stir as Henderson parked in the cobbled courtyard behind army headquarters.Two guards stepped out to look at it and a small fellow who turned out to be the naval architect, Kuefer, got out of a Mercedes limousine to stroke it.

‘Beautiful,’ he purred. ‘They say if a design looks right it right, and this looks very right indeed.’
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The Jaguar SS100 was a beautiful car, famed for being the world’s first production car capable of a hundred miles an hour. But at that moment Henderson would have happily swapped it for a battered Citroën. Jaguars were the tools of ch‰teau owners and playboys (play, in Maxine’s case), and the vehicle jarred horribly with his back story of being a poor farmer.
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Henderson also worried that some greedy officer might try to commandeer her and Maxine had already told him that he’d not be sharing her bed if any harm came to her most prized possession.

‘Be good, listen carefully and do what you’re told,’ Henderson said, as he kissed Marc on both cheeks. ‘I think I’d better move the Jag out to a side street.’

Kommodore Kuefer had a slight build and a feminine air. Despite the warm weather, he wore a leather overcoat on top of his navy uniform. Marc groaned as he settled into the rear of the Mercedes beside him.

‘You’re much too young to be making sounds like that,’ Kuefer laughed.

‘I got on the wrong end of a rifle butt and a couple of German boots,’ Marc explained, giving Henderson a quick wave as the car pulled away. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Dunkirk first,’ Kuefer said. ‘It’s about forty kilometres east. Then lunch, then back to my office. Hopefully you’ll have a good sense of what I do by day’s end.’

Dunkirk had been the last pocket of northern France held by allied forces. More than three hundred thousand soldiers – mainly British – had escaped across the Channel over a two-week period, while a million and a half French, Dutch and Belgians were forced to surrender.

Two and a half weeks of intense shelling and aerial bombardment had left little but rubble. Barely a handful remained from a pre-war population of fifty thousand, but every open space, from cemeteries to stadiums, contained malnourished and lightly guarded prisoners.

‘They’re our labour pool,’ Kuefer explained, as the back wheels juddered over a thigh-width crack in the road. ‘A herd. They throw in a few bread rolls and it’s like feeding time at the zoo. You have to hose off the filth and feed them for a couple of days before they’re fit for anything.’

Marc studied Kuefer’s face, trying to detect pity or contempt for the prisoners in his expression. All he saw was a familiar numbness. If you gave too much thought to suffering you’d become paralysed, and apparently that applied as much to a naval Kommodore as a twelve-year-old refugee.

‘There are similar camps near Calais,’ Marc noted. ‘But smaller. It surprises me that more don’t try to escape.’

‘The strong-hearted ones escaped three months back,’ Kuefer explained. ‘They’re quite weak now. They’ll have to be released before the winter comes, otherwise they’ll freeze to death.’

The Germans feared disease and had used prisoners to clear and burn a hundred thousand bodies, but no effort had been made to rebuild the ghost town, except around the docks. Dunkirk had a huge manmade harbour with corridors of docks and canals that led deep into the countryside.

Kuefer told his driver to pull up at the edge of a large dry dock.

‘Get out,’ Kuefer said. ‘You’ll soon get a good idea of what this is about.’

Kuefer led Marc across scorched grass, beyond which a fence shielded the edge of a concrete dock. It was more than fifty metres wide, twenty-five deep, and vast metal gates kept the water out at the far end. More than a dozen barges were lined up on the dock’s floor.

‘In peacetime this is a painting dock for the hulls of large vessels,’ Kuefer explained.