Henderson's Boys: The Escape (12 page)

‘Maybe if we stay here, Henderson will come and find us.’

Rosie tutted. ‘Don’t be thick, Paul. There’s about a million people on the road. How’s he going to do that?’

‘I don’t know. I could draw a big sign or something.’

Rosie shook her head with contempt. ‘He doesn’t even know that Dad’s dead. We’re on our own.’

‘All right,’ Paul said irritably. ‘I’m just thinking out loud.’

‘Besides, whatever we do we’ve got to be discreet,’ Rosie continued. ‘The German agents could be out looking for us too.’

The string of events was so overpowering that Paul had forgotten that it began with a German agent in his bedroom less than twenty-four hours earlier. ‘What if the police are looking for us too?’ he asked.

‘They’ll have found the dead bodies in our apartment,’ Rosie said, nodding. ‘There’s bound to be an investigation, but hopefully they’ve got other things on their minds right now.’

‘I’m going to look for my mummy,’ Hugo said, as he stood up and raced off towards the square.

There was an innocence about Hugo’s words that choked Rosie up. He made it sound like he was going into the garden to kick a ball around. How would the little boy react if he found his mummy badly burned or injured? Rosie wanted to help, but she was engulfed in her own problems and within a few seconds Hugo had vanished into the smoke.

Rosie began undoing her father’s jacket. She took out his pocket book and wallet. ‘Get his watch and his rings, Paul.’

Paul had never touched a dead person before. He wanted to argue with Rosie, because taking a wallet from a jacket seemed far less ghoulish than prising off rings.

‘Maybe we should leave him be,’ Paul said. ‘Out of respect.’

This annoyed Rosie and her natural bossiness surfaced. ‘I don’t know about you, Paul, but I haven’t got a cheque book or a bank account. A ring or a watch might buy us food or petrol on the road.’

‘OK,’ Paul said. ‘Don’t bite my head off.’

But he didn’t mind being angry with his sister. It gave him something to focus on while twisting the rings off his dead father’s hand. It took less than a minute for the pair to strip away everything of value.

Rosie stood up and handed Paul the gun. But she was older and bossier, and it seemed all wrong.

‘What do you want me to do with that?’ he asked, shaking his head fretfully.

‘Tuck it in your trousers,’ Rosie explained. ‘I’m wearing a summer dress. What am I gonna do, stick it up my bum?’

Paul pushed the gun down his trousers and pulled his shirt out to cover it over.

‘Let’s move,’ Rosie said coldly.

‘What about Dad’s body?’

‘Stick around feeling sorry if you want. But I don’t plan on being here when the planes come back.’

Paul was indignant. ‘How come you’re so heartless?’

‘I’m
not
heartless,’ Rosie snapped, as she grabbed Paul by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him in close. ‘Do you think I’m happy about this? Do you think I don’t feel like sitting on the kerb crying my eyes out? But the bombs dropping out of the sky are
real
, Paul. The German armies heading towards us are
real
. We’ve got to be strong because weak people are dying all around and nobody gives a damn.’

A tear streaked down Rosie’s cheek as she shoved her startled brother away.

‘Now you’ve made me cry,’ Rosie said aggressively, as she bent forwards and kissed her father’s forehead. ‘I can’t look at him any more.’

After the kiss, Rosie began to walk away. Paul hurriedly removed his father’s bloody cravat. Then he straightened the silk square by flicking it in the air and laid it over his father’s face. The wind would probably blow it away, but it was the only dignified gesture he could think of.

Paul felt weird as he realised he’d never see the face beneath the cravat again. For a moment he felt like he was going to shit his pants, but he managed to stand up and dash after his sister.

‘Rosie …
Rosie!
Wait!’

*

It’s hard to think if you’re moving fast and Rosie didn’t want to think about anything. Smaller and weaker, Paul struggled to keep up but knew that he had to because Rosie was all he had left. The army had shored up the damaged bridge and although they’d been away from the car for less than half an hour the great queue of traffic that had driven swiftly through the night had moved on and been replaced by a thinly spaced convoy of horses, handcarts and dirty humans.

‘Where’s it gone?’ Paul shouted, as he approached a distinctive kink in the road where he was sure they’d left the car.

Rosie was twenty metres ahead and she’d already eyed the outline of the Citroën through a pair of trees. The vehicle leaned forwards with its front wheels tilted into a ditch. She gasped as she scrambled towards it. The back end had a long dent where a high vehicle – most likely a truck – had forced it off the road.

‘Is it OK?’ Paul asked breathlessly as he raced up behind his sister. ‘How are we gonna pull it out of there?’

As Rosie walked around to the passenger side, she could smell petrol and noticed a dark patch on the earth, with the screw-in filler cap lying beside it.

‘They’ve siphoned off our petrol,’ Rosie gasped. ‘There goes our chance of getting someone to drive us.’

‘Damn,’ Paul said, slapping his hands against his thighs, before looking inside the car. ‘It doesn’t look like anything’s been touched inside.’

Rosie unlocked the trunk and sure enough their luggage remained.

‘Maybe we could buy some petrol in town,’ Paul suggested, as he opened the back door and leaned in. The smell of cracked leather and his father’s hair tonic now seemed like part of some other kid’s life.

‘No chance,’ Rosie said. ‘I haven’t seen a petrol pump without a sold-out sign on it since we left Paris.’

‘What about Dad’s watch? It’s gold, it must be worth way more than a tank of petrol.’

Rosie shrugged forlornly. ‘Paul, right now I doubt we’d be able to buy a tank of petrol if the entire trunk was filled with thousand-franc notes. Besides, I doubt his watch is worth much. Dad had a decent job and we’re better off than most, but we’re not millionaires you know.’

When he was little Paul had often been rebuked for messing around with his father’s watch and this had given him an exalted sense of its value. Now he realised it was nothing more than battered gold plate.

‘So what
are
we supposed to do then?’

She shrugged again. ‘We can’t stick around here, and it’s only a matter of time before someone robs the car.’

‘Dad loved this car,’ Paul said sadly.

‘Well, we can’t carry it on our backs, can we? He would have had to abandon it or sell it for next to nothing when we got to Bordeaux anyway.’

‘I suppose.’ Paul nodded.

‘We’ll just have to gather up as much as we can carry. Mum’s jewellery, a few bits of clothing and the documents. Then we’ll head back into town and try contacting Henderson by telephone. If that doesn’t work we’ll have to move south on foot. We’re both healthy – we should be able to walk it in four or five days.’

‘I guess,’ Paul said warily. ‘I just hope the German tanks don’t beat us to it.’

³
Seventh arrondissement – a district of Paris, similar to a British postal district.

Marc felt like he was going to wake up. It would be one of those intense dreams, where your back is all sweaty and it takes a couple of seconds to realise that it’s not for real. But Paris
was
real.

For an hour he walked through streets of apartment blocks. Sometimes along grand boulevards with more cars queuing at the traffic lights than he saw passing the orphanage in a week. Other roads were narrow, with crates of bottles, overflowing bins and the smell of piss in the air.

These outer streets went on for so long that Marc began to wonder if he was going in circles. But occasional glimpses of the city centre reassured him, with the tall buildings gradually growing in size. He passed several Metro stations that could have whisked him away, but he’d never been on a train before and somehow imagined that he’d make a fool of himself or, worse, get mangled on an escalator or trapped between the doors.

There were signs of war everywhere: sandbags piled up in front of windows, anti-aircraft guns in the squares and German planes skimming overhead. The previous night had seen the heaviest bombardment of the war and Paris was capped by a cloud of ash and smoke that kept the sun under wraps. But the scale of the city made the odds of actually being shot or bombed seem slight.

Marc had spent his whole life dreaming about running away to Paris, but the longer he walked the more reality wore him down. He’d managed a good breakfast, but soon he’d be hungry again. Soon he’d need lunch, and dinner and a place to sleep, and clean clothes and … Human needs are relentless. The money would run out. He’d have to find work, or steal, or …

But he’d known that from the start and he reckoned he’d done OK so far. Marc realised, as he approached it, that the city centre would bring no great revelation and would probably be more crowded and intimidating than the outlying districts. He decided to make a go of finding some food and a place to stay in the next decent neighbourhood he came to.

It happened to be a small shopping street two kilometres north of the city centre. One of hundreds throughout the city where locals bought food, newspapers, had their clothes laundered and gossiped in a café.

Marc stopped by the grand frontage of a cinema with posters for an American movie
in colour
. But it was early, and the metal grilles were pulled down over the front. At the orphanage the nuns would rig up a projector and let the boys watch silent comedies every Christmas, but Marc had never been to a proper cinema and the prospect excited him. At the side of the cinema was a sizeable but largely empty café. After a second’s hesitation he stepped inside. The miserable-looking waitress took one glance and decided that she didn’t like him.

‘Refugee?’ she snorted.

Marc nodded. There was no point denying it – he was filthy after getting bounced around inside the army truck and any children still living in Paris would be at school.

‘Do you have money?’ she asked, blocking Marc’s path before he could get near a table.

He pulled a small bundle of notes from a trouser pocket – Sabine had advised him to divide the money between his pigskin bag and several pockets so that he couldn’t lose all of it at once.

The woman crinkled her nose and dragged a chair out from a table. ‘It’s too early for lunch, but I can fix you a plate.’

Marc nodded. ‘Would you mind filling my bottle of water?’

The waitress looked like this was a great imposition, but eventually snatched the empty bottle. The only other customers sat three tables across. Much to Marc’s relief the miserable waitress sat herself at a distant table and lit a cigarette. His food and refilled water bottle were brought out by a great barrel of a man. It comprised a bowl of soup with stringy meat in it, along with chunks of bread and slices of cheese.

‘Whereabouts are you from?’ the man asked, as he ran his fat hand through a beard.

Marc felt uneasy. The only men he’d ever dealt with were Director Tomas and a pair of schoolmasters who rivalled him in ferocity. ‘Near Beauvais, sir,’ he said politely, as he dipped a spoon into his soup. Then he shuddered and wondered if he should have told a lie.

‘Beauvais, eh?’ the man said, clearly intrigued. ‘How long ago? What’s the situation up there?’

‘I left early this morning. There are quite a lot of planes, regular bombing and stuff.’

‘Artillery?’ the man asked. ‘Sorry to be a pest, but the news on Radio France isn’t worth a damn.’

Marc couldn’t help smiling at the swear-word, and his tension eased as he realised the man just wanted to know when he could expect Germans on his doorstep. ‘I didn’t see any shelling myself, but I heard that there was some.’

The man nodded solemnly. ‘Artillery would put the Boche within twenty kilometres. Did you see troops retreating?’

‘A few,’ Marc said.

‘I’d say they’ll reach Paris within five days, a week at most.’

‘Will you leave?’

‘At the drop of a hat,’ the man said, smiling, but then he pointed a thumb at the miserable waitress. ‘But my wife says no.’

The waitress looked up from her magazine and yelled across the café. ‘I’d rather be shelled by the Boche than live with your relatives.’

‘Word of advice, my boy,’ the man whispered, as he theatrically shielded his mouth with his hand. ‘Don’t
ever
get married.’

Marc smiled. He felt a lot more comfortable than when he’d entered and decided to ask a question. ‘Is there anywhere around here I could stay?’