Henderson's Boys: The Escape (2 page)

At first the pair only nodded and smiled, but since the weather had turned fine they’d managed a few conversations while sitting together in the grass, and occasionally Jae would share a bar of chocolate. They both sought a deeper connection, but their talk centred on local gossip and reminiscences from the days when they’d shared a classroom.

Jae always approached the cow shed as if she was taking a stroll and couldn’t care less, but she often doubled back or hid in the long grass before standing up and pretending to bump into Marc by accident as he came outside. The process was strangely exciting, even though they’d never exchanged more than words and chocolate.

On this particular Wednesday, Jae was surprised to see Marc emerge from the side door of the cow shed, bare-chested and in a vile temper. He lashed out with his rubber boot, sending a metal bucket clattering across the farmyard before he grabbed another and put it under the tap mounted on the shed’s exterior.

Intrigued by Marc’s fury, Jae hunkered down and leaned against the trunk of an elm. She watched as Marc wriggled out of his filthy boots then glanced around furtively before removing his under-shorts, trousers and the socks into which they were tucked. Jae had never seen a boy naked and clapped a hand over her mouth as Marc stepped up on to a large paving slab and grabbed a block of soap.

Marc cupped his hands and dipped them into the bucket, splashing water on himself before working the soap. The water was cold and even though the sun was hot he moved hurriedly. When he was lathered all over, he raised the bucket high into the air and drained the water over his head.

Soap burned his eyes as he reached out for a grotty towel wrapped over a wooden post.

‘You’ve got a big arse!’ Jae shouted, as she sprang out of the grass.

Marc urgently flicked the damp hair off his face and was stunned to see Jae’s brown eyes and sweet smile. He dropped the towel and lunged towards a pair of corduroy trousers.

‘Jesus,’ he choked, as the usually simple task of stepping into trousers became a frantic bout of hopping. ‘How long have you been there?’

‘Long enough.’ Jae grinned, pointing at a wooden screen lying flat on the pathway.

‘I don’t usually bother pulling it up … You’re never around until later.’

‘No school,’ Jae explained. ‘Some of the teachers have left. The Boche
¹
are on the march …’

Marc nodded as he buttoned his trousers and lobbed his work boots into the shed. ‘Did you hear the artillery shells earlier?’

‘Made me jump,’ Jae replied. ‘And the German planes! One of our maids said there were fires in town, near the marketplace.’

‘You can smell burning when the wind changes … Your dad’s got that swanky Renault. You should head south.’

Jae shook her head. ‘My mother wants to leave, but Daddy reckons the Germans won’t bother us if we don’t bother them. He says they’ll still need farmers, whether it’s French or German crooks running the country.’

‘The director let us listen to the radio for a while last night,’ Marc said. ‘They said we’re planning a counterattack. We could drive the Boche out.’

‘Maybe,’ Jae said uncertainly. ‘But it doesn’t look good …’

Marc didn’t need Jae to explain further. The government radio stations bristled with optimistic talk about fighting back and broadcast stirring speeches on
turning points
and the
French fighting spirit
. But no amount of propaganda could disguise truckloads of injured troops retreating from the front.

‘It’s too depressing,’ Marc said, buttoning his shirt as he smiled at Jae. ‘I wish I was old enough to fight. Have you heard anything from your brothers?’

‘Nothing … But nobody knows about anyone. The post has gone to hell. They’re probably being held prisoner. Or they might have escaped at Dunkirk.’

Marc nodded optimistically. ‘BBC France said over a hundred thousand of our troops made it across the channel with the Brits.’

‘So why were you in such a mood?’ Jae asked.

‘When?’

‘Just now,’ she smirked. ‘When you steamed out of the shed and kicked the bucket.’

‘Oh,
that
. I was all set to finish when I realised I’d left my shovel in one of the pens. So I reached in to grab it, the cow’s tail shoots up and VOOM. It shits right in my face – mouth was open too …’

‘EWW!’ Jae shrieked, stepping back in horror. ‘I don’t know how you work in there! Just the smell makes me gag, and if
that
went in my mouth I’d die.’

‘Get used to anything, I guess. And your dad’s all right in some ways. He knows it’s a filthy job, so I only have to work half as long as the boys in the fields and he gave me boots and some of your brothers’ old clothes. They’re too big, but at least I don’t have to go around stinking of slurry.’

After the initial shock Jae saw the funny side and she re-enacted the scene, flicking her arm up like the cow’s tail and making a noise. ‘VOOM – SPLAT!’

Marc was irked. ‘It’s not funny. I’ve still got the taste in my mouth.’

But this only made Jae laugh harder and Marc got annoyed.

‘Little rich girl,’ he sniped. ‘
You
wouldn’t like it. You’d be crying your eyes out.’

‘VOOM – SPLAT!’ Jae repeated. She’d made herself laugh so hard that her legs were buckling.

‘I’ll show you what it’s like,’ Marc said, lunging forwards and wrapping his arms around her back.

‘
No
,’ Jae protested, kicking out as he hitched her off the ground. She was impressed by his strength, but she pounded bony fists against his back as he marched towards the open slurry pit at the end of the barn.

‘I’ll tell my dad!’ she squealed. ‘You’ll be in so much trouble.’

‘VOOM – SPLAT!’ Marc replied, as he swung Jae forwards so that her long hair dangled precariously over the foul-smelling pit. The stench had the physical presence of a slap. ‘Do you fancy a swim?’

‘Put me down,’ Jae demanded, her stomach churning as she looked at the flies on the bubbling crust of manure. ‘You oaf. If I get one speck of that on me you’ll be
so
dead.’

Jae was starting to wriggle and Marc realised he didn’t have the strength to hold her for much longer, so he swung her around and planted her back on the ground.

‘Idiot,’ she hissed, holding her stomach and retching.

‘But it seemed so funny when it happened to
me
,’ Marc said.

‘Pig head,’ Jae growled, as she swept her hair back into place.

‘Maybe the princess should go back to her big house and practise her Mozart,’ Marc teased, before making a screeching noise like a badly played violin.

Jae was spitting mad, not so much because of what Marc had just done, but because she’d let herself get so fond of him.

‘Mother always told me to stay away from your type,’ Jae said, squinting fiercely into the sunlight at him. ‘Orphans! Look at you, you’ve just washed but even your clean clothes are filthy rags.’

‘Temper, temper,’ Marc grinned.

‘Marc Kilgour, no wonder you work with manure. You
are
manure.’

Marc was anxious that Jae calm down. She was making a tonne of noise, and Farmer Morel prized his only daughter.

‘Take it easy,’ Marc begged. ‘Us lads muck around, you know? I’m sorry. I’m not used to girls.’

Jae charged forwards and tried to slap Marc across the face, but he dodged out of the way. She swung around to catch him across the back of the head, but her canvas plimsoll skidded on the dry earth and she found herself doing the splits.

Marc reached around to save Jae as her front foot slid forwards, but her smock slipped through his fingers and he could only watch as she toppled into the pit.

¹
Boche – offensive term for German people.

The first bombs fell on Paris on the night of 3 June. It was the first sign of the German advance and the explosions were the starting pistol for an evacuation of the city.

The Nazi regime had terrorised Warsaw following the invasion of Poland the year before and Parisians were expecting the same treatment: Jews and government officials shot in the streets, girls raped, homes looted and all men of fighting age taken to labour camps. While many Parisians fled – by train, car or even on foot – others carried on with their lives and were widely regarded as fools by those who were leaving.

Paul Clarke was a slightly-built eleven year old and one of the dwindling number of pupils who still attended Paris’ largest English-language school. The school served British children whose parents worked in the city but weren’t rich enough to send their offspring to a boarding school back home. They were the children of embassy clerks, low-ranking military attachés, drivers and others of similar status in private companies.

Since the beginning of May the pupil roll had fallen from three hundred to less than fifty. Most teachers had also gone south or returned to Britain, and the remaining kids – who ranged from five up to sixteen – were now taught a shambolic curriculum in the school’s wood-panelled main hall, overlooked by King George and a map of the British Empire.

By 3 June the only teacher left was the school’s founder and headmistress, Mrs Divine. Her typist had been drafted in as a classroom assistant.

Paul was a daydreamer and he much preferred this emergency arrangement to the years he’d spent seated rigidly amongst boys his own age, getting rapped on the knuckles with a wooden ruler whenever his mind wandered.

The work set by the elderly headmistress wasn’t up to Paul’s intelligence and this left him with time to doodle. There was hardly an exercise book or scrap of paper in Paul’s desk that wasn’t covered with delicately inked drawings. His preference was for armoured knights and fire-breathing dragons, but he could also make accurate drawings of sports cars and aeroplanes.

Presently, Paul’s ink-blotched fingers were pencilling the outline of a French biplane diving heroically towards a line of German tanks. The drawing had been requested by one of the younger boys, at the price of one Toblerone bar.

‘Hey, skinny,’ a girl said, as she flicked Paul’s ear and made him smudge the tip of a propeller.

‘For god’s sake,’ he said furiously, as he looked around and scowled at his older sister.

Rosie Clarke was thirteen and as different from Paul as siblings can be. There was some likeness in the eyes and they shared dark hair and a freckled complexion, but where Paul’s clothes drooped as if they were ashamed to hang from his thin body, Rosie had a buffalo’s shoulders, a precocious set of breasts and long nails that regularly drew her younger brother’s blood.

‘Rosemarie Clarke,’ Mrs Divine said, in a posh English accent. ‘How many times must I tell you to leave your brother alone?’

Paul appreciated having the teacher onside, but her remark also reminded the entire class that he got bullied by his sister and the mirth that rippled across the room was all at his expense.

‘Madame, our father’s outside,’ Rosie explained.

Paul snapped his head towards the window. He’d been engrossed in drawing and hadn’t seen the dark blue Citroën roll into the school courtyard. A glance at the clock over the blackboard confirmed that it was a good hour before home time.

‘Mrs Divine!’ Mr Clarke swooned, as he entered the hall a moment later. ‘I’m
so
sorry to disturb your lesson.’

The headmistress showed obvious distaste as Paul and Rosie’s dad kissed her on both cheeks. Clarke was the French sales representative for the Imperial Wireless Company. He dressed flamboyantly, in a dark suit, mirror-finished shoes and a polka-dot cravat that Mrs Divine found vulgar; but her expression warmed when Mr Clarke handed her a cheque.

‘We’ve got to collect some things from our apartment and then we’re heading south,’ he explained. ‘I’ve paid up until the end of term – I want the school to be here when things get back to normal.’

‘That’s most kind,’ Mrs Divine said. She’d spent thirty years building the school from nothing and seemed genuinely touched as she produced a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and dabbed her eye.

It was Paul and Rosie’s turn to play out the goodbye scene they’d seen many times over the past month. Boys shook hands like gentlemen, while departing girls tended to cry, hug and promise to write letters.

Paul found the stiff upper lip easy, because he’d never been popular and his favourite art teacher and two closest friends had already gone. Feeling rather awkward, he stepped towards the younger boys at the front of the room and returned the exercise book to its eight-year-old owner.

‘Guess I won’t get it done now,’ he said apologetically. ‘It’s outlined in pencil, so you could finish it yourself.’

‘You’re
so
good,’ the boy said, admiring the explosion around a half drawn tank as he opened his desk. ‘I’ll leave it. I’d only ruin it.’