Scorched Earth (17 page)

‘Seen a lot of action?’

‘Not a lot. It’s all woodland south and west of the city,’ Xavier explained. ‘I’ve been out there helping when Americans parachute equipment.’

‘Gaspard organises the drops?’

Xavier nodded. ‘He has a radio operator who gets instructions. Gaspard splits what we get with Maquis who live in the forest.’

‘And what does he use it for?’

‘A lot of the others come up with schemes,’ Xavier said. ‘But Gaspard never wants to do much.’

‘The Ghost Circuit notified Gaspard that the 108th was coming. Did they make
any
plans to slow them down?’

Xavier shook his head. ‘They say it’s not necessary. They say it’s not about
if
the Allies win the war, but
when
.’

‘Who’s
they
?’ Henderson asked.

‘Gaspard and his cronies. They have an unofficial arrangement with the German command. The Germans turn a blind eye to the parachute drops. In return, Gaspard keeps the Maquis out of Rouen and nobody shoots at the Nazis.’

‘So does the resistance do anything?’

‘The railways are our turf,’ Xavier explained. ‘We sabotage trains and steal cargo, but targets in town are off-limits.’

‘So Gaspard’s positioning himself for a big communist uprising?’

‘He wants to be Mayor of Rouen, as soon as the Germans are gone.’

Henderson laughed. ‘Gotta love politicians! Soldiers fight and die less than a hundred kilometres west, and that communist prick’s only worried about winning an election when it’s all over.’

Paul came into the little kitchen as Henderson spoke. ‘Are you hearing this?’

‘Most of it,’ Paul said. ‘I checked with Sam and Joel. There’s no sign that anyone saw us come in here. I reckon we’re OK.’

‘Good,’ Henderson said, then he pointed at the backpack filled with explosives. ‘Any bright ideas on how to sabotage the 108th with that lot?’

‘You might destroy one or two tanks,’ Paul said, as he peered down into the bag. ‘But security will be on red alert after our grenade attack on the fuel depot. We got lucky last night, but we can’t rely on air raids enabling our getaway a second time.’

‘I’m no fan of suicide missions either,’ Henderson said thoughtfully. ‘But from what young Xavier tells me, the resistance in this town has got way too chummy with the Germans. So while the Nazis concentrate on protecting the 108th, I reckon we should try making life a bit less cosy for Gaspard.’

Team B had slept a few hours in shifts and eaten out of tins, and it was getting dark as Henderson, Joel, Sam and Paul got ready to leave the house.

‘You’ve been a massive help,’ Henderson told Xavier, as he tied the fifteen-year-old to a dining chair. ‘I wouldn’t want you to rot in here. I’ve written a note to go through the door of that butcher’s shop up the street. I’ll put it through the letterbox and they’ll untie you in the morning.’

Xavier nodded as Henderson prepared a gag, made from one of Xavier’s socks with a ball of candlewax stuffed inside it.

‘Joel did wash it out,’ Henderson said. ‘You’re a decent kid and I wish we’d met under better circumstances. You’ve got a few bruises coming out. Tell everyone that I tortured you for the information and you should be OK.’

Xavier made a muffled groan as Henderson forced the gag in and secured it with a leather dog collar they’d found in a kitchen cupboard.

Then, to Xavier’s surprise, Henderson grabbed his knife and slit the base of his earlobe. As Xavier moaned in pain, Henderson tipped the chair on to its side, making it look like Xavier had been kicked into the dirt and broken glass on the floor.

‘That’s for your own good,’ Henderson said. ‘I didn’t tell you because there’s no advantage having time to think about it. The cut will bleed across your face for ten or fifteen minutes and you’ll look a proper sight when they find you in the morning.’

As a final thought, Henderson grabbed two ten-franc notes from his trouser pocket and tucked them into Xavier’s trousers.

‘Who’s ready?’ Henderson asked, as he grabbed his backpack.

Paul, Joel and Sam were all dressed for a warm evening.

‘I’ve got no ID, so you three need to walk ahead and warn me of any checkpoints,’ Henderson said. ‘Are you all clear on your roles?’

The boys nodded, then said awkward goodbyes to Xavier before heading out into darkness. The first part of their journey was a six-minute stroll to a laundry. Henderson banged angrily on a grille and spoke with a German accent.

‘You have my uniform?’

Clothes were in short supply, so even bags of dirty laundry had to be guarded. A fat old Frenchman puffed a cigarette as he waddled to the door.

‘We’re closed,’ the guard said, pointing to a sign as he shone a torch in Henderson’s face. ‘We open at five tomorrow morning.’

Henderson used information Xavier had given him. ‘You live at twenty-one Rue Beaumont, don’t you?’ Henderson asked.

‘And if I do?’ the guard asked.

‘I’ve heard rumours that your daughter passes communist newspapers,’ Henderson said. ‘Perhaps I could arrest her. Put her in a cell for a night of interrogation.’

To seem extra sinister, Henderson made a gesture like he was cupping a pair of breasts. This threat made the guard stiffen up like he’d had iced water tipped down his back.

‘If you give me your ticket I’ll fetch it for you. But your uniform might be wet. There’s nothing I can do about that.’

Henderson didn’t have a laundry ticket, but he made like he had one in his wallet. As the guard reached through the grille to take it, Henderson grabbed the man’s shirt and slammed him against the inside of the grille as Joel pointed a silenced pistol at his head.

‘Let us in or I’ll blow your head off,’ Joel hissed.

The guard bent awkwardly, undoing a bolt with his free hand before turning a latch. Henderson barged in, knocking the guard backwards.

‘Two German uniforms,’ Henderson told the guard, as he pointed at Joel. ‘An officer’s uniform for me. Enlisted man for him.’

‘Who are you?’ the guard asked, as he backed up down a short hallway. ‘We don’t do things like this in this town. If the Nazis don’t catch you, the resistance will.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Henderson said. ‘Now where can we get uniforms?’

They’d entered at the back, so they had to cross through an area full of wooden washtubs, mangles and steam irons. The floors were puddled and there were mounds of smelly washing ready for the next day’s work. They reached a collection area where suits and uniforms hung from rails behind a counter, while unironed laundry was stacked up in numbered cotton sacks.

‘Tie him up,’ Henderson ordered.

As Paul and Sam made the guard lie on the floor and trussed him up, Henderson and Joel picked uniforms that fitted. Joel found a cloth soldier’s cap, but the laundry didn’t deal with the stiff braided caps worn by army officers and there were no belts or boots.

Fortunately Henderson’s plan relied on getting close to the Germans, not on passing a detailed inspection. They left in a hurry through the laundry’s front door. The 11 p.m. curfew was getting close and people were hurrying home. Streets that had been closed for the 108th to pass through had been reopened and unlike earlier there was a large security checkpoint in operation on a road leading to the station.

The quartet avoided this route. Instead they turned on to a side street which was lined with parked cars – a highly unusual sight during a fuel shortage. One was an impressively long Mercedes staff car, but the rest were shabby French vehicles that had been seized from civilians for use by officers in the local army garrison. Some even had large metal containers on the roof, indicating that they’d been converted to run on coal gas.

Henderson looked at Joel and spoke quietly. ‘Steal something that looks like it’ll shift and check there’s at least a quarter tank of petrol before you start the ignition.’

‘Will do,’ Joel said.

Beyond the parked cars lay a small, pedestrianised square, set up exactly how Xavier had described it. There were no signs banning Frenchmen, but there were three cafés and a restaurant around the square and their street terraces were dominated by men in German uniform enjoying a warm summer’s evening.

Xavier hadn’t been able to name the restaurant where the most senior Germans drank and dined, but the expensive look and the stripes and pips on customers’ uniforms made identifying it easy. There were even several black-uniformed SS officers drinking at an outside table.

As Joel prepared to break into a car, Sam came to a halt by the giant Mercedes, Paul walked to the square’s entrance and Henderson strode on towards the restaurant with the senior officers sitting outside.

A bell jangled over the doorway as Henderson entered a muggy restaurant. The hot weather meant that the tables outside were much busier, and none of the diners inside paid any attention to Henderson’s slightly out-of-kilter uniform as a waitress approached.

‘Is it too late to dine?’ Henderson asked.

‘I’m very sorry,’ the waitress said. ‘Our chef has to get home before the curfew.’

‘Ahh,’ Henderson said. ‘Then is there at least time for some drinks with my friends?’

The waitress turned back to look at a smartly dressed Frenchman behind the bar, who nodded.

‘Any table you wish,’ the woman said.

Henderson took the large pack off his back and selected a table at the front, close to the tables outside.

‘This pack is heavy,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll stick it here while I run out to tell my friends that I’ve found a table.’

‘No problem,’ the waitress said.

As Henderson set the backpack down, he sneaked a hand under a flap and snapped a glass time-pencil detonator. This detonator was rated for one minute, but they weren’t the most accurate devices so he actually had somewhere between thirty seconds and two minutes to get away.

Running across the square might alert the waitress, so Henderson could only go at a brisk walk, making signals like he was beckoning his imaginary friends towards him. When Paul saw Henderson exit without his pack, he reached up as though he was stretching into a yawn.

Joel had already shorted out the car’s ignition to start the engine and he pulled out on Paul’s signal. Sam glanced around furtively before unfurling a bed sheet on which was scrawled a message:

THE
REAL
ROUEN RESISTANCE
ACCEPTS NO COMPROMISE WITH NAZIS

Below the message, Paul had carefully drawn out the resistance’s Cross of Lorraine emblem.

Sam quickly draped the bed sheet between the Mercedes’ silver-star hood ornament and the driver’s side door-mirror. Joel stopped the car just past the square’s entrance. Paul hopped in the back, followed closely by Sam.

As Henderson scrambled into the front passenger seat, his backpack exploded in the restaurant 100 metres away. The entire glass and wood façade got blown out, instantly killing everyone inside and spitting a powerful fireball.

As a dozen of Rouen’s most senior German officers got incinerated, shards of hot glass and debris flew across the square, causing serious injuries and leaving almost nobody sitting around the small square without burns or cuts.

The quickest way out of town and the most direct route to Paris would involve crossing the Seine, but the bridges would all have a German checkpoint, so they headed south. Cars were a rare sight, so the plan was to drive 4 kilometres and abandon the car when they reached the Dominaile Forest.

They passed the heavily-guarded gates of the fuel depot they’d sabotaged the night before with no problem, but as the terrain turned rural and the first trees scrolled past the side windows a truck roared out of a side turning and T-boned them.

Joel fought the steering wheel, but the truck was much heavier and their little car tilted on to its side. Injuries might have been far worse had the sideways skid not been absorbed by a huge hedge. The car had no seatbelts and Henderson found himself lying on top of Joel with a smell of fuel and the sound of free-spinning wheels.

When he looked in the back, Sam was clambering out, but Paul appeared to be unconscious. The car windows had been open. Paul’s shirt was in shreds and his shoulder bled profusely where it had been dragged along tarmac.

Henderson realised he had a slight concussion himself, because it seemed like one second he was looking at Paul, then his memory blanked and Sam had him halfway out of the car.

The truck was 30 metres away, stationary. The way it had come out of nowhere had to be deliberate and there appeared to be a group of scruffy young men peering cautiously around it.

‘Let’s move,’ Henderson said, as he flopped to the ground and found his feet.

There were dense trees on both sides of the road. Henderson grabbed Sam’s arm, but he was trying to climb back into the car.

‘My brother’s still in there,’ Sam protested.

The young men were still cautiously moving around the truck and it was now clear that they were local Maquis, not Germans. Finally, the bravest of the young men shouted, ‘Surrender.’

Henderson gave Sam a tug and the teenager found branches scraping his face as Henderson dragged him into the woods.

*

Team A’s mood relaxed after a few hours’ sleep in a barn. An accidental encounter with a lonely old farmer earned PT, Edith, Marc, Luc, Daniel and Michel a generous cooked dinner of eggs and wild mushrooms, served with local wine.

The farmer told them about a downed British airman he’d helped two years earlier and as he regularly foraged for mushrooms, he gave excellent information on the best paths for riding bikes and likely places for German checkpoints.

They left the farm at sunset and the Germans were now spread so thin that the convoy of bikes went 20 kilometres before seeing any sign of the enemy.

It was an abandoned Tiger tank. At first they thought it had been shot by an Allied plane or blown up by local resistance, but the outside was in good shape and when Luc climbed cautiously on to the turret he caught a strong whiff of burnt rubber and saw dials and controls melted from some kind of electrical fire.