Secret Army (12 page)

Hammer looked at his watch. ‘I’m travelling up to Newcastle to deal with an industrial dispute in the shipyards. That’s
another
bunch who don’t seem to realise that there’s a war on. I believe there’s a train at a quarter past ten, so I’d appreciate a car to take the captain and me to the station as quickly as possible.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Henderson smiled. He gave a salute before telling Rufus to prepare the little Austin.

After the fuss over Admiral Hammer’s visit, the kids who’d been shooting at the far end of the range discovered that he’d left before they even knew he’d arrived. Once the shooting equipment was cleaned and taken inside, McAfferty lined everyone up on the concrete playground behind the school building and announced that the unit had a chance of survival.

There was spontaneous cheering followed by rounds of hugs and handshakes.

‘But this is only the beginning of our battle,’ McAfferty said. ‘We must continue to train hard. Two more boys will arrive tomorrow and Group B will commence a full training programme on Monday.’

There was more cheering, apart from Mason who looked downcast because he’d have to move into the dormitory with the other little kids when his brother’s training began.

‘Now, everyone except Group A is dismissed. You have half an hour to go inside and have a break, then come down dressed and ready for Mr Takada’s combat class.’

Once Group B, the little kids and the staff had gone indoors McAfferty and Henderson faced a line-up of Paul, Rosie, Marc, PT, Joel and Luc.

‘Stand to attention,’ McAfferty shouted fiercely, and the six kids obeyed. ‘What happened upstairs last night was a
disgrace
. We can count our blessings that Captain Ramsgate didn’t see Luc trussed up in that shower and decide to shut down this entire unit on the spot. You should
all
be ashamed.’

Luc cleared his throat noisily. Henderson charged forward and shouted in his face. ‘Don’t you dare make a sound when the superintendent is speaking.’

‘Do you have something to say?’ McAfferty roared. ‘Spit it out then. Go on!’

‘Respectfully, madame,’ Luc said, with uncharacteristic humility. ‘I didn’t tie
myself
up.’

‘I’ve asked some of the other children,’ McAfferty said angrily. ‘It was concealed from me, but
apparently
it’s common knowledge that you’ve been bullying Paul quite nastily for some time. Not that it in any way makes what happened to you in the shower room acceptable. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, madame,’ Luc said sourly.

‘Cut that miserable bloody look off your face,’ Henderson screamed. ‘Because I can think of a million painful ways to change it if you don’t.’

‘You’re going to stand out here in the cold and think about what you’ve done to each other,’ McAfferty ordered. ‘You will not move. You will not eat, drink or take a toilet break. Meantime, Mr Henderson and I will be indoors discussing whatever futures you might have within this organisation.’

Henderson picked up the ringing telephone on his desk. ‘Unicorn Tyre Repair,’ he answered.

‘Henderson, you sneaky little bastard,’ Air Vice Marshal Walker shouted. ‘Am I or am I not your superior officer?’

‘I respect your authority absolutely, sir,’ Henderson said.

‘Then why am I holding a telegram from the minister of economic warfare?
After discussion at cabinet level we have decided to ask you to halt your review of operations for Espionage Research Unit B STOP We feel that the group must be allowed to complete training STOP An assessment of its value to be made solely based upon results of training STOP
.’

Henderson sounded affronted. ‘Sir, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with that telegram.’

‘Piffle!’ Walker screamed. ‘It was an internal review in a secret department. Nobody at cabinet level could possibly know about this review unless you blabbed. I don’t know what strings you pulled, Henderson, but you’ve now made an enemy out of me. I am
still
your superior and I have the power to make your life miserable. And the same goes for that jumped-up Scottish typist who’s supposed to be in charge of your shambolic little unit.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that you feel this way, sir,’ Henderson said, struggling not to laugh. ‘Just out of curiosity, sir, you’ve been operational for six full months now. You’ve set up four training schools and have three hundred pen-pushers working in Baker Street, but am I right in believing that your rather impressive bureaucracy has yet to successfully send a single operative into occupied France?’

Henderson heard a rather odd gurgling sound on the other end of the line. ‘You have no career, Henderson,’ Walker screamed. ‘I’ll have you digging shit trenches in darkest Africa before I’m through with you.’

‘If we lose the war none of us will have careers,’ Henderson pointed out.

‘Maybe I can’t stop your unit, but give me the tiniest excuse and I’ll squash you, Henderson. Nobody goes behind my back to Whitehall and gets away with it, you jumped-up little grammar school oik.’

‘You’re upset with me, aren’t you, sir?’ Henderson said sarcastically. ‘Maybe you should take some deep breaths to calm your nerves.’

‘This is insubordination,’ Air Vice Marshal Walker raged. ‘I could have you brought up on a court martial for this.’

‘Actually we’re in different branches of the service,’ Henderson said. ‘If you wanted to court-martial me, you’d need to go through my naval commanding officer. Superintendent McAfferty is sitting directly opposite. Would you like me to put her on the line, sir?’

Henderson heard a crashing sound, which he suspected was papers being thrown across a desk. Then the receiver slammed down in his ear.

‘I take it the Air Vice Marshal isn’t happy,’ McAfferty smiled, as she sat on the corner of Henderson’s desk and looked out of the window.

Henderson roared with laughter. ‘He sent you his best regards.’

‘Did he indeed?’ McAfferty said. ‘You really shouldn’t have teased him.’

‘Perhaps,’ Henderson admitted with a sigh. ‘But Walker’s an unimaginative snob. He’s never going to like our kind no matter how polite we are.’

‘True,’ McAfferty smiled, as she pointed out of the window at the half-frozen statues standing in the courtyard. ‘What are we going to do with them?’

‘Let them in, I guess,’ Henderson said, as he looked at his watch. ‘They’ve been out there for four and a half hours and we don’t want them getting hypothermia.’

‘Aye,’ McAfferty nodded. ‘I’ll tell Pippa to make some hot drinks and then go fetch them inside, but what do we do about the situation with Luc?’

‘He’s a nasty little shit,’ Henderson admitted.

‘So you think we should kick him out?’

Henderson shook his head. ‘He’s also a superb trainee. Luc’s no genius, but he can read a map or spin a lie to cover his tracks if he’s put in a tight spot. Physically he’s the best of the bunch. Very strong, he can run five miles with a pack, catch his breath and be ready to do it all again ten minutes later.’

‘But he’s just
horrible
,’ McAfferty said. ‘Paul’s such a sweet boy. Fancy bullying him like that.’

‘Yes,’ Henderson sighed. ‘But suppose you’ve got a mission where you need to parachute into a secure area, plant a bomb and escape to a rendezvous twenty-five miles away. Out of those six trainees, which one would you send?’

‘Luc,’ McAfferty admitted. ‘No doubt about it. But he’s like poison. The other kids hate him.’

‘They’ll keep Luc in check if they stick together as a group,’ Henderson said. ‘Frankly, Luc’s humiliation in the showers will probably do more to set him straight than any punishment you or I can dish out.’

McAfferty looked away from Henderson and smiled uncertainly. ‘I think we’ve become parents to a dozen children without really meaning to,’ she said. ‘I look at them standing out there. Little individuals, with their own personalities and their own pasts. But they’re wee kids.’

‘And you wonder if we should really be doing this,’ Henderson said. ‘So do I sometimes, but we’re fighting pure evil. We have to do everything we can to end this war.’

‘I know,’ McAfferty nodded. ‘But I’m in charge of this unit and I can’t help looking out at that line of kids and wondering how many we might send to their deaths.’

The overnight sleeper train brought Instructor Takada and the six Group-A trainees north to Edinburgh. After a bad breakfast in a station canteen filled with soot-blackened engine drivers and drunks who’d missed the last train home, a little steam engine pulling three coaches took them deep into the Highlands.

There were fewer than a dozen passengers, so the youngsters messed around in one compartment while Takada sat in another reading about German advances in North Africa and mines sinking merchant ships near Falmouth.

The rush of steam, squeaking overhead luggage racks and snow-capped hills on this clear Sunday morning made the war seem remote. But even out here the station signs had been painted over and at each stop the guard would step on to the platform and bawl out the station name.

The announcement of Braco Lodge came as a shock and the kids grabbed their bags and cases. Rosie was first on to the platform and yelled at the guard to hold the train. As the boys piled out behind she ran back to the train and thumped on the window next to Takada’s head.

‘It’s our stop!’ she shouted urgently, as the guard blew his whistle.

Fortunately the little steam locomotive was slow to pull away and Takada plus luggage made a running leap, landing on the sloping planks at the end of the platform with a minimal loss of dignity.

‘You supposed to tell me!’ Takada said angrily. ‘Must keep track of stations.’

PT cleared his throat. ‘Actually, as the adult we sort of expected you to tell us.’

‘He’s getting in practice for jumping off aeroplanes,’ Marc sniggered. ‘He starts off with trains and works his way up.’

Nobody had ever seen evidence of Takada having a sense of humour and his scowl almost melted the Scottish boulders.

‘I’d love to sit and draw this,’ Paul said as he looked at steep hills and birds circling in the clear sky. ‘It’s breathtaking.’

Luc sneered. ‘Breathtakingly crap from where I’m standing. I
hate
the countryside.’

‘So where are we?’ Rosie asked, as she looked along the deserted platform and then turned a complete three-sixty to take in the scene. ‘Are we supposed to walk?’

‘I think that’s a signpost over there,’ Joel noted. ‘But you can bet that it’s all painted over.’

Their uncertainty ended with the arrival of a squat paratroop sergeant, who emerged between overgrown hedgerows behind the platform and rattled off words like machine-gun fire. ‘Well, that made a nice little bleedin’ pantomime out of getting off the train,’ he said happily. ‘I’m Sergeant Parris, with two Rs. Truck’s parked down the hill. It’s just you lot for now. The Polish idiots missed their connection in Glasgow.’

The kids picked their bags off the platform and crunched down a steep path to an RAF truck with a canvas awning covering the rear. They threw their belongings in before sitting along the wooden benches on either side.

Canvas isn’t a good insulator and frozen air blasted through every gap as the truck belted along a single-track road, with overhanging branches clattering against the side. After winding around the hillside, the land opened into a shallow valley with two concrete runways arranged in an X near the bottom.

A wire fence marked the perimeter of the airfield, there were wooden huts, two large hangars and a windsock catching the gusts blowing over the hills.

‘This is all we’ve got,’ Parris shouted rapidly, as they jumped out of the truck alongside a grim-looking hut. ‘Accommodation is in huts A through G. Admin office in hut H. Latrines hut J, showers K, female staff quarters huts L, M, cookhouse hut N. Classrooms huts O and P, first aid and medical is hut Q.

‘At the very far end you’ll find our hangars, which we call Brahms and Liszt. There’s a map and a training schedule pinned to the door of your hut. I’m not your mother, so I expect you to be at the correct hut at the time stated on the schedule. This field trains operatives for special military operations, the intelligence service and the Special Operations Executive. Careless talk costs lives so do
not
speak to members of the other training groups.

‘You will eat in your huts and return the trolley to the canteen afterwards. For entertainment you’ll find a draughts board and a Bible standing in the piss pot under each bed. Any questions … ?’

Parris spoke so fast that they’d missed half of what he’d said, but nobody raised a hand.

‘Right then, study your schedules and report for your medical in hut Q at eleven-fifteen.’

The airfield had only been open for a few months and every comfort had been spared in the prefabricated accommodation hut. There was a tiny room for a commanding officer by the entrance. After this came a dozen narrow beds with thin mattresses and frames nailed together from unsanded timber. At the far end were two tables made from the same rough wood and three-legged stools to squat on while you ate.

After dumping bags on their beds everyone crowded around the schedule pinned to the door.

‘Static jump,
tomorrow
,’ Rosie said, before laughing anxiously. ‘I thought it would just be training on the ground until at least Tuesday.’

Joel patted her on the back. ‘Don’t worry, toots, it’s just jumping out of an aeroplane. Gravity does most of the work for you.’

‘I don’t think a static jump is from a plane,’ Luc pointed out. ‘I think it’s from a tower, or a balloon.’

‘Oh my god,’ Rosie squawked, as she put her hands over her face. ‘I’m going to die.’

‘I’ve never seen you acting so girly,’ Paul told her. ‘You’ll do it easily.’

The wall clock hadn’t been wound up and Takada was the only one with a watch, so he warned the kids that they only had ten minutes to change into the plimsolls and light clothing mentioned on the schedule.