Henderson's Boys: Eagle Day (2 page)

With low-flying bombers and the German forces expected to reach Bordeaux within the week, the Union Jack flag had tactfully been removed from the consulate, but nothing could be done about the British lions woven into wrought-iron gates padlocked across the front door.

Several of His Majesty’s subjects gathered on the front steps, with noticeably better clothing and luggage than the refugees scavenging food along the dockside, but Henderson was wary. The Gestapo
³
were still after him and they could easily have spies watching what remained of Bordeaux’s British community.

Henderson would stand out amongst the other Brits in his peasant clothing and Marc spoke no English, so rather than join the queue and wait for nine a.m., he led Marc around the rear of the terrace and was pleased to find that it backed on to a sheltered alleyway. The bombing had fractured a water pipe beneath the cobbles and their boots swilled through several centimetres of water.

‘Have you still got my torch?’ Henderson whispered, when they reached the rear door of the consulate.

The batteries were weak and the beam faltered as Marc scanned the brickwork. After snatching his torch Henderson squatted down and aimed light through the letterbox.

‘Nobody home,’ he said, as the metal flap snapped shut. ‘No sign of an alarm, no bars at the windows. If I give you a boost, do you reckon you can get yourself through the small window?’

Marc craned his head up as Henderson aimed the torch so that he could see.

‘What about the two cops in the square?’ Marc asked. ‘They’ll hear if the glass goes.’

Henderson shook his head. ‘It’s a sash window; you should be able to force it open with a lever.’

Henderson stepped back out of the puddle and found dry cobbles on which to lay and open his case. Marc noticed shadowy figures passing the end of the alleyway, then jolted at the distinctive click of Henderson loading his pistol.

Marc was delighted that a British agent was going to all this bother on his account. Henderson could have abandoned him at the passenger terminal and sailed aboard the
Cardiff Bay
with Paul and Rosie. But as well as a soft heart, Henderson had a ruthless streak and the gun made Marc uneasy.

In the three days since Marc first met Henderson in Paris, Henderson had shot or blown up half a dozen Germans and machine-gunned a grovelling Frenchman in his bathtub. If the next figure at the end of the alleyway chose to come and investigate, Marc knew Henderson would kill them without a thought.

Henderson passed over a crowbar before screwing a silencer to the front of his pistol. Marc ran his hand along the oiled bar and glimpsed inside the suitcase: ammunition, a compact machine gun, a zipped pouch in which Marc knew lay gold ingots and a stack of French currency. The clothes and toilet bag seemed like an afterthought, squeezed into the bottom right corner. Marc found it miraculous that Henderson could lift all this, let alone carry it several kilometres through the port.

After fastening leather buckles and tipping the jangling case back on its side, Henderson faced the building and lowered his knee into the puddle. Marc leaned against the wall and stepped up so that his wet boots balanced on Henderson’s shoulders.

‘Now I’m really glad you didn’t tread in that pile of turds,’ Henderson noted.

Despite nerves and his precarious position astride Henderson’s shoulders, Marc snorted with laughter.

‘Don’t make me giggle,’ he said firmly, walking his hands up the brickwork as Henderson stood, raising Marc level with the landing window between ground and first floors.

Marc rested his chest against the wall, then took the crowbar from his back pocket.

‘You’re heavier than you look,’ Henderson huffed, as Marc’s unsteady boots tore at his skin.

The oak window frame was rotting and Henderson felt a shower of flaking paint as Marc dug the forked tongue of the crowbar under the frame and pushed as hard as he dared. The catch locking the two sliding panes together was strong, but the two screws holding it in place lifted easily from the dried-out wood.

‘Gotcha,’ Marc whispered triumphantly, as he threw the window open.

To Henderson’s relief, Marc’s weight shifted as the boy pulled himself through the window. He crashed down on to plush carpet inside, narrowly avoiding a vase and a knock-out encounter with the banister.

Beeswax and old varnish filled Marc’s nose as he hurried downstairs. The building was small, but its pretensions were grand and paintings of wigged men and naval battles lined the short flight of steps down to the back door.

Henderson grabbed his suitcase as Marc pulled across two heavy bolts and opened the back door. Beyond the stairwell the ground floor comprised a single large room. They moved amongst desks and cabinets, separated from the waiting area at the opposite end by an ebony countertop and spiralled gold rails.

Marc was fascinated by the tools of bureaucracy: typewriters, rubber stamps, carbon papers and hole punches.

‘So they keep blank passports here?’ Marc asked, as he stared at the banks of wooden drawers along one wall.

‘If they haven’t run out,’ Henderson said, as he slammed his heavy case on a desktop, tilting a stack of envelopes on to the parquet floor. ‘But we can’t make a passport without a photograph.’

Henderson pulled a leather wallet out of his case. The miniature photographic kit comprised a matchbox-sized pinhole camera, tiny vials of photographic chemicals and sheets of photographic paper large enough to produce the kind of pictures used in identity documents.

‘Go stand under the wall clock,’ Henderson said, as he worked with the tiny camera, inserting a small rectangle of photographic paper.

Henderson looked up and saw a peculiar mix of apprehension and emotion on Marc’s face.

‘Nobody ever took my photograph before,’ he admitted.

Henderson looked surprised. ‘Not at the school or the orphanage?’

Marc shook his head.

‘We’ve got very little light,’ Henderson explained, as he propped the camera on a stack of ledgers. ‘So I need you to stay still and keep your eyes open.’
absolutely

Marc stood rigid for twenty seconds, then rushed forwards on Henderson’s signal.

‘When can I see it?’ he asked, as he blinked his stinging eyes repeatedly.

‘I have a developing kit,’ Henderson explained. ‘There must be a kitchen somewhere. I need you to find me three saucers and some warm water.’

As Marc raced upstairs to find the kitchen, Henderson began looking around the offices for blank passports. He discovered an entire drawer full of them, along with a wooden cigar box containing all the necessary stamps and, most helpfully, a crumpled blue manual detailing the correct procedure for dealing with a consular passport application.

One of the telephones rang, but Henderson ignored it and began shaking his photographic chemicals, ready for when Marc came back with the water.

A second phone thrummed as Marc came downstairs with three saucers and a tobacco tin filled with hot tap water. Henderson found the ringing irritating, but with France in chaos it didn’t surprise him that the consular phones would ring through the night.

‘I need absolute darkness to develop the photograph,’ Henderson explained, as he spread out the three saucers and dipped a fragile glass thermometer in the hot water. ‘Get the lights.’

Once the office lights were out and the blinds at the rear adjusted to shield the moonlight, Henderson gathered his saucers of chemicals in tight formation, leaned forwards over the desk and flipped the jacket he’d been carrying in his suitcase over his head, protecting his equipment from any remaining light.

Marc watched as Henderson fidgeted mysteriously beneath the jacket and the sweet smell of developing fluid filled the air. He stripped the rectangle of photographic paper from the camera and counted the ticks of his watch to ensure it spent the correct time in the developing fluid.

Marc had no idea how long it would be before Henderson emerged with the developed photograph. He thought of asking, but didn’t want to affect Henderson’s concentration.

‘Have you ever made a cup of tea, Marc?’ Henderson asked, once he’d moved the sliver of paper from the developer into the bleaching solution.

‘Sorry …’ Marc said weakly. ‘I’ve never even drunk it.’

‘You’re a blank canvas, Marc Kilgour,’ Henderson laughed. ‘You go upstairs, put a kettle on the stove and I’ll show you how to make a proper English cuppa while your picture dries.’

‘What’s a cuppa?’ Marc asked, liking the word, even if he wasn’t sure what it meant.

Henderson trembled with laughter beneath the jacket.

He didn’t laugh for long, though. Both phones had stopped ringing, but it became clear from a loud scuffling sound that something was happening on the steps out front.

‘Those gendarmes must have heard us breaking in,’ Marc said anxiously, as the metal gates over the front door whined for a shot of oil. ‘I bet it was them on the phone.’

Henderson remained calm. ‘Ignore your emotions and use your brain,’ he said firmly as he pulled his head out from beneath the jacket. ‘The police don’t phone up and ask burglars if they’d be kind enough to leave and the Germans certainly wouldn’t tip us off with a fracas on the doorstep. I just need half a minute now to fix the image. Go up to the front window and tell me what you see.’

Marc vaulted the counter and dodged two lines of chairs in the waiting room, then peeked through a tiny crack in the velvet curtains. A white Jaguar sports car had parked up on the cobbles and an anxious crowd hassled its female driver as she unlocked the gates.

‘Guessing it’s someone who works here,’ Marc hissed. ‘She’s got keys and everyone in the queue’s giving her stress.’

Marc could hear what was being said, but it was all in English so he didn’t have a clue.

‘I have urgent consular business,’ the woman yelled. ‘You all need to come back in the morning. We’re open normal office hours. Nine to five and noon on Saturday.’

Marc ducked behind chairs as the woman squeezed through the front door and told the people outside to mind their fingers before banging it shut.

As soon as she flicked on the lights she saw Henderson. He’d finished developing Marc’s photograph and stood behind the counter with his arms out wide to make it clear that he was no threat.

‘I’m sorry to startle you like this, Madame. The name’s Henderson. Charles Henderson.’

Marc studied the woman from his position crouching behind the chairs. She was in her twenties, and nearly six feet tall. She wore the white blouse and pleated skirt of an office girl, but sculpted black hair and an elegant gold watch gave the impression that she lived off somewhat more than an office girl’s salary.

‘Charles Henderson,’ the woman said knowingly. ‘I decoded a transcript from London. Quite a few people are looking for you. Of course, if you’re Henderson, you’ll know his code word.’
really

‘Seraphim,’ Henderson answered, as the woman placed her bag on the countertop then kicked on a wooden panel and ducked under. Marc’s eyebrows shot up as he sighted the tops of her stockings.

‘I do beg your pardon, but young Marc here needs a passport. We did a bit of damage to your landing window but it’s easily fixed …’

‘Forgive me,’ the woman said, making a quick glance back at Marc before cutting Henderson dead with a raised hand. ‘My name is Maxine Clere, clerical assistant to the consul. Please make use of our facilities … It looks like you’ve found the blank passports already. I know your work is important, but I have to make immediate contact with London on the scrambled telephone. We’ve lost the on the River Garonne, less than thirty kilometres out of Bordeaux – and many are dead.’
Cardiff Bay

¹
U-boat – a German submarine.

²
Gendarmes – French police officers.

³
Gestapo – German secret police.

A quarter-hour after it had sunk, all that remained of the were two chunks of superstructure floating mid-river and an oily film on the water which burned the eyes of passengers making the desperate swim to shore. Fishing boats and motor launches were still picking people out of the water, but they were reluctant to use much light lest it draw back German bombers.
Cardiff Bay

It was low tide and a broad mud flank was exposed along the southern embankment of the River Garonne. Thirteen-year-old Rosie Clarke was a strong swimmer and one of the first to reach the shore under her own power. The embankment mud sucked off her sandals and she fell on her face, taking a mouthful of evil brown water that combined with breathlessness to cause a coughing fit.

PT Bivott grabbed her sleeve. She’d met him on the three-hundred-metre swim to shore and got her first look at his body as he slid fingers into her armpits and hauled her up with a squelch.

Like many fifteen year olds, PT had a man’s height but not the physique that went with it. His French was perfect but came with an American twist. Dark hair designed to be combed back dangled to his bottom lip.

‘Keep calm, Rosie,’ PT said, pulling her close and squeezing tight. Rosie’s muscles burned and freezing mud slid down her dress, but all she could think about was her brother and she screamed out for him.

‘
Paul!
’

Her voice wavered. Strong to start and then collapsing into sobs with her head buried in PT’s life vest.

‘If he’s as tough as his sister he’ll do fine,’ PT said encouragingly, as his free hand swept hair up over his head. He’d worked hard on trying to say the right thing, but he hadn’t.

‘Paul’s only eleven,’ Rosie sniffed. ‘He can barely manage a width in a pool, and that current’s …’

‘Don’t cry,’ PT said, tightening his grip before letting go abruptly.

The sudden break-off upset Rosie until she saw that PT had gone after a man wading up the embankment with two small boys latched on his back. As the lads slid off, their red-faced father clutched his stomach and gasped for breath. Blood streaked his chest where tiny nails had dug in.

As PT helped the father stay upright, light shone from a motorcycle headlamp on the riverbank. Rosie squinted into the beam and saw outlines of local men coming to help, while others walked victims up the beach.