Henderson's Boys: The Escape (24 page)

‘Act normal,’ Marc whispered, in his broken German. ‘Start the engine and drive or I’ll shoot you in the head.’

The perspiring German gave a wary nod as he reached around and slotted a key into the steering column.

‘Good man,’ Marc said, as the engine growled to life and the cab filled with the pungent aroma of the German’s sweat.

Either nervous, incompetent, or both, the German made a hash of lifting the clutch, making the truck shudder as it moved away. This was followed by grinding cogs as he struggled to find second gear.

‘I need you to collect a friend,’ Marc said, squeezing out of the cramped footwell as they turned left, away from the bakery and out of sight of the other Germans. ‘Take the second street on the right and stop by the bridge over the railway line.’

Marc kept the pistol pointing at the German all the while as he pulled himself up on to the passenger seat.

‘Turn here,’ Marc said, but the German knew and was already slowing down.

Marc looked along the pavement and was pleased to see no signs of life. It was Saturday and the government offices on either side of the street were closed. As the truck rode over the hump of the bridge, Henderson popped out of a hiding place on the embankment that led down to a pair of railway lines. He jogged into the road behind the truck and pulled the driver’s door open as it came to a halt.

‘Out,’ Henderson shouted, waving a German pistol in the soldier’s face. ‘Don’t mess us about. You’ll be OK if you stay calm.’

The German stepped from the cab with his hands raised and Henderson told him to walk towards the railing. As soon as he stepped on to the pavement, Henderson put the muzzle of his silenced pistol against the back of the German’s head. The shot knocked the soldier forwards and he slumped dead over the railing, exactly as Henderson had hoped.

After pocketing his pistol, Henderson grabbed the German around his thighs and lifted him up. The dead body flopped over the side of the bridge and crashed through a canopy of leaves before landing on the embankment beside the railway with a snap of twigs and the rustle of dead leaves.

‘Pass his tunic out,’ Henderson said hurriedly, as he rushed back to the truck. ‘I’ll need that and his helmet to get through the checkpoint.’

*

The fuel gauge showed full and the road leading south towards the German lines was clear. The only traffic they encountered beyond the checkpoint was a column of factory-fresh tanks, heading for their first taste of battle. The bare-chested crews leaned out of the hatches to escape the stifling heat.

Twenty kilometres south of Paris the truck was waved through another checkpoint – with Marc sliding into the footwell – and they finally saw the first proper sign of German presence, in the form of a tented command post with a field hospital behind it. Another couple of kilometres brought them to a line of smouldering farm buildings. Destruction seemed pointless when everyone knew that the Germans were going to win and Marc wondered if the buildings might have caught fire by accident.

Things became more hectic when they reached the edge of German territory. A single-file column of armour almost a kilometre long stood along the road awaiting orders to advance. The tanks were wide and Henderson had to pass slowly, often with a set of wheels running in the grass verge.

The fields beside the tanks were dotted with exhausted French troops. The Germans had captured more than a million French soldiers during the early part of the invasion. But guarding prisoners was a drain on German manpower and feeding them practically impossible. So while French prisoners in the north had spent the past month penned into fields, dying from disease and starvation, soldiers captured now were simply stripped of weapons and equipment and ordered to march south.

The ones who remained were injured or sick and had no option but to suffer in the sun without even water, while their enemy calmly waited to be resupplied before pushing onwards. Marc had seen plenty of suffering during his journey from Beauvais to Paris, but the sight of young soldiers dying of thirst and hunger seemed especially chilling. Beyond this human wreckage, another field was piled high with orderly stacks. Tin helmets, rifles, ammunition, grenades.

Henderson managed a smile. ‘When I was a boy, I had a collection of lead soldiers,’ he said. ‘Before I went to bed, my mother would make me tidy them all up into piles, just like that – only smaller.’

The thoughts of childhood made Marc realise that he knew nothing about Charles Henderson. ‘Do you have a wife or children, sir?’

‘I had a daughter, but she died of tuberculosis when she was a baby. My wife took the loss very badly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Marc said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and wishing he hadn’t asked.

‘She broke down completely at one point,’ Henderson admitted. ‘We’d like another child, but my spending so much time abroad makes that difficult.’

After passing through a village crowded with German troops, they came to a fork and Henderson picked a dirt road that obviously wasn’t the main highway. The lane twisted and trees overhung from either side, creating a dappled shade.

‘I think we’re past the last of the Germans,’ Henderson said, driving as quickly as he dared.

Marc dived off his seat when they came to a clearing from which an artillery piece aimed straight at them. Henderson realised that they were French.

‘Marc, get up and hold the wheel,’ he shouted frantically, remembering that he was still wearing a German tunic and pulling it down his arms.

As Marc steered, the French soldiers began to shout and Henderson slowed down. It was fortunate that they’d taken one of the commandeered French trucks, because a German army vehicle would have caused outright hostility rather than suspicion.

‘Lean out of the window so they can see you’re a child,’ Henderson ordered.

Marc did as he was told and shouted, ‘We’re not Boche! We’re not Boche!’ over and over.

Three French soldiers came out of hedges alongside, their rifles pointing at Marc and Henderson. Henderson slowed the truck to a halt, but kept the engine running and a foot on the accelerator in case things got rough.

‘What’s in the back?’ a bearded French sergeant demanded, as he pushed the butt of his rifle through the window beside Marc’s head.

‘Fresh bread sir,’ Marc said.

At the rear, another soldier had ripped open the canvas awning and found himself under bombardment from hundreds of loaves, bouncing into the dirt before rolling off down the hill.

‘Where is this bread from?’ the sergeant aiming the gun demanded.

‘They commandeered my truck and forced us to drive from Paris,’ Henderson lied. ‘We killed the German who was sent with us and decided to try finding our way through the lines.’

There seemed to be six troops in total and they were running into the road and tearing hungrily into the fresh loaves. This irritated the sergeant who was questioning Henderson.

‘Where’s your discipline?’ the sergeant shouted at the soldiers. ‘Get back under cover.’

‘There’s more than a hundred German tanks just a couple of kilometres from here,’ Henderson said. ‘They’re gearing up ready for another push. If we clear some of the bread out of the back, you could all ride with us.’

‘No thanks,’ the sergeant sneered. ‘The rest of our regiment surrendered this morning. Us six decided to stand and fight. But we’ll take some bread if that’s OK.’

Henderson was almost too stunned to speak as the sergeant stepped off the running board of the truck and lowered his rifle. ‘Panzer tanks have got twice the range of that artillery piece,’ he explained. ‘They’ll take one look through their binoculars and blast you out of the road.’

The sergeant looked down at his boots like a little boy in a lot of trouble. ‘Germans bombed my house,’ he explained. ‘Wife, mother and two daughters, all dead. Most of us have some experience like that. I’d sooner get blasted than look any Boche in the eye and call him sir.’

‘Are you sure all your men feel the same way?’ Henderson asked.

The sergeant stepped back from the truck and shouted, ‘The nice fellow here says there’s two hundred tanks coming our way and he’s offering you a ride south. If any of you want to take it, go right ahead.’

The hungry soldiers had mouths stuffed with bread, but they all shook their heads.

Marc didn’t know whether to be impressed by their bravery or appalled at their stupidity.

‘Well, good luck then – I guess,’ Henderson said. ‘If you’ve taken all the bread you need I’ll get going. Do you know if there are any more Germans south of here?’

The sergeant shook his head. ‘I reckon all you’ll find is empty French positions and soldiers with tails between their legs.’

As Henderson drove away he heard someone banging on the side of the truck and pulled up. He expected someone to say they’d changed heart and wanted to climb in the back, but instead a skinny lad stepped on to the running board beside Marc and jabbed a sheet of paper through the window.

‘I don’t have an envelope or a stamp, but the address is at the top of the paper and I reckon you’ve got a better chance of getting it to my wife than I have.’

Marc was startled. The soldier seemed more like one of the older lads from the orphanage than someone with a wife.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Marc said.

Henderson shook his head as they drove on beneath the hanging branches. ‘War does funny things to people,’ he sighed. ‘Mad bastards.’

The diesel-powered truck had seen better days and the engine became unhappy at anything over fifty kilometres per hour. Henderson had resigned himself to fate and didn’t bother to hurry: if Herr Potente had arrived before his message and taken the children, there was nothing he could do.

Every so often, Marc would climb through to the back of the truck and pass loaves to the hungry soldiers lining the road, but Henderson told him to close the canopy whenever they got into traffic because he didn’t want to risk getting mobbed. They stopped and ate a good meal in Blois, courtesy of a restaurant run by an Englishman who was an old friend of Henderson.

The restaurateur knew a local farmer who had a supply of diesel and Henderson paid two gold ingots for a twenty-litre drum. It was an exorbitant price, but with fuel so scarce he was pleased to have found any at all and now he had enough to drive all the way to Bordeaux.

The sky was turning dark as they crossed the bridge into Tours. Henderson stopped at the first church he came to, but they had to wait a quarter-hour for the evening mass to finish before they could ask the priest for the location of his retired colleague who’d taken in a pair of orphans.

The priest drew directions on a scrap of notepaper and although they were slightly ambiguous, the truck reached the little farmhouse within half an hour. Henderson drove on past the house and switched off the headlamps and the engine as he rolled up to a metal gate. He took out the silenced pistol and spoke to Marc as he replaced the bullet he’d fired earlier in the day.

‘If the Germans intercepted our message they could be waiting for me. So I’ll approach from the side and cut across the field to the rear of the house.’

‘Shall I cover your back?’ Marc asked.

Henderson shook his head. ‘I’ve been trained to move quietly. Stay here, and if you hear shooting, or if I’m not back within an hour, you’d better clear out.’

Marc didn’t like the sound of this. If something happened to Henderson he’d be back on his own in the middle of nowhere. Although at least he’d have thirteen gold ingots and a gun.

Henderson jumped out of the van and dug his fingers into the earth. He daubed mud on to his cheeks and forehead before disappearing into a potato patch, crouching low as he surveyed the outside of the house. There were no suspicious cars and only one light on inside, so he crept towards the back door.

As Henderson stepped clear of the potatoes, he heard a sob. He turned and saw the outline of a boy. He was slender and he sat with a sketchpad on his lap, although it was too dark to draw.

‘Paul Clarke?’ Henderson whispered.

The boy’s head turned around and his teeth caught the moonlight as his mouth dropped open. ‘Henderson, is that you?’

Another sob sent a chill down Henderson’s back. ‘Are the Germans here or something?’ Henderson asked. ‘Tell me, what’s the matter?’

*

Half an hour later Marc and Henderson were inside the house, sitting around the dining table drinking mugs of hot milk. Yvette had scrubbed the blood from where Hugo died, but Rosie had picked a bundle of wild flowers and laid them against the dresser.

‘We’ll head south to Bordeaux,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ve heard there are still regular sailings for the Cornish coast – although that was a few days back, so we’ll have to see.’

Marc was half listening and half watching Rosie. Girls fascinated him and she looked sad, with her long hair mussed and the soles of her feet dirty where she’d been outside feeding the chickens.

‘What did you do with Herr Potente’s body?’ Henderson asked the adults.

‘We spoke to the police. They made a report and took both bodies away,’ Yvette explained.