The Escape

  Henderson felt a sharp pain where a splinter of glass had nicked his ear, but he had to ignore it as he straddled the bike and Marc vaulted into the sidecar. Henderson kicked the starter and he felt the engine vibrate between his legs, but he hardly heard a thing because his ears still rang from the blast.

  ‘When I stop, you run to the car and grab the bag from the trunk,’ he shouted.

  Marc wasn’t sure what Henderson meant, but realised once he’d taken a sharp left out of the hotel driveway and another into the side street where he’d parked his battered Fiat. The boy had one leg out of the sidecar before they stopped at the kerb.

  Henderson kept the motorbike running as Marc struggled to open the trunk.

  ‘Push the button and twist the handle,’ Henderson shouted, as a set of headlights turned into the alleyway behind them.

  It only took Marc a few seconds to get into the back of the Fiat, but it felt like minutes. He grabbed Henderson’s briefcase – which contained gold and money – and his own pigskin bag and threw them into the sidecar before jumping on top of them.

  Henderson realised that the Mercedes saloon behind them was driving too fast to be routine traffic. It was coming after them, with a brace of motorcycles for company.

  ‘Use your pistol,’ Henderson ordered. ‘See if you can fend some of them off.’

  He pulled away from the kerb while Marc was still perched awkwardly on top of the briefcase.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Age had shrivelled Yvette Doran, but years of farm work had kept her fit and her movements were swift and precise. Each night she made Hugo and Paul share a tin bath and inspected them for cleanliness afterwards.

  ‘Nails,’ she said firmly, as the two boys stood in front of her wearing pyjama bottoms donated by a neighbour.

  Hugo held out his hands and Yvette brushed her calloused thumb across the youngster’s soft skin. It had been many years since the old lady had looked after kids and the podgy softness of the six year old’s hands made her smile.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said fondly, as she kissed Hugo on the forehead. ‘And you combed your hair so it doesn’t tangle. Now show me those teeth.’

  Hugo opened up proudly.

  ‘I’ll make a gentleman out of you yet,’ she said. ‘But you need to get around the back more with the toothbrush. Don’t just clean at the front.’

  Hugo leaned forwards and gave Yvette a kiss on the cheek. ‘Goodnight,’ he said fondly, before bouncing up the wooden staircase on his bare feet.

  Paul was five years older and the old lady took a quick glance at his nails and made him lean forwards to check behind his ears.

  ‘How come you don’t do this to Rosie?’ Paul asked.

  Yvette laughed. ‘She’s almost a woman. I don’t trust you boys.’

  At first Paul had found the inspection a little embarrassing, but he knew that the old lady had a good heart and a week had been enough to get used to her eccentricities.

  ‘I’ll miss you and your sister when you go,’ Yvette said.

  ‘We’ll write to you from England,’ Paul said brightly, but the prospect of leaving made him sad. The Dorans’ cottage was a comfortable refuge from the war and much as he wanted to fulfil his father’s wishes and return to Britain with Mannstein’s documents, he wasn’t relishing the prospect of more refugee-strewn roads and a potentially dangerous sea voyage.

  ‘You can stay down here and draw for an hour if you want before bedtime,’ the old lady said.

  Paul shook his head. ‘I’ll just say goodnight to the Father, then I’ll go upstairs and help Rosie pack.’

  He walked from the kitchen to the living room, but found the retired priest asleep in his armchair with a newspaper strewn over his lap and reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. Paul didn’t want to disturb him, so he crept upstairs and found Rosie. Strands of wet hair hung down her nightdress as she arranged clean clothes inside a suitcase. Hugo always seemed to find a second wind around bedtime and he was jumping energetically on the bed.

  ‘How’s it going, sis?’ Paul asked, as he broke into a yawn.

  Rosie shrugged. ‘Not too bad. Henderson said he was coming by car, so we should be able to carry everything we want.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Paul said, as Hugo did the splits and crashed off the end of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

  Rosie rushed over to pick him up. ‘I told you that would happen if you went crazy,’ she said pointedly.

  The youngster had banged his knee quite badly, but he didn’t want to admit that Rosie was right so he fought off the urge to sob.

  ‘All right, bossy-boots,’ Hugo groaned, as he dived face first on to his bed of old sofa cushions. ‘You’re no fun!’

  ‘You’re like a rubber ball,’ Paul grinned. ‘We could drop you from the top of the stairs and you’d probably bounce.’

  ‘Why have you two got to go?’ Hugo asked seriously, as he rolled on to his back and brought his leg up to inspect a graze on his knee.

  Rosie had explained already, and whilst she liked Hugo, he did tend to get on your nerves by the end of the day. ‘Because,’ she said firmly. ‘Now go to sleep.’

  ‘But why go?’ Hugo moaned. ‘I’ll have no one to play with.’

  ‘Hugo,’ Paul said firmly. ‘Everyone belongs somewhere. We belong in England. When your daddy comes back from being a soldier, you’ll belong with him.’

  ‘I don’t want him back,’ Hugo said, looking thoroughly disgusted. ‘I can come on the boat with you.’

  ‘But what about Yvette and Father Doran?’ Rosie said, as she closed her suitcase. ‘You like them and you like running around in the fields. And there are other boys in the village you can play with.’

  ‘I hate those boys,’ Hugo said.

  Paul laughed. ‘How do you know that? You’ve never even met them.’

  ‘They’re smelly,’ Hugo insisted. ‘I like you two better.’

  Rosie sensed that Hugo was going to end up crying and decided to change the subject. ‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘It’s probably going to be our last night together, so why don’t you cuddle up with us?’

  The six year old didn’t need a second invitation and he dived under the blankets at the bottom of the bed and then wriggled beneath the covers until his head emerged between the pillows at the top. Paul and Rosie smiled at each other, both wishing they were still young enough to get their kicks so easily.

  Rosie turned to her brother as Hugo messed with the pillows. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I shouldn’t have ripped your drawing. You must have spent hours on that.’

  ‘I guess it was pretty sick,’ Paul said. ‘And sorry I called you fat. You’re not – obviously.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘Remember when Dad used to tease me and say that I had good child-bearing hips?’

  ‘You used to go bananas,’ Paul said, smiling, before mocking his sister’s voice: ‘I’m not ever getting married. I’m not ever having horrible babies.’

  ‘So are you OK about tomorrow?’ Rosie asked when they’d finished laughing. ‘Or whenever Mr Henderson gets here.’

  ‘Kind of,’ Paul said. ‘Dad trusted him, so I reckon he’ll be OK.’

  ‘I wonder about later on,’ Rosie admitted. ‘I mean, Mum didn’t have anyone over here and Dad’s only got those weird second cousins up in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Freaks.’ Paul nodded. ‘Their kids practically had strings of drool hanging out of their mouths. But Dad had some money and Granddad’s old house in London. We’ll probably get sent to boarding schools and live there in the holidays.’

  ‘Mum never wanted us to board,’ Rosie said. ‘She said they’re really strict. Too many canings and stuff.’

  ‘You’ll be OK,’ Paul said uncertainly. ‘Nobody gives you any hassle. But I’m skinny and I bet they’ll make me play rugby …’

  ‘We’re thinking too hard,’ Rosie said, as she tried not to smirk at the prospect of Paul getting crunched in a rugby scrum. ??
?We’re not even out of France yet. Maybe with the war we won’t even have to go to school.’

  ‘Are you two coming into bed or not?’ Hugo demanded.

  ‘Yeah, we’re coming,’ Rosie said. It was early and worrying about leaving meant she probably wouldn’t get to sleep for hours. But she’d miss Hugo and wanted to cuddle up and watch him fall asleep.

  Paul flicked off the light switch and the siblings walked barefoot in the dark, ending up on opposite sides of the bed with Hugo sandwiched between them. Hugo nuzzled Rosie’s chest and slid his arm around her back.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Rosie said gently, but she smelled something as she closed her eyes and took a breath.

  ‘Christ!’ Paul moaned. ‘Who farted?’

  Hugo broke into hysterics as Rosie kicked off the blankets. ‘That’s unbearable,’ she choked. ‘How can someone so little make a smell that bad?’

  Paul grabbed the pillow beneath his head and used it to whack Hugo over the head.

  ‘Smell my fart,’ Hugo chanted, as he took Rosie’s pillow and swung back at Paul. ‘Smell my fart, smell my fart, smell my fart!’

  Rosie jumped out of bed and couldn’t help smiling as she watched the two outlines rumbling in the dark. She thought about turning on the light and breaking them up, but she didn’t feel like being sensible, so she grabbed the pillow from Hugo’s bed and dived into the action.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Most of the German firepower that entered Paris earlier in the day had exited south, where it was being used to press the Germans’ advantage over the retreating French. Paris was a ghost town. Every shop closed, every road empty. There were no checkpoints and few patrols, but the Germans’ fearsome reputation kept the population indoors. Marc, Henderson and the pursuing Germans seemed to have the streets of Paris to themselves.

  Henderson clipped a kerb as they rounded a tight corner. Marc found himself half a metre off the ground in the sidecar as Henderson threw his weight to correct the tilt whilst struggling to avoid a line of dustbins.

  The Mercedes had a higher top speed than the bike and sidecar, but that counted for little on the tight streets of Paris. The driver never got close enough for the passenger to open fire and after three corners it had dropped out of sight. The two pursuing motorbikes were nimbler and as they didn’t have the weight of a sidecar they were also faster than their prey.

  But the Germans couldn’t make their speed count because Marc lay on his belly in the sidecar and shot at them whenever they closed in. And what the bikes gained in a straight line, Henderson pulled back on hilltops and blind corners. He’d lived in Paris for years and knew the streets, whereas the Germans had to slow down because they didn’t know what lay ahead.

  By the time Henderson had got all three wheels back on the ground, the German riders pursuing them were the closest they’d been. Marc’s first shots had been crazy, but he was getting the hang of the pistol and had already hit one of the bikes, although the shot had deflected off the front wheel arch.

  Henderson slowed down to turn right and suddenly the headlamp on the lead bike was right in Marc’s face, less than four metres away. He pulled the trigger and hit the rider square in the chest. The shot knocked the man backwards as they turned the corner. Marc was astonished to see the motorbike continue in a straight line, whilst its rider froze in midair, legs apart and hands out front as though he was still riding.

  ‘I got one,’ Marc yelled.

  Henderson couldn’t acknowledge this because they’d turned on to a steeply descending street paved with cobbles. The homes built close to the kerb on either side passed in a blur. They were gaining speed, but Henderson knew that the sidecar didn’t have its own brake and if he tried to slow its momentum would pull them into a hopeless spin.

  Marc’s shoulder banged against the sidecar as he saw the single headlight of the remaining bike poised at the top of the hill. But it wasn’t coming after them.

  ‘I think he’s chickened out!’ Marc shouted jubilantly.

  Henderson was closing on the bottom of the hill and there was a tight turn just ahead. If they didn’t make it, he was going to crash into a metal fence before careering over the handlebars and slamming head first into a wall without a crash helmet.

  He waited until the hill started to level before dabbing the brakes, but there was still enough force to send Marc sliding down inside the body of the sidecar. Each time the sidecar tried to outrun the motorbike to which it was joined, it pitched to one side. Henderson would correct this by steering in the opposite direction and Marc would hit the metal with a thud. The process was repeated each time Henderson applied the brake and, as if the buffeting inside the sidecar wasn’t enough, Marc managed to bang his face on the briefcase, tearing off the blood clot around his missing tooth.

  More by luck than judgement, Henderson slowed down enough to steer around the sharp corner without even brushing the kerb. Marc pushed his feet against the bottom of the footwell and clutched his bloody chin as he manoeuvred himself back into the seat cushion facing forwards.

  ‘Have they gone?’ Henderson asked breathlessly, as he took a quick right into a side street, followed by a left on to a much gentler hill.

  ‘I shot one,’ Marc explained, as his tongue fought the blood in his mouth. ‘The other obviously didn’t fancy his chances.’

  Henderson looked pleased and he eased off the throttle until the bike was cruising. It was heaps quieter than when they’d been going flat out.

  ‘Have you got something to wipe your mouth?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘Just looking,’ Marc said, as he reached into the pigskin bag and found the square of cloth in which he’d originally wrapped Director Tomas’ food. He wiped his face before rolling up a corner of the cloth. Then he pushed it into the gap where his tooth had been and bit down to try and stop the bleeding.

  Henderson pulled on to a wide boulevard. Marc looked around and realised that they were near the centre of Paris, in the Government quarter. The tall building on one side of the road had burned out in an air raid and moonlight shone through a stone façade with nothing but air behind the shattered windows.

  ‘You did great,’ Henderson said. ‘The one you shot, do you reckon you killed him?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Marc said uncertainly. ‘It was like he stopped moving and the bike carried on.’

  ‘Are you OK about it?’

  Marc nodded. ‘You think I care about Germans after Hinze ripped my tooth out? So what now?’

  ‘Potente has four or five hours’ advantage over us and he’ll have an easier time getting through the German lines than I would.’

  ‘So why didn’t we go straight after him?’ Marc asked.

  Henderson looked uncomfortable. ‘I would have liked to for the sake of Digby Clarke’s kids, but Mannstein was more important. He could have recreated his plans within weeks and the Germans would have shipped him off to Poland before I could possibly get back from Tours.’

  ‘So if we can’t get to Tours before Potente we’re stuffed?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Henderson said. ‘We’ll have to pray that some of the phone lines out of Paris are still working. If they are, we might be able to get a message down there.’

  Marc looked surprised. ‘But I don’t even know the name of the person they’re staying with, let alone the phone number.’

  ‘I know,’ Henderson said, nodding. ‘But you said they were staying with a retired priest on a farm south of Tours. That might be enough – for the sakes of Paul and Rosie Clarke, it had better be.’

  ‘So if we’re not going to Tours, where are we going?’

  ‘There’s a telephone exchange just a few hundred metres from here. They’ll have phone and street directories for the whole of France. We need to get in there, but it’s likely to be under guard to prevent saboteurs.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Marc said, as a drop of blood trickled from his chin on to his white shirt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Marc hunker
ed in the footwell of the sidecar as Henderson rolled up outside an office building. The carved wooden door had a brass plaque bearing the logo of France Télécom. A single German infantryman guarded the door, but he only seemed interested in the finger jammed up his nose and he was stunned by the sight of Henderson in Gestapo uniform. He bolted to attention and gave an anxious salute.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ Henderson said, as he accepted the salute with a flick of his wrist. ‘I have orders from Oberst Hinze to access the directories and switchboard inside this telephone exchange.’

  The infantryman nodded. ‘Very good, Herr Major. One of our engineers is working inside and should be able to assist you.’

  ‘Boy,’ Henderson shouted, as he looked back towards the sidecar.

  Marc sat up. ‘Please don’t hit me again, sir,’ he said meekly.

  The guard was shocked by the sobbing boy with blood pouring down his chin, but it only served to enhance his opinion of the Gestapo. Regular German troops feared the black uniforms almost as much as the civilians in the countries they occupied. So while the baby-faced guard found the situation odd, he had no intention of quizzing a Gestapo officer.

  The inside of the exchange was stuffy, with the smell of sparks and oil in the air. Henderson led Marc across a reception area and under an archway to a dim space lined with racks containing thousands of mechanical switches. Over a third of Paris’s telephone traffic went through this exchange, with each call connected by the shuddering racks of gears and cogs.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ a bespectacled German said, when he saw Henderson. ‘What can I do for you, Major?’

  ‘Are the telephone lines working?’ Henderson asked bluntly.

  ‘We’re having difficulty. Many staff didn’t come to work because of the curfew,’ he explained. ‘We only have four French operators out of more than sixty. Calls within the city work through the automated exchange, but long-distance calls require manual connection. The operators can’t cope, so I’ve restricted long-distance calling to military traffic.’