‘We’re checking the map ready for our run to the final aiming point, sir,’ Marc said.
‘I’m not blind,’ Goldberg said, as he aimed the torch beam right into Marc’s eyes. ‘But what were you told about this terrain?’
Marc’s mind was a blur. He was dripping sweat, exhausted, hungry and his feet were so blistered that he was dreading the pain when he took his boots off.
‘Well?’ Goldberg shouted, as the beam made Marc’s eyes tear over.
‘We were told to treat the terrain like enemy territory at all times, sir,’ Paul said weakly.
‘Enemy territory,’ Goldberg repeated, as he rapped his knuckles against Marc’s skull. ‘That means you keep low at all times. That means you take cover. It certainly doesn’t mean that you stand still on open ground, staring at your map and talking in voices that I can hear from my hiding spot twenty-five yards away. Both of you, get down. I need to see thirty push-ups.’
Marc started pulling the strap of his equipment pack off his shoulder, which made Goldberg’s eyes bulge.
‘Did I tell you to take that off, lad?’ Goldberg roared.
Marc was strong. If he’d been fresh he’d have knocked out thirty push-ups in as many seconds. But his arms began shuddering at twenty-two.
‘Twenty-four,’ Goldberg shouted, when Marc collapsed. ‘Crack on! Did I say twenty-four?’
Paul had taken his pack off to shoot, but even without extra weight his gangly arms meant push-ups were always hard. He only got to thirteen before collapsing in the dirt.
‘I can’t,’ Paul gasped, as Goldberg moved close and blitzed him with the torch beam.
‘Can’t what?’ Goldberg demanded.
‘Do any more,’ Paul said.
If it hadn’t been dark, Paul would have seen Goldberg turning red.
‘What’s the last word out of your mouth every time you address me, boy?’
Everything clicked into place. ‘Sir,’ Paul said. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m just tired, sir.’
‘It’s warm and dry,’ Goldberg shouted. ‘This is nothing. Real sniper teams eat, piss and shit in freezing-cold rat-infested holes for days on end, waiting for one Nazi head to pop up. And you dare moan that you’re tired after a little overnighter in the forest?’
Goldberg switched off his torch and for a few moments there was nothing but the sound of two boys gasping in the dark.
‘Shall we carry on now, sir?’ Marc asked breathlessly.
‘Sam and Luc started ten minutes after you so that they didn’t reach the aiming zones at the same time. They overtook you before the fourth aiming point. They’re already heading back to campus for a shower and bed.’
Paul and Marc exchanged solemn looks. Goldberg wasn’t bad and the tough guy act was what they expected from a training instructor. But learning they’d finished behind their rivals after working so hard was a kick in the gut.
‘Captain Henderson is giving the four of you an 8 a.m. briefing,’ Goldberg said. ‘I was in these woods preparing well before you two got up, and now I need my bed. So you two can forget aiming point eight. The exercise ends here and now.’
As they’d already lost, Paul and Marc were happy not to have to carry on.
‘You’ve got nothing to smile about, soldiers,’ Goldberg said. ‘There’s no bed on campus for you two tonight. You can sleep out here, then make your own way back in time for the captain’s briefing. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ both lads replied.
‘Bloody, shitting shit!’ Paul cursed, once he was certain Goldberg was well clear. ‘It’s gone two now and it’s over an hour’s walk back to campus from here.’
Marc knew he’d have been faster with anyone but Paul as a partner, but he said nothing because they were good friends and it wasn’t Paul’s fault that he’d been born weedy.
‘It’s warm and dry, so I’m not buggering about making a shelter,’ Marc said. ‘And it may not be comfortable, but I’m knackered so a few bugs and a bit of damp won’t stop me sleeping.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Luc was usually a scruff, but he’d polished his boots and put on a clean white shirt, knowing it would make Marc and Paul feel even worse.
‘You’ve got twigs in your hair,’ Luc taunted, as his rivals came into the classroom used for mission briefings. ‘Man, I slept so well last night. Did you sleep well, Sam?’
Sam liked Marc and Paul. He’d have happily stayed out of the teasing, but Luc was a bully and he couldn’t risk upsetting his powerfully built training partner.
‘Yeah, I slept well,’ Sam said, half-heartedly.
‘I was so muddy when I got in last night,’ Luc continued. ‘I didn’t want all that dirt clogging the shower, so I wiped the worst of it off on stick-boy’s bed sheet.’
Marc ignored the pain in his blistered feet as he booted a chair out of the way and lunged towards the desk Luc sat on.
‘If you’ve touched either of our beds, I’ll kick the crap out of you,’ Marc shouted.
Paul put a hand on Marc’s shoulder and pulled him back. ‘Don’t rear up. That’s what he’s after.’
‘Pippa cooked a good breakfast this morning too,’ Luc said. ‘Scrambled egg, black pudding, three slices of bread. Ain’t that right, Sam?’
Sam looked down at his muddy boots. ‘They might have saved you some.’
‘I’m not even hungry,’ Marc said. ‘We found plenty of fruit and berries on our way here this morning.’
This was a total lie.
‘How many points out of thirty-two did you two get?’ Paul asked.
‘None of your business,’ Luc said.
Marc sensed a chink in Luc’s armour: if they’d shot well he’d have been shouting from the rooftops.
‘What did you get?’ Marc asked Sam.
Sam shrugged. ‘There’s a couple where we didn’t see our exact score. But I reckon it’s somewhere between sixteen and eighteen points.’
‘It was easily more than that,’ Luc said. ‘I shot at least ten. I bet when Kindhe collects our targets it’ll be more like twenty.’
Sam looked doubtful, but didn’t contradict his partner. ‘How many did you guys get?’
‘About twenty,’ Paul said. ‘It would have been more, because it was Marc’s turn on the last target. He only missed two shots all night.’
Luc wasn’t keen to dwell on scores, because Marc was easily the best shot of the four. ‘I wish you’d sit over the other side,’ he told Marc. ‘You smell like you slept in something that came out the back of a cow.’
‘Well at least I’ve never wet my bed,’ Marc shouted.
‘I didn’t wet my bed,’ Luc said furiously. ‘I had really bad flu. I passed out.’
Marc smiled. ‘Bed pisser!’
Luc jumped off the desk and grabbed the lapels of Marc’s combat jacket. Marc went for a kick in the balls, but only banged his shin on a desk because Luc had spun him around and was trying to splay him over a desktop.
‘Let go, moron,’ Marc shouted.
As Luc slugged Marc in the gut, Paul ran to the front of the classroom and grabbed the big wooden blackboard ruler. It made a very satisfactory crack as it hit Luc over the back of the head.
‘You wait, stick-boy,’ Luc shouted. ‘I’ll break you when I’ve dealt with this arsehole.’
Chairs and tables grated against the floor as Luc landed another punch on Marc, while Paul tried to lock his arms around Luc’s waist to drag him away. The door swung open and Third Officer DeVere – more commonly known as Boo – charged into the tangle of flying limbs.
‘Pack it in, now,’ she roared. ‘The captain will be here any second and you’ll all be for it.’
Boo was taller than the two fifteen-year-olds but not as strong. With Paul’s help she got Luc off Marc, just as Henderson came into the room holding an armful of briefing papers.
‘This is unacceptable,’ he shouted.
After putting his papers down, Henderson charged towards the boys. He picked the bla
ckboard ruler off the floor and there was a whooshing sound, followed by a crack as Marc took an almighty swipe across the front of his thigh.
As Marc yelped, Henderson’s second swipe caught a rapidly retreating Luc across the buttocks. Paul braced for a whack himself, but luckily Henderson had only seen him helping Boo break the fight up.
‘Sit down, all four of you,’ Henderson barked. ‘I’m sick of you two constantly fighting. I’m starting to think a damned good Royal-Navy-style flogging is needed to straighten you out. If I see this again, I give you my word that that’s what you’ll get. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the boys chanted.
‘Now, sit down.’
Paul drew pleasure from the pained expression Luc wore as he sat on his freshly thrashed arse. Henderson hadn’t been messing about – the blow to Marc’s thigh had drawn blood, and he was still wincing with pain as Henderson moved his papers to the front of the room, then got Boo to help pin photographs around the outer frame of the blackboard.
‘In contrast to what I’ve seen here this morning,’ Henderson began, ‘Sergeant Goldberg tells me that all four of you have made good progress during the first five days of sniper training. I know you’re wondering why you’ve been undergoing this training, and as you’ve now reached the halfway point I felt you deserved an explanation. Boo will begin the briefing with some background information. Sam, don’t hide up there at the back, come up front so that you can see the photographs properly.’
Boo began talking as Sam shuffled between tightly packed desks towards the front.
‘As some of you know already, a few weeks back Rosie Clarke stumbled upon a notebook containing remarkable intelligence relating to a secret German project known as FZG-76.’
Boo paused to make a rough outline drawing on the blackboard. It looked like a bomb, but it had small wings and a tail with what looked like a giant golf tee mounted on it.
‘As Hitler feels the weight of Allied pressure, he’s been making an increasing number of statements about “Victory” weapons which he claims will turn the war back in his favour. We believe that FZG-76 is one such victory weapon and it will probably be the first of them to be used in anger.’
‘So what is it?’ Sam asked.
‘Good question,’ Boo said cheerfully, as she tapped her stick of chalk against the diagram. ‘Put simply, it’s a bomb that flies by itself. There’s a propellerless engine of unknown design built into the tail, a big cargo of explosives in the middle, and in the nose there’s a gyroscopic system that guides the flying bomb to its target.’
The four boys looked at each other in disbelief.
‘It’ll never work,’ Marc said. ‘A plane with no propeller and no pilot. How does it even get off the ground?’
‘I’m afraid it’s flown already, Marc,’ Boo said, which was enough to make Luc mumble that Marc was a dickhead. ‘The resistance in Denmark has been picking up radio signals transmitted by FZG-76 test units for over six months. Triangulation of these radio signals leads us to believe that the units fly faster than any British fighter and that the accuracy of the self-guidance system is improving.’
‘So when will they start bombing us with them?’ Paul asked.
‘Indications are that FZG-76 is still in prototype phase. Mass production is probably still three to twelve months away. What we’re really interested in is the guidance system, here in the nose.’
Boo chalked a big white X on the nose of her crudely drawn bomb.
‘The notebook Rosie recovered suggests that much of the work on the guidance system for this new weapon is being undertaken by a group of French scientists. They’re currently being forced to work against their will in an underground bunker west of Rennes. Our job is to stop these highly-skilled scientists doing their job.’
Luc smiled as he raised an invisible sniper rifle. ‘So we’ve been training so that we can hide in the bushes and blow their heads apart when they come up for exercise, or whatever. Sounds like a good laugh. You can count me in!’
Paul looked uncomfortable, while Marc shook his head before jumping at a chance to prove Luc wrong.
‘Don’t be a moron, Luc,’ Marc said. ‘If we wanted the scientists dead we’d just plant a massive bomb and blow the place sky high.’
‘Don’t call me a moron,’ Luc growled. ‘I’m not the one who slept in the woods and stinks like a tramp.’
‘All right,’ Henderson shouted, as he slammed the big ruler against the blackboard. ‘You two are going exactly the right way about earning that flogging I promised. But Marc’s assessment is basically correct. You’ve been training for a sneak raid on the bunker. The reason sniper skills are required is that besides the research lab and a dozen scientists, Rosie Clarke has confirmed that the bunker is being used as a storage depot for Luftwaffe bombs. You’ll need to shoot straight, because if this raid turns into a fire fight, there’s a good chance that a stray bullet will set off enough bombs to blow up a small town.’
‘Why put important scientists in such a risky location?’ Paul asked.
‘We questioned this too,’ Boo answered. ‘The first reason we can think of is that bunkers with rooms large enough to hide a laboratory are rare. There are probably less than a dozen similar bunkers in France, and while there are many large bunkers in Germany, the level of Allied bombing means that space inside them is always going to be desperately short.
‘The second reason is political. As you can see from the photographs, the base is patrolled and run by the Luftwaffe, who use it to store their bombs. But according to our sources in Denmark, the FZG-76 project is classified as long-range artillery. Its development is controlled and funded by the German Army.’
‘So the Luftwaffe and the army are like a couple of kids fighting over a shared bedroom,’ Sam said.
Boo smiled and nodded. ‘That’s what we suspect.’
Henderson pointed to the photographs before speaking. ‘Rosie Clarke has befriended a couple of lads who know the area around the bunker well. With their help, she’s made an excellent job of photographing the base and studying security and movements in and out over the past few weeks. She estimates that the base is manned by a team of around ten elderly Luftwaffe guards, plus five soldiers who guard the scientists.
‘The resistance in Paris have sent Rosie a wireless operator, who has been in daily communication with us. She’s using a small team to keep the bunker under surveillance, and our picture of bunker operations is improving all the time.’
‘So how exactly do we attack?’ Paul asked. ‘I can’t see more than a couple of guards in any of those pictures. Which means the rest of them will be underground.’
‘The details of our plan will be refined over the next few days, as Rosie feeds us more information,’ Henderson explained. ‘At this stage, I want you four to concentrate one hundred per cent on mastering your sniper skills. On the last day of the course, Sergeant Goldberg will conduct a final test. The two boys who score highest will be picked for the mission.’
Marc and Luc eyed each other warily. Marc was the best sniper and Sam the weakest, but second and third places were a toss up between Paul and Luc.
Sam raised his hand warily, and posed the question on everyone’s mind. ‘Captain, what happens if the two boys who finish top don’t get along?’
‘Candidates in this unit will be picked for missions based solely on their abilities,’ Henderson said curtly. ‘Anyone who is incapable of putting personal differences aside for the duration of a critical mission has no place inside Espionage Research Unit B.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Four days later.
The lads began their penultimate day of sniper training on the USAF shooting range. The paper targets were now set at hundred-yard distances, starting at three hundred and going up to a thousand.
Sergeant Goldberg spent much of the morning working one-on-one with each boy, making tiny adjustments to their shooting technique. The tolerances for long-distance shooting are extraor
dinarily fine, so a tiny change in body position or breathing technique can add a hundred yards to the range over which a sniper can shoot accurately.
Goldberg’s biggest breakthrough came with Sam. The No 4 rifle was a long weapon, and Sam was at full stretch when he shot. Goldberg rectified this by replacing the wooden stock on Sam’s rifle with one from a more compact version of the No 4 developed for commando operations.
Changing a sniper’s weapon so late in the course was a risk, but after a few rogue shots Sam began hitting targets at five to seven hundred yards. Nobody took score, but by the time they broke for lunch Sam’s smile looked like it had been glued on.
‘I’m real competition for the second slot now,’ Sam said, as the quartet downed an unappetising lunch of tinned beef stew tipped over mashed potato.
Paul smiled. Marc liked anything that reduced the possibility of his having to do the mission with Luc. Inevitably, Luc himself looked annoyed.
It all came out after lunch, when Sam went upstairs for a pee and Luc bundled him against the tiled wall.
‘What’s your problem?’ Sam shouted.
‘I thought we were partners,’ Luc said. ‘I’ve carried half your kit for the best part of two weeks.’
Half was an exaggeration, but Luc had carried some of Sam’s stuff because he was faster and much bigger.
‘We’ve always been fighting for the same job,’ Sam said.
‘You’re younger,’ Luc said, as he gave Sam another shove. ‘Your time will come, but this is my mission.’
Sam didn’t want to make an enemy of a thug like Luc. ‘If I throw a couple of shots, you’ll owe me a big favour.’
‘That’s fair,’ Luc said, nodding. ‘I’ll beat someone up for you, or whatever.’
Sam’s jubilant mood was gone as he walked down to a ground-floor classroom for their afternoon session. He tried telling himself that he hadn’t expected to make it on to the mission when he got out of bed that morning and his situation was no worse now. But he hated the fact that he’d let Luc get his way.
The classroom-based afternoon session was all about calculations. Over normal distances, shooting is about taking a good aim and pulling a trigger, but for sniping the steadiest hand and perfect technique are useless unless you’re also able to grasp the physics of a flying bullet.