‘Barge in, why don’t you?’ Rosie said indignantly as she shuffled away from PT. ‘Haven’t you heard of knocking?’
Paul tutted and shook his head. ‘Knock on what?’ he asked. ‘The curtain? And if you didn’t have the radio blaring so loud you’d have heard me introducing Troy and Mason to the other two.’
As PT got off the bed and leaned over to turn down the radio, Troy saw the huge circular scar on his upper arm.
‘Did someone shoot you?’ Troy asked.
‘I took a slug in the back while we were working undercover in France,’ PT explained.
PT’s American accent and casual phrasing made this sound absurdly macho and Rosie slapped a hand on the mattress and laughed.
‘He makes out it was such a big deal,’ Rosie snorted. ‘All he had was a little nick and some muscle damage.’
‘At least he didn’t think he was going to die when he got jam on his legs,’ Paul noted.
Mason smiled. ‘I think PT’s scar looks good. I want scars when I’m older.’
Troy and Paul both laughed.
‘If I get a chance I’ll shoot you in the head,’ Troy grinned. ‘You can have a nice scar, front and back and your brain is so small it won’t make any difference.’
‘You’re so funny, Troy,’ Mason said, as he noticed the striped shirt and girls’ knickers hanging from a length of washing line beside Rosie’s bed. ‘Can girls join training or not?’ he asked.
The eight-year-old had no idea how sensitive his question was.
‘Girls can’t,’ Paul said. ‘But Rosie insisted.’
‘Girls will be allowed,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘My training is experimental, but I’m better than the boys at most stuff. Henderson says he’ll let other girls train if I pass training and prove myself on a mission.’
Joel interrupted from the other side of the curtain. ‘It won’t prove anything,’ he shouted. ‘Rosie’s hardly a girl. She’s tougher than old boots.’
‘You know where you can stick your opinions, Joel?’ Rosie answered robustly, but Troy noticed hurt flash across her face.
‘You can come back and chat later,’ Paul told Troy, as he backed up through the curtains. ‘But we’d better sort out where you’re sleeping. I’ll find you some blankets and things and show you the Group-B bunks.’
‘I don’t want to sleep in a room with girls,’ Mason protested, as they headed back to the hallway. ‘Can’t I sleep next to Troy?’
‘You haven’t officially joined yet,’ Paul said to Troy. ‘I guess Mason can stay there, for tonight at least.’
‘I am joining,’ Troy said. ‘This is a billion times better than the last place we were at. I don’t mind danger or tough training, as long as people treat you decently.’
As Paul stepped into the corridor he saw Mr Takada and jolted with shock. Takada was barely taller than Troy, but his angular face and greased-back hair made him look sinister. He wore army trousers, round glasses and a white vest hugging a broad hairless chest.
Takada’s training programme was complicated by the fact that he spoke Japanese and a stilted version of English, but not a word of French, which was the native language of most trainees.
‘You are the new arrivals,’ Takada said, before giving a little bow. ‘You are welcome.’
Mason was better at English than his older brother. ‘We’re glad to be here,’ he replied.
‘I come from Japan,’ Takada said. ‘I can train you in many special techniques. My training is hard, but I accommodate you. I will be fair if you not shirk.’
Mason looked up at his brother and spoke in French. ‘Did you understand all that?’
‘I got the gist,’ Troy said, before speaking directly to Takada in English. ‘I look forward to working hard for you, sir.’
Takada smiled and bowed again, but as Paul led the boys away Takada’s tone radically altered.
‘Paul stay,’ Takada said firmly. ‘You two await him in classroom B.’
Paul looked warily at Takada as Troy and Mason disappeared into the classroom.
‘How is your ankle? Better I think?’
‘Not too bad,’ Paul said, as he lifted his left leg off the ground and grimaced as he flexed his foot up and down. ‘It’s improving. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back in training early next week.’
‘I see,’ Takada said. ‘Because I feel you greatly exaggerate your injury.’
‘I haven’t,’ Paul squirmed, as his voice rose several octaves. ‘Did Luc tell you that? Because you know he doesn’t like me. He’s just stirring up trouble.’
Takada tapped two fingers on his glasses. ‘With my own eyes!’ he said angrily. ‘I saw you with Mrs Henderson, racing around the garden collecting food for her spiders. You ran very well.’
‘Oh,’ Paul said, as his jaw dropped. ‘The thing is, I get twinges. It comes and goes.’
Takada smiled. ‘You will resume training tomorrow with the others and I’ll report your mischief to Superintendent McAfferty.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Paul said curtly. He didn’t dare smile, but McAfferty was a softie when it came to discipline. He reckoned he’d get away with a stiff lecture on taking responsibility and working as a team.
‘And rather than always doing your combat training with Marc, you’ll be working with Luc for tomorrow’s session.’
Paul spluttered with shock. ‘But Luc’s enormous, sir, and he doesn’t like me. He’ll squish me like a bug!’
Takada raised one eyebrow mischievously. ‘Trainees must not lie to me,’ he stated. ‘And what’s that English saying? Whatever doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.’
‘Please be reasonable, sir,’ Paul begged. ‘I’ll run laps, or scrub the corridors. But I’m skinny! I mean, have you seen the size of Luc’s muscles?’
‘Oh yes,’ Takada nodded. ‘He’s very much stronger than you are. But you lied your way out of two days’ training and you’ll repay dishonour with pain and sweat!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marc often dreamed about the fall of France. Bombs and bodies flashed through his mind’s eye, but that night stirred fresh memories. A tyre yard had caught fire while he’d been staying in Paris six months earlier. His sore throat and the rubber seal on his oxygen mask triggered the memory of acrid smoke and he kept waking up, clutching his throat and gasping for air.
‘You need to calm down,’ the ward sister told him. ‘You’re safe here.’
But sleep kept taking Marc into the same choking dream. Eventually the sister rolled him on his stomach and injected his backside with a sedative. The next time Marc awoke sunlight blazed through a huge window and his scalded forehead and bandaged right hand seared with pain. His gums had continued to bleed, leaving hardened blood stuck to the roof of his mouth, while his throat felt like it had been rubbed with a cheese grater.
‘Christ,’ Marc croaked, touching his throat with his unbandaged hand as he blinked glueyness out of his eyes.
‘Morning, skipper,’ Henderson said, as Marc coughed. ‘Would you like some water?’
Marc took the glass uncertainly. The water helped his dry mouth, but swallowing was excruciating. He noticed that he’d been moved into a single room, presumably because his nightmares had disturbed the other patients.
‘Can you remember everything?’ Henderson asked.
Marc nodded. ‘Did the fire … I mean, the old man?’
‘The man you rescued is alive, but quite sick. He’s downstairs in a high-dependency ward. The Empire and India club bought it, I’m sorry to say. The fire crew reckoned there were paint cans and linseed oil in the loft. When the incendiary burned through the whole lot exploded.’
Marc nodded. ‘There was a big flash.’
‘We made a human chain and rescued most of the club library and the contents of the wine cellar.’
‘Did you get out OK?’
‘I’m bloody well ashamed of myself,’ Henderson admitted, as he placed a hand on his brow. ‘I was pitifully drunk and had to be hel
ped down the stairs. I didn’t even think of you until we were all across the street in the air-raid shelter.’
‘How’s your head?’ Marc asked, managing a slight smile.
‘Ghastly hangover,’ Henderson said. ‘Not good at all.’
Marc was in pain, but he was more worried about Henderson than himself. He seemed a shadow of the daring secret agent Marc had first met in France the previous summer.
A nurse said good morning, took Marc’s temperature and told him to try getting by without breathing the oxygen until the doctor came to examine him. Marc said he was hungry and was slowly eating a bowl of porridge when a naval officer came into the room. He wore the thick and thin stripe of a rear admiral, which was three full ranks senior to Henderson.
‘Sir,’ Henderson said brusquely, as he bolted to attention and saluted. The admiral was in his early fifties and Henderson vaguely recognised the face from his past.
‘Commander Henderson, at ease.’
Henderson stood at ease, but didn’t feel it. He suspected that the admiral was here to give him a rocket for his drunken behaviour at the club the night before.
‘To what do I owe the honour, sir?’ Henderson asked. ‘I believe we’ve met, but I’m sorry to say I can’t recall where.’
‘James Hammer,’ the admiral explained, as he placed a package wrapped in dark-green paper on the end of the bed. ‘I wondered if you were the same Sub Lieutenant Charles Henderson who served on HMS Skipton with me.’
Henderson smiled warmly. ‘A long time ago, sir. That was my first posting after officer training and I’m surprised you remember me. So what brings you here, sir?’
‘This fellow,’ Admiral Hammer said, as he smiled and pointed at the patient. ‘He saved my father’s life last night. Young Marc is a spectacularly brave young man.’
The admiral reached across the bed to shake Marc’s hand.
‘I’d rather not,’ Marc said awkwardly, as he showed the admiral his bandaged right hand.
‘Ahh!’ the admiral smiled. ‘Still, a young fellow like you will heal up in no time.’
‘I hope so,’ Marc croaked. ‘How is your father?’
‘He’s in considerable pain from his burns, but he has his wits about him. He had me call Harrods and arrange to have this driven over.’
Admiral Hammer passed Marc the package. It was the size of a small suitcase, but weighed very little. Marc pulled the shoelace bow on the gold twine tying the package together. Inside were two tins of fudge and a tin of nuts, lying atop a pair of luxurious cotton towels and a quilted blue bathrobe.
‘My father said you’d understand,’ Admiral Hammer explained. ‘He told me to say that you’re a bloody good fellow for a Frenchie and that in his book you can use whatever towel you like from now on.’
Marc laughed, but stopped abruptly because it hurt his throat. ‘Tell General Hammer that I said thank you. I don’t have many nice things like this.’
As Marc unfurled the fancy robe, he imagined the other trainees laughing at him if he wore it, but he liked it all the same and it was big enough that he’d take a few years to grow into it.
The admiral turned towards Henderson. ‘I heard all about your adventure on the French coast last year,’ Hammer said. ‘I saw the reconnaissance photographs after the bombing raids. The damage your team did to the German barge fleet was phenomenal.’
Henderson nodded, but spoke formally. ‘Sir, I must respectfully ask whether your current role is appropriate to the discussion of intelligence matters.’
‘Quite right,’ the admiral nodded. ‘I’m attached to the war office. I advise the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on all naval, military and intelligence decisions. The Prime Minister took a personal interest in your last operation. It was a real tonic at a time when the whole war seemed to be going against us.’
‘Marc was there too,’ Henderson said brightly. ‘He was responsible for the action at Boulogne and even recruited a couple of coloured prisoners to help with the operation.’
‘Remarkable!’ Admiral Hammer said. ‘This country could do with a few more like you, young man.’
‘That’s why it’s a shame they’re shutting us down,’ Marc said, straining his throat as his voice rose above a whisper for the first time.
Under normal circumstances Henderson wouldn’t have needed the prod from Marc, but he wasn’t himself with the hangover and the loss of a night’s sleep. ‘Yes,’ Henderson stuttered. ‘It’s a crying shame that we’re being shut down. I really wanted to get back on the other side and give the Boche another black eye.’
‘Who’s shutting you down?’ Admiral Hammer gasped indignantly.
‘Air Vice Marshal Walker is holding a review of our operations,’ Henderson explained. ‘He’s not letting me take my boys on parachute training and to be frank, sir, he’s made it abundantly clear what the result of his review of operations is going to be.’
‘Has he, indeed!’ Admiral Hammer said. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t bring this to my attention sooner. Walker has been in charge of the Special Operations Executive for eight months with precious little to show for it and now that RAF twerp has the cheek to try shutting down a naval intelligence unit run by the only person to have successfully staged an operation behind enemy lines.’
‘It’s intolerable in my view, sir,’ Henderson said. ‘But SOE is an interservices unit. Walker is my commanding officer.’
Admiral Hammer huffed. ‘We’ll see about this, Commander Henderson. I’m going to raise this issue at the highest level. Make sure my secretary in Whitehall knows your whereabouts and I’ll be in touch before the end of the day.’
The admiral left the room in such a hurry that Henderson didn’t even get a chance to salute him. Henderson raised his hands up towards the ceiling.
‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ he grinned.
Marc smiled. ‘You told McAfferty that you were an atheist when she tried getting us to go to church on Christmas Eve.’
‘Shush!’ Henderson put a finger over his lips. ‘God might hear you.’
CHAPTER NINE
Paul fought for breath as the muddy embankment squelched under his boots. The rocks inside his backpack knocked against his spine with every running pace. The slope became harder as he neared the brow of the hill. The first time Paul slipped he stayed upright by grabbing the branches of a tangled shrub. On the second there was nothing to save him.
Mud spattered Paul’s face as his knees hit the ground. He dug his fingers into the earth, but kept on sliding as his striped shirt rose up over his belly and claylike silt drenched his army-green trousers.
As Paul gasped from the cold, a huge black arm grabbed hold and effortlessly wrenched him to his feet.
Khinde was a colossus. Born twenty-two years earlier in the French colony of Senegal, he’d joined the French army, been imprisoned by the Germans during their invasion of France and then escaped to Britain after working on a successful espionage operation with Charles Henderson.
‘Having a bad day, kid?’ Khinde smiled.
‘I’m so rubbish at everything,’ Paul complained, close to tears as he wiped the mud from his eyes. His legs ached and he shuddered violently from the cold.
‘Find some heart!’ Khinde said, as he put a hand against the kit bag at the top of Paul’s back and began shoving him on towards the top of the hill.
As Paul gained speed, Khinde’s weight pushed him through the pain barrier. His face twisted and he gritted his teeth as his calves and ankles felt like they were going to explode. They reached the top of the hill and the wind coming up the other side hit him hard.
Paul faced a long vista of overgrown fields and trees dusted with snow. In the far distance lay mangled cars and buildings taken out during artillery practice. But Paul’s concern was a steep channel into which drained the snowmelt from the higher ground on either side. Beyond this, a low sun fired glare across a partially frozen lake.
‘Off you go,’ Khinde shouted enthusiasticall
y. ‘All downhill now!’
He gave Paul a push that nearly sent him sprawling head first into brambles and rocks. Twigs snapped and ice crunched as the freezing snowmelt rose to his knees and flooded his boots. Two months earlier Paul would have waded slowly through the channel, warily holding the sides and watching where he placed his boot, but instructor Takada expected them to attack the stream fearlessly and at speed.
Sometimes you fell and banged your knee, or cut your hand, but as well as improving fitness, Takada’s training programme taught you to ignore fear and shut out pain.
‘Faster!’ Khinde shouted, as he splashed down the channel behind Paul.
Paul stared into the distance, but the other four trainees were out of sight. The glare caught his eyes and as he focused back upon his path he splashed down on to a medium-sized rock that turned beneath his boot. For a horrible instant Paul found himself plunging face first towards a jagged rock. He closed his eyes, fearing for his skull, but strength and instinct somehow enabled him to throw his weight to one side. His knee buckled but he managed to stay up and keep moving.
Little triumphs like this made training exhilarating. Paul was much stronger and fitter than when the training programme began two and a half months earlier, but no amount of effort saved him from being the youngest and weakest of the six trainees in Group A.
As Paul neared the lake the slope eased and the icy water rose as high as his waist. The lake was over a hundred metres across. Paul’s path was a quarter that distance and marked out by a taut length of rope hovering a few centimetres above the lapping water.
The rocks in Paul’s kit bag made swimming impossible, so the crossing was a test of his slender arms. Paul plunged on until the near-freezing water reached his neck. He turned backwards and grabbed the rope with both hands, then pulled up his legs and wrapped them around the rope.
This left him hanging off the rope with most of his body submerged and the bag of rocks pulling him down. If he let go he’d plunge to the bottom of the lake and risk drowning if he didn’t free the backpack and kick his way to the surface.