At night the club would heave with randy Germans, but right now it was empty. Lunch was brought down from the busy café upstairs. Soup to start, followed by smoked fish with potatoes and apple tart. Marc bolted down his first decent meal in four days while his feet soaked under the table in steaming heavily perfumed water.
Henderson ate more slowly, sipping a glass of red and talking to a young but tired-looking waitress. He probed gently. How many Germans come in here? Where do they work? Do they have plenty to spend? I bet you hear a few things you shouldn’t when they’re drunk.
‘You eating that?’ Marc asked, as he eyed Henderson’s untouched tart.
Henderson broke it in half with his fork, scooped one piece on to Marc’s empty dessert plate and smiled at the waitress. ‘Growing boy, always hungry.’
‘After seeing all the food queues in town I thought we’d be getting black bread and mouldy cheese,’ Marc said, with a great chunk of tart pushing out his cheek.
‘Madame Mercier told us to look after you,’ the waitress smiled. ‘The Germans make the farmers sell everything to them at a low fixed price. So they hide as much as they dare. If you’ve got money, you can get all you need on the black market.’
Someone pounded the frosted glass in the basement door. As the waitress went to answer, Marc smiled at Henderson.
‘We hit the jackpot,’ Marc whispered. ‘Madame Mercier is laying everything on for us.’
Henderson didn’t agree. ‘Klaus knew something was up when he brought us into town, the woman at the OT office was expecting us, that waitress didn’t just know we were coming for lunch she’d been told who we were and what we were doing here. Now someone at the fishing port is trying to fix us a boat. They mean well, but they’re not even taking the most basic of security precautions.’
The waitress came back to the table along with a kid who held three pairs of boots by their laces. There was scruffy black hair, filthy clothes and a whiff of horse manure, but no way to tell if it was a boy or girl.
‘This is Edith,’ the waitress explained.
‘I guessed the size,’ Edith said, as she dropped the boots. ‘I can go back and get different ones, but it’ll take about ten minutes.’
Marc took his feet out of the water and grabbed a threadbare towel off the seat behind him. As he dried between his toes, Henderson picked up one of the boots and saw that it was new.
‘These look like British army boots.’
Edith nodded. ‘They left millions of ’em, didn’t they? Whole boatload of British boots and uniform standing on the dockside when the Germans arrived. We helped ourselves. Half the town’s wearing them. Jackets and trousers too.’
To make her point, Edith raised her leg and showed her own grubby, oversized boots and cut-down khaki trousers.
Marc slid on a boot that looked about his size. ‘Not bad,’ he said, before looking over at Henderson. ‘Got any of my socks in the bag?’
Edith keenly eyed the other half of Henderson’s apple tart.
‘Go on,’ Henderson sighed, as he slid the plate across.
‘So I can show you round the docks,’ Edith said, as she pointed her thumb at Marc. ‘But there’s a lot less heat if I just take him.’
‘Why’s that?’ Marc asked.
‘Guards are a soft touch with kids,’ Edith said, as she jabbed out her tongue and licked crumbs from the plate.
‘I’ll show you the route to Kerneval,’ the waitress told Henderson. ‘The fishermen who helped our Polish friends need to meet up and find you a boat.’
Henderson winced, hearing their departure plans voiced out loud in front of Edith. He was starting to wonder if there was anyone in town who didn’t know what they were up to.
*
The tiny spy camera was packaged inside a French matchbox, though its weight meant the disguise wouldn’t withstand serious inspection. Marc kept it in his pocket as he strolled down a cobbled alleyway two steps behind Edith.
He’d seen most of the major ports along the channel coast to the north of Lorient. Some like Dunkirk had virtually been levelled, all the others severely damaged during the invasion. But Lorient was on the Atlantic coast. It had seen little fighting the previous summer and the RAF hadn’t bombed it since.
The main docks were just a few hundred metres from Le Chat Botté, but U-boats were based a kilometre west on the Keroman peninsula. This area had twin advantages: dry docks where boats could be repaired out of the water and a narrow entry point that was easy to defend against attack from the sea.
‘Stop looking so worried,’ Edith told Marc. ‘I’ve been here a hundred times, stealing coal.’
Marc couldn’t focus his mind. He kept seeing his knife hitting the German’s chest and wondered if the man had been missed yet.
‘So what’s your story?’ Marc asked when the silence got awkward. ‘Don’t you have school or anything?’
‘The Krauts are talking about starting school again, because they’re sick of kids causing mischief. But I’m almost thirteen. By the time they get it sorted I’ll be past leaving age.’
‘What do your parents say?’
‘Not much, seeing as they’re dead,’ Edith said. ‘Madame Mercier gives me a bed. I earn my keep looking after her stables and doing odd jobs.’
As Edith said this, she crossed the cobbles and deliberately mashed her boot into a puddle of oil, dirt and God knows what else.
‘Duck,’ Edith shouted, flicking her boot forward so that soggy clumps flew at Marc. He spun and ducked, but the dirt pelted his back.
‘You’re not exactly ladylike, are you?’ Marc moaned.
Edith blew a kiss as she resumed their walk.
‘Why would I want to be?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow and baring yellow teeth. ‘So that men can feel me up, and pay twenty-five francs to screw me in a smelly little room?’
‘Twenty-five francs,’ Marc laughed. ‘You’d be lucky to get five.’
Edith jabbed her thumb into Marc’s ribs. ‘Pig!’
‘Love you too,’ Marc replied. ‘How much further?’
As they walked on it became a ghost town. Doors left open, windows boarded up.
‘Everyone was cleared out around here,’ Edith explained. ‘It’s all getting flattened to make way for another U-boat bunker.’
They turned right, into a street of small houses blocked off by lengths of wire with enamel keep out signs. Edith cut into an alleyway, kicked a wooden gate, ran up a pile of rubble stacked against the garden wall and jumped down on the other side.
Her speed surprised Marc and she scoffed as he hesitated before jumping down into mud and broken glass. They cut through the next house and emerged back on to the street, but inside the fence.
Edith broke into a sprint. Marc followed, but it wasn’t easy with stiff new boots and a dodgy ankle. You could smell sea air as they turned right again, passing a group of lads, aged between nine and eleven. They sat against a wall aiming rocks at a line of rusty cans. Marc found their presence reassuring.
‘Fleabag’s got herself a boyfriend,’ the biggest one laughed.
Edith gave the lad an up yours gesture as she led Marc beside a crumbling brick wall with mounds of coal poking over the top. She stopped by a section where a couple of dozen low bricks had been knocked out.
‘On this side kids get yelled at and taken back to the fence,’ Edith explained. ‘But the Krauts can get serious if they think you’re stealing coal.’
Marc had to suck in his belly to wriggle through the hole after Edith. The coal caught the early afternoon sun as Edith clambered the mound fearlessly, her boots throwing dust into Marc’s face as he moved behind her. When she neared the top, she clambered on all fours to stay out of sight.
‘Good view,’ Marc said, as he propped himself on his elbows beside Edith.
Little shards of coal chinked their way down the side of the heap as he nestled in the dirt and looked out. The man-made harbour was sixty metres across, and five hundred long. At the f
ar end was a huge concrete slope, along with a ramp up which a small craft could be lifted for repairs.
Marc unbuttoned his shirt and wiped his coal-blackened fingers down his trousers before taking out the matchbox camera. It had a fold-out wire viewfinder to frame shots and an exposure dial with settings for bright, dim or medium light.
He guessed medium and snapped the shutter. He took the shots methodically, taking pictures of three sausage-shaped bunkers at the far end, one of which had the nose of a U-boat protruding from it. His next shot was of two U-boats moored side by side and covered with grey camouflage netting.
But the real spectacle lay directly across the water, where two vast bunkers were under construction. The first was built on the water, with seven U-boat-sized pens. The sides were complete and appeared to be made from concrete several metres thick.
As men hung precariously over the water dismantling a huge scaffold, other teams were building the roof. On one side only the first precast concrete blocks had been laid, but at the other end the roof was already three metres thick, with huge rectangles of armoured steel being lifted up by a steam-powered crane.
At a right angle from the first bunker, the second was at an earlier stage of construction. It had no roof and the walls just coming out of the ground. This set of pens was above the waterline and a heavy-gauge railway system linked it to the first.
‘Guess they’ll lift boats through the regular pens, then take ’em across on the tracks when they need major repairs,’ Marc said.
Edith nodded. ‘I heard that when they’re finished, the biggest British bombs won’t even dent that roof.’
Smaller bunkers were being built further back from the water to secure fuel, weapons and crews. Marc shot pictures until the film ran out, then took a brief moment to consider what he was seeing. The contrast between the huge new bunkers and the two U-boats moored under nets at the opposite end of the harbour showed how serious the Kriegsmarine was about protecting and expanding their U-boat fleet.
‘If they build more bunkers on this side, you could have thirty U-boats docked at a time and no way to damage them until they’re out at sea,’ Marc said.
But Edith had more immediate concerns as she noticed two Germans jogging along the dockside towards them. They wore the distinctive dark-blue uniform of Kriegsmarine police.
‘We’ve gotta get out of here,’ she shouted, giving Marc a tug on the arm before launching herself into a dramatic head-first slide down the coal heap. ‘Fat Adolf’s coming.’
CHAPTER SIX
Henderson had to leave Lorient to meet the fishermen along the coast in Kerneval. The main bridge east out of Lorient had been fortified with anti-aircraft guns and had barrage balloons tethered across its width to prevent low-flying aircraft sweeping in and attacking the harbours.
He felt uneasy as the grey-uniformed guard at the Lorient end checked his paperwork. He looked about seventeen, and scratched a shaving rash under his helmet strap as he eyed Henderson with suspicion.
‘I know this bar,’ he said suspiciously. ‘I’ve never seen you in there.’
If he’d had a choice, Henderson never would have picked a public place for false employment details. ‘I mainly work in the back.’
Henderson felt for his gun. He wouldn’t withstand a search, and looked around for an escape route as the guard eyed his ration card. There was only one guard on each end of the bridge, so he might get away if he jumped over the side and made a run along the embankment behind the bushes.
‘Your zone permit says you came here a month ago, but this ration card has all its coupons intact,’ the guard said. ‘What have you been eating, thin air?’
Confidence and detail are the key to successful bullshitting. ‘I lost my card,’ Henderson explained. ‘This one was issued by Mr Muller yesterday afternoon.’
The guard didn’t seem happy and began unfolding the military discharge papers. As the woman queuing behind sighed, a German truck started belting across the bridge from the opposite end, blasting its horn and sending a cyclist diving for cover.
The driver squealed to a halt and leaned out of the window. He looked as young as the guard, and apparently knew him well.
‘Open the gate, you homosexual!’ he demanded in German. ‘Hear you got back to barracks late last night. Hear you’re getting busted on a charge, super-brain.’
‘Who says?’ the guard shouted bitterly.
‘You’ll get cesspit duty,’ the driver teased. ‘Elbow deep in shit, and a smell that doesn’t wash off.’
‘I’ll probably meet your mother down there,’ the guard yelled, as he raised the striped wooden gate.
‘Happy shovelling!’ the driver shouted, as he gunned the engine, leaving guard and queue choking in exhaust fumes.
The guard was steaming. Henderson feared his wrath, but the young face told a different story. This German wanted to be home eating his mum’s cooking and hanging out with his mates. He shoved the papers back in Henderson’s face and waved him off, hardly able to speak. Henderson sighed with relief, but his paperwork wasn’t up to scratch and the Germans might stop him again.
*
It was tough to breathe, tough to see through the coal dust. Marc’s ankle hurt as he charged behind Edith. A German had blocked the easy exit through the hole, but Edith knew another way. They raced over the base of coal heaps with the huge dockside wall skimming past. Fat Adolf was in his fifties, heavy and slow, but the other officer was younger and gaining fast.
Edith was aiming for a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire to make Marc’s life even more perfect. He was older, stronger, and could have outrun Edith, but only she knew the way to their rendezvous with Henderson and the fishermen at Kerneval.
‘Gotcha!’ a big German shouted.
Coal crunched noisily underfoot, so they hadn’t heard the third German running on the other side of the coal heaps near the water’s edge. Edith was skin and bone beneath her baggy trousers and the German plucked her up one-handed, then slammed her brutally into the wall.
Marc spun and gave the German an almighty boot in the balls. Edith’s eyes rolled about in her head as the German crumpled in agony. The German who’d been chasing was now right behind. Marc launched a roundhouse kick, but his injured ankle was weak and his foot twisted in the shifting coal. The German grabbed Marc’s flying leg and twisted it painfully as the boy crashed down on his back.
Edith soon had a sleeve clamped around her neck. The man Marc had kicked in the balls took pleasure in wrenching his arm painfully behind his back. Breathless and limping, Fat Adolf stumbled through the black dust clutching his chest. It wasn’t his real name, just what the kids called him because of his bulk and Hitleresque moustache.
‘How many times?’ Adolf shouted, getting right in Edith’s face, but sounding more frustrated than angry.
Edith was dazed from being slammed into the wall, but she managed to turn on the charm for an old adversary. ‘Got any chocolate for me today, boss?’ she asked.
‘You don’t understand the grief I’m getting over you kids,’ Fat Adolf shouted. ‘Important men go over the other side and inspect the new bunkers. They see kids running around over here and I get it in the neck. How many times have I caught you here now? Eight, nine?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Edith said, as she rubbed the back of her head and felt blood. ‘If you let me go, I swear it’ll be the last time.’
‘I’ve got new orders,’ Fat Adolf said. ‘Hands against the wall, legs wide apart.’
Edith did what she was told, but one of the younger Germans kicked her legs further to put her in a stress position. Then he pulled a long, wooden nightstick, swung hard and smashed her in the ribs.
Edith squeezed up her face, and tried hard not to moan. A second blow hit her across the back of her legs, knocking her down on her knees.
‘You like that, little boy?’ the big German said, grinning sadistically at Marc. ‘Plenty more coming.’
The next blow hit Edit
h across the shoulder and knocked her flat. The German planted his boot on her back and hit her across the thigh. She’d been in a daze before the beating started and the big man looked like he was just warming up.
‘You’re teaching her a lesson, not killing her,’ Fat Adolf yelled. ‘That’s enough.’
Now it was Marc’s turn. He was stronger and managed to stay upright, but he took four heavy blows and when it was over he was clutching his ribs and fighting for breath.
Before he had a chance to recover, they’d been dragged up to the fence and thrown through a wire gate. Edith had tears streaking down her filthy face and sobbed noisily.
The one who’d done the beating spoke to Fat Adolf in German, unaware that Marc could understand. ‘We’ve got to teach these brats a lesson, sir.’
‘Shut your idiot mouth,’ Fat Adolf spat back. ‘Go back inside. Look for more kids, and frighten ’em, don’t kill ’em.’
As the two younger men skulked off, Edith clutched her injured thigh and scowled defiantly. ‘You said your daughter’s the same age as me,’ she spat. ‘I hope your house gets bombed and she dies.’
‘You must stay out of here,’ Fat Adolf said, clenching his fists with frustration. ‘You’re only kids. You’re only stealing a bit of coal, but it all mounts up to a lot of coal. My orders are to capture or shoot anyone seen in the coal yard. There won’t be any more warnings. Spread the word to all the other kids before one of you ends up with a bullet in the back.’
As Fat Adolf spoke, Marc felt around to make sure he hadn’t lost anything. He felt his ID document, felt his knife and the matchbox camera. They’d got the photos, they hadn’t been searched. The pain was bad but he could take it.
‘Here,’ Fat Adolf said, as he held out three boiled sweets wrapped in gold foil. ‘I’m sorry.’
Edith didn’t take them, so Fat Adolf dropped them on the cobbles and she scooped them up grudgingly the moment he was out of sight.
*
The Kriegsmarine had moved the local fishing fleet away from the U-boat dock at Keroman, to a small natural harbour at Kerneval, one and a half kilometres along the coast. Henderson found it bustling with small boats, and interrupted a boy hauling up a net of fish with a dockside pulley.