It was a forty-minute ride and when the engine finally cut out, Luc felt like tenderised meat. A peek through the gap around the boot flap showed that they were parked on a busy dockside.
Luc needed to get out fast to avoid losing track of the Poles, but the compartment wasn’t designed to be opened from inside. The handle that he’d turned effortlessly when getting in linked to a steel rod that dropped into a hole to lock the flap. From inside there was no leverage. Luc’s fingers kept slipping as he gripped the rod and he imagined being stuck for hours.
After five minutes Luc abandoned subtlety and launched a series of double-footed kicks. He made a dent in the metal flap and a lot of noise, but he’d bent the pin in such a way that it was now wedged even more tightly into the hole.
‘Shit, shit, shit, bastard, shit, shit!’ Luc raged as he kicked in all directions and punched the metal over his head.
He was afraid of being stuck in the boot, and no longer cared if the Poles heard him. Then the pin started moving and gloomy morning light hit Luc’s face.
A moustached man spoke with a thick Scouse accent. ‘Now there’s a funny place to end up.’
Luc didn’t appreciate the sarcastic tone, but he crawled out on to the cobbled street and erupted in a relieved smile. The man was clearly hoping for an explanation but Luc was desperate to track down the three Poles.
After scrambling to his feet, Luc stood in the middle of the street and turned a complete circle. A brick wall capped with curved spikes blocked his view over the dockside, but he saw the steam-powered loading crane belching smoke into the sky and the sides of a huge freighter towering over the water.
Desperation returned when he saw no sign of the Poles. The street was busy with dockworkers, while porters ran back and forth taking trolleys and carts through the customs gate to vans and carts parked under a bomb-damaged warehouse across the street.
The dockside was always overcrowded and when the building had burned the debris had been cleared out of its shell, leaving its charred concrete floor as a public loading area. Two crumbling walls stood at either side, with a tangle of charred roof beams spanning between them.
Luc studied the jumble of carts, porters, horses and trucks miserably. He thought his best bet would be to wait near the bus and hope that the Poles returned, but there was no guarantee they would.
Then he looked up through the burned-out roof and noticed a pylon. It was braced between the damaged side wall of the warehouse and the next building, its pristine metalwork suggesting it had been built after the warehouse was bombed. The platform stood ten metres off the ground and the snout of a twenty-millimetre cannon poked out above a wall of sandbags.
Luc still hadn’t sighted the Poles, but he felt sure that he’d found their target.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The eight o’clock siren at Walden’s brought out pattern-cutters, weavers, machinists and warehousemen who’d begun work at midnight. Their seats wouldn’t cool down before the eight o’clock shift took their places and this went on three shifts a day, seven days a week. War’s end or German bombs were the only things that would stop trucks filled with parachutes from leaving the front gates.
The shift change provided a screen for entering the factory. The idea behind using kids for espionage work was that nobody would suspect them. However, being young was a liability in places where kids didn’t belong. Any adult could have walked into Walden’s at shift change without raising an eyebrow, but Marc, Joel and Rosie would stand out.
At fifteen, PT was the same age as an apprentice machinist or a warehouse boy, so he went in alone. Figuring that appearing busy was the best way to look inconspicuous, he bustled purposefully through the crowd at the front gate and then cut inside the building.
The newly arrived workers took paper cards from wall racks and queued to stamp them in punch clocks mounted on the far wall. PT pushed his way through the women and found the factory floor. To his left was a space fitted with giant tables for cutting patterns, each with a roll of shimmering parachute silk hanging above it. The workers were settling in, hanging their coats and adjusting workspaces. A man in a brown suit stood in the corner urging the girls on.
‘Come on, my ladies,’ he said, clearly thinking that he was god’s gift to women. ‘Don’t dilly-dally.’
PT tried not to catch his eye, but he pulled him in like a magnet.
‘What are you here for?’
‘A bucket,’ PT said, as he pointed towards the office block. ‘We’re decorating over there and we need to scrub up before Mr Walden arrives.’
The supervisor smiled. ‘I wouldn’t worry about Mr Walden, he’s been dead fifteen years. You’ll find cleaning stuff through the blue door where you came in. Just you make sure it comes back when you’re done.’
‘Brilliant,’ PT nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’
PT shoved his way back through the women queuing to punch in and found his way into a large cupboard. There was a sink at the back and he part-filled a bucket and grabbed a mop before heading outside.
It was a hundred-metre walk to the offices. The doorman didn’t bat an eye as PT strode into a marble-clad hallway. A line of headless dummies dressed in Walden nightgowns stood guard as he waited for the lift to the third floor.
PT thought getting on to the roof might prove difficult, but the office staff didn’t start until nine. He crossed a deserted typing pool and stepped into an open manager’s office. The large sash window overlooked the factory’s asphalt roof, less than a metre below. As Marc had predicted there was nobody manning the guns or searchlights, though there was a solitary maintenance woman repairing the asphalt on the far side of the roof, more than a hundred metres away.
Satisfied that he’d found the right place to climb on to the roof, PT crossed the typing pool and entered another office on the opposite side. From here he could see Joel standing behind a damaged section of the fence. He opened the window and gave a thumbs-up before dashing downstairs.
Rosie was first into the marble lobby. She was too young to be an employee and the doorman looked up from his counter.
‘You look a little lost,’ he said sympathetically. ‘And rather soggy too.’
PT emerged from the stairwell and pretended to be angry as he came through the double doors. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’ PT shouted to Rosie. ‘I don’t owe you anything.’
The doorman was surprised by this, but he stayed put until PT grabbed Rosie by her collar and smacked her around the face.
‘Hey,’ the doorman shouted, as Rosie howled with fake pain. ‘You’re out of order, young man.’
‘What’s it to you?’ PT roared. ‘Keep your nose out, fatty.’
The doorman was past his prime, but he was a big fellow and he bunched his fist. ‘Little hooligan,’ he roared. ‘Do you want a taste?’
PT allowed Rosie to fight herself free, and she backed away as the doorman charged forwards. PT ducked the big fist, then Rosie smashed her palm into the doorman’s temple, knocking him sideways to the ground.
The blow would have knocked most men out, but the doorman hit the polished floor, rolled over and tried getting back up. PT kicked him in the ribs as Marc and Joel ran into the lobby holding lengths of pre-tied rope.
‘Rosie, get the elevator,’ PT shouted, as he jumped on the doorman to try and subdue him.
They hadn’t anticipated such a struggle and everyone was tense. It would take one secretary to arrive for work early and run outside screaming and they’d be totally screwed.
Rosie stood in the door of the lift, holding the metal grilles open so that it couldn’t leave. After a struggle Joel tied the doorman’s hands behind his back. They lifted him off the floor, still kicking and yelling.
As Marc held the doorman by the scruff of his shirt, he craned his neck forwards and sank his teeth into the boy’s wrist. Marc howled in pain and let go. The other two boys couldn’t carry him alone, and the heavy body hit the marble floor. PT had lost his temper and he
punched the doorman hard in the solar plexus.
‘Keep still,’ PT yelled. ‘Don’t make me knock you out.’
Eventually they bundled him into the lift. Rosie had to step out as the gates slammed shut and she could hear the doorman yelling all the way as she chased the lift car up the stairs.
*
Nobody paid Luc much notice as he sauntered around the burned-out warehouse. Besides the legitimate trade coming through the customs gate he watched a thriving black market in everything from a trolley stacked with boxes of nails to stolen fruit stuffed inside dockworkers’ pockets. Luc spent a few coins and breakfasted on peanuts and oranges, a fruit he hadn’t tasted since leaving France more than six months earlier.
All the while Luc kept one eye on the Poles. They’d been back to the coach and found a toolkit designed for changing tyres and basic repairs on the engine. They’d met no resistance in climbing the pylon. In peacetime a heavy-calibre machine gun would be kept under close guard, but there were tens of thousands of anti-aircraft installations across Britain. Finding bodies to man the batteries by night was difficult; deploying scarce manpower to guard all these installations by day was impossible.
As the Poles worked to unbolt the cannon from its steel platform, Luc plotted their downfall. There were porters everywhere: tough old men willing to shift a load on a trolley or handcart for a few pence.
Luc’s biggest problem was with the Poles themselves. If you stuck Luc in a room with ten other thirteen-year-olds and told them to fight, he’d be the one who came out on his feet. But these opponents were grown men who’d done the same kind of espionage and combat training as he had. His sole advantage was that the Poles had no idea that he was stalking them.
The area beneath the pylon and the two warehouses was five metres wide. Fire-damaged timber and molten glass had been shovelled in and the resulting mound had spawned a few weeds and a lot of rats. Currently the rubble was capped with snow.
Luc watched the Poles release the final bolts and lift the gun from its mounting. As two men began disassembly, the third clanked down metal rungs towards the ground. He might be going back to the bus, or maybe he was planning to steal or hire a handcart to make moving the gun easier.
The rungs were icy, and he made a relieved gasp when he finally stood on the rubble.
‘Don’t you like ladders then?’ Luc said, making a poor attempt at sounding like an Englishman.
The Pole turned, but before he had a chance to see who he was talking to, Luc smashed him in the face with a huge blob of slate and melted glass. As blood spewed and five front teeth buckled inside the Pole’s mouth, Luc hit him again in the back.
Luc took a quick glance to check that nobody else had seen him before kneeling down across the Pole and using his right arm to choke him out. On a real operation Luc would probably have cut the Pole’s throat, but this was an exercise.
Luc smiled crazily as he wiped his hand across the Pole’s bloody face. ‘Now let’s see how we can fix your two pals.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Rosie stayed inside the third-floor office, keeping lookout while holding a hefty torque wrench that would deliver a nasty surprise to anyone arriving early for work. The doorman lay under the desk, gagged and trussed but his eyes still defiant.
Out on the roof the three boys were hidden behind sandbag walls as they disassembled the twenty-millimetre cannon. Clearing ammunition and stripping the gun down was no different to cleaning rifles after target practice on campus, except that the pieces were bigger. The tricky part was removing the body of the cannon from the metal turntable on which it was mounted.
Marc lay awkwardly with his back on the metal footplate, pulling a spanner with all his might.
‘Jesus,’ he sighed breathlessly. ‘This nut must have been tightened by a gorilla.’
Joel shook his head with frustration. ‘Where’s Luc’s muscle when you need it?’
‘He’s probably got his feet up on a nice warm train with Paul and Takada,’ PT sighed. Then he laughed. ‘Either that or he’s dangling off a tree by his parachute strings.’
‘Get me the hammer,’ Marc ordered, as he sat up. ‘Joel, you hold the spanner.’
PT gave Marc a hammer from the tool sack, then stood over the end of the gun holding the barrel so that the turntable didn’t swing around. Marc lay back down and swung the hammer.
‘Owww!’ Joel yelped, stumbling backwards and clutching his thumb. ‘Look what you’re doing, you prat.’
‘I’m upside down here,’ Marc protested, as he craned his head upwards and smiled. He gave the spanner another pull and the nut started twisting free. ‘Am I a genius, or what? Let’s do the next one. Grab the spanner, Joel.’
‘If the so-called genius whacks me again he’ll get a punch in the gob,’ Joel said irritably.
‘I barely tapped you,’ Marc said. ‘Ready?’
Marc repeated the hammer and spanner technique and released the other three bolts without further damage to Joel. When the last bolt came out, the gun began sliding off its plinth. It would have hit Marc’s legs if PT hadn’t grabbed the barrel, but in doing this he knocked the gun sideways. The roof creaked as it hit the asphalt with a dull thud. The women working below must have thought the roof was coming in on their heads.
They didn’t need the tools any more, so Marc tipped them out of the sacks and replaced them with the gun sight, magazine and a few other loose pieces. Meantime, PT and Joel strained as they tried lifting the main body of the gun.
‘Christ,’ Joel moaned, as he mopped his sweating brow on to his shirt cuff.
‘Damned sight heavier than I expected,’ PT agreed.
Marc passed the canvas sacks up to Rosie as she leaned out of the office window. When he looked back he saw that the other two were still struggling. They could barely keep the gun off the ground and he jogged back over to help them.
‘I’ll grab the end,’ Marc said.
The boys paused to catch their breath when they finally rested the gun against the side of the office building, with the barrel poking through the window.
‘You OK?’ Rosie asked, as she leaned outside. ‘Somebody walked past the door in here and the doorman’s already spat his gag out twice. We can’t hang around much longer.’
‘This steel’s over an inch thick,’ PT explained. ‘We’ll get it inside, but we’re going to need a trolley or something after that.’
Rosie nodded. ‘I’ll go look.’
The typing pool had three lines of eight small desks, each bearing typewriters with in and out trays stacked alongside. The typist who’d arrived early was a slender, hunched woman with frizzy black hair. She sat behind her typewriter, click-clacking a pair of knitting needles.
Rosie remembered what Henderson had taught her: be confident, put on a front and people will believe what you say.
‘Good morning,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m helping my dad out servicing the gun on the roof and we need to take it downstairs. Is there a trolley or something we can use to wheel it through the office?’
The woman lowered her knitting and looked up. ‘Trolley,’ she said slowly, the pause giving Rosie’s nerves a chance to jangle. ‘I think so.’
The woman dropped her knitting inside a rattan bag, walked to the back of the room and then cut through a swinging door.
The boys whispered curses as the gun passed its centre of gravity. It slid off the windowsill and banged down on the office floor. Rosie wanted to peek inside and see what was going on, but the typist came back with an upright trolley that ran on two sturdy wheels.
‘That looks perfect,’ Rosie gushed. But she cut her smile short, realising that she was acting a little too pleased for someone whose motives were supposed to be mundane.
‘We use it to shift boxes of files,’ the typist explained, as Rosie took the handles. ‘You’ll bring it straight back, won’t you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Rosie lied, as she tilted the trolley and wheeled it into the office.
&nb
sp; ‘Nice one,’ PT said, when he saw it.
Down at floor level, Rosie saw that the doorman was close to spitting his gag out again. She squatted down and crammed the handkerchiefs back in, then picked the wrench off the top of the desk.
‘One sound out of you,’ Rosie said menacingly, then she banged the wrench into her palm to demonstrate. ‘I’m getting pretty sick of you.’
PT held the trolley as Marc and Joel manoeuvred the gun on to the platform. The barrel was as tall as the fifteen-year-old. It wouldn’t stay balanced so Marc fixed it to the trolley with a length of rope.
‘I’ll get the lift,’ Rosie said, as she hurried out into the hallway.
The arrival bell dinged as she approached the lift. She watched a man and woman going up through the metal grilles. When the lift came back down, the three boys rolled in the trolley.
‘This thing’s so damned heavy,’ PT said quietly. ‘I thought we’d be able to drag it through the fields out back, but we can’t carry it and this trolley will sink into the mud.’
‘What if we brazen it out?’ Marc asked. ‘Try going straight through the front gate?’
‘They search people going out rather than going in,’ Joel said. ‘Four people our age carrying all this junk, they’ll stop us for sure.’
‘I think I saw another gate for the office car park,’ Rosie noted. ‘It’s nearer as well.’
‘We should have put more thought into this,’ Marc said, as the lift stopped at the ground floor.
‘How could I have known this was going to be so heavy?’ PT asked defensively.
The four youngsters emerged into the lobby. A man in a three-piece suit disappeared on to the stairs as PT juddered the trolley wheels over the gap between the elevator car and the lobby’s marble floor.
‘There’s too many people around for comfort,’ Rosie whispered.
‘Just act confident,’ PT urged, as he started pushing the trolley towards the main entrance.
A pretty young woman stood by the reception desk. She wore a long skirt, light-blue blouse and a Post Office cap.