Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,46

this?’

‘There was once an engine shed here,’ Gaspard explained. ‘There were tracks above and this was an inspection pit.’

Henderson was impressed that Gaspard’s resistance circuit had such a perfect hiding place. The floor was damp, so metal racks had been run along each side. The neatly organised contents must have come from several hundred containers, dropped by different Allied nations. There was tinned food and milk from the USA, canned beef from Australia and tins of a revolting concoction that the British called MV, short for ‘meat and veg’.

There were boots and winter clothes. The British and Americans were generally reluctant to drop weapons into areas where the resistance had communist sympathies. But there was a good selection of knives and grenades, plastic explosive packs disguised as ‘Best French Butter’, bundles of detonators, machine guns, rifles and stacked boxes of ammunition. Except for a few spots of rust caused by the damp conditions, every piece was in factory-fresh condition.

‘Are you planning to start another war after this one?’ Henderson asked, as he ran his hand over a shelf of torches and spare radio valves.

‘We’ve fought too hard to hand France back to capitalists,’ Gaspard said. ‘I hope it never comes to civil war in France. But if it does, we communists will be prepared.’

‘I’d love to take you to the Soviet Union some day,’ Henderson sneered.

Gaspard spat on the floor. ‘I don’t care what you say, English Officer. Take what you like, then I’ll escort you back over the bridge. And don’t waste your time coming back here. We have many hiding places. I’ll make sure there’s nothing here, should you return.’

*

The Mustang’s wings skimmed treetops as Marc floored the brake pedal and swerved off-road. The plane was doing over 200 kph, so the four machine guns had less than a second on their target. Most bullets just chewed up the road, but there were some horrible noises as ricochets pelted the truck’s underside.

A big chunk of tree fell into the road ahead as the plane roared up in a wide loop, preparing for a second attack run. Marc’s neck jerked painfully as he rolled the truck through a roadside ditch and banged to a stop against a large oak.

As Marc bailed, the plane was skimming treetops again. This second attack mainly ripped off branches. Luc had jumped out the back of the truck and shot wildly into the air with his pistol.

PT wrenched his firing arm. ‘What are you doing, he’s on our side!’

‘Shoot at me, I’ll shoot at you,’ Luc roared furiously. ‘We’re the good guys, Yankee bastard!’

‘We’re in a German truck, in German uniform.’

As PT and Luc squabbled, Marc chased Edith, Michel and Daniel on a mad scramble through a copse of trees. As the plane arced around they reached a field and dived forward into waist-height barley.

Marc rolled on to his back to see if the plane was coming around for a third run, but it kept on climbing.

‘I scared him off!’ Luc shouted.

‘I doubt he even saw you,’ PT said.

They’d only driven a couple of kilometres from the bridge. It was well out of sight, but the Germans must have seen the plane and would probably work out that it was their truck being attacked.

‘He’s gone,’ Marc said, as he sprang up. ‘All aboard!’

But while there’d been no dramatic explosions, one of the truck’s rear tyres was flat and fuel was draining into the road. PT crawled under the chassis to inspect the gas tank. He hoped he’d be able to stop the leak by plugging a hole, but the fuel dribbled from a long crack.

‘We’re going nowhere in this,’ PT declared. ‘I hope the bikes are OK.’

The news was better inside the truck. Edith’s backpack had taken two bullets, but the grenades and ammunition inside it were intact. Another shot had splintered the stock of PT’s rifle, but everything else, including the bicycles, was OK.

‘We won’t be mounting any more attacks,’ PT said. ‘But there’s enough stuff to defend ourselves and we’ll hide the fuel cans in the field in case we find a use for them. Grab what you can carry. Hopefully we’ll pick up a track and we can ride cross-country.’

‘I’ll rig the truck with a couple of booby traps,’ Luc said. ‘Should blast a couple of limbs off, with any luck.’

The others didn’t share Luc’s enthusiasm for blowing off limbs, but booby traps were a common resistance tactic. The rest of the team let Luc do his worst as they unloaded