Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,23

close the consulate. She obeyed the first part of this order, but ignored the second and on her own initiative reopened the offices as an unofficial refuge and missing children’s bureau.

The rooms upstairs, including the consul’s wood-panelled banqueting suite, now housed children who were mostly aged five and under, while the kitchen that once prepared food for local dignitaries specialised in warm milk and toddler-sized meals.

The chaotic exodus south had split thousands of children from their families. Thirty kids lived on the consulate’s first and second floors, while two hundred others, ranging from babies to young teens, were divided amongst local church halls, private homes and classrooms. Some had got lost amidst the chaos, while others had seen mothers and siblings killed or horrifically injured in bomb blasts.

There was a shortage of everything from food and clothes to bedding and medical supplies. After carrying the food hampers in from the truck, Rosie hurried upstairs to be greeted by a bunch of surprisingly cheerful youngsters, who hugged her legs and begged her to play games.

Maxine had recruited several women refugees, who looked after the children in return for regular food and a safe place to sleep. Caring for so many youngsters in a space not designed for them was hard work, but Rosie mucked in with the washing, feeding and laundering.

Rosie had grown to know the kids over the past two weeks, but looking after them was exhausting and at times she hated it. Several of the children were ill and after all they’d been through it was only natural that several sets of pee-stained sheets had to be washed each morning. But Rosie continued to grieve for her own father and the work gave her life some purpose.

Other parts of the job were more pleasant. On bright afternoons she’d take a group of five kids to chase around the grounds of a nearby church and once in a while she’d witness a minor miracle: an auntie or mother turning up and taking one of the children away.

Maxine worked downstairs in the offices. She kept records on every missing child in the Bordeaux area and published a list of children and adults who’d lost track of someone. Each day the long list was typed on to stencils, then duplicated on a hand-cranked Mimeograph machine.

After lunch she’d walk around town putting up copies in a dozen prominent locations such as the main railway station, police stations and churches. In many spots Maxine’s list was met by a crowd, anxious to check if the names of missing relatives had been added.

Her final stop was the local newspaper, which printed new additions to the list and occasionally found space for a story with a happy ending.

*

There were several radio repair shops in Bordeaux, but Henderson judged that the one situated in the docks would be used to repairing maritime transmitters and more likely to stock the items he’d need to repair the consul’s radio transmitter.

The situation around the port was even grimmer than three weeks earlier. Several coal barges had arrived enabling the backlog of ships to sail, but there was still a shortage of fuel for trucks, and the railways had been crippled in the final phase of German bombing. This left mountains of goods rotting on the dockside with no route to market.

The Germans wanted France to return to normality and asked refugees to go back home, but people faced the same transport problems as the produce and German military needs were given priority on the few trains that ran.

The presence of food in the docks also attracted thousands more hungry refugees. They were short of fresh water and without shelter or toilet facilities, so the streets stank in the summer heat and it was only a matter of time before typhoid or cholera broke out.

As Marc stepped down from Henderson’s stolen truck, the refugees sprawled out in doorways seemed barely human. Some kept clean by washing in the sea, but many had given up all pretence of decency. If you were healthy you could head out into the country and steal from farms, or start making your way home on foot. Those who stayed around the docks tended to be old, sick or burdened with several children.

Radio Maritime had a conspicuously modern shopfront in a street of seedy bars and hostels. The front door had been boarded over following one of the many bomb blasts around the docks, but a sign pointed to a side entrance down an alleyway and Henderson