Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,40

thunder rumbled. The sun was vanishing under dark clouds.

‘Is there some problem with that?’ Henderson asked.

The officer was a stooped man with wisps of grey hair. He looked at the grenadier and spoke in German.

‘I’ll have to telephone headquarters,’ he said, unaware that Henderson could understand him.

‘You get back in line,’ the grenadier barked as his boss disappeared into a cottage with the paperwork.

Henderson gave the others a reassuring smile as he walked back, but it didn’t fool anyone.

Time passed, with Lucien and Holly fidgeting, army vehicles passing and a truck filled with labourers skimming through after a ten-second inspection of documents waved from the driver’s cab. Then it started to rain.

Drizzle became a torrent, blasting the grey road in windswept sheets as trees buckled and air howled through blast-damaged cottage windows. The sky was almost black when Maxine finally stepped out of line.

‘Can we put the children in the back of the truck, at least?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want them catching a cold.’

‘Back in line,’ the guard yelled as he waved his rifle at her. ‘I have to stand here day and night, rain or shine, in this French shithole. You can do the same.’

After nearly three hot days inside the metal-sided van, Marc found the rain refreshing. Lucien was in a playful mood after his nap and ducked beneath Marc’s untucked shirt to blow a raspberry on his belly. Normally this would have been funny, but Marc was on edge and the isolated setting freaked him out.

There was nothing in any direction except for the checkpoint, the cottages and the road cutting through overgrown fields. He tried not to imagine what would happen if their true identities were unearthed, but knew that the Gestapo would subject everyone to terrible torture before they were shot.

The entire party was drenched when the officer finally came outside and waved to Henderson. ‘Get in here.’

Henderson felt behind his leather belt, making sure he could feel a small hunting knife hidden within. The two armed guards made it useless out in the open, but once inside Henderson thought he might be able to attack the officer with the knife, snatch his gun and shoot one or perhaps both of the grenadiers standing outside before they knew what had happened.

The cottage had been home to a peasant family. It had no electricity and a dirt floor. The Germans had thrown the living-room furniture into the street and the officer had taken a table from the kitchen to use as a desk. He’d lit an oil lamp because of the sudden darkness. His telephone was clearly a new addition, with its woven cable running out through the front window.

‘Sit,’ the officer said, as Henderson dripped on the dirt floor.

The officer’s French was well below the standard of his subordinate. ‘I phone Calais and they say no. Where you get documents?’

‘Bordeaux. I was assured—’

‘You have permits correct,’ the officer interrupted. ‘But your reason for entry says Farmer. That is not sufficient to enter military zone.’

Henderson cursed in his head, though it was tempered with relief because his worst fear was that he’d been recognised as a spy.

‘You have to go back.’

Henderson sighed. ‘But I received these documents from the office in Bordeaux. They were sealed by a major and I was assured that everything was in order before I set off. Is there someone else I can speak to at the office in Calais or something—’

The German raised up his hands. ‘Stop!’ he said dramatically. ‘You speak too fast. My French is not good.’much

Henderson knew he’d need all of his persuasive skills so, to the officer’s surprise, he explained again in German, deliberately adding a strong French accent.

‘You speak my language well.’ The officer smiled. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘I worked as a salesman for a German company before I returned to the family farm,’ Henderson explained.

For some reason the officer found this hugely amusing. When he stopped laughing he gave Henderson another smile and picked up the telephone again.

‘We have a lot of Germans, a lot of French and nobody understands each other,’ the officer explained. ‘Hold on, I’ll phone Calais again.’

The cottage was warm and Henderson’s wet clothes stuck to his skin as the German explained that he’d unearthed a local farmer who spoke fluent German. Henderson worried that this ability might raise suspicions, but after a few sentences the German put the telephone down.

He took Henderson’s travel permit, crossed out the word Farmer, wrote Translator in its place, belted it with a rubber