Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,49

I’ll do it.’know

‘You’re an idiot,’ PT said. ‘I’m going home.’

‘I guess that shows who’s really all mouth,’ Dumont said. ‘Tell you what, your money, I’m gonna do it anyway.’forget

PT grabbed Marc’s arm as Dumont charged through the long grass and skirted the duck pond. ‘He’s such an idiot,’ PT said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘He’ll chicken out,’ Marc said with certainty.

PT started walking, but despite his better instincts part of him wanted to know if Dumont really would do it. So Marc and PT dived behind the wall and peered through cracks in the brickwork.

‘Bugger me,’ Marc gasped, as Dumont reached the side of the bar and stood alongside the open car.

Dumont pulled down the front of his trousers and aimed a powerful yellow streak inside the open-topped car. He started off peeing in the back, then took a step and urinated over the driver’s seat and steering wheel before giving the inside of the windscreen a wash down.

‘What an ,’ Marc laughed, as Dumont buttoned up and disappeared into trees behind the car.idiot

‘Come on,’ PT said, as he tugged Marc’s arm. ‘They won’t be happy when they find out.’

*

There was a heavy military presence in the Pas-de-Calais region. As well as roadside checkpoints Henderson had learned that the Germans sent random search squads into the countryside. Their main aim was to hunt down the escaped prisoners and guns that posters in every village promised would lead to a death sentence for those who harboured them.

The bulky radio transmitter was impossible to hide in the small cottage, so Henderson had stashed it on the upper deck of a barn on an unoccupied neighbouring farm.

It was dark by the time Rosie completed a four-minute transmission to London and received McAfferty’s acknowledgement. After covering the radio with heavy tent fabric and mounding it over with straw, she grabbed the handle of her oil lantern and climbed down the ladder, carefully skipping the broken fourth rung.

Paul heard her coming down and leaned inside the barn door. ‘All good?’ he whispered.

‘Good.’ She nodded as she picked up the heavy ladder and placed it in a precise spot, leaning against the side of the barn.

This was one of several security measures devised by Henderson. The ladder was always put in a specific spot so that you’d realise if anyone had moved it to climb into the loft. Two garden rakes were placed inside the door ready to flick any unwary intruder in the face, and a small piece of slate wedged in the doorway would drop out if the door was opened. Finally they watered the ground around the entrance so that the soft mud would register the boot prints of anyone who came by.

Paul jammed the slate into the bottom of the door frame and hopped across to dry ground before levelling the mud with a spade.

It was a remote area and, with the surrounding farms unoccupied, it was pitch black with nothing but natural sounds around them. After tossing the spade, Paul followed his sister into the long grass and spoke thoughtfully.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘What will we do if the Germans invade Britain? I mean, we’ll have nowhere left to go.’

Rosie walked ten paces, pondering her answer. ‘I don’t think the Germans can defeat Britain. The British are much more powerful than the French.’

Paul humphed. ‘They were saying France was invincible three months ago and look where we are now.’

‘Who knows anything about anything these days?’ Rosie shrugged. ‘At least Henderson’s smart. If Britain lost, he’d find a way for us to get into Spain or something. And who knows, maybe Britain and Germany will sign a peace treaty and by Christmas nobody will even remember that there was a war.’

Paul liked this idea. ‘I can’t help thinking about it at night,’ he admitted. ‘All the different things that could happen to the world. It keeps me awake for hours.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m the same sometimes, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have looking after us than Henderson.’

‘HALT!’ someone shouted, as bodies crackled through the long grass on either side. Then in gruff German, ‘Put up your hands.’

Paul spun around and yelped, but he slammed into an unseen body. Before he knew it he’d been shoved backwards through the undergrowth and had a pair of knees pinning his shoulders to the ground.

‘Gotcha!’ Marc grinned, before tweaking the end of Paul’s nose and letting him up. ‘I bet you’ve got big brown streaks in your pants.’

‘Dick-heads,’