his nurse maids. Let’s go home and get fed.’
Marc shrugged awkwardly. ‘But he’s really sick, PT. What if he passes out or something? His mum will get really worried.’
Dumont leaned forwards and retched again, but nothing came out. ‘Screw it, take me home,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ve brought most of it up now, I reckon. I’ll tell my mum it’s something I ate.’
PT stood beside Dumont and let him put a fat arm around his neck. ‘Let’s walk.’
As Dumont stumbled forwards, Marc supported him from the other side. ‘Why’d you have to be so fat, Dumont?’ he complained.
They made it over the drainage ditch at the edge of the field and started crunching up the gravel lane towards the village green. A truck was coming up behind and PT looked over his shoulder to check it out.
‘Germans,’ he said.
‘Who else would have petrol?’ Marc replied.
As the truck closed in, PT and Marc guided Dumont over the verge. The lane didn’t take you any place that the coast road wouldn’t get you to faster which made the truck a rare sight, but the boys didn’t give any thought until it blasted past, showering them with dirt.
‘Nazi pricks,’ Marc coughed, as he flicked grey dust out of his hair.
Anger turned to alarm as the driver slammed on the brakes and the truck came to a crunching halt twenty metres ahead. The back flap slammed down and three young soldiers jumped out from beneath a canvas canopy with their rifles in hand. Marc recognised their leader, a broad-shouldered fellow with round glasses. He was always the loudest voice in the little crowd that spent its evenings outside the village bar.
Marc and PT both thought about running, but Dumont was a dead weight and they had no chance of outrunning German bullets.
‘Piss in our car?’ the big chap shouted in bad French, as he swung wildly with his rifle butt.
The blow hit Marc in the chest, knocking him backwards and sending Dumont crashing down on top of him.
‘Piss in our car?’ the German repeated.
His second swing smashed Dumont in the ribs. PT turned to run, but the other two Germans had built up speed and caught up within a couple of paces. One grabbed PT by the arms as his mate slugged him in the belly. Once PT had doubled over, they dragged him forwards, knocking him head first into a tree and then kicking his legs away so that he sprawled face first on to the knobbly roots around the trunk.
As the German in the round glasses ruthlessly laid into Dumont with heavy boots and rifle butt, the driver grabbed Marc off the ground and slapped his face hard before twisting his hand up behind his back.
‘French piece of shit,’ he shouted, as he swung Marc around and frogmarched him until he slammed into the side of the truck. ‘I borrowed that car from our major. You know how long it took to scrub up?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Marc replied in German.
‘Let me jog your memory,’ the German said, before smacking Marc’s head against the mudguard over the wheel. ‘Major Ghunsonn’s put us all on report because of you. Then he sent us up here to find the boys that pissed in his car.’
‘There’s lots of boys living around here,’ Marc lied, a chill going down his back as he noticed that Dumont had gone quiet.
‘You’re the only ones we ever saw,’ the driver growled. ‘I saw one of you going around the side of the bar, but it wasn’t you, was it? He was taller than you.’
‘I swear I don’t know,’ Marc said, tears streaming down his face as the German tightened the grip on his arm so that it felt like his shoulder was about to rip out of its socket.
‘There’s a prison in Calais,’ the German said nastily. ‘Twenty men in a cell built for six and you’ll be the smallest one in there. You won’t last two days … But if you tell me who it was, I’ll let you go.’
Marc tried to focus his mind, but all he wanted was for the pain to stop. ‘Dumont did it,’ he sniffed. ‘The fat guy in the road.’
‘Thought so,’ the German said, as he let Marc go.
Marc gasped, but his relief only lasted until the German snapped a set of rigid metal cuffs over his wrists.
‘Climb in the truck,’ he ordered.
‘You said I could go.’
‘I lied.’ The German smiled. ‘Sabotage of German property is a serious matter.