see Louis at the dockyard, tell him I’ll be arriving at around two-thirty.’
‘Right,’ Marc said, as he started to walk.
Gérard’s ma”tre d’ stepped out beneath the grubby cloth canopy over the doorway. ‘Good to see you, Kommodore Kuefer. Your garden table is ready.’
Once his boss was out of sight Marc quickened his pace. If he was hungry he’d usually go straight to the dockyard to beat the queue of labourers to a hot lunch, but the dockyard stew only took a few minutes to eat so Marc had often used his boss’s leisurely lunch breaks to explore, and he’d come to know Boulogne well.
After turning off the street, Marc broke into a run. Like all the ports in the Pas-de-Calais, Boulogne had a heavy German presence, but he was known as Kuefer’s translator and nobody ever bothered him. After skimming past a pair of miserable looking soldiers he sprinted down an alleyway between two rows of houses, ducking beneath strands of washing and getting yelled at when he crashed into an old man hidden behind yellowed bed sheets.
At the end of the alleyway, he ran past filthy wire cages crammed with ducks, then jumped over a fence into the overgrown garden of a bombed-out house. There were two mature oaks and a tall hedgerow between himself and a convoy of German trucks blurring past on the main route east.
As instructed Maxine had left a canvas bag between the trees. Marc crouched down and unbuckled it to check what was inside: phosphorous bombs, plastic explosive, detonators, fuse cord, piano wire and two pistols. He noticed a sheet of pink paper jutting from the front pocket and smiled when he read it:
I saved you the last piece! Good Luck. M.
Marc pulled a soggy block of bread pudding out of the pocket. Maxine cooked a mixture of French and English dishes and bread pudding had become his favourite. He checked the pocket watch Henderson had given him and made sure he had time before tucking in greedily.
The last mouthfuls were tinged with sadness. Would he ever see Maxine or taste her bread pudding again?
When there was nothing left he licked the sugar off the greaseproof paper and realised that Maxine was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother. Rather than throw her pink note away, he folded the paper three times and tucked it deep into his trouser pocket.
Marc struggled with the heavy bag and took a different alleyway back towards the docks. Rather than risk being searched on his way into the secure perimeter around the docks, he stopped by Kuefer’s Mercedes, unlocked the trunk and buried the bag deep inside beneath rolled-up plans, umbrellas and leather coats.
The roads around the dockyards were sealed off by gates and sentry boxes, but the German on the gate was used to Marc coming and going and barely glanced at his paperwork.
‘Where’s your boss?’ the guard asked miserably.
‘Stuffing his face at Gérard’s,’ Marc said. Although his German still wasn’t fluent, it had improved hugely over the weeks he’d spent working as Kuefer’s translator.
‘Officers,’ the guard said, making the word sound like a curse and giving an gesture as Marc ducked under the gate.up yours
‘Tell me about it,’ Marc smiled.
The port had two large rectangular harbours which were separated by a natural peninsula. The sun was high and as he walked along the waterfront more than two hundred barges bobbed on the twinkling water, tied ten to fifteen abreast at each mooring.
They varied from huge coal barges more than a hundred metres long and now converted to carry tanks, down to narrow boats made for the still waters of the Dutch canal system. All had been given a thin coat of grey paint and had numbers stencilled on the side of their hulls.
At the far side where the harbour broke on to the open sea, Marc noticed that there were fewer barges than there had been the previous Thursday. This confirmed intelligence picked up by Henderson that the Germans were beginning to spread the barges across beaches in preparation for the invasion in exactly one week’s time.
Behind the twin harbours lay a broad canal that was a kilometre long and lined with the small boatyards where the conversion work was still progressing. The prisoners took lunch in two shifts and Marc sidled up to two African men. They formed part of a larger group of dark-skinned prisoners who’d finished eating and were throwing dice against the upturned hull of a fishing boat that hadn’t