kneecap. Still on fire, he fell to the floor and rolled on to his chest to smother the flames. Rosie stepped astride his body and knocked him out by smashing the heavy skillet against the back of his head.
‘Dirty pig,’ she screamed, dropping the skillet as smoke continued to rise from Dumont’s smouldering shirt.
Dumont was unconscious, but instead of relief Rosie’s stomach churned. She collapsed against the kitchen dresser and doubled over sobbing. For a few moments she gave in to the horror of what Dumont had tried to do, but as she looked down at his unconscious body she was determined not to let her emotions affect their carefully laid plan.
17:24 Calais
While Eugene and PT drove to Dunkirk in the freshly stolen truck, Paul and Henderson parked up and headed for a hotel near the port in Calais. The bombed headquarters were less than a kilometre away and you could still hear ambulance sirens and see smoke from small fires billowing into the sky.
‘A terrible business,’ the elderly woman on the reception desk said. ‘The man who cleans my windows was up that way. He tells me they’re pulling one body after another out of the rubble. Mostly Boche, but a lot of French too.’
‘I didn’t see any bombers either,’ Henderson noted, trying to sound innocent as he wrote and the farm address into the hotel register while the receptionist swapped his banknotes for a room key.Charles Boyle
‘Is that on the top floor, Dad?’ Paul asked eagerly.
‘He likes to watch the big boats come and go,’ Henderson explained to the woman.
The receptionist smiled. ‘It’s right up top, with a lovely view over the harbour. Now, our air-raid shelter is across the street and, obviously, with our location we get our share of those. Our restaurant is permanently closed because our chef went south, but there are a few nice cafés along the canal.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Henderson smiled as he took the room key off the countertop and began walking up a flight of narrow stairs with a heavy suitcase in his arms.
Paul opened the door and breathed musty air as he stared at two rusting single beds and a cracked washbasin on the wall with a chamber pot standing beneath it. As Henderson closed the door and threw the suitcase on the bed by the balcony, Paul opened up the doors and stepped outside.
In comparison to the large harbours at Boulogne, Calais was a warren of natural inlets and manmade canals, with docks spiking off in different directions. The invasion barges were spread about, making it more difficult for the RAF to destroy large numbers in one go, but on the upside, the port sprawled through the heart of the town. The homes and businesses all around made it impossible to build a truly secure perimeter around the docks.
‘You see why I picked this hotel?’ Henderson said quietly, as he stood on the balcony beside Paul. ‘The main port entrance and open sea less than fifty metres away, docks going off to either side and these old buildings will burn like tinderboxes.’
‘I wonder if that lady owns the hotel,’ Paul said, a touch sadly, as he headed back into the room.
Henderson opened the lid of the suitcase, exposing two dozen sticks of gelignite and more than fifty golf-ball-sized phosphorous flare bombs.
‘You’ve got to look at the bigger picture,’ Henderson said, as he pulled a tin of detonators out of his jacket pocket. ‘Do you think I’m proud that I set a bomb that’s probably killed fifty or sixty people inside army headquarters? Some people will probably die when these buildings burn. More will die when the bombers arrive.’certainly
Paul nodded as he sat on the bed and peered into the suitcase.
‘I’m setting everything up for you now,’ Henderson said. ‘You’re using a four-minute detonator. Light the end of the cord, run downstairs, up the street and unlock the bike. Are you certain you know the route back to the farm in the dark?’
‘It’s easy enough,’ Paul said. ‘Left at the top of the road, then the turn-off for the coast road; you’ll all be waiting at the harbour.’
‘Excellent,’ Henderson said.
Paul gave Henderson a serious look. ‘Do you ever think about dead people? Like my dad, or the people who drowned on the Cardiff Bay? I always do. I get nightmares sometimes too.’
‘I don’t think you’d be human if you didn’t get upset,’ Henderson said. ‘I guess the difference between me and you is that I chose a life of