Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,95

our territory. You gotta pay tax to park your bike here.’

Paul’s heart was thumping. The bomb would go off in under a minute and the bike was his only way back to the farm. Even the larger of the kids was probably two years younger than Paul, but he was only a few centimetres shorter and he looked strong.

‘I’ll get my dad on to you,’ Paul shouted, as he pointed back at the hotel.

Both kids smiled. ‘Go get him then, skinny.’

‘Can’t fight your own battles,’ the younger one added. ‘What a wimp!’

Paul realised he’d made a useless threat: the kids weren’t scared because they’d disappear down an alleyway as soon as any adult showed up.

Although Paul had mostly recovered from his cold he still had muck on his chest, and running down the stairs had set some of it free. He took a deep breath and coughed a huge string of phlegm into his mouth. The warm blob felt disgusting, but as he was about to spit into the kerb he realised that other people would find it even more gross and flobbed it into the palm of his hand.

‘I’m gonna rub this in your hair,’ Paul warned, sweeping his snotty hand from side to side.

‘Germs!’ the little kid shouted, as both lads backed away enough for Paul to bend down and get his key in the bike lock.

Paul flicked the snot off his hand as he straddled the bike and started pedalling up the narrow lane. He just made it around the corner into the next street as the bomb went off. The huge blast shook the ground and ripped the handlebars out of his hand.

He tried to straighten up, but he looked up and saw that he was heading into the path of an oncoming car.

20:33 Dunkirk

Naval Leutnant Baure was seventeen years old and had spent the last three hours doing repairs inside the baking hot engineroom of a torpedo boat. The vessel had sprung a leak out at sea. A bank of six cylinders had seized up and the Kapitan was threatening to discipline Baure because he’d performed the final maintenance check before leaving port and had apparently failed to notice a critical drop in oil pressure.

The charge could ruin a career that had barely even started and Baure felt angry and miserable as he sauntered behind the wharfside building inside which numerous officers were doubtless cursing his name.

He squatted down on a bollard and pulled a cigarette from a metal case. As he flipped the lid off his lighter he saw a truck coming over a bridge out the corner of his eye. He noted to himself that he’d never seen trucks moving in the docks after dark, but shrugged, thinking it was no concern of his.

As Baure took his first puff he noticed that there was an unusually strong current in the canal alongside him. Then the truck stopped at the top of a mild slope which led down to the wharfside building behind him and he started to get curious as two men got out and dragged a motorbike out of the back.

‘Guys!’ Baure shouted, as he ran around the front of the building. But his name was mud after the engine failure and he only attracted contempt from his crewmates. ‘I think something’s going on by the bridge.’

‘What have you ballsed up now, tit head?’ someone asked.

‘Truck came over the bridge and stopped dead,’ Baure explained urgently. ‘Two guys pulled a motorbike out of the back. I don’t know what’s going on but I don’t like it.’

The men didn’t know what to make of this, but within five seconds another man jumped ashore nearby and made an announcement. ‘Water’s running into the dry dock. Someone’s opened the gate.’

It didn’t take a genius to put the two bits of information together and realise that the docks were being sabotaged. A stocky officer shot to his feet and started shouting orders.

‘You, you, you – inside. Grab some weapons. Get up there and see what’s going on. Move!’

Less than a hundred metres away, Eugene leaned on the motorbike and gave it a kick start. PT pulled off the handbrake inside the truck and jumped out of the cab.

‘Three minutes,’ PT shouted, as Eugene threw him a crash helmet. ‘Let’s roll this thing.’

As the motorbike engine throbbed, PT and Eugene lined up behind the tailgate of the truck and put their backs in. The slope was gentle, but with the handbrake off the truck soon began rolling