Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,98

on Rosie’s wrist.

‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘You did great.’

20:44 Dunkirk

Of the three hundred and thirty-seven bombers targeting the northern coast of France that night, eighty-eight would target Dunkirk, each carrying between three and a half and five tonnes of bombs. Eugene’s ears started to ring when the first bomb went off, and twenty more landed within seconds. Then the next pair of bombers made their run, then the next.

Some dropped bombs, others sprayed mug-sized incendiaries that burst into flames upon impact. There was fire and heat on all sides, as the two dripping teenagers looked for an escape route.

The bombs were far from accurate. Eugene and PT found a damaged section of the chain-link fence and cleared the dockyard, but remained at risk on artillery-shelled streets that had seen some of the heaviest fighting during the last phase of the British evacuation.

‘What now?’ PT shouted, as the pair slumped against a wall.

‘Head for the barracks, maybe,’ Eugene suggested. ‘Steal a car, or another motorbike. It’s only a couple of kilometres.’

‘Yeah, but which direction?’ PT screamed.

As a huge blast erupted less than five hundred metres away, a burning Halifax tore overhead as bricks rained down.

‘We’re in hell,’ Eugene shouted. ‘We died already and didn’t notice.’

The Halifax was getting lower, and its flaming right wing was breaking away.

‘That’ll teach you to bomb me, you bastard,’ PT shouted, punching the air.

‘They’re on our side,’ Eugene said, as he stood up to start walking again. ‘Come on, we can’t stay here.’

‘If they’re bombing me, they’re the bloody enemy,’ PT said, as the pair moved off.

The blasts and smoke had disorientated them and with the streets covered in rubble it was impossible to gauge direction. The bomber’s wing tore away and the unstable fuselage flipped end over end before thudding into the remains of Dunkirk’s largest cinema, several hundred metres ahead of them.

Before the next turning the road itself had collapsed, exposing cellars filled with shattered wine bottles. By the time PT and Eugene had negotiated their way around they’d reached one of the small number of roads that the Germans had cleared to allow traffic to and from the docks. A black car sped towards them as the ground trembled again.

The dust and heat had dried PT’s mouth and he was fighting a cough as the car slowed and came to a halt fifty metres shy of the crashed aircraft. A pair of Germans stepped out and aimed torches into the rubble.

‘They’re SS,’ Eugene said. ‘Probably hunting downed airmen.’

‘Surrender,’ the Germans shouted, as they moved unenthusiastically over chinking bricks.

But it didn’t take much more than a glance to work out that nobody could have survived the crash and the black-uniformed pair swung their torches around and headed back for the car.

‘Excuse me,’ Eugene shouted, as he jogged towards them.

PT was shocked by Eugene’s boldness, but realised the Germans were their only chance of getting out of the bombing zone quickly.

‘We’re from the docks,’ Eugene explained. ‘Can you give us a ride out of here? We’re desperate.’

The two SS men didn’t understand much French, but their expressions made it clear that they weren’t in the mood to pick up passengers.

‘Walk, you lazy French scum,’ one officer shouted, as he pointed along the clear road.

Eugene and PT’s youth and peasant clothing meant that the Germans dismissed them as dockworkers, or some of the crazed locals who continued to live in the bombed-out town centre. They certainly didn’t regard the boys as a threat and seemed far more concerned with brushing the dust off their black uniforms.

‘Kill them,’ Eugene mouthed to PT as he pulled his gun.

PT pulled his gun too, and it was only as he pulled the trigger that he remembered that both guns had been underwater. He got the horrible feeling that it was about to jam or explode in his hand. But it didn’t.

Eugene had been a top-ranked marksman in the French army and he’d shot both Germans clean through the heart as PT’s shot skimmed the falling bodies and ricocheted off rubble.

‘That’ll teach them to be so vain.’ Eugene smiled. ‘Bloody fascists.’

21:23 The Harbour

After pushing the three dead Germans into the sea, Henderson drove the truck to the edge of the pier and hauled three sacks of coal up towards a tug called Madeline IV. He then climbed aboard and felt a pang of nostalgia for his days in the regular navy as he went below deck to stoke up the boiler.

Rosie sat on a stool at the base of the pier