The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,29

chinked down and a woman screamed horribly. At least it wasn’t Rosie.

A second later, Paul felt a tug on his arm. Half blind and his mouth filled with dust, Mr Clarke dragged his son towards the early sunlight piercing the end of the alleyway.

‘Did you see Rosie?’ Mr Clarke asked.

Paul was coughing violently and couldn’t answer.

‘Rosie?’ Mr Clarke bellowed.

She’d sprinted ahead and stood at the end of the alleyway, in better shape than her male relatives. The German planes continued to drone as Paul forced himself to open his eyes and blink out the grit. They’d emerged into a busy square filled with dust, flames and panic. When Paul got some focus he saw the wreckage of market stalls. Every building had shattered windows and a horse thrashed helplessly on its side. Its hind quarters were badly burned and it was pinned down by the charred remains of a cart harnessed to its back.

Rosie looked anxiously at her brother’s torn and blood-spattered shirt sleeve. ‘Show me your hand.’

Paul raised his arm and saw that it was peppered with scratches and cuts. He’d hardly noticed because his grit-filled eyes were much more painful.

‘We’ll have to find some water and get that cleaned up,’ Rosie said. ‘Your head’s cut too.’

Paul was aware of a stinging sensation just above his ear and he felt with his fingertips until he found some hair matted with blood.

‘Oh, that’s clever,’ Rosie said. ‘Stick your filthy fingers in and get it infected.’

‘What can we do now?’ Paul asked, ignoring his sister and looking up at his dad.

But Mr Clarke was in a daze.

A terrible moan went up as a man hoisted an elderly woman on to his back. Her face and torso had been shredded by flying glass. Another man was calling out for a gun to put the burned horse out of its misery.

‘You’ve got a gun,’ Rosie said, giving her father a nudge.

‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ Mr Clarke said irritably. ‘I’m a foreigner walking around with a German pistol. Do you want me to get arrested?’

Rosie backed off and shook her hands furiously. ‘Well don’t just stand there, Dad! What do you want us to do?’

‘OK …’ Mr Clarke mumbled. ‘I’m trying to think … Can you remember the way back to the car?’

‘The alleyway’s blocked off with rubble,’ Paul noted.

But Rosie nodded. ‘I’m sure I can find another way back towards the river.’

‘Good,’ Clarke said, pointing across the square towards a post office. ‘You take Paul back to the car and use my first aid kit to clean up his cuts. I’m going over there to see if I can get a call through to Henderson in Paris and maybe pick up some bread if the queues aren’t too bad.’

Mr Clarke got out his wallet and gave his daughter a ten-franc note. ‘In case you come across a place selling bread, or some other kind of food that you fancy.’

‘What if we end up buying the same thing?’ Rosie asked.

Mr Clarke shrugged. ‘With the Germans smashing up the roads and bridges, supplies are going to get short. I’d rather we end up with too much food than not enough. Now start heading back and I’ll meet you back at the car in twenty minutes or so.’

‘Maybe we should stick together,’ Paul said. ‘My arm doesn’t hurt much.’

As Paul was speaking his sister realised that the aircraft had dropped out of sight, whilst the sound of their engines was getting louder. This could only mean that the pilots were coming in over the rooftops for a machine-gun attack. People in the square started running for cover and a few screams went up as a fighter cleared the flag post on top of a small civic building and let rip.

Travelling at two hundred kilometres an hour, the line of bullets crossed the square in under three seconds. Most pulsed off the cobbles and ricocheted widely, retaining enough force to kill. Direct hits pounded market stalls, tore up cars and occasionally hit human flesh.

Paul’s heart slammed as he dived into a doorway between two shop fronts with his father and Rosie bundled on top of him. He looked up, but his father forced his head down.

‘There’s more coming,’ Clarke explained.

Over the next half minute three more fighters skimmed low over the square, firing their machine guns and causing a wave of screams. There were more injured and some dead, but at least the horse got finished off.

After the fighters came a taut, dusty silence. Paul looked up