The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,36
gate was blocked by the overgrown hedge on either side, but he ducked through and ran up to the front door, then stood under a stone archway just as the rain started to really belt down.
Dark swirls streamed down a path made from black and white tiles as Marc stared through a crack in the wooden shutters into the front room. Given the state of the garden he was surprised to see that it was reasonably well furnished, although he noticed that the soft furnishings were covered in brown dustsheets, as if the owner had gone away for a long time.
As the rain pelted, Marc started wondering about the house. It looked pretty comfortable inside and, with the Germans on the march, it didn’t seem likely that the owner would be returning any time soon. Maybe he could break in.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rosie cleaned up Paul’s cuts with disinfectant, then they began sorting through the luggage and packing bare essentials into two small suitcases: clothes, their mother’s jewellery, their father’s gold cufflinks, a French road map, toothbrushes and a few small items of toiletries. The most painful decision was over the photo album. They’d never manage to carry the whole thing, with its heavy cardboard cover, so they each took a few favourites and solemnly left behind hundreds of photographs mounted on black pages, with comments written in white pencil by their mother.
Then the siblings made a careful study of their father’s wallet and pocket book to see if they could find a number for Charles Henderson. They sat close on the dry grass beside the car, wading through scribbled notes and details of department-store buyers, shipping-line engineers, members of the French military and jottings on restaurants and hotels where their father had found a good meal or comfortable bed during his days on the road. But they couldn’t find any contact details for Henderson.
‘Hopeless,’ Rosie declared, after three-quarters of an hour. ‘I think we’d better get moving.’
Paul insisted on taking his best drawings and pens and as she was older and stronger, Rosie took both her belongings and the case with the documents inside. It was a dead weight and she was forced to switch arms even before they’d walked a full kilometre.
‘We need a pram or a trolley,’ Rosie said. ‘Quite a few people died in the square – we might find one abandoned there.’
‘I guess,’ Paul said. ‘But it probably would have been blasted to bits.’
‘Well maybe there’s a shop then,’ Rosie said. ‘You know, one that sells old prams or something? There’s no way I can lug all this lot to Bordeaux.’
Paul looked uncertainly at his sister. ‘If we go back to the square, do you think Dad might still be there?’
‘How should I know?’ Rosie snapped. ‘If you’ve got better ideas, Paul, I’m all ears.’
A few local trains seemed to be running and a railwayman stood at the bottom of the bridge, ordering the stream of refugees not to cross. Instead, they had to walk more than two kilometres to the road bridge that had been repaired by the army and then another kilometre back to the centre of Tours.
By the time Paul and Rosie reached the town centre their shoulders ached and their clothes were darkened by sweat. Every so often a car would hoot all of the pedestrians out of the road, giving the pair a stark reminder of how their status had plummeted.
Still, they had their health, which was more than could be said for those who’d already spent days on their feet. They were also far from the only unaccompanied children on the road. In some instances mothers had been killed, leaving kids of Rosie’s age in charge of younger siblings and carts laden with an entire family’s possessions.
The bombed square had been sealed off with wooden barriers and the cobbles were awash with huge puddles where the fire service had successfully attacked multiple blazes. Only a few smouldering embers remained and these were under careful watch from firemen who doused them with spray from their hoses.
Paul could not help but glance towards the doorway where their father had died. It was now empty.
But the biggest change since they’d left the square was that the roof of the civic building had caught light and collapsed on to the floors below it. The resulting cascade had left a spectacular mound of rubble and burnt office furniture, with two scorched walls standing erect on either side.
‘Useless,’ Paul groaned, as he stared at the mangled carcasses