The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,66
commandeered the bakery and were sending all bread supplies to their advancing troops.
Minutes later a German from the checkpoint purchased half a dozen coffees and carried them across to his comrades on a tray, returning fifteen minutes later with the empty cups and saucers.
‘How’s it going, Grenadier?’ Henderson asked. ‘That sun’s a killer.’
The soldier – who, like most German infantrymen, seemed barely out of his teens – smiled. ‘You speak good German,’ he said.
‘I’m an Alsatian,’ Henderson lied, by way of explanation. ‘I grew up speaking German, though I moved away from the border many years ago.’
‘Ahh,’ the soldier said uninterestedly.
‘We get no news,’ Henderson said. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’
The soldier laughed. ‘Do you think I get any more news standing out there than you get sitting in here? All I know is that the tanks are advancing and it’s the usual struggle to get enough fuel and food up to our troops to keep things moving.’
Henderson smiled. ‘I bet you’re happier back here than up at the front.’
‘Too bloody right,’ the German said, nodding. ‘I was one of the first over the border at Sedan. I’ve had my share of fighting, and hopefully it will be over soon.’
‘I hope so too.’ Henderson smiled at him.
As the German wandered back to his post the proprietor came across to the table and announced that he was closing.
‘You and the Boche are the only custom I’ve had in the last two hours,’ he explained. ‘It’s not worth staying open with no bread, no eggs and sausage that’s hardly worth the name.’
‘Fair enough,’ Henderson said, as he grabbed his hat off the table and stood up. ‘This bakery – you wouldn’t happen to know where it is?’
‘Of course,’ the proprietor said, as he began lifting chairs on to the tabletops. ‘It’s less than a kilometre – you must have passed by as you came towards us. But there’s no way you’ll get any bread. The master baker told me that the Germans are taking every loaf and ordering him to run the ovens flat out. They’re threatening to shoot anyone who stops working or asks to go home. He says he’ll be out of flour by tomorrow.’
Henderson left a decent tip and Marc followed him outside into the sun as three trucks crammed with troops roared past on the cobbles. They were waved through the checkpoint without slowing down.
‘What can we do?’ Marc asked, as the pair began walking towards the bakery.
Henderson wanted Marc to start thinking for himself and tested the boy as they walked. ‘What did you notice about the checkpoint?’
Marc shrugged. ‘They weren’t stopping anyone unless they were French.’
‘Exactly.’ Henderson nodded. ‘And any vehicle that either looked German or had a German at the wheel got waved through. Plus, most of the trucks only had one man in the cab.’
Marc smiled. ‘Which makes them easy to pinch if the driver steps out.’
Henderson nodded again. ‘The soldier mentioned a basic flaw in the German tactics. It caused them problems in the east last year and with luck it might make our journey across the front line a lot easier than it would have been to cross the trenches during the Great War.’
Marc was confused. ‘What flaw?’
‘The Germans fight by advancing rapidly with massed armour. Tanks, motorised artillery, etcetera. The trouble with this is that their armour charges ahead, but if it goes too far too fast it outruns the supply lines and ends up stranded without food to feed the men and diesel and ammunition to feed the tanks.’
‘Is that why the advance stopped north of Paris for three weeks?’ Marc asked.
‘That’s right. So all we have to do is stop a bread truck or a fuel tanker, bash the driver over the head, put on his tunic and we should be able to get right up the German lines. They’re advancing too quickly to build fortifications, so if we find a country lane or a flat field, we might be able to keep right on going into French territory.’
‘But won’t the French troops shoot when they see us come towards them?’
Henderson nodded. ‘Without a doubt,’ he said seriously.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The bakery was one of the most modern in Paris, with a steel-framed building set behind brick walls and three aluminium chimneys venting the smell of warm bread across the neighbourhood. Germans guarded the front gate and an elderly man in a white overall was laid out in the shaded portion of the courtyard, apparently suffering from heat stroke.
At the rear,