butcher’s shop on to our truck, then set the building on fire. If nobody speaks up, we’ll burn the doctor’s surgery after that.’
*
The sun was setting as Edith stood in the vegetable plot behind Joseph Blanc’s grand house picking beans. There was enough light for her to make out a dust trail on the approach road, and she threw down the beans and sprinted towards the house.
‘Rosie,’ Edith shouted.
Justin had arrived a few hours earlier and reported on what had happened at the intersection. Edith was on edge and half expected men to jump from the truck and start pushing them around, but instead one of the elderly men from the local garrison stepped down from the driver’s seat and walked around the truck to help Dr Blanc disembark on the passenger side.
By the time Rosie came on to the doorstep with Justin behind her, the German truck had pulled into the driveway.
‘Everyone stay calm,’ Rosie said quietly. ‘We’ve all got papers and nothing’s out of order inside the house.’
The doctor looked badly shaken. She had a dressing around her head and her skirt was torn, but the middle-aged soldier treated her decently, and even shook her hand after retrieving her leather doctor’s bag from the footwell.
‘Those men from Rennes are animals,’ the soldier said. ‘They make me ashamed to wear this uniform.’
The truck’s engine clattered back to life as Dr Blanc walked through the back door of her son’s house.
‘Are you OK?’ Rosie asked. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘A brandy,’ Dr Blanc said, as she crashed breathlessly into a chair in the kitchen. ‘Very large.’
As Edith dashed to the living room for the drink, the doctor fixed Rosie with an angry scowl.
‘Where’s Joseph?’ she asked.
‘With so many Germans around he was worried about being picked up for deportation. He’s gone to Jean and Didier’s place in the woods.’
‘At least he’s safe,’ Dr Blanc said, then thanked Edith for the brandy before looking back at Rosie. ‘What did your boss think he was doing? His explosion destroyed the blacksmith’s shop and with three dead Germans, we’re going to have the Gestapo on our backs for months.’
‘After you left with the injured German, they took a couple of men away and smashed up the shops and stole a lot of stuff,’ Justin said. ‘But a bunch of Gestapo men turned up after that and stopped that psychopath lieutenant from burning everything down.’
The doctor looked surprised. ‘I didn’t even realise you were there.’
‘I was hiding in the graveyard,’ Justin explained. ‘I was trying to warn Henderson, but the Germans got to the intersection before me.’
‘Are your family OK?’
Justin nodded. ‘Luckily my sisters were away. My mum’s gone to my aunt’s house to pick them up now.’
‘So what was Henderson playing at?’ Dr Blanc asked Rosie accusingly.
‘I haven’t seen him,’ Rosie said. ‘But he clearly needed to create a distraction to get the canisters away.’
‘But killing three men in cold blood? And the blacksmith’s shop is utterly destroyed.’
Rosie considered saying that the resistance had to be ruthless, but Dr Blanc clearly needed calming down and she decided to be diplomatic.
‘I’m sure Captain Henderson did no more than he felt he had to,’ Rosie said. ‘But you can speak to him later when we meet.’
‘I’ve never seen Germans acting brutal like that,’ Justin said. ‘I was so scared when they took you away.’
‘By the time we arrived at the hospital in Rennes, I’d stabilised one of the men Henderson shot,’ Dr Blanc explained. ‘That probably saved me from being taken to the town jail for interrogation, but the soldier who drove me back from the hospital says that the unit we encountered at the intersection are real thugs. They’ve spent most of the past year fighting on the Eastern Front. Soldiers there are given free rein to torture and murder any civilians they encounter.’
‘They’re still floating around as well,’ Justin said. ‘They set up a checkpoint right near my house.’
Dr Blanc nodded. ‘We were stopped three times on my way from Rennes, even though I was in an army truck being driven by a soldier.’
Edith looked at Rosie. ‘We weren’t bargaining on checkpoints. What does this mean for the mission?’
‘Henderson will have to make a decision on whether to delay the operation,’ Rosie said. ‘Assuming he made it out of there alive.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Marc, Paul and Goldberg escaped with all the canisters, hiding out in a barn a few kilometres from the intersection, then moving into the forest after sunset. Although there hadn’t been time to