Henderson's Boys: Eagle Day (31 page)

He squatted down on a bollard and pulled a cigarette from a metal case. As he flipped the lid off his lighter he saw a truck coming over a bridge out the corner of his eye. He noted to himself that he’d never seen trucks moving in the docks after dark, but shrugged, thinking it was no concern of his.

As Baure took his first puff he noticed that there was an unusually strong current in the canal alongside him. Then the truck stopped at the top of a mild slope which led down to the wharfside building behind him and he started to get curious as two men got out and dragged a motorbike out of the back.

‘Guys!’ Baure shouted, as he ran around the front of the building. But his name was mud after the engine failure and he only attracted contempt from his crewmates. ‘I think something’s going on by the bridge.’

‘What have you ballsed up now, tit head?’ someone asked.

‘Truck came over the bridge and stopped dead,’ Baure explained urgently. ‘Two guys pulled a motorbike out of the back. I don’t know what’s going on but I don’t like it.’

The men didn’t know what to make of this, but within five seconds another man jumped ashore nearby and made an announcement. ‘Water’s running into the dry dock. Someone’s opened the gate.’

It didn’t take a genius to put the two bits of information together and realise that the docks were being sabotaged. A stocky officer shot to his feet and started shouting orders.

‘You, you, you – inside. Grab some weapons. Get up there and see what’s going on. Move!’

Less than a hundred metres away, Eugene leaned on the motorbike and gave it a kick start. PT pulled off the handbrake inside the truck and jumped out of the cab.

‘Three minutes,’ PT shouted, as Eugene threw him a crash helmet. ‘Let’s roll this thing.’

As the motorbike engine throbbed, PT and Eugene lined up behind the tailgate of the truck and put their backs in. The slope was gentle, but with the handbrake off the truck soon began rolling down the wharf, just as they noticed torch-beams and German voices, followed by figures running out the back of the building towards them.

‘Shit!’ Eugene yelled as he straddled the motorbike. ‘Get on, get on!’

Two gunshots sounded as PT climbed aboard and locked his arms around Eugene’s waist. More shots rang as the motorbike blasted across the bridge, then swerved left and right to run along the side of the dry dock.

The holes in the dock gates were now fully open and the torrent of water had sent the small boats crashing against the sides of the dock like rubber ducks clattering around a bathtub. The navy officers were on foot and had no chance of catching the motorbike, but a bullet clipped the truck as it continued rolling towards the patrol boats.

The instant the bullet hit the gelignite an area fifty metres around the truck erupted into a vast fireball, vaporising several dozen naval officers and the wharfside building as men further back dived into the water beneath the flames.

The explosions in Calais and Boulogne were beacons, designed to start fires and light the way for incoming bombers. The three hundred sticks of gelignite spread over the floor of the truck help British pilots to find their target, but their primary aim was to destroy as many German patrol boats as possible.
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‘Jesus,’ PT screamed. ‘Where’d our two minutes go?’

Even from two hundred and fifty metres the heat from the fireball seared PT’s back as he watched curling flames reflected in the back of Eugene’s crash helmet.

But fire was the least of their problems. The early blast had sent a huge shockwave through the canal system. A wave more than three metres high seared over the wall of the dry dock. When it landed two small barges washed up over the end of the dock as the boats inside smashed deafeningly against the walls.

PT looked back a second before water spewed up over the side of the dock and hit the bike. No rider could have kept upright as the force of water lifted the wheels off the ground and sent the two teenagers skimming helplessly towards a metal-sided hut.

PT covered his face as his back slammed the metal. A huge wooden mast speared through the building less than twenty centimetres above his head.

‘Eugene,’ he shouted, using the impaled mast to lever himself up as the water drained back into the dock.

Eugene had almost been flushed back inside the dock and had ended up clutching one of the giant bollards, perilously close to the edge. PT ran towards him, fearing he’d been knocked out, but Eugene was only winded and was standing by the time a smaller, reflex wave washed over their ankles.

‘You OK?’ Eugene asked, as he pulled off his sodden crash helmet.

‘Fine.’ PT nodded, looking back for any sign of someone coming after them. ‘But the bike’s wrecked. How the hell are we gonna get back to the farm?’

Henderson parked the truck fifty metres from the pier that formed one side of the small harbour, then set off along the dusky coast road with Rosie.

‘Remind me what Manfried told you,’ Henderson said, as explosions and flashes of light pulsed over Calais directly behind them.

‘Three guards,’ Rosie said. ‘Two in the hut, one on patrol, but he said sometimes they all play cards inside because it’s so quiet. The shift change is at eleven and they eat what they bring with them. Nobody comes to deliver food or anything.’

‘Works for me.’ Henderson nodded as he paused behind a white boulder, opened the cartridge of his silenced pistol and replaced the four bullets he’d shot at the stables in Calais earlier on.

‘He’s a decent guy,’ Rosie said, as Henderson started walking again. ‘Manfried, I mean.’

‘He’ll die fast, before he even knows it,’ Henderson grunted.

‘Isn’t there another way?’ Rosie asked. ‘Couldn’t we tie them up or something?’

‘A plan’s a plan once it’s underway.’

Rosie hated the calculating way that Henderson plotted death.

‘Manfried’s only about eighteen and he seemed really nice,’ Rosie said desperately, but only succeeded in irritating Henderson.

‘This is a war, honey,’ he said patronisingly. ‘I have one silenced pistol, there’s three of them and they have machine guns. What do you think this Manfried was doing during the battle for France? You think none of those soldiers shot any Frenchmen, or burned any villages?’

Rosie didn’t like the answer, but supposed Henderson was right. They stopped behind a low ridge overlooking the harbour. A chink of light escaping the guard hut illuminated a pair of crude fishing rods that the guards had hooked on the pier.

‘Two tugs,’ Rosie noted, as she pointed across the harbour.

‘Tugs are ideal,’ Henderson whispered. ‘Designed for towing, so they’re nippy when there’s nothing tied behind them. Crossing to England should take around three hours. It’d be more like six or seven in a powered barge or canal boat.’

‘Great,’ Rosie said, though Henderson could tell she was still thinking about Manfried as he pulled a .38 revolver out of his jacket.

‘You don’t have to do this, Rosie, but I’m taking on three men and I’d feel a lot better with someone covering my back.’

Rosie looked solemn as she took the unsilenced revolver. What if she ended up having to kill Manfried?

‘It’s double action, no safety lock,’ Henderson warned. ‘It’ll fire cocked or uncocked, but the trigger pull is very light when it’s cocked.’

Rosie nodded as Henderson clambered over the ridge. He kept low as he crept through reeds behind the corrugated metal guard hut. When he reached the back, Henderson found a cable which led up to a radio aerial on the roof. It was vital that the guards didn’t send out an alert, so he snipped it with wire cutters.

As Henderson poked his head around the side of the hut, the front door slammed and a German stepped outside.

‘Four aces, you cheating bugger,’ he shouted bitterly, as he stepped up to the edge of the pier and unzipped his trousers to piss over the edge.

‘You’re a rotten loser,’ Manfried replied from inside.

The third man laughed inside the hut. Rosie shook as a deep rumble and a pulse of light made the loudest bang of the night.

‘Oooh, big one,’ the pissing German shouted to his comrades. ‘Sounds like an ammo dump or something. Those heavy British bombers are nasty buggers. Say your prayers when you see them coming.’

Henderson had his gun aimed at the German, but the bullet would knock him into the sea and his comrades would hear the splash and come running out. So he waited two intense minutes, as the German peed, then walked over and checked the fishing rods.

‘Another dumb idea of yours, Manfried,’ he shouted. ‘Corned beef again tonight.’

As the lanky German turned back across the pier towards the hut, Henderson shot him from the side. The range was less than three metres, but somehow Henderson conspired to miss and the German yelled out.

Henderson pulled the trigger twice more, hitting the German in the back and hip. Manfried and the third man burst outside as Henderson retreated around the side of the hut.

‘He’s over there,’ the bleeding German groaned, as the other two cocked their machine guns.

Manfried spun around. More in hope than expectation he sprayed half a magazine of ammunition into reeds and sand as Henderson dived behind and backed into Rosie.

‘Can’t believe I missed,’ Henderson gasped furiously. ‘Go around the other side, shoot anything that moves.’

Henderson heard Manfried creeping around the side of the guard hut.

‘Can’t see them,’ Manfried shouted. ‘Get back in the hut, call for help.’

As Manfried moved deeper into the reeds, Henderson shot two silenced bullets. The first hit the soldier in the gut, the second passed through his skull.

‘Manfried?’ the third German shouted from within the hut. He didn’t fancy getting trapped inside and backed out.

Rosie realised that if he had any brains, the soldier would head away from where Manfried had been shot. Henderson was over that side, so only she could stop him getting away.

She dived out from behind the building and fired at a running shadow. The first blast missed, but the second hit his body and sent him careering across the pier into a wooden post on the water’s edge. Horrified and shaking, she took two steps forward and aimed down.

The soldier’s eyes begged and his hands came up in front of his face. Rosie knew she had to squeeze the trigger, but the soldier was barely out of his teens and looked so desperate that she wanted to hug rather than kill him.

Two dull thumps came from a silenced muzzle behind her. Rosie shuddered as the young German splashed into the water. As she staggered away in shock, Henderson rushed to the edge of the pier and pumped a third bullet into the floating soldier.

‘I couldn’t,’ Rosie gasped, looking towards Henderson as she lowered her gun. ‘I’m sorry.’

After a quick glimpse to make sure the German was dead, Henderson walked back and smiled slightly as he placed a hand on Rosie’s wrist.

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

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.