Heritage (28 page)

Moonlight shone silver on the black harbour waters as Ruth walked along the darkened dockside. To her right, she could see the vacant warehouse where the lookout would be waiting, signal torch at the ready, and ahead, to the left, the main wharf jutted out into the harbour. In the gloom she could not make out the shipment and enclosure, but halfway along the wharf she could see the glow of a lamp.

After weeks of training in sturdy trousers and men's shirts, she was conscious of the unfamiliar feel of her skirt and blouse – the skirt a little too tight, the blouse exposing her skin to the gentle spring breeze off the water. Her feet seemed slightly unsteady, too, in the strangeness of high-heeled shoes. Or perhaps it was nerves, she thought. But she didn't feel nervous. She felt energised and focussed, and more alive than she'd been in years.

She turned left onto the main wharf and walked towards the glow of the lamp, aware of the tapping of her heels, wondering if the assault force could hear her. They might well be beneath her very feet right now, and she pictured them, climbing among the beams and pylons, making their way under the wharf to take up their positions in preparation for the attack.

She could see the compound clearly now. Coils of barbed wire, silhouetted in the light of the lamp that hung from a pole beside the gate, and, beyond the wire, the huge shadowy shapes of crates and boxes piled high. She didn't alter her pace, but walked on.

‘Halt! Who goes there?'

The voice came out of the darkness. She guessed the accent to be that of a Londoner, but she couldn't see the soldier. She couldn't see any of the guards.

‘I am sorry …' she said in the heavily French-accented English she'd been practising all afternoon. ‘I mean no harm …'

‘Step into the light.'

She walked the twenty yards to the gate and stepped into the pool of light.

‘Identify yourself,' the Cockney voice barked.

‘Simone Renet,' she said. ‘Please … I mean no harm.'

Tom Baker lowered the .303 he'd had trained upon the shadowy figure of the intruder and, through the barbed wire, he eyed the woman up and down. She was a looker, he thought, she had to be a pro. He walked the several yards from the guard hut, where he'd been standing, to the gate and the spillage of light.

‘You're a bit off the beaten path, aren't you, love?' he said.

Ruth gave the nervous laugh of a frightened woman relieved to see a friendly face.

‘
Bonsoir
,' she said. It was the sergeant, she noted. The lookout had reported that the captain, a creature of habit as Eli had hoped, had left at nine o'clock as he'd done the preceding two nights. But where were the other four guards? In the glare of the light, she couldn't see them.

‘You French then?' the sergeant asked.

‘
Oui
,' she smiled, ‘I am French.'

‘Long way from home, aren't you? What can I do you for?' He gave her a wink and laughed at his joke, but the innuendo was plain.

Ruth played ignorant. ‘
Oui
,' she said, ‘I am very long way from home. That is why I come here. You can help me? Please?' As she looked appealingly at him, she could hear movement further along the enclosure. Like moths to a flame, the other guards were coming in for a closer look.

‘I'll do whatever I can, love, that's for sure,' Tom said, aware of Cliff and Bill sidling up behind him. ‘What you after then?'

‘A ship, it will leave from here soon, yes?'

‘Yeah, that's right.'

‘I wish for passage to Europe.' She could see the figures of two of the guards standing behind the sergeant, just out of the spill of light. ‘You can help me?' she implored.

‘Well, now …' Tom cast a lascivious glance at Cliff and Bill. ‘That depends on our Captain, doesn't it? He's the chap you'd need to see, but he's not here right now. Would you care to wait?'

She appeared to hesitate. ‘How long he will be?'

‘Oh, I shouldn't say more than ten minutes or so, what do you reckon?' Tom looked a query at the two soldiers. They were standing either side of him now, plainly visible and openly gawking at the French woman's breasts.

‘Oh yeah,' one of them said, ‘the Captain'll be back any minute now.'

Bill had got the message loud and clear. The Captain wouldn't be back for a good hour yet, he'd be dining out with his mates who were stationed in the nearby barracks. Plenty of time for them to have some fun. He turned and gave a nod to Stan and Godfrey, who were in the shadows behind him, their eyes glued on the French woman.

‘You want to come in then?' Tom asked.

Again, she hesitated, looking from man to man, uncertain, and Tom thought that perhaps she wasn't a prostitute at all. The swell of her breasts beneath the open-necked blouse and the shapely legs beneath the short skirt had distracted him. She was French, he told himself, and French women dressed different from English women. There was a real touch of class about her, he thought.

Behind the three soldiers, Ruth could make out the shapes of two other figures.

‘Oh I do not know I can wait,' she said, looking about nervous and uncertain, a vulnerable woman.

‘'Course you can, love,' Tom said reassuringly, ‘come on in and we'll make you a cup of tea.' He nodded to Bill who opened the gate.

‘A cup of tea,' she said, ‘that would be nice.'

As she was ushered through the gate, Tom made the introductions.

‘I'm Tom,' he said, ‘and this is Bill and Cliff.' The men nodded and ogled and she nodded in return. ‘And this is Godfrey and Stan,' Tom said as the other two soldiers joined them.

‘Hello,' she smiled. Five guards, the full complement, excellent, she thought.

‘Put the lamp on, Stan,' Tom said, as he took her arm. French women always liked you to take their arm, he thought. Well, they did in the pictures – he'd never actually met a French woman before.

Stan went on ahead as Tom escorted her through the dark, the others following, to the prefabricated hut.

‘So where you from, love? Gay Paree?' Tom said it as a joke for the benefit of the men, but she nodded.

‘
Oui
. I am from Paris.'

‘Oh, really!' He cast a none too subtle look at his mate Bill.
You know what they say about women from Paris
. ‘Gay Paree, the city of love, I'm told.' Tom considered himself a bit of a wag.

They'd reached the guard hut, which was suddenly illuminated, Stan having lit the kerosene lamp inside. He stepped out into the compound and held the door open for her, but she seemed reluctant to enter.

Tom, presuming she was nervous, gave her arm a comforting pat, trying not to stroke the bare skin as he would have liked to have done.

‘Don't you worry, love,' he said heartily, to put her at her ease. ‘We'll plead your case with the Captain when he gets back, he listens to us, he does.' As if the Captain ever listened to a word they said! The Captain was a pig. ‘He's a good man, isn't that right, Bill?'

‘My oath he is.' Bill was a Yorkshireman. ‘Captain'll see you right, don't you fret about that.'

‘Oh I would be so very grateful.' She looked around at the men, careful to engage the eyes of each one. ‘I will do anything to get home,' she said. Then she aimed the promise directly at Tom: ‘Anything at all.'

Blimey, if that wasn't an offer, Tom thought, then he didn't know what was. She wasn't bloody nervous at all, her look was as bold as brass, and his cock was already rising to the occasion.

‘I'm due for me break about now,' he said. ‘Come on in and I'll get you that cuppa.'

She stepped into the hut and he followed her, with a wink to the boys.

As the sergeant closed the door behind him, Ruth quickly undid the buttons of her blouse, giving the men who were watching through the window a show of their own as they waited their turn.

‘Jesus!' Tom exclaimed. He'd been about to make the pretence of lighting the primus stove, but when he'd turned from the door, there she was, blatantly bare-breasted. Her blouse was open, she wasn't wearing a brassiere, and Tom thought that, in the whole of his life, he'd never seen such a great set of tits. He fell upon them, convinced that all his Christmases had come at once.

‘Oh Jesus …' His hands were all over the place, he was fumbling with his trousers and trying to grope her breasts at the same time.

Then, suddenly, she was taking over for him. She had his trousers undone, she had his cock in her hand and she was wriggling her skirt right up to her waist.

Oh, Jesus Christ, he thought, she wasn't wearing any panties. He was going to come any moment, and he wasn't even inside her. He thrust himself furiously between her thighs, feeling her mound and pubic hair. ‘Oh God,' he muttered, ‘God, God, God.'

Leaning back against the wall of the hut, Ruth hooked a leg around the man's buttocks, and, fingers encircling his clumsily frantic penis, she guided it to its target. But her peripheral vision was trained on the window, and the four men watching, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Suddenly, there was movement behind them and the brief sounds of a scuffle.

‘
Oui, oui
,' she whispered passionately in his ear to muffle the noise, clutching at him as he finally entered her. But Tom hadn't heard a thing, he was on the verge of explosion, and when she glanced back at the window, the men had disappeared. Ruth found it comical – one moment they'd been there, the next they'd dropped out of sight.

The man was nearing his climax, and she moaned, feigning excitement, while, over his heaving shoulders, she watched the door of the hut quietly open.

Head thrown back, mouth gasping, Tom gave a series of guttural groans. He was mid-ejaculation and still thrusting, when he felt the barrel of a pistol rammed deep into his mouth, the muzzle jamming hard against the back of his throat. He gagged. Horror-struck, his eyes sprang open. Ruth had the insane desire to laugh.

Then, as swiftly as it had appeared, the barrel of the pistol was withdrawn and the butt of the Luger struck the side of Tom's head. He slithered down her body to the floor, and a man in Arab dress stood there in his stead. It was Eli Mankowski.

Their eyes met for a brief second. Eli gave one sharp nod of approval, gestured at the kerosene lamp, then wordlessly dragged Tom outside.

Ruth adjusted her clothing, extinguished the lamp and followed him.

In the compound, the four guards lay unconscious, already bound and gagged, and robed figures were crouching, waiting.

Shlomo Rubens bound and gagged the sergeant, and Ruth, upon Eli's silent instruction, stepped briefly into the light by the gate. It was the prearranged signal to the lookout whose binoculars were trained on the compound. He in turn would signal the waiting Irgun boat.

The guards were dragged out of sight behind the crates and the fighters set about carting supplies to the edge of the wharf for loading. It was Ruth's duty to watch for the warning signal from the lookout, should the captain be observed returning.

The team worked in silence, selecting the supplies which Eli indicated in the dim shielded glow of his torch. The larger crates were ignored. Much as they would have welcomed the heavy weaponry, they didn't have the time to load it. It was the boxes of ammunition, plastic explosives and British hand grenades they were after.

Five minutes later, when the fishing boat pulled into the wharf, the six Irgun fighters aboard helped with the carting and loading and, within thirty minutes, they were clear of the docks and on their way to the fishermen's wharf a mile down the coast where the Jimmy would be waiting. The only member of the team remaining at the docks was the lookout.

Satisfied that the captain was nowhere in sight, the lookout set off on foot to join the others, where, by the time he got there, they would have finished unloading the supplies into the truck.

 

It was shortly after midnight when Captain James Portman wandered down the wharf towards the compound. He'd had several nips of arak with his friends at the cafe which stayed open until all hours to accommodate the soldiers from the nearby barracks, and he was feeling quite mellow. The interminable night yawned before him, but he'd have a bit of a snooze in the guard hut, he thought, then in the morning they'd be off. He couldn't wait to get out of this abominable place.

Odd, he thought. No sentry. Were all five of the bastards asleep?

He pushed the gate open. Silence, eerie, not a soul.

‘Sergeant?' he snapped. But there was no response.

He drew out his Webley & Scott revolver as he crossed to the hut. The door was ajar; he kicked it open, weapon at the ready. No-one there. He walked around the perimeters of the compound. The place was deserted. Where the hell were his blasted men? Then he saw them – bound and gagged, all but one wide-eyed and struggling with their bonds. Good God, James thought, what had happened?

He released his sergeant, then stood back while Tom Baker released the next man.

‘What the hell happened?' he asked.

‘We were ambushed, sir,' Tom said as he frantically untied Bill. Shit, what the hell
had
happened? he wondered. One minute he'd been up the French woman, then there'd been a gun in his mouth and he couldn't remember anything more.

‘That's quite apparent,' his commanding officer remarked caustically. ‘But by whom?'

Tom was at a loss for words. Fortunately Bill, freed of his gag, broke in.

‘Arabs, sir. More than a dozen of them, I'd say.' Bill had caught a brief glimpse of Arab garb before he'd been silenced. ‘They jumped us from behind – must have climbed up the side of the wharf.' He busied himself releasing the next man, Godfrey, who was still unconscious.

Bloody Arabs, James thought. ‘Inspect the shipment, see what's missing,' he ordered his sergeant.