The Escape

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘I need a connection to Tours,’ Henderson explained. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘I’ll speak to one of the operators. We have connected some calls to Southern France successfully, but the network is very busy. It can take a long time and some local operators are disconnecting anyone they overhear speaking in German.’

  ‘My French is good,’ Henderson said. ‘Tell the operator to start making a connection to Tours immediately.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Major,’ the engineer said, before striding purposefully towards a woman at a manual switchboard.

  Henderson stepped over to a metal shelf and grabbed the two bulky directories that contained every telephone number in France. He flipped quickly through the pages until he found the listing for Tours. The town had more than 100,000 inhabitants, but less than 2,000 had telephones.

  Henderson turned to Marc as he pulled a fountain pen from his uniform and unscrewed the cap. He looked around to make sure the engineer was out of hearing before speaking in a whisper. ‘Can you read and write?’

  ‘Course I bloody can,’ Marc said indignantly.

  ‘You scan the right-hand page, I’ll take the left. I want you to take out any phone number that’s for a church or a religious organisation. Or anyone listed as a priest or a minister.’

  ‘But how will we know which one?’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘We won’t. But priests, rabbis and other ministers within a community usually know one another. If we can get a couple of calls through, the chances are they’ll know about the retired priest who took in two children and be able to pass on a warning message. Even if they don’t know him, they’ll know of someone who does.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Marc said, nodding. ‘But aren’t priests too poor to have telephones?’

  ‘That could be a problem,’ Henderson acknowledged. ‘But we only need one man, even if it’s the Bishop of Tours himself.’

  The pair began running their fingers down the listing of Tours telephone numbers. Each page took a minute to scan and when they’d both finished, Henderson would flip over to the next.

  After four pages the German engineer approached. He pointed to the pretty operator seated at a switchboard twenty metres away. ‘Marte is trying to establish a connection. She rates our chances of getting through at about fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Henderson said, curtly. ‘I’ll call if I need you again.’

  Their eyes were straining by the time they got through the last page of listings, but they’d ended up with three numbers that looked hopeful and Henderson jotted them down before replacing the directory on its shelf and stepping up to the operator. She didn’t look comfortable with the black uniform and Marc’s bloody face.

  ‘How are we doing?’ Henderson asked, in French.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Marte explained, as she pointed to her tall console filled with connection sockets and dangling wires. ‘Normally, a connection to Tours requires only two links, via the exchanges in Le Mans and Tours. But Le Mans was damaged in a Boche air raid last night and …’

  The word Boche was offensive to Germans and Marte turned white as she looked around at Henderson. ‘I mean … a German air raid, sir. Now we have to route calls to Tours via Dijon, Lyon and Bourges. With the network so busy and many lines damaged by bombing it can take a very long time to contact the various operators and establish a long-distance connection.’

  ‘I see,’ Henderson said. ‘Where are we now?’

  ‘I’m waiting for the operator in Dijon. She’ll contact me as soon as she has a line available to Tours.’

  ‘Can you tell them it’s important?’ Henderson said.

  Marte shook her head. ‘They know Paris is occupied and there’s a risk they’ll cut us off. Operators in some towns have stopped connecting our traffic.’

  Marc and Henderson waited while the operator continued her business, answering calls and moving wires across her console from one plug to another. Henderson was nervous. He had no idea how good the Germans’ radio communications were, but it could only be a matter of time before every soldier in Paris was on the lookout for a man and boy who’d stolen a Gestapo uniform and a motorbike with sidecar.

  After fifteen anxious minutes, a white light flashed above the word Dijon on the console. The operator plugged in a jack and picked up her handset.

  ‘I see,’ she said sadly. ‘Thank you for trying, Elène.’

  The operator turned towards Henderson. ‘I’m sorry, Major. The operator in Dijon says she can’t find a line.’

  Henderson looked around to make sure that the German engineer was out of sight. ‘I’m not really Gestapo,’ he confessed. ‘I’m a British agent and we need to get out of here before we’re caught. If I left you a message, is there any way that you might try again later and pass it to one of these numbers in Tours? The lives of two children are in danger.’

  The operator looked sceptical, suspecting that this was a Gestapo trick to test her loyalty. She spoke in broken English. ‘If you are an Englishman, I assume you can understand what I am saying?’

  Henderson smiled, before whispering his answer in English. ‘English is my native tongue. And if you study the hem of my trousers, you’ll see that this uniform is tailored for a fellow somewhat taller than myself.’

  The operator’s English wasn’t good enough to understand all of this, but she understood the body language and glanced down at his hem. Then Henderson opened his tunic to reveal that his waistband was too big to do up his trousers properly.

  ‘You must have some nerve,’ Marte said, as she cracked a nervous smile. ‘I can take your message and pass it through to these numbers, or if you can wait two or three minutes I can connect you with Tours.’

  Henderson’s jaw dropped. ‘Three minutes!’

  ‘I’ll work for the Boche,’ Marte said mischievously. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I’ll make it easy for them.’

  She plugged a jack into the socket marked Dijon and grabbed her handset. ‘Elène,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ve got one for France. I need the Tours exchange quickly.’

  It seemed that when a call was for France phone lines opened up with miraculous speed. Apart from half a minute waiting for the operator in Bourges to answer, the connection to Tours was made and a telephone rang three hundred kilometres away. Unfortunately, nobody picked up.

  ‘Try another,’ Henderson said anxiously.

  With the connection from Paris established, it was a simple matter for the operator in Tours to dial another number. This time it was a parochial house and the phone was answered by a young priest named Father Fry.

  Fry said he didn’t know of the retired priest, but that one of his older housemates almost certainly would. The young priest gave his word to pass on the message to wherever the retired priest happened to be, even if it meant walking there himself.

  ‘Bless you, Father,’ Henderson said brightly. ‘And tell them that I’m heading south, but it may take me a day or two to reach them.’

  Henderson returned the handset to the operator when the call ended. ‘Try the third number,’ he said. ‘Father Fry sounded reliable, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.’

  After a couple of minutes, a call came through. Marte shook her head as she put down the receiver.

  ‘No connection,’ she explained. ‘The Tours operator said that the number was for a Catholic college in the city centre and that there was a lot of bomb damage around there.’

  Henderson shrugged. ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I just hope we can rely on Father Fry.’

  ‘What now?’ Marc asked.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ Henderson answered. ‘I need a night’s sleep, then I’ll set off for Tours in the morning.’

  Marc looked unsettled. ‘You’re not going to abandon me are you?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Henderson said uncertainly.

  ‘Have you got anywhere we can stay?’ Marc asked.

  ‘Not near here, but I have keys for the apartment where my assistant us
ed to live. It’s a twenty-minute ride.’ Henderson turned towards the operator. ‘Thank you so much for your help.’

  Marte smiled. ‘Rule Britannia,’ she whispered.

  ‘Vive la France,’ Henderson replied. Then he checked that the engineer was out of sight before kissing her on both cheeks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Government hadn’t surrendered, but giving up Paris without destroying tactically important bridges across the Seine showed that they’d abandoned any realistic hope of defending the rest of France. Soldiers were deserting or surrendering en masse and the roads south were lined with troops. Tired and hungry, they faced walks of hundreds of kilometres to get home.

  Herr Potente passed thousands of these disarmed Frenchmen as he drove towards Tours in an Austin motorcar that had been commandeered and refuelled by the Gestapo. Unlike the civilian refugees the Clarke family had encountered a week earlier, the soldiers had no carts or prams to block the road and all but a few hopeless drunks stuck close to the kerb.

  Craters, fallen brickwork and demolished bridges were Potente’s main concerns. Most required simple detours through villages or farm tracks but in places crossing a river meant diversions of up to thirty kilometres and nerve-wracking rides across bridges held in place by mounded rubble and hastily wedged railway sleepers.

  Potente was immensely unhappy at the way his day had turned out. He worked for the Abwehr, a branch of German military intelligence that was engaged in a power struggle with the Gestapo. Potente considered himself a professional spy; while the Gestapo were agents of the Nazi party, and he thought them little better than organised thugs.

  Being openly criticised by Oberst Hinze annoyed Potente. His team of six agents had operated in Paris since before the invasion and they’d successfully unearthed thirty British agents, killing eight and forcing the rest to flee ahead of the invasion.

  At least Potente hoped to be out of France soon. The Russians were German allies, France would surrender soon and Potente could see no option for Britain other than to sign a peace treaty with Hitler. With luck, the war would be over soon and he planned to return to his family home near Hamburg and see out his remaining years in peace.

  *

  Potente reached Tours shortly after sun-up and stopped to eat croissants he’d brought from Paris and drink tepid coffee from a vacuum flask. He was tired from driving through the night and hoped the coffee would give him a kick-start to get through the day.

  He anticipated no problems with picking up the plans and the children, but the call from Rosie Clarke seemed to have come at a remarkably convenient moment and, like any spy, he was always wary of a trap.

  After eating, he opened his revolver to check that it was fully loaded before spinning the barrel and snapping it shut with a flick of the wrist. Potente was fond of this sound and couldn’t resist repeating the action several times.

  He checked his map and guessed that Father Doran’s cottage would be a quarter-hour’s drive, but the petrol gauge was close to empty so he took a can and a funnel from the trunk and refuelled before setting off.

  The Dorans’ cottage wasn’t dissimilar to the one Herr Potente had lived in as a boy. He felt a twinge of rural nostalgia as he pulled on a frayed cord to ring the bell above the front door. Yvette Doran wandered up the driveway from behind him, carrying a shovel and wearing boots covered in mud.

  ‘Mr Henderson?’ Yvette said uncertainly, before cracking a warm smile. ‘I didn’t expect you so early.’

  Potente spoke in perfect French. ‘I made good time. The roads are surprisingly quiet.’

  Yvette nodded. ‘I think everyone has been moving around France for so long that they’ve finally given up. Do step inside. The door isn’t locked and I expect my brother is dealing with the children’s breakfast.’

  The door creaked as it opened directly into a living room. The way through to the kitchen was clear and Potente noted the three children sitting at the dining table. He correctly assumed that Paul and Rosie were the two older ones.

  ‘Welcome, Mr Henderson,’ Father Doran said, as he stood up to move towards the stove. ‘You’ve had a long journey. Would you like some fresh coffee?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Potente said, smelling the bread baking in the oven as he rubbed his hands and looked at the children. ‘I’m afraid we can’t stay for long. I got a Morse-code signal through to London and I’ve secured us a place on a ship from Bordeaux, but it’s leaving at thirteen-hundred, which is cutting things a little fine.’

  ‘We’ve heard so much about you, Mr Henderson,’ Rosie said brightly. ‘Our father often spoke about you.’

  ‘Really?’ Potente said warily.

  Father Doran placed a mug of coffee on the dining table. ‘Do sit down, Mr Henderson.’

  Paul looked up as Potente took a chair. ‘You and my father were on the same ship for a while, weren’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘HMS Manchester,’ Rosie added.

  Potente nodded. ‘It was a long time ago, but I’ll tell you some stories once we get going. Your father was a great man.’

  Hugo chose this moment to push his chair back and get down from the table. The six year old was stunned by the sight of Yvette leaning into the doorway and aiming the barrels of a shotgun at Potente’s head. The youngster’s expression was enough to make Potente swivel around just as Yvette pulled the trigger.

  The blast sent a shower of pellets into Potente’s back and shoulder, but shotgun pellets are less deadly than weapons that fire a single projectile and Potente grabbed his revolver as the old lady reloaded.

  ‘Our dad never served on the Manchester,’ Paul shouted, as he scrambled away from the table.

  Yvette took a step closer as she pulled the trigger again. This time the pellets were spread over a tighter area and tore a huge hole in Potente’s back. As the German’s head hit the dining table, Father Doran was the first to realise that there had been two shots at the same moment.

  Hugo slammed into the kitchen dresser as a bullet hit him in the armpit. The projectile kept going, passing through the soft tissue of his lung and shredding his ribcage as it exited through the front of his chest.

  ‘Hugo,’ Rosie screamed, as the boy collapsed in front of the cabinet.

  Hugo tried to scream as Yvette dropped the shotgun and ran towards him, but blood was flooding his lungs and all he could do was heave the warm liquid into his mouth. Paul couldn’t bear to look and he grabbed the back door and stumbled outside, on to crumbled earth with chicken coops on either side of him.

  Potente crashed off the dining chair as Rosie snatched the revolver from his dead fingertips.

  ‘Oh Hugo, I’m sorry,’ Yvette sobbed, as Father Doran stepped one way then another, unsure what to do. ‘We should have kept you out of the way, but … I’m so sorry.’

  Paul peeked back around the door and watched as the old lady took Hugo’s limp body and drew him into a bloody hug. It seemed impossible that the little lad who’d been filling his cheeks with bread and pulling faces across the table two minutes earlier was dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Marc hardly slept because of the pain in his mouth, but Henderson had been on his feet for days. He crashed out on Miss McAfferty’s bed and slept like the dead. When it got light Marc found tinned fruit and English baked beans in a cupboard. He’d now mastered using a tin opener and once the cans were open he mashed the contents because he was too sore to chew.

  He tried the radio, but the apartment hadn’t been occupied for two months and the battery was flat. It was undeniably a lady’s apartment, with flowery wallpaper and a smell like talcum powder and cats.

  ‘It’s almost lunchtime,’ Henderson complained, scratching his arse as he wandered into the living room. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  Marc sat in an armchair flicking through a bird spotters’ manual.

  ‘I did wonder, but I thought you’d probably shout at me.’

  ‘I might have done,’ Henderson said with a smile.
‘I’ve popped a dozen Benzedrine pills to stay awake over the last week. My head’s banging like a drum.’

  ‘Makes two of us,’ Marc said, baring his lips to show Henderson the bloody sore inside his mouth.

  ‘Did you gargle saltwater like I told you last night? You don’t want to get an infection.’

  ‘Three times,’ Marc said, nodding. ‘So is there a plan for today or are we winging it again?’

  ‘Bit of both, I expect,’ Henderson said, rubbing his eyes with his palms before stretching into a yawn. ‘I know where I’ve got to go, but I’m not a hundred per cent on the details. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Just some tinned stuff. There’s loads in the cupboard.’

  ‘I’ll eat something, then we’ll get going. Have you had any thoughts about your plans?’

  Marc sounded surprised. ‘I’m sticking with you aren’t I? I mean … if that’s OK.’

  ‘I meant longer term. Assuming our message got to the retired priest before Herr Potente, I should be picking up Digby Clarke’s kids and catching the boat to England. You don’t have any documents, but I can probably pull some strings and get you on board too.’

  Marc smiled. ‘Really?’

  ‘You were at my side when it counted in the hotel. I’m not sure what my superiors will say when I bring home a stray, but they’ve never liked me much anyway and once you’re on the boat they can hardly send you back.’

  Marc was happy enough with this. Making friends and moving to Britain was more than he’d dared hope for when he ran away from the orphanage.

  They’d pushed the motorbike into a canal the previous night and once he’d eaten, Henderson decided against wearing the Gestapo uniform. He’d been able to bluff his way past a teenaged soldier to get inside the telephone exchange, but he didn’t have the paperwork to make it through a security checkpoint in daylight.

  Henderson abandoned his usual smart clothing and dressed like a peasant. He ended up looking like Marc, in working boots, corduroy trousers held up with braces, a white shirt and a broad-rimmed hat to keep the bright sun out of his face.