by Terry Deary
At two minutes to twelve they saw an explosion blast the roof off the engine shed and send red-tipped golden flames upwards to scorch the clouds. Moments later they heard the explosion and then the crashing of metal as wheels and cogs and sheets and rods of metal rained down.
The army camp alarm sirens sounded and by midnight the camp’s single fire engine was clanging through the streets of Bray to help. No sooner had they arrived than the second of Brigit’s bombs exploded then the third. The fire crew stood well back, afraid to get too close to the burning shed in case there were further eruptions.
These came at ten past and quarter past midnight. Still the Germans backed away while the shed burned and everything inside was ruined.
Water from the River Somme was pumped on to the shed and it saved more sparks spreading fire into the town. But nothing could save the engines inside and some coal trucks in the shunting yard started to burn too.
By morning a heavy, oily cloud of slate-grey, soot-specked smoke hovered over Bray. The Resistance group were mostly asleep by then. An old woman sat on her doorstep and shook her head. No one remembered her name. The people of Bray just knew her as Tante… Auntie. ‘I warned the lad. I said this would mean trouble. And trouble will come. Again.’
Saturday, 7 June 1941: Berlin
General Fischer’s face was usually the colour of unbaked bread dough. This morning it was strawberry-pink with rage. ‘So what excuse has Major Strauss given this time? Did one of Mr Churchill’s bombers fly over Bray, drop a single bomb on the railway shed then fly home again without anyone seeing it?’
‘No, sir. The major did say the engine shed had old electric wiring and that could have started a fire that made a gas pipe to the lighting explode.’
‘What complete nonsense,’ Fischer roared. ‘There were five explosions. Five. Were there five gas pipes to one shed, exploding one after the other?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No, sir, indeed. Two wrecked trains and now this. There is a Resistance group operating in the Bray sector. It is a new bunch of saboteur scum. You will go there and snuff it out before it grows and before it does any more damage. First you will shoot Major Strauss for letting this happen. Then you will root out the saboteurs and shoot them. Make an example of them. Shoot them one by one outside their pathetic little town hall where the rest of the town can see them. Then you will take twenty hostages. You will lock them away and say you will shoot them if there is another accident in Bray before we win this war next year. Is that clear, Colonel Roth?’
The tall young man gave a sharp nod and looked as if he’d been forced to swallow a box of pins. He saluted, turned smartly on his bright black heel and left the office. He hurried to his own office and picked up the telephone. He spoke quietly. ‘Operator? Get me Major Strauss, head of Gestapo in the Bray sector.’
A minute later he was connected. ‘I have some bad news, Uncle,’ he said. ‘Fatty Fischer has ordered me to take over your sector and root out the saboteurs in your area… Yes, I know you only have old Rudolf to help you, but the general isn’t listening to any excuses, he still thinks you could have done more.’
Roth listened to the moaning man on the other end. ‘Listen, Uncle, you are in danger. I know you think you’re in Bray for a peaceful life, but that’s all changed with these attacks… No, listen. My first order is to shoot you… Yes, I know it’s not fair, but it’s war. The only way I can save you is if you take some action before I get there with my troop. What sort of action? Well, arrest someone and execute them.’
Colonel Roth listened for a while and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. ‘Wait, Uncle. We both know you have a spy in the Resistance group. A Resistance group that did no resisting till that British plane landed on Monday night. You must use your spy to betray the others – or even just one of the others. Best of all, get them to tell us where the British agent is hiding. If you can do that before I get there in two days’ time, then it may just save you.’ The officer took a deep breath. ‘No more arguments, Uncle. Just do it.’ And he placed the phone back in its cradle with a bang.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘I just didn’t see you’
Bray
Brigit held a pencil bomb and for the fifth time showed Blacksmith Legrande how it worked. ‘I can come with you,’ she offered.
‘No,’ the giant blacksmith said as his thick sausage fingers struggled to grip the small copper tube that would set the timer working. ‘I want to do this myself. I want to do this for France.’
‘You wrecked the tank train,’ Brigit reminded him. ‘All of us together couldn’t have turned the bolts on the track that loosened the rail.’
He nodded his shaggy head. ‘But I had you with me,’ he said. ‘One day I may have grandchildren. When they ask me what I did in this war I want to tell them something I did alone.’ He looked shyly at the girl. ‘I don’t want to tell them I unfastened a few bolts. Do you understand?’
Brigit rested her hand on his wrist. ‘I think so.’ But she worried that he might get it all wrong and be caught.
‘The others all agreed it was my turn,’ the man said.
‘This timer is set for just fifteen minutes. You have to plant it and get out quickly.’
‘I know.’
He slipped the pencil bomb into his pocket and shifted the canvas bag of tools on to his other shoulder. If he was stopped, he would say he was on his way to do an urgent repair job on a heavy-lifting chain at the tyre factory. The plan to plant a bomb would have to be abandoned.
He set off down the street towards the edge of town where the tyre factory stood with its tall chimneys and the stench of hot rubber wrapped around it like a blanket.
Brigit followed a hundred metres behind. At five o’clock, a hooter sounded, then a dozen men and women trudged out of the factory and through the high iron gates. The last man, the nightwatchman, entered a small hut not much bigger than a sentry box at the front gate. He turned his back and looked eastwards towards the hills as if he was in a daydream.
Blacksmith Legrande marched behind him and into the factory. ‘Good evening, Victor,’ he said.
The nightwatchman slammed his hands against his trousers and made a cloud of black dust rise from them. ‘For goodness sake, Charles, I am not supposed to see you. You are on a secret mission and it’s not very secret if you go saying good evening to everyone you meet.’
‘Sorry, Victor, I forgot.’
‘It doesn’t matter now, Charles. Just get inside and do what you have to do.’
‘Thanks, Victor. It’s good of you.’
The nightwatchman was old and bent-backed, but he pulled himself up as straight as he could and cried, ‘It is not good of me because I haven’t done anything for you.’
‘You let me in.’
‘No, I did not. I just didn’t see you… I mean, I just didn’t see the man or woman who slipped into the factory while my back was turned.’
‘Right. But it’s not a woman. It’s me.’
‘I know… I mean, I don’t know because I haven’t seen you.’
‘Right.’ The blacksmith took a few paces forward then turned. ‘How’s your wife, Victor? My wife says your Mathilde hasn’t been too well?’
Victor finally turned around and even a hundred metres away Brigit could hear his desperate voice. ‘Go in, Charles. Go in, please. Don’t say another word.’
‘I was just…’
‘Not another word, old friend. We shall meet in the café tomorrow and I will buy you a brandy if you go now and don’t say another word.’
‘Right.’
The blacksmith strode down the path to the main doors of the factory. They were a shabby green and large enough to let the lorries in and out. He took a long lever from the canvas bag and forced the padlock off the doors. They agreed that it would look suspicious if the German firefighters arrived to find the main doors into the factory had been left unlocked.
Wood splintered, then
Brigit saw the doors open and the blacksmith disappeared inside. Fifteen minutes later he swaggered out, looking very pleased with himself.
‘Good night, Victor,’ Legrande said with a wave to the back of the nightwatchman.
‘With any luck I will have a very bad night,’ the man said.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because the factory will catch fire and it will take hours to put out the piles of burning tyres.’
‘I suppose so,’ the blacksmith said and began to walk back towards where Brigit was waiting. The tool bag clattered heavily against his leg.
‘You were in there a long time,’ the girl said as she skipped to keep pace with the man’s long strides.
‘Yes, well, there were lots of good tools in there. It would have been a shame to leave them in the fire. So I borrowed them.’
Brigit stopped. ‘You looted the factory before you set the bomb?’
‘Don’t be silly. I set the bomb first and then I bagged the best tools.’
‘But you were in there a quarter-hour. That means…’ the girl began. She was interrupted by the explosion that came from the factory just a hundred and fifty metres behind them. ‘Run, Monsieur Legrande. Run for your life.’
*
‘Where is Marie Marcel?’ Aimee asked as the group met in the barn later that night.’ They had spent the sunset hour watching the filthy cloud of burning rubber hover over the town like the wings of a black angel.
‘Maybe she’s had trouble getting here. The town is swarming with German soldiers making sure we obey the curfew,’ Blacksmith Legrande said. ‘And they’re all in a foul mood. This afternoon one came to my forge and said it wasn’t a soldier’s job to patrol towns and guard against women and children.’
‘And I suppose they’ll have to give up their sleep to do it too,’ Henri Caron said.
‘It’s only till the Gestapo squad arrives,’ Marie Marcel panted as she hurried into the barn.
‘You’re late,’ the newspaper reporter said sourly.
‘I had to go three kilometres out of my way, through the fields, to miss the patrols,’ she said calmly. ‘Those engine-shed bombs were a great success, and the tyre factory was too. Well done, Charles,’ she said to the blacksmith, who beamed. ‘But our lives will be much harder from now on,’ she warned.
‘Yes,’ Aimee said. ‘With the Gestapo due to arrive any day, I think our next sabotage should be the last for a while. We’ll do it tomorrow night. Then we lie low.’
‘So what will it be?’ Blacksmith Legrande asked. ‘A huge bomb?’
‘No. Something much simpler.’ She pulled out their map of the region and they all leaned forward to look.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘Do something or do nothing’
‘The Germans made a mistake,’ Aimee said. ‘Mr Churchill’s SOE spotted it and that’s why they sent me.’
‘And me,’ Brigit muttered.
‘Sorry. That’s why they sent us. Bray looks like a dot on the map, but it’s on the route from northern Germany to Paris.’ She traced a line on the map with her finger. ‘If we wreck that route then they will suffer. They should have guarded it better.’
‘They will soon,’ Marie Marcel put in.
‘The rail service will take weeks to repair. But there’s one more thing we can do before we take a rest.’ Again, Aimee placed a finger on the map. ‘Just here is a line of telephone and electric poles. And at this point – pole number 273j – the line divides to north and south Bray. If we take down just one pole – pole 273j – they will be without power or telephones for a couple of days. The army camp will be in chaos and so will the airstrip. They won’t be able to talk to Paris or Berlin except by army radio. It will be a fine greeting for the new Gestapo unit.’
‘But it won’t stop the Gestapo. They will arrive, and they will punish the people of Bray. It will be our fault.’
‘We’ve thought of that,’ Brigit put in. ‘Maman and I will leave a trail that will show we are to blame – the SOE from Britain, not the local people.’
‘They’ll shoot you!’ Blacksmith Legrande cried.
‘By the time the Gestapo arrive we’ll have flown back to Britain. We will stock up with new supplies and come back in a few months’ time,’ Aimee explained.
‘You’ll run away and leave us to take the punishment?’ Henri Caron said bitterly.
‘Tomorrow, while I take out post 273j, you will all be at the church service. Everyone in Bray will see you. There will be army guards outside the church door. Chat to them. Make sure they know you were there when the power line was sabotaged.’
Blacksmith Legrande, Marie Marcel and Henri Caron looked unhappy with the plan. ‘We should work as a team,’ the reporter said. ‘Someone to watch your back while you plant the explosives.’
‘Brigit has better eyes and ears than any of us,’ Aimee said. ‘She will be my scout and warn me if there are any enemy in the area. We will do this tomorrow night. And the night after that a Lysander will pick us up and take us back to Britain.’
‘You will be caught,’ Marie Marcel said, and she sounded more like a schoolteacher than ever, lecturing a stubborn pupil.
‘And if we are, we won’t betray you,’ Brigit promised.
‘You could be shot.’
‘We knew that risk before we even joined the SOE,’ Aimee said. ‘If we sit and do nothing then danger could come to us anyway. The people of Oradour-sur-Glane were shot for doing nothing. Their crime was simply being French. At least we will be doing something to fight the enemy. After all, that’s why we’re all here.’
The others nodded.
‘Mr Churchill told me Shakespeare said it best,’ put in Brigit. ‘He said, “I must go and meet with danger there, or it will seek me in another place”.’
Blacksmith Legrande threw up his hands. ‘Why are we all so gloomy?’ He turned to Aimee. ‘It is a good plan, Madame Furst. The Gestapo aren’t here yet.’
Henri Caron nodded. ‘The Germans will be guarding the railway tracks and stations.’ He chuckled and rubbed his small hands together. ‘I went around today as a reporter and interviewed some of the army officers. They seem to think there are at least twenty SOE experts in the district. They’re in a panic. They think Mr Hitler will blame the army in Bray for the disasters. They can’t wait for the Gestapo to get here and take over.’
‘I need a drill, Monsieur Legrande. I will drill a hole in the post, pack it with explosives and set a sixty-minute timer for it to explode.’
‘Sixty minutes?’ the blacksmith said. ‘Does that give you enough time to get away? The army will send troops to post 273j as soon as it falls.’
Aimee grinned. ‘How will they send them?’
‘They’ll telephone the army camp and… oh, I see what you mean,’ the blacksmith said and slapped his head. ‘With the lines down, they will be very slow.’
Brigit nodded. ‘We’ll be safely back here before they find out what’s gone wrong. And you will never have left the church service. We’ll strike at eight tomorrow night when the patrols are tired and think their job is done. Now, get home and rest. We have a busy day tomorrow.’
The group left quickly, over the dark fields and the silent streets. They made dark grey shapes against the pale grey cobbles that glowed in a near full moon. Tattered posters flapped on the walls of the shops, advertising chocolate and petrol and shoes and magazines, perfumes and scented soaps they could no longer buy in the half-empty shops.
Outside the school the old corporal sat on guard, his rifle between his knees, half asleep and half on guard. One of the darker shadows crept towards him. The old man twitched and grabbed his rifle. The figure held up a hand to calm him, then whispered in his ear.
Berlin
‘So, Uncle,’ Colonel Roth said into the phone. ‘You have heard about a sabotage attack planned for tomorrow night?’
‘That’s right, my boy. I wondered what I should do about it.’
Roth rubbed his w
eary, red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘You have two choices, Uncle. Do something or do nothing.’
‘And which do you think would be best?’
His nephew chewed on a knuckle to stop himself from screaming down the phone. ‘Well, if you do nothing then that will be five acts of sabotage in just over a week, all in the sector you are supposed to be guarding. General Fischer in Berlin will hear of it. As soon as the new Gestapo squad arrive in Bray you will be relieved of your command. You will be stripped of your rank of major. A rifle will be placed in your hands and you will be put on the next train to Russia. There you will fight in the Arctic blasts and probably die.’
‘I see. And if I act?’
‘If you act then this saboteur will be captured. The new Gestapo squad will torture him, and he will tell us the names of all the Resistance workers in your area. You will be a hero. You will return to Berlin and be given a cosy desk job in a warm office.’
‘It’s a her.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not a him, it’s a her. My spy in the Resistance said that the saboteur tomorrow night is a woman. But I only have Corporal Rudolf to help me. He’s half-blind, three-quarters deaf and wholly stupid.’
Rolf spoke slowly. ‘Russian cold or Berlin warm. Even Rudolf is able to arrest some weak woman. Just do it,’ he said and slammed down the phone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Think, Brigit, think’
Sunday, 8 June 1941: Bray-on-Somme
The following evening, at twenty minutes to eight, Aimee and Brigit set off over the old sheep trails and cattle roads to the west of Bray town. The sooty scent of burning rubber and steam still stung their noses and eyes. The faint notes of the church organ drifted through the evening air.
‘Tomorrow night we’ll be heading for England. Are you looking forward to it?’ Aimee asked her daughter.
