Henderson's Boys: Eagle Day: Book 2 Read online

  He tried to make it sound funny, but the reality of Henderson’s threat pricked everyone’s mood.

  ‘He won’t kill you,’ Rosie said determinedly.

  PT spoke bitterly. ‘Henderson’s a professional spy. He can’t risk someone like me being on the loose and knowing his business.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him,’ Marc said. ‘Maybe if you apologised and offered to stay with us …’

  PT smiled. ‘And we can all eat tea and toast and live happily ever after. What planet are you from, Marc? The only way that I’m gonna live is if you guys untie me and let me escape.’

  Marc and Rosie looked uneasily at one another.

  ‘All our mucking around and stuff over the last few weeks,’ Marc said. ‘I thought you were a friend. But, to be honest, after you tried to steal my bag I don’t trust you any more than Henderson does.’

  Rosie had tears down both cheeks. ‘We can’t let you go, PT. But I’m going to speak to Maxine and Henderson and try to sort this out.’

  ‘You might as well put the bullet through my head yourself,’ PT yelled furiously.

  ‘Keep your noise ,’ Rosie ordered, as Marc grabbed PT’s gag, raised it back over his mouth and tightened the knot.down

  ‘Come on,’ Marc said, grabbing Rosie by the arm. ‘Food and water, that’s all we came here for.’

  Marc worked hard to hide his feelings, but both he and Rosie were upset as they crept back towards the house.

  *

  Paul’s soldering expertise meant they got the set powered up just before nine. Henderson’s next step was to encode his message.

  ‘How’s it work?’ Paul asked as he watched Henderson scribble numbers on to a pad of squared paper.

  ‘Simple key phrase,’ Henderson explained. ‘It’s relatively easy to decode so it’s only suitable for transmissions of up to about fifty words. For instance, suppose my key phrase is , and I want to send the name Mary had a little lamb Charles Henderson. M for Mary is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet and C for Charles is the third. Three and thirteen is sixteen so I send the sixteenth letter of the alphabet in Morse code.’

  ‘P,’ Paul said. ‘What if it adds up to more than twenty-six?’

  ‘You subtract twenty-six from the total. So for example, the fourth letter of my name is R and the fourth letter of my key phrase is Y. R is the eighteenth letter of the alphabet, Y is the twenty-fifth. So I add eighteen and twenty-five, then minus twenty-six equals seventeen. So I send the letter Q.’

  ‘So you have to do that for every single letter?’

  ‘Every one.’ Henderson nodded. ‘And the message that comes back from headquarters will be encoded using a different key phrase.’

  ‘So we won’t get a response straight away?’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘There’ll be an immediate acknowledgement if they receive our signal. I’ve got another transmission window on another frequency that’ll be open between midnight and three a.m. for them to send a reply. If we don’t get a reply tonight, I’ll listen out again tomorrow.’

  The pink house had steep hills rising up behind and Henderson reckoned they needed higher ground for their transmission to reach London.

  Maxine found a blanket upstairs and made a flask of coffee. Paul had been through a long and stressful day, but he’d worked hard on repairing the transmitter and was keen to come along and see whether it worked. Henderson also suspected that Paul might be useful if they had trouble getting a good signal out of the transmitter.

  It was a heavy device, intended to send secure transmissions from within the consulate rather than being dragged around hillsides by spies. The Germans had imposed a nine p.m. curfew on the entire occupied zone. This ruled out using the truck, or even walking on the dirt roads that led to the farms uphill.

  The pair had to stay off-road. They cut through a hedge at the bottom of the garden, crossed the stream and began to ascend the hillside, which was planted with long rows of vines. At this time of year they bulged with unripened bunches of grapes.

  While Henderson strained with the weight of the radio, Paul carried the Morse key, a lead acid battery, a blanket, flask and some bread and p‰té. It hadn’t rained in more than two weeks and the evening breeze whipped dust off the dry ground.

  After a quarter-hour they were near the hilltop. At this height it was too windswept for cultivating vines and the uneven grassland was grazed by sheep, who took no notice as the pair found shelter behind a moss-covered boulder.

  Paul glanced down the slope, seeing a moody orange sunset illuminating the pink house at the base of the hill. But there wasn’t time to admire the landscape. They’d already hit the fifteen-minute transmission window and even if some part hadn’t worked loose on the trek uphill it would take several minutes to rig up the battery and wait for the valves inside the transmitter to warm up.

  Much to their relief the orange bulbs illuminating the signal gauges lit up when Henderson plugged in the Morse key.

  ‘Nice,’ Paul said, as Henderson manically tapped his coat pocket.

  ‘Dammit,’ Henderson growled. ‘I’ve left the coded message and my pad on the dining-room table.’

  Paul’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you sure?’ he gasped, knowing they’d never get down to the house and back up the hill before the end of the transmission window.

  ‘Gotcha!’ Henderson smiled as he pulled the notepad out of his trousers and wafted it under Paul’s nose.

  ‘Git,’ Paul complained. ‘You totally had me there.’

  ‘I’m no radio operator,’ Henderson said, as his hand hovered over the Bakelite knob of his Morse key. ‘Read me the letters, slowly.’

  ‘You should have got Rosie up here,’ Paul said. ‘She learned Morse code at Girl Guides, back in Paris. She got the highest mark in her whole troop.’

  ‘you tell me,’ Henderson said, as he pulled on a set of headphones. ‘Well, here goes nothing.’Now

  ‘Q,’ Paul said. ‘T, M, L …’

  He carried on reading the letters as Henderson stared intently at his Morse key, tapping out dots and dashes.

  When decoded Henderson’s message would read: SERAPHIM ALIVE, BORDEAUX AREA. BLUEPRINTS LOST AT SEA. PREPARING TO LEAVE VIA SPAIN WITH COMPANIONS BUT WILLING TO ACT UPON ALTERNATIVE INSTRUCTIONS. OUT.

  Although the message was just twenty-three words long, it took Henderson more than two minutes to tap out. After waiting several minutes for someone to verify his message and encode a reply, Henderson grabbed a pencil and began jotting down the letters he heard in his earpiece.

  Paul watched anxiously as Henderson used a different key phrase to decode them.

  ‘RAU, McAfferty,’ Henderson said, with obvious delight. ‘She got it!’

  ‘What’s RAU?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Received and understood,’ Henderson said, before squeezing Paul gently and reaching out to shake hands. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you. Put it there, little man.’

  As Paul shook hands, he looked over Henderson’s shoulder and saw a trio of curious sheep behind him.

  ‘I hate sheep,’ Paul said seriously. ‘Those beady black eyes just stare at you.’

  ‘They make a lovely Sunday lunch though,’ Henderson laughed, as he spread out the blanket. ‘It’s two hours until our next transmission window. I’m all set up. You can go back down to the house and get some sleep if you like.’

  Just thinking about sleep made Paul yawn, but he’d bonded with Henderson that evening and didn’t want to go. ‘I’ll wait up here in case anything goes wrong with the radio.’

  Henderson poured some coffee and studied the sunset for a few moments. They only had a single cup that screwed on top of the flask, and when he turned to ask Paul if he wanted some he saw the boy sprawled over the blanket with his eyes closed. He thought Paul was asleep, but one eye came open as Henderson settled on the blanket beside him.

  ‘I think PT’s basically a good guy,’ Paul said. ‘Don’t you?’

  Henderson sighed deeply
. ‘I don’t think he was planning to snitch, but he knows all our business. It’s my fault: I should have been more careful about what was said around PT, but he was getting on so well with Marc, and he’s got a crush on your sister. I never thought he’d try doing a runner like that, not for a second.’

  ‘don’t kill him,’ Paul said.Please

  Henderson rested a hand on Paul’s chest and stared down at the patterned squares on the blanket. ‘I’ve done a lot of bad things in my time,’ Henderson said softly.

  ‘You can’t avoid them when you work as a spy. I don’t want to kill him, Paul. But the question is, what do we do with PT if I don’t?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nobody slept much in the pink house that night. Rosie was up with the sun and walked a few hundred metres to a batty old neighbour who supplemented her pension by keeping chickens. She thought about stopping by the shed on the way back to give PT more water, but Henderson’s bedroom overlooked the garden and his curtains were already open.

  Yellow light streamed through the kitchen windows and Paul sat at the dining table, licking jam off a knife, as she placed the basket of eggs on the countertop.

  ‘You’ll turn into bread and jam one of these days,’ Rosie said with a smile. ‘How’d it go last night?’

  ‘Good,’ Paul answered coyly, before tearing another bite from his slice of bread. ‘The radio worked. We got a response.’

  ‘What time did you get to bed?’

  ‘It was gone two by the time we’d lugged that blasted set down the hill, but I did doze off for a while between transmissions.’

  Rosie was expecting more information. She folded her arms and scowled. ‘Have I got to drag it out of you? What did their message say?’

  Paul shook his head, reluctantly. He didn’t like holding things back from his sister, partly out of loyalty and partly because she was inclined to thump him if he pissed her off.

  ‘Henderson told me not to discuss the message with anyone until he’d dealt with PT.’

  Rosie sighed. ‘Well, was the message good news or bad news?’

  Paul enjoyed knowing something his sister didn’t. ‘You’re not gonna wheedle it out of me. And it’s not really good or bad. Just interesting.’

  ‘You want scrambled eggs on toast?’ Rosie asked. ‘Or are you full of bread and jam? You’ve pigged half a jar since yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, I could go for some eggs,’ Paul said.

  Rosie looked into the basket and tried working out how many eggs she needed to cook. ‘Who else is around?’

  ‘Marc’s up and about and I heard Henderson running the shower.’

  ‘Maxine?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘She stayed at her own place. I think they had a row.’

  ‘She certainly wasn’t happy with the way he treated PT,’ Rosie said. ‘I heard them upstairs yelling before dinner.’

  Marc came in with wet hair and a bare chest. ‘Morning,’ he said, before spotting the basket. ‘Oooh, eggies!’

  Paul looked horrified as Marc cracked an eggshell on the countertop, flipped his head back and drained raw egg into his mouth.

  ‘That’s so gross!’ Rosie said.

  Marc poked out his tongue, which was covered in strands of yolk. ‘Give us a kiss, darling!’

  She picked a wooden spoon off the worktop and whacked Marc hard on the elbow. ‘One step closer and you see what you get.’

  ‘You and whose army?’ Marc teased, as he lunged at her.

  Rosie screamed, but the fun ended abruptly as a length of metal chain clanked down on the table behind them.

  ‘Good morning,’ Henderson said firmly. ‘You all doing OK?’

  ‘You want eggs on toast?’ Rosie asked, as the two boys shrugged.

  ‘I surely could,’ Henderson said. ‘Make some for PT too. I expect he’ll be hungry.’

  Marc smiled. ‘Are you letting him off?’

  Henderson rattled the chain. ‘If he behaves himself, I’ve got a couple of options for him. Marc, I want you to go cut PT loose and bring him up here. Let him know that I’ve got my eye out and I’ll shoot if he tries to run.’

  Marc got a sharp knife from a drawer and jogged down to the shed. Rosie checked that the hotplate over the wood-fired oven was up to temperature before starting to crack the eggs into a saucepan.

  ‘Paul tells me you got a reply last night,’ Rosie said, still bursting to know. ‘Was it good news?’

  ‘I’m not going through the whole thing six times,’ Henderson said. ‘I’m going to deal with PT. Then we’ll deal with the message and our new plans.’

  ‘So what’s the deal with the chain?’ Paul asked.

  Henderson had a sly way of not answering awkward questions when he didn’t want to. He ignored Paul and wandered over to see if there was any hot water on the stove. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ he said, as he peered out towards the shed, making sure that Marc was OK.

  PT came in a minute later and sat at the table. The shed was stuffy and he’d not washed since his tussle with Paul on the driveway. Dry blood caked his shirt, his head-wound had dried up into an unsightly scab and the smell of his sweat was stronger than eggs or coffee.

  ‘Manna from heaven,’ PT said, tucking in greedily as Rosie put a plate in front of him.

  Marc and Paul brought their plates over to the table, but Henderson told them to eat standing up by the cabinet with Rosie.

  ‘I kill you,’ Henderson said to PT. ‘Letting an untrustworthy worm like you live is a risk that could lead to the slow painful death of everyone in this room – but you’re not much more than a kid.’should

  PT glanced up from his eggs, but after his ordeal he resented Henderson and refused to show any sign of being grateful.

  Henderson pointed at Paul, Rosie and Marc. ‘I thought they were your friends, PT.’

  PT shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing against any of you, just no appetite to go around spying on Nazis.’

  ‘Two options,’ Henderson said dramatically, as he raised one end of the coiled chain. ‘This chain is the first. I can’t let you split from us until we’re a day or so ahead of you. So I’ll put you upstairs, chain you to a bed and give you a knock-out pill. I’ll leave some food, some water and a file.

  ‘You’ll come around after eighteen to twenty-four hours, and I reckon it’ll take you another eight to ten to file your way through the wooden bedpost. By the time you set yourself free, we’ll be at least a couple of hundred miles away. I’ll leave you your money. You won’t have the gold you might need to get into Spain, but you’ve got experience working on boats. If you’re alone you’ll be better off getting a job on a steamer heading for the Mediterranean and jumping ship.’

  ‘I’m right off boats after the sank under me,’ PT sighed. ‘I like the idea of crossing a land border.’Cardiff Bay

  Henderson scratched his head and thought for a second. ‘How about if I sell you two gold ingots for six hundred dollars? The trouble is, I hear it’s a nightmare getting into Spain at the moment. There’s tens of thousands of refugees. The official border’s closed and if you’re lucky enough to find a guide to take you through the mountains there’s every chance that they’ll escort you up to some remote spot, steal anything worth having and push you off a cliff. Especially if you’re travelling alone.’

  ‘Sounds like a bag of laughs,’ PT said, burying his face in his hands. ‘Where do I sign up?’

  ‘Must be better than me putting a bullet through the back of your head,’ Henderson observed.

  ‘What’s my other option?’

  ‘We all make bad decisions,’ Henderson said. ‘Especially when we’re fifteen years old and on the run. I’m prepared to wipe the slate clean. You can come with us.’

  ‘Come where?’ PT asked.

  ‘I have a very important job to do before we can leave France,’ Henderson said. ‘I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t involve significant danger to all of us, but at the end of the operation we’ll be in an ideal position to
travel back to Britain. I can’t tell you any more than that without compromising the security of the plan.’

  ‘It’s not much to go on,’ PT said, smiling awkwardly.

  ‘Everything in life comes down to trust,’ Henderson said. ‘If you travel with us, I’m trusting you not to run off again. have to trust that I’ll look after your best interests.’You’ll

  ‘Which option would prefer?’ PT asked.you

  Henderson shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t mind, although I guarantee you won’t be alive to get a third chance if you betray my trust again.’

  Rosie stared at PT. ‘You should stick with us,’ she said. ‘We all look out for each other. What’s so great about being off on your own?’

  Marc nodded in agreement. ‘I travelled to Paris alone before I met Henderson. I wouldn’t recommend it. Everywhere you go there’s people trying to rob you or rip you off.’

  PT allowed himself to smile. He’d tried getting away because he’d baulked at the idea of Henderson being a spy. If anything, the beating and a night tied up in the shed had made him more hostile towards Henderson, but the way Rosie and Marc had sneaked out food showed that he’d made two real friends.

  ‘People only forgive if they care about you,’ PT said, finally looking Henderson in the eye. ‘You’ve got nothing to gain by letting me live.’

  Henderson smiled. ‘Except a clear conscience – and the fact that Maxine and Rosie would never have spoken to me again.’

  ‘It’s lonely out there on your own,’ Paul said.

  ‘Indeed,’ PT replied.

  ‘So you’re with us?’ Rosie smiled.

  PT liked the idea, but he wasn’t ready to commit himself.

  ‘Don’t rush him,’ Henderson said. ‘PT needs a bath and a few hours’ rest. I’d rather he took his time and made the right decision.’

  Part Four

  16 July 1940 – 20 July 1940

  ‘Despite her hopeless military situation, Britain shows no sign of willingness to come to terms. I have decided to prepare, and if necessary to carry out, a sea-based invasion against her.