One Shot Kill (12 page)

*

Five kilometres and two bottles of red wine later, Didier and Jean stumbled into a dilapidated cowshed that hadn’t housed an animal in years. There was a crash of metal, followed by howls of drunken laughter.

Rosie had said little during the walk, but her expression told Justin that she was having doubts about using the lads as her guides.

‘There is another boy who hunts,’ Justin whispered, as they crouched at the base of a tree. ‘He might help us, but he’s mouthy.’

Rosie gave her head a little shake, then told Justin to stay put while she crept up to the long shed. The sides were vertical wooden slats and she peeked through. The boys had only colonised one corner, and had some fairly nice kit: fold-out beds with proper mattresses, a rug on the dirt floor, a pile of books and gas lamps fixed to the wall.

As Rosie moved around the building, she was less impressed to find grass spattered with animal blood, an undisguised washing line and black patches left by regular fires. Anyone approaching the shed from this end would immediately know that someone was hiding out.

‘Need a piss,’ Didier shouted from inside.

‘Have one for me too,’ Jean said, before howling with laughter at his own joke. ‘I drank too fast. It’s all spinning!’

The accents intrigued Rosie. They looked a rough pair, but spoke more like the sons of lawyers than the sons of peasants. This hint at their background, plus the stash of books, made her hopeful that she could whip them into shape with some common-sense advice.

But it was starting to get dark and it didn’t seem like a brilliant idea to approach two drunken strangers, so she decided to return in the morning.

Didier’s urine noisily splashed grass as Rosie crept back towards Justin. She was at the corner of the shed when her canvas pump caught in a rabbit snare. As the wire pulled tight it cut into her ankle. She successfully stifled a yelp, but her stride was off balance. Her hand shot out instinctively, but while it saved a fall her palm had thumped the side of the shed.

Inside Jean turned towards the source of the noise. ‘Didier?’ he shouted. ‘Is that you back there?’

Rosie studied the trap anxiously. The snare had been anchored to a nearby bush and the trailing wire was pulled tight. She took out a pocket knife, but the flat blade skidded over the wire.

‘What have we got here?’ Jean asked, as he moved around the side of the hut, while hurriedly pushing his bits back inside his trousers.

As Didier came around the other side of the hut, Rosie pulled her sleeve over her hand then wound the wire around and ripped it away from the bush. This left her ankle in the wire loop with a metre of wire trailing freely behind.

‘This is better than catching a rabbit!’ Didier said, as he grinned foolishly.

Rosie felt a little scared with two drunken lads coming towards her from either end of the hut.

Jean saw less of the funny side and barked, ‘Who are you? Why are you snooping around here?’

Justin ran out of the bushes waving his arms. ‘Don’t hurt her. She’s with me.’

Jean glowered at Justin. ‘Did you follow us from the butcher’s shop? How dare you follow us, you little brat.’

Justin dived for cover as Jean chased him into the bushes.

‘Hey, you big bully,’ Rosie shouted.

Justin kicked and spat as Jean carried him out of the bushes, then plonked him on his feet and knocked him back hard against the wooden hut.

‘I told you to stop,’ Rosie shouted. ‘He’s just a kid. I asked him to help me find you.’

Didier moved closer to Rosie. Apparently toothbrushing facilities out here weren’t great because his breath was rank.

‘How did you manage to follow us?’ Didier demanded.

Rosie laughed. ‘You’re amateurs. You don’t double back on yourselves, you get drunk, you walk slowly. And this hut is surrounded by blood and cinders.’

‘We’ve survived out here long enough,’ Jean said, as he gave Justin a little slap across the cheek.

‘The only reason you’ve survived is that nobody’s been out here looking,’ Rosie said. ‘And if you touch him again …’

‘I think we should forget all about this,’ Didier said, slurring his words as he closed right up to Rosie and cupped his hand around her breast. ‘You’re really pretty, aren’t you?’

Rosie glowered. ‘You have
three
seconds to take that hand off my tit.’

‘Or what, darling?’ Didier snorted.

‘Two,’ Rosie said.

Justin looked really worried. ‘She’s got friends,’ he blurted. ‘If you hurt us they’ll come and find you.’

‘One.’

‘Oh, I’m scared, Justin,’ Jean said. ‘Cocky little shit-pants.’

‘Zero,’ Rosie said, as Jean gave Justin a harder slap on the cheek. ‘I
told
you to leave Justin alone.’

Rosie grabbed two handfuls of Didier’s shirt and gave him a powerful head-butt across the bridge of his nose. As he stumbled back, she kicked him in the guts and he landed on his bum before tilting backwards into a tangle of branches.

Jean could have backed away, but he didn’t think Rosie was a threat, so he was still rooted to the spot as she launched a high back kick. Her muddy heel hit the squat teenager square on the lips.

As he teetered, Rosie went into a boxing stance and went for the gut, winding Jean with three hard punches before getting a hand behind his neck and bashing his head into the side of the hut.

‘Bloody hell!’ Justin shouted, scrambling away as Didier crawled out of the bushes with a bloody nose and thorns bedded in his arms.

Didier didn’t have the appetite for an attack on Rosie, but Jean was more aggressive. He came at her like a wild thing with thick arms swinging. Rosie stuck her hand into a small shoulder bag and ripped out an automatic pistol as she took half a step back.

‘Do you want your head splattered up the side of this cowshed?’ she shouted, as she clicked off the safety. ‘Put your fat little hands in the air.’

As a gawping Jean did what he’d been told, Rosie swung the gun around so that Didier got a good look down the barrel.

‘Don’t shoot me,’ he begged, as he threw up his hands.

Rosie looked at Justin. ‘Are you OK, mate?’

He nodded, but was shocked and awed by what he’d seen Rosie do.

‘Since you two have behaved like pigs, I’ll treat you like pigs,’ Rosie said. ‘Get down on your hands and knees, and crawl back into the shed.’

Justin stifled a smile as the two lads crawled through the bushes, around a corner, past the cinders from the fire and through a cracked wooden door into their den.

‘You don’t move unless I tell you to move. You don’t speak unless I ask a question. And don’t think I won’t shoot you because I’m just a girl. I’m well trained and I’ll execute you both in a heartbeat.’

As her two little pigs looked up, Rosie squatted on one of their filthy beds while Justin stood awkwardly in the doorway. They had a collection of hunting gear kept in good condition, but Rosie’s eyes were drawn towards the books, which included several anti-German pamphlets and a copy of
The Communist Manifesto
.

‘Which one of you read this?’ Rosie asked.

They were reluctant to admit anything with a gun pointed in their face. Didier’s nose was dripping blood into the dirt.

‘I had a copy once, but I never finished,’ Rosie said, trying to sound friendlier as she picked up one of the anti-German leaflets. ‘I can’t believe you’ve survived this long while being this stupid. They’re desperate for men in the factories, you know? If they catch you, they’ll ship you off to Germany. But if they catch you with communist literature and resistance pamphlets, they’ll pass you over to the Gestapo, who will torture you. Only a
total
moron would leave this stuff lying around next to their beds.’

Rosie threw the pamphlet and
The Communist Manifesto
at Justin. ‘Start a fire and burn these.’

As Justin walked outside, Rosie considered her position. She’d had no option but to fight and there was no harm in showing Jean and Didier who was the boss, but young men tended to have big egos and they’d hate her if she humiliated them for much longer.

‘If I put this gun back in my bag, are you going to be civil?’

‘Sure,’ Jean said grumpily.

‘He’s got half a bush sticking out of his arse,’ Rosie said, pointing at Didier. ‘Help him get the thorns out.’

‘Who taught you to fight?’ Didier asked, as he stood up and wiped his dirty palms down his trousers. He didn’t seem so drunk now, probably because the beating had generated an adrenaline kick.

‘I was trained by the resistance,’ Rosie said, deliberately not giving details. ‘You’re on the run, and I can see from your literature that you want the Germans out of France as much as I do. My question is, do you want to run around the forest catching rabbits and getting pissed, or have you got the balls to make a difference?’

It was a loaded question – what red-blooded teenage male would turn down a pretty girl asking for help?

‘What is it you want?’ Jean asked.

Rosie loosened the bloody wire embedded in her ankle and pulled it over her shoe as she spoke. ‘Justin brought me out here because he said you know the forests around here better than anyone.’

This wasn’t strictly true, but after knocking the boys down, they needed some flattery.

‘Are you interested in the bomb bunker?’ Didier asked.

Rosie half smiled, as she clamped a handkerchief over her bleeding ankle. ‘Well, the resistance would hardly be interested in the trees and the squirrels, would it? Why do you call it the
bomb
bunker?’

‘That’s what they store there, isn’t it?’ Didier said.

This was news to Rosie, but she hid her surprise well.

‘You’ve seen trucks of bombs going in and out?’ Rosie asked.

‘You see Luftwaffe men loading them on to trucks,’ Jean explained.

‘Can you get up close to the wire?’ Rosie asked.

‘You’d be pushing your luck to get up really close. We’d never set traps around there, but there’s an old guard we’ve gotten to know. He likes his rabbit meat and he swaps it for tinned stuff out of the bunker: jam, beans, fruit.’

‘I need a guide to take me up there tomorrow,’ Rosie said, as she pulled out a small camera. ‘I need a good set of photos. They need to be taken in daylight from all angles.’

‘It’s risky,’ Didier said.

Jean shook his head. ‘Not
that
risky, as long as you go the back way. Stay well clear of the road and the main footpaths. Except for an occasional patrol, the guards stay behind the fence. And if they spot you from inside the wire it’s easy to duck into the trees.’

‘No tracking dogs or anything like that?’ Rosie asked.

‘Not that I’ve ever seen,’ Jean said.

‘This is a down-payment,’ Rosie said, as she took two ten-franc notes from her shoulder bag. ‘The resistance doesn’t just take. Whenever you work for me, you’ll earn a small wage. We can also help you with documents, accommodation and ration books if you ever need them. When more people come here to help me, you’ll receive training and weapons.’

Both lads smiled, but as they reached for the money, Rosie snatched it away before taking a grave tone.

‘If you’re caught, you’ll be tortured and killed. You
have
to follow my orders and if you betray the resistance, we’ll be every bit as ruthless as the Gestapo when we catch up with you. If you say no now, I’ll walk out of this shed and you’ll probably never see me again. But once you take this money, there’s no stepping back.’

This time the lads hesitated. Didier took his money first and Jean a couple of tense seconds later. Rosie picked an open wine bottle off the rug and took a slug before passing it to Didier.

‘I drink to the resistance,’ Rosie said.

‘And to France,’ Didier said enthusiastically, as streaks of red wine drizzled down his chin.

‘I’ve got nineteen boys and one girl in total,’ Captain Charles Henderson explained as he led a man in US Army uniform through the hallway of the old village school on campus. ‘Three are currently deployed in France, one in the French colonies and one in Switzerland. At first a lot of people sneered.
What’s the point of training kids?
But now those same people call me up, desperate to use my agents.’

‘Is there a shortage of adult agents?’ the American asked. He wore thick-framed glasses and the brim of his cap barely reached Henderson’s nose.

‘It’s become impossible for males of military age to live openly in occupied France without being scooped off the street and sent to work in Germany,’ Henderson explained. ‘But I’ve got bilingual twelve-to sixteen-year-olds who are fully trained and ready to drop.’

The American was momentarily distracted by a glass cage with a fist-sized spider inside it, but before he could comment Henderson had led him through swinging doors into a small school hall. There was a good deal of grunting and pained expressions as a dozen shirtless boys grappled on crumbling rubber mats.

‘Attention,’ the Japanese combat instructor Takada shouted as he made a sharp clap.

Red-faced lads in baggy white shorts lined up, with feet apart and hands locked behind their backs. The only motion came from heaving chests and the sweat streaking down their faces.

‘Marc, Luc, Paul, Sam, get your kit on and meet me out front in one minute,’ Henderson said, not quite shouting. ‘The rest of you, get back to it.’

As Takada paired off grapplers who’d lost their partners, Marc, Luc, Paul and Sam exchanged
what are we in for
looks as they pulled on freezing muddy combat gear in which they’d run seven kilometres earlier that morning.

Marc and Luc were fifteen, similar height and solid build, but where Marc was blond and dashing, Luc was dark, hairy and thuggish. Hard training had given fourteen-year-old Paul a bit of muscle, but he still looked as though a stiff breeze would knock him over. At twelve, Sam was the baby of the group, but he’d trained with older boys for two years and always fought hard, even when he was outmatched.

‘Get a bloody move on,’ Henderson snapped, as the boys paced out into a drizzly June afternoon. ‘Go to the firing range at a jog. And Sam, do that boot lace up properly before you trip and crack your head open.’