Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

‘Key! You got the key?’ Chris yelled.

‘Yeah I got it, got it. Lemme just find it.’

As Mark fumbled with the keyring, Chris looked back at the motel entrance. There was no sign of the older man just yet.

‘Come on, Mark!’

The door locks on the Cherokee popped, and both men dived in. Chris kept his eyes on the motel entrance as Mark fired it up and spun the vehicle round in a hurried loop so that they were facing the exit leading onto the coast road and out of town. With the tyres spinning, sending a cloud of dust and pebbles up into the air, the Cherokee leaped forward and out of the parking lot just as a silhouette appeared in the doorway of their motel.

Mission Time: 30 Minutes Elapsed

2.35 a.m., 29 April 1945, outside Nantes

The landing had been a bastard. They had paddled towards the sound of waves breaking only to find the bloody things were breaking on a rocky outcrop. All three dinghies had been punctured in quick succession and Koch and his men had had to swim the last few dozen yards and scramble hastily up the razor-sharp rocks to avoid being punished for their reckless landing by the waves. One of his men had drowned during this mad dash, dragged under by the weight of his thick clothes, and two others had received bad gashes clambering ashore; one of them had a broken shinbone. The wounds were bandaged for now, and the broken leg in a makeshift splint, but the men would require medical treatment soon.

That left him twenty-seven effectives.

Koch was cold, wet from the sea and the spattering of rain, chilled by the sporadically gusting wind blowing in from the Atlantic. He stared at the farmhouse from the cover of an apple orchard less than a hundred yards away. It backed onto the airfield; he suspected it would be warm and dry and there was the possibility of some food inside. It looked like it might offer a few hours of relative comfort for his men before the morning’s fun and games.

He unslung his MP-40 and turned round to face Feldwebel Buller. ‘That looks good for tonight, what do you think?’

The man nodded eagerly. The previous week aboard the U-boat had been a damp and cold hell. A night of dryness and relative comfort sounded like the smartest command decision he’d heard in a long time.

‘Okay, let’s go.’

Buller passed the word on, and moments later the men jogged across the open ground and scrambled over a low stone wall towards the isolated building.

Remi Boulliard enjoyed the sound of an excited sea tumbling onto the rocky shoreline below. There was something quite delightful about savouring the snug warmth of a plump wife under the comforting spread of a goose-feather quilt while outside the elements did their best to beat their way noisily in; although this smug pleasure was lessened somewhat by the clatter of rotten wood on plaster. The wind tonight was playing mischief with the wooden shutters of their bedroom window. It had worked one of them loose, and every few seconds the damn thing was banging irritatingly against the wall outside. The shutters needed replacing, and the fresh sea breeze was gleefully reminding him of that.

Another job to do.

He shrugged, it was a job for the summer, like whitewashing the old plaster walls of the building; it could wait a couple of months.

He listened to the regular, heavy breathing of his wife; it would take a marching brass band to wake her up. He often found the rhythmic ebb and flow of her deep breathing punctuated by the metronome regularity of her nasal click soporific when he was close to sleep. But on a night like this, when sleep seemed such a remote prospect for him, it was irritating. He slid his bony carpenter’s hand under her left shoulder and gently lifted. She obliged automatically in her sleep and rolled onto her side, the nasal clicking stopped.

Remi sighed.

He heard the brittle crash of breaking glass. It sounded as if it had come from the kitchen or the pantry downstairs.

He sat upright in bed, straining to filter the noises from outside the house, to hear only those from inside. He heard the tinkle and scrapes of glass fragments being gently brushed aside, the sound of a footfall on the hard ceramic floor of their kitchen.

‘Yvonne! Somebody’s in our house,’ he whispered hoarsely. She slept on. He shook her shoulder once, and she moaned noisily. He decided it would make too much noise to wake her up and then explain why he’d done so.

Another noise from downstairs!

It sounded like the scraping sound of one of their heavy wooden chairs being nudged an inch across the floor, as a stranger might do accidentally, unfamiliar with the lay of the furniture. It was followed unmistakably by the faintest, barely audible sound of someone ‘shushing’.

My God there is someone down there!

Remi climbed out of bed and donned his housecoat. He carefully pulled open the bottom drawer of the bureau he shared with his wife, and from beneath a layer of knitted jumpers he pulled out the only recognisable weapon the Boulliards had in their house. It was an antique blunderbuss, a weapon lethal at short range. He grinned in the darkness, the old pitted metal felt reassuring in his hands and he knew there was a small sachet of gunpowder and shot somewhere… downstairs.

Shit!

Another bump from below galvanised him to action. He decided the sight of the weapon alone should be enough to frighten off the intruder (or intruders… who shushes themselves?) downstairs. It was probably only some kids from the town, perhaps a couple of those gypsies that had migrated north, encouraged by the withdrawal of the Germans. He knew there was a caravan of them nearby, camping just outside Nantes.

Emboldened by the weighty unloaded gun in his hands he began to descend the stairs. Even if the damn thing couldn’t fire it would make a fine club if things got a little nasty. He made his way down carefully taking each step close to the wall, where the wood rarely creaked. His bare feet made little noise on each wooden step and as he neared the bottom Remi prepared himself to bellow a loud and terrifying challenge.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs he took the three steps across the hallway to the kitchen. Steadying himself, he extended a hand inside the room and hit the light switch.

The single bulb above the sink lit the kitchen well. Remi’s gasp of horror at the sight before him was all but drowned out by the rattling of a dozen or more safety catches being slipped off.

Koch reached a gloved hand out and gently relieved the old man of his antique.

‘I think I’d better have that, thank you,’ he said in passable French.

Mission Time: 3 Hours, 10 Minutes Elapsed

5.15 a.m., over France

Outside, above the dark blue bed of clouds, the sky was beginning to lighten. To the east the pale grey sky gave away the approaching dawn with the slightest stain of amber on the horizon. They were at 25,000 feet, high enough to be discreet, but it meant they were now using the oxygen system. The rubber face-piece of his mask was rubbing irritatingly against the bridge of Max’s nose. He pulled the mask away from his face, rubbed his nose and placed it back.

‘Bad fit,’ he muttered.

The oxygen masks they were all wearing were the personal issue of the American crew that had flown this plane and had been adjusted to fit their faces when first issued. Max and his crew had had to make do with the masks as best they could. They’d had ten to juggle between the four of them to find the best fits all round. Even so, they each had their own minor irritation to deal with.

Max checked his watch, it was 5.15 a.m. Just over three hours airborne.

They had flown south out of Germany, passing over Swiss airspace, to ensure they were well away from any Allied sorties during the night. Then they’d changed course, heading west into France, just north of Lyon. The detour had added another 300 miles to the journey to Nantes. The bomber had been heavy lifting off, the installed internal tanks just beyond the belly gun had slowed her down, and they’d travelled through the early morning hours at a sluggish 220 miles per hour, to conserve fuel.