Secret Army (16 page)

‘Don’t start on that,’ Henderson said. ‘I’m prepared to swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve never cheated on you, Joan. These fantasies about other women are just in your head.’

‘Pull the other one,’ Joan screamed. ‘It’s got bells on.’

‘And what are we going to do when the baby starts walking?’ Henderson asked. ‘I don’t want my child living in a house filled with dangerous spiders.’

‘You’re just looking for an excuse to get rid of them,’ Joan yelled. ‘If you so much as touch them I’ll wait till you fall asleep and cut your throat.’

Troy sprinkled a handful of beetles into a cage filled with coin-sized spiders with ladybird-like domed bodies and custard-yellow legs. As they scurried about collecting the fresh bugs and dragging them back towards their hiding places, Troy turned his attention to the next cage.

Mavis the cobalt blue had a reputation for aggression. Like most large spiders, she only ate live prey and, rather than hunting in the fields, Joan now bred worms, dormice, grubs and crickets in a small shed at the end of the garden.

Troy smiled as he raised the hinged lid of a wooden cigar box and picked out a tiny black dormouse. It sat in his palm with its tail curled up and its black eyes shining. It seemed a shame that this cute fur ball’s fate was to be injected with paralysing venom and eaten while it was still conscious.

But Troy’s stomach was grumbling for his own lunch, so he flung the mouse unceremoniously into Mavis’ enclosure and closed the lid.

The Hendersons’ row had progressed to the kitchen as Troy moved on to the largest cage, which contained a pair of giant bird-eating spiders.

‘I’m going back to work,’ Henderson was shouting. ‘Stay here if you want to, but don’t waste McAfferty’s time complaining about artillery noise. There’s nothing she or I can do about it.’

‘My nerves are in shreds,’ Joan sobbed. ‘I shudder every time I hear a bang.’

‘Then bloody well move,’ Henderson shouted. ‘There’s a bloody war on. The army has to practise and everyone else seems to cope well enough.’

Troy saw the partially eaten remains of a mouse in the bird-eaters’ cage. In the wild this would have been picked up and eaten by a scavenger, but in the cage it would go rotten so Troy had to fish it out with a pair of tongs.

As he searched for the tongs, the kitchen door slammed.

‘Joan, let me through. I have to get back to work.’

‘Bastard, bastard, bastard!’ Joan screamed. ‘I hate you.’

A body slammed against the wall in the hallway, and then there was a groan. Troy thought Henderson had slapped his wife, but instead Henderson burst into the conservatory clutching bloody hands to his stomach.

‘Bitch stabbed me!’ Henderson groaned, as he staggered slowly towards the back door.

Joan thundered in and lunged at her husband’s back with a huge carving knife. Troy was horrified by the giant patch of blood soaking through Henderson’s shirt. Fortunately, Joan had no idea that Troy was in the room and before she found out he’d grabbed her wrist.

Takada would have been proud as Troy executed a textbook move, twisting Joan’s arm up behind her back and forcing her to release the knife. She swung a wild punch but Troy kept hold and used all his strength to shove her against the spider cages on the far wall.

‘Calm down,’ Troy begged, as Henderson staggered out into the back garden. His scream for help was heard by Mason and another boy who were kicking a football around in the school courtyard.

An artillery shell blasted in the background as Mason ran screaming into the school building to get help. Joan collapsed on to the conservatory’s stone floor. Troy was scared that she’d attack him and scanned the floor looking for the bloody knife, but she just sat still.

‘I only want Charles to love me,’ she sobbed desperately.

As Troy looked up, he saw Mavis’ blue legs clattering quickly through the shattered glass front of her cage.

*

Marc lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He was the only trainee who’d chickened out and he felt like his whole world had collapsed. Parachutes were the only realistic way to infiltrate occupied Europe and if he couldn’t jump all the rest of his training had been a waste of time.

It was four in the afternoon. Takada was having a discussion with Sergeant Parris in another hut. Joel had picked up a rope burn when his chute caught a gust of wind upon landing and was in the medical tent getting it cleaned up. Rosie and PT had supposedly disappeared to the toilet, but judging by the amount of time they’d been gone they’d found a spot where they could get some privacy.

This left Luc and Paul in the hut with Marc.

‘Do you want anything?’ Paul asked quietly, as he stood by Marc’s bed.

Paul was a good friend, but all Marc saw was someone who’d been able to jump when he hadn’t. He felt wildly jealous.

‘Leave me alone,’ he tutted.

‘It’s probably not that serious,’ Paul said. ‘Takada’s over with Parris now. I’m sure they’ll let you make another attempt with the guys who got backtracked.’

Marc sat up quickly and scowled at Paul. ‘What part of
leave me alone
don’t you understand? And what’s to say
exactly
the same thing won’t happen if I do get up there again?’

Luc put down his cowboy novel and smiled. ‘Leave the little baby alone, Paul, you’ll make him cry.’

Paul shook his head with contempt. ‘Luc, who asked for your opinion?’

‘I’ll give you credit where it’s due, Paul,’ Luc said. ‘You might be a scrawny little streak of piss, but I’ve never seen you give up. The way Marc stood on that platform quaking in his pants was an embarrassment to our whole unit.’

‘Luc, shut up,’ Paul said. ‘You’re lucky you even got to jump. You passed the exam by one mark and it wasn’t even hard.’

Marc wouldn’t usually have let Luc have a go at Paul without defending him, but he felt so depressed that he didn’t care about anything.

Luc adopted a high-pitched, mocking voice. ‘Ooooooh I’m little Marc,’ he squeaked. ‘It’s a long way down. I can’t jump. I’m pissing my panties.’

‘You’re such an arsehole,’ Paul said, as Luc crashed on the end of his bed and buried his head in his hands.

Marc wasn’t rising to the bait, so Luc decided to tease Paul instead. ‘What you gonna do to stop me, Paul?’ he grinned. ‘I seem to remember you were kneeling down ready to kiss my feet rather than face me like a man.’

‘You’re two years older than me,’ Paul said. ‘And I remember you tied up with towels and tears streaking down your face.’

Luc smiled. ‘Do you think your friends are always gonna be around to protect your skinny butthole?’

‘Shut up,’ Marc roared, as he grabbed the empty metal chamberpot from under his bed and charged towards Luc.

The pot clanged as Marc whacked it around the back of Luc’s head. ‘You think you’re hard!’ Marc said as he jumped on Luc. ‘You’re nothing but a thick bully.’

Unfortunately for Marc, Luc really was hard. Marc managed a couple of good punches before Luc flung him off the bed and jumped on top, with his kneecap pressing down on Marc’s belly.

‘Prepare for some pain!’ Luc said, as he raised his fist and punched Marc brutally in the face.

Paul looked around desperately. He wasn’t strong enough to pull Luc off Marc. He thought about running off and fetching Takada, but even if that only took half a minute Marc would be beaten to a pulp. Instead, Paul rushed to the dining table and grabbed one of the three-legged stools.

Marc had been thumped twice more by the time Paul dived across Luc’s bed and smashed the stool down on his back.

‘Stop it!’ Paul shouted.

The blow on the back had less effect on Luc than Paul had hoped, but it did enable Marc to free himself. Marc spotted the dog bite on Luc’s wrist and sank his teeth into the swollen flesh.

Luc howled in agony as the scab tore off his arm. Marc felt sick as he tasted Luc’s blood but he kept biting as hard as he could. At the same moment, Joel came back from the medical hut and saw the three lads tussling in the gap between two beds.

‘For god’s sake,’ Joel shouted desperately. ‘If there’s any more trouble they’re gonna kick us out of here.’

Paul had been trying to pull Luc away from Marc, but he backed off knowing that Joel would make a better job of it. Joel grabbed the waistband of Luc’s trousers and hoisted him back on to his bed.

‘Enough,’ he said firmly.

Marc sat up and lunged at Luc, but Paul put himself in the way. ‘He’s not worth it, mate.’

Luc was howling in pain, while Marc had Luc’s blood streaking down his chin.

Joel looked at Paul and spoke authoritatively. ‘Take Marc to the toilet and wash his face. If Takada sees him in that state he’ll go bonkers.’

Fortunately it was dark outside, so they didn’t get any strange looks as they headed through the freezing air to the toilet blocks. Marc sobbed as he pulled off his shirt in front of a sink.

‘Don’t let Luc get to you,’ Paul said firmly. ‘He’s a dick.’

‘My training’s buggered,’ Marc sniffed. ‘My whole
life
is buggered.’

Paul put the plug in the sink and turned on both taps. ‘Wash your face before anyone else comes in.’

Once there were a few centimetres of water in the sink, Marc cupped his hands and began splashing it up on to his face. Paul found a clean towel and was startled by Takada a second after he threw it towards Marc.

‘Sir,’ Paul said awkwardly, as his brain scrambled for an excuse to explain what Marc was doing. Fortunately, Takada didn’t notice the bloody streaks in the sink before Marc pulled the plug out and wiped them away.

‘I speak Sergeant Parris,’ Takada stated. ‘If you have second chance, do you think you can jump?’

Marc looked wary. ‘I hope so. I’ve got no idea what came over me up there.’

‘You’ll go up with the men who were backtracked. And Parris says there’s room in the cage for a friend to jump again if it helps you feel comfortable.’

‘I don’t mind going up with you,’ Paul said cheerfully. ‘I loved it.’

‘There can be no third chance though,’ Takada explained.

Marc shuddered as he looked down at the floor between his feet. ‘I won’t mess up again,’ he said determinedly. ‘I can’t.’

Rufus and Khinde searched the house and garden but Mavis wasn’t found. Group B’s afternoon lessons were cancelled and the whole group scoured the school and the surrounding woods.

The others searched because they’d been ordered to and didn’t like the idea of having a big scary spider on the loose, but Troy was concerned for Mavis’ well-being and went back out after dark to search with a torch.

He was over two hundred metres into the woods behind the graveyard when he caught a blue glint in his torch beam. He thought he’d imagined it, but swung the beam back to make sure and saw Mavis’ furry body and the unmistakeable metallic blue colouring on her legs and back.

‘So that’s where you’ve been hiding,’ he said gently.

They’d been told to call an adult to capture Mavis if she was spotted, but Troy had the impression that most people wouldn’t mind if Mavis ended up getting splattered and he wanted to avoid that.

Troy had expected a chase, but Mavis didn’t shun the light. In fact, she didn’t move at all and her body trembled in a way he’d never seen before as she nestled between a rock and a clump of wild grass. Cobalt blues are native to Thailand and Malaysia where the temperature rarely drops below thirty centigrade and the cold was killing her.

‘You’re freezing, aren’t you?’ Troy said, as he slipped a canvas bag off his shoulder.

He took out a small hand-shovel and the wooden cigar box from which he’d taken Mavis’ lunch earlier in the day. With the torch tucked under his armpit, Troy held the open cigar box in one hand and the shovel in the other.

‘Come on,’ Troy whispered. ‘There’s a good girl.’

He moved the box as close to Mavis as he dared, then reached behind her with the shovel and gave her a gentle flick. He was scared that Mavis would panic and either run off or charge up the shovel handle and sink poison fangs into his hand, but she barely moved when the shovel touched her and Troy had to flick her into the cigar box before snapping the lid shut.

The torch dropped out of Troy’s armpit as Mavis found a burst of energy and began spinning around and scraping her legs against the side of her wooden prison. Troy got a rubber band and fastened it around the hinged box, before putting it back in the bag and setting off towards the house.

As he came close to the farmhouse there was a bang and a bright orange flash through the trees. His first thought was that an artillery shell had strayed from the firing range, but they rarely went off after dark and it wasn’t loud enough.

Yves and Sam stood at the back of the garden. Troy was ready to boast about the capture of Mavis, but as he walked through the back gate he was startled to inhale a strong whiff of petrol and see one of the spider cages burning in the middle of the lawn. Another was being carried out of the conservatory by Khinde and an artillery regiment soldier who usually worked on the security gate.

‘What are they doing?’ Troy asked desperately, though it didn’t take a genius to work it out.

‘Henderson gave the order,’ Sam explained, before shuddering theatrically. ‘Good job as well. It gives me the heebie-jeebies having those things crawling around next door.’

Troy was hit by a wave of misery. ‘But they can’t.’

Khinde and the soldier placed the heavy glass cage down on the lawn. As Khinde lifted the lid, another soldier approached with a metal can and sploshed in a full gallon of petrol. Troy recognised this large cage as the habitat of the giant bird-eaters and while he couldn’t see in the dark he imagined the poor things trapped in their burrows as the evil-smelling fuel ran around their hairy legs.

‘Stand clear,’ one of the soldiers shouted, as he lit a match and flicked it at arm’s length.

The instant the flaming match touched petrol vapour a mushroom of ghostly blue flame shot out of the top of the cage. Troy felt the hot blast on his skin as the glass sides blackened and started to crack.