‘Causing a distraction, or at least trying to,’ said Kate.
‘Too late, all too late,’ said the soldier, shaking his head.
As if to confirm the worst they heard the boom of the leopard tank firing its killing shot, and they all crouched a little lower.
After a moment or two the soldier looked up, and Hector looked through the sights.
‘The tank’s on fire. Something must have gone wrong,’ said Hector, just as he saw a familiar figure walking towards the burning tank. It was Pierre, and he was holding some equipment.
The soldier looked through the sights and muttered something about a Eyrx anti-armour missile. Then he slumped to the floor shaking and cried a little. Kate put her hand on his shoulder as he muttered things in French.
‘What’s an ear-wax missile?’ asked Hector.
‘Eryx not ear-wax, you idiot,’ Kate answered, ‘and show some sympathy.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Hector patting the soldier on his arm in a cheerful and utterly insensitive way, ‘this happens to us most days now, and we always survive. Actually, I quite like it.’
‘Hector,’ Kate exclaimed, but she could not decide what offended her most; the way he ignored someone else’s distress, or his wild and utterly unjustified optimism.
‘Well it’s simple, isn’t it,’ Hector explained, ‘I’ve decided there is a God and he wants me to get to that cake shop. Come on, I bet Pierre’s got a car. I hope it’s a sports car.’
Hector continued to mutter as he got out of the tank. ‘Maybe he’ll let me drive. After all, I didn’t get my go at driving the tank. It’s not my fault it’s ruined. Kate was driving, and she went very fast.’
As Hector walked from the tank he caught sight of Pierre. ‘Pierre, Pierre! Sorry the tank’s ruined.’
‘Get down!’ yelled Pierre, and Hector was roughly pushed to the ground by another soldier who had run up from behind.
‘We have to wait until the area is safe,’ said Pierre, as the sound of a helicopter grew louder.
Hector realised that his hopes of driving a fast sports car from the scene of a tank battle straight to a cake shop were not going to be realised.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cakes
The man from the British Consulate looked worried. Keith Chatterton moved his face in a way that suggested he was about to speak, but had then decided better of it. He kept this up for some time, with Hector’s almost unflinching gaze adding to his discomfort. He was used to dealing with people who had lost their holiday money, or needed to repatriate the body of a loved one after an accident or heart attack.
Yet, here he was in a small patisserie, opposite two children who had recently destroyed several tanks. When he agreed to work for three weeks in France to cover for holidays this was not what he expected. The assignment was supposed to provide some experience of day-to-day consular activities in France, and yet here he was in a cake shop, surrounded by regular and special forces soldiers, with two armoured vehicles outside. When he had arrived they were loading extra ammunition for the heavy calibre machines guns on the armoured cars. It all looked very serious.
At first he introduced himself to Hector and Kate. They seemed quiet, but that was to be expected given their recent experiences. His warmth towards them had faded somewhat when he read the hastily-prepared French report. Hector was described as, ‘Pleasant, polite and energetic, with an aptitude for machinery, bombs and weapons,’ The report went on to praise Hector’s ability to quickly identify threats and his willingness to act without hesitation when using whatever he found to hand in the most violent way possible. It also described Hector as ‘easy to underestimate,’ pointing out the speed at which he had mastered both the controls of the plane he crash landed and the tank gun he had so recently fired. Keith Chatterton believed the high regard in which the author of the report evidently held Hector probably betrayed the author’s background, as someone who more often appraised soldiers or special forces candidates.
Kate was described as, ‘Mature, likeable and attractive. Calm in a crisis,’ The report also said she displayed characteristics suggesting the same high degree of intelligence her brother possessed. As he read further Keith Chatterton could see that author of the report clearly did not rate Kate as highly, stating that she displayed no inclination towards violent action. The report went on to describe Kate’s part in recent events, including the fact that she had probably gunned at least one plane out of the sky, and had demonstrated skill and calculation in navigating a tank during the recent battle. The report also praised her ‘sensible use’ of the blunt end of an axe head when dispatching a suspected assailant, commenting that the sharp end can so easily become embedded in the attacker’s skull making further assault more difficult.
Keith Chatterton could not understand how anyone who had recently shot down a plane, finished someone off with an axe and then driven a tank with some skill in a real encounter against four other tanks could not be considered at least potentially violent and dangerous. He suspected that the person who wrote the report was as myopic as the sports teacher at his school who had written that he had no aptitude for football, the day after he had scored a hat-trick for the B-team and been awarded Man-of-the-Match.
‘Mr Chatterton I presume,’ said Colonel Bertrand entering with a guard of two soldiers. Keith Chatterton was completely on the back foot. Nothing had prepared him for this, and he stuttered and stammered a reply.
‘Mr Chatterton, please, I do understand this is all a bit out of the ordinary,’ Colonel Bertrand continued, ‘As soldiers we are used to guns, bullets and violence, but even we are taken aback by all of this.’
‘Right, yes’ stammered Chatterton while glancing around at the bright and attractively tiled walls and floor, ‘I am sorry, no, I mean yes, I am grateful for the bravery of your troops in repelling the attack,’ he continued, lapsing into official speak, before continuing in a more honest tone, ‘I’ve read the report, but I do not understand why. To be honest, I don’t understand any of it.’
Colonel Bertrand quickly explained the situation, and Kate was surprised by how much he knew about her and Hector. He even knew the name of her school. He also explained that the tanks had been stolen from a farm, where they were kept by a collector. The farmer and his wife had been found dead. The men in the tanks were believed to be French, from Marseille. They were known criminals, who appeared to have been given money and other inducements.
A common theme, according to Bertrand, was the use of weapons, aircraft and vehicles stolen from collectors. He explained that in some ways it was a clever strategy, as there were many collectors who had all manner of old weapons, including ammunition.
It also became apparent to Kate and Hector that the document Mr Chatterton had been reading was a report on them. Colonel Bertrand apologised for the poor English, commenting that it was rushed and a little rough and ready.
Chatterton explained that he was there to make sure Kate and Hector were safe, and the Colonel explained that they were not safe, but he was doing all he could.
‘Shall we all take afternoon tea?’ said Colonel Bertrand. He saw their surprised faces.
‘We may be in France, but tea can still be found,’ the Colonel
