Secret Army by Robert Muchamore Read Free Book Online

ambulance crew. ‘This lad’s got small burns and smoke inhalation,’ she explained, as the ground throbbed from a bomb going off in the distance. ‘Get him on a stretcher and take him to hospital.’
    ‘I can walk,’ Marc said, but the nurse pushed him down as he tried to stand up. ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she said firmly.
    ‘What about his parents?’ one of the ambulance women asked.
    ‘Charles Henderson,’ Marc said between coughs. ‘He must be around somewhere.’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Troy had a stomach full of bacon, eggs and toast as Paul led him from the farmhouse to the adjacent school building. He liked being in a place where he wasn’t scared, and the fact that Paul and McAfferty spoke fluent French. Because his English was poor, he’d not had a conversation with anyone except Mason in four months.
    Mason dropped behind the older boys, then ran along the top of a low wall and jumped off, splashing down in a puddle that proved deeper than expected.
    ‘That’ll teach you,’ Troy laughed, before scrambling away as Mason swept his boot through the water to try and splash him.
    Before the village was commandeered by the government for use as a military training zone, the two-storey schoolhouse had served pupils aged from five to fourteen in all the surrounding villages. The entrance vestibule split three ways, with the school hall directly ahead, a headmaster’s office and staffroom down a corridor on the right and four classrooms off a longer corridor to their left.
    The furniture had been cleared out when the school closed but the building was immaculate, with freshly painted walls and air heavy with the tang of floor wax.
    ‘Mr Takada makes us keep everything down here spotless,’ Paul explained, as he led Troy and Mason up concrete steps to the first floor.
    ‘He’s the fitness instructor, right?’ Troy said.
    ‘He’s Japanese,’ Paul nodded. ‘There’s no doubt the training is making us stronger, but he’s a proper slave-driver.’
    ‘How long have you been training?’ Mason asked.
    ‘We started at a hostel north of London at the end of October. Then Superintendent McAfferty found out about this place and we moved in a few weeks later.’
    By this time the three boys had reached the top of the stairs. The top floor was warm, a wireless set played big-band music and a girl of about six was belting down the corridor, shrieking and trying to hit a boy with a pillow.
    Troy thought it looked OK: Paul said the training was tough, but this was clearly a place where kids were treated with respect and allowed to be themselves. There were four classrooms off the right side of the hallway. The first had been newly fitted with showers and toilets. The second classroom had SISTERS & JUNIORS stencilled on the door with enamel paint. Inside were bunk beds with lines of damp washing strung between them.
    ‘I expect that’s where you’ll stay, Mason,’ Paul explained. ‘Sisters and little kids are in there.’
    ‘With girls?’ Mason complained, crinkling up his nose.
    Paul pointed into a classroom filled with unused beds as they walked by. ‘That’s been assigned for training groups B and C,’ he explained. ‘Me and the five other trainees are in Group A. Troy, if you join you’ll be the third recruit for Group B. And this is my lot.
    ‘Evening all,’ Paul shouted, as he walked into the final classroom. ‘We’ve got new arrivals.’
    The radio was turned too loud for easy conversation. There were six beds, with bodies on four of them. To create privacy the trainees had nailed sheets or old curtains to the ceiling between beds. The wall behind each semi-private den was personalised with family photos and pages torn from magazines.
    The space nearest the door belonged to thirteen-year-old Luc. He wore the same shorts and striped shirt as Paul, but all comparison ended there. Where Paul was skinny, Luc hovered on the borderline between stocky and fat and his bicep swelled impressively as he