The Barrel Burglary Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Barbed wire and body-bits

  Chapter 2 Cows and curtains

  Chapter 3 Barrels and bombs

  Chapter 4 Sugar and spies

  Chapter 5 Mates and maps

  Chapter 6 D.A.F.T. and a duck

  Chapter 7 Sirens and shelters

  Chapter 8 Looting and saluting

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Barbed wire and body-bits

  1941 – Sunderland in the North-East of England

  Jack Burn’s granddad was 55 years old, and that was too old to fight in the war. ‘I could still fight you know,’ he told Jack that morning.

  Jack sighed. ‘I know.’ Granddad said that just about every morning.

  ‘In the last war, the Great War, I was a sergeant. Colonel Morris said I was the best sergeant in the Durham Light Infantry. The best. My men were the smartest, the bravest, and they shot straight as this poker,’ the old man went on.

  He pulled the poker out of the fire. It was glowing orange and he used the tip to light his pipe.

  ‘The poker’s bent,’ Jack said. The boy’s thin, pointed nose twitched as the smell of burning tobacco crept into his nostrils. His ears were small but they stuck out a long way from his head. His short-cropped hair made them look like jug handles.

  The man sucked on his pipe and smacked his lips. ‘Ah, that’s better.’ He sat back in the worn old armchair and watched the blue smoke drift up to the ceiling of the kitchen.

  ‘Of course in the Great War we spent a lot of time sitting in trenches. Now in this war they are charging around in aeroplanes and tanks, jumping with parachutes and attacking on landing craft from the sea.’

  Jack sighed, ‘I know,’ again. He had seen the barbed wire strung along the beach to stop the enemy running up the promenade and into the town. Jack knew it was the shipyards they wanted to attack—‘Stop the ships and you stop the food getting in and you starve Britain,’ his mate Tommy Crawley said. Tommy couldn’t read or write but he knew more than the grown-ups.

  And Jack knew about bombs. The enemy were trying to smash the shipyards a mile away, but a lot of the bombs missed the yards and hit the houses. There was a gap in Robinson Terrace that Jack and Tommy walked past on their way to school. It was like a gap in Granddad’s mouth when he took his false teeth out at night. The wreckage of three houses had been cleared away but there was still rubble of broken bricks and beams and glass.

  ‘We could play on there,’ Jack said one Saturday.

  ‘Not me, mate,’ Tommy Crawley hissed. ‘They reckon Bella Hudson went down in the cellar when the bombing started. She’s still there now… well, bits of her.’

  Jack didn’t know if he should believe Tommy’s tales. But from then on he crossed the road when he walked past the bomb site in Robinson Terrace.

  The boy picked up a canvas bag, checked his homework was inside and threw it over his shoulder. ‘I’m off to school, Granddad. See you later.’

  The man looked through the pipe smoke. ‘Don’t be late,’ he said. ‘We have a Home Guard parade tonight.’

  Jack grinned suddenly. ‘I wouldn’t want to miss that,’ he said and bounced out of the door. Home Guard parades were great. The men of the district, too old or too young to fight in the war, made their own little army. When the enemy landed they would be met by Granddad’s troop of lion-hearts and rabbit-hearts. ‘Those invaders will die!’ Granddad said.

  ‘They’ll die of laughing,’ Tommy Crawley would mutter.

  Chapter 2

  Cows and curtains

  School was as boring as ever for Jack. Billy Anderson took a box of matches into the classroom and set fire to a sheet of paper from his exercise book. It smoked in his desk and the smoke came out through the ink-well hole.

  Mr Wilson the French teacher was furious. ‘There’s a war on, Anderson. It is a crime to waste precious paper.’ He bent him over the desk and slapped the back of his patched pants with an old gym shoe. Apart from that nothing much happened.

  School dinner was stewed beef pie. ‘This cow died of old age,’ Tommy grumbled as he chewed on the tough meat and spat out the gristle.

  When the bell went at four o’clock Jack raced home with Tommy Crawley. ‘See you at the Home Guard tonight,’ he panted as Tommy ran on.

  Granddad was waiting. ‘Pop down to the butcher shop and get us a quarter pound of sausage,’ he said. ‘Here’s the coupon.’

  Jack ran to the shop on the corner of Fowler Terrace and got three thin links of sawdust-filled sausage from Mrs Jackson. Mr Jackson the butcher was away in Scotland, serving as a cook for the RAF. Jack hoped Mr Jackson’s pilots got better sausages than his wife made.

  After dinner of sausage and mash and carrot Granddad boiled a pan of water and washed up. Then he went upstairs to change into his uniform while the boy raced through the ten sums he had to do for homework. He scribbled the answers on the corner of yesterday’s Sunderland Echo. He’d pass the answers on to Tommy when he saw him.

  Granddad’s iron-studded boots clattered down the stairs. Jack put a shovel of coal dust on the fire to damp it down and keep it going till they got back. They pulled all the blackout curtains tight shut and stepped out into Robinson Terrace. As they walked past the bomb site Jack asked, ‘Are there bits of Auntie Bella in there, Granddad?’

  The man looked uncomfortable. ‘No, lad.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her since the raid last December.’

  ‘She’s gone to Whitby down in Yorkshire. Evacuated.’

  Jack frowned as he tried to march in step with the man. ‘Only kids get evacuated,’ he argued.

  ‘Your Auntie Bella evacuated herself.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  Granddad’s face was grim in the fading light. ‘I’ll evacuate your head if you don’t stop asking questions. Now shut up and get in step.’

  ‘Yes, Granddad.’

  They marched on in silence to the Saint Barnabas church hall where the Home Guard held their meetings. There were twenty men in uniform there but just two boys—Jack and Tommy. They were allowed there because they had fathers away in the war and no mother at home. They went along with their granddads… so long as they sat in the corner and kept quiet.

  Tommy grinned when he saw Jack. He slipped the homework answers into his trouser pocket and said, ‘It’ll be fun tonight. They’re going to try marching in time.’

  Jack returned the grin. The last time the men had done marching one had tripped over his own feet and three others fell on top of him.

  Jack’s granddad marched into the dusty old hall, saluted the captain and said, ‘Ready to lead marching practice, sir.’

  ‘Carry on, Sergeant Burn,’ the captain said.

  ‘It’ll be a carry on, all right,’ Tommy sniggered.

  Chapter 3

  Barrels and bombs

  The marching was ragged as a crow with torn feathers. But no one fell over. Tommy and Jack grew bored.

  First the Robinson Terrace Home Guard paraded up and down the hall. Sergeant Burn didn’t just shout at them, he barked and bawled and bayed and howled and yowled.

  Then they went outside into the moonlit gloom to march around the church block three times. The oldest men were seventy and groaning with tiredness so the captain called them back inside the hall for a cup of tea. The boys made themselves useful by serving the biscuits.

  The captain told the men to put the folding wooden chairs in rows and to sit on them. When they were settled and quiet he said, ‘Now, men, we have been preparing to fight off an enemy who will land on our beaches, or troops who drop out of the skies.’

  Some of the men raised their eyes to the roof and looked a little worried. ‘We can’t fight the bomb
s that drop out of the skies,’ Granddad grumbled.

  ‘Exactly,’ the captain said. ‘But while we wait for the invasion we can do more than practise our marching and our shooting. We can help fight the bombing—what they are calling the Blitz. I want your ideas.’

  The men looked at the floor. They shuffled their feet. They coughed. Suddenly Granddad pointed at a man in the front row. ‘The officer asked you a question. Answer him. A bomb falls. What can we do to help?’

  The man shook his head and babbled, ‘Clear up the rubble?’

  ‘Very good,’ the captain said and the ideas started to flow. Carry stretchers for the wounded. Help old people to the shelters. Get the dogs off the street in case they got scared and started biting people—the troop weren’t too sure about that one.

  ‘Put out the fires?’ a man said.

  ‘We don’t have any hoses and pumps and fire engines,’ someone else argued.

  ‘Ahhhh,’ the men sighed and went silent again.

  Then Tommy spoke up. ‘The bombers drop fire bombs. Little things that burn fiercely and can’t be put out with water.’

  The captain looked at him. ‘So?’

  ‘They need sand. The Home Guard could have sand on an incendiary ten minutes before a fire engine gets here. We could save dozens of houses, hundreds of lives.’

  For a moment the room was silent then broke into a buzz of excited talking. ‘Where would we get the sand?’

  ‘There’s two miles of the stuff on Hendon Beach, you old fool.’

  ‘Yes, but we can’t just have a pile of sand on the street corner? People would fall over it in the blackout.It would blow away the next windy day we have.’

  ‘Put it in barrels–a large oil drum on each of the main street corners,’ Jack said, feeling the excitement.

  ‘Where would we get an oil drum?’ someone asked gloomily.

  The troop turned to Tommy, as if the boy had all the answers to every problem in Sunderland.

  ‘At the treacle factory at the end of Hendon Road. They have a hundred empty barrels there.’

  Everyone smiled, except Jack’s granddad.

  ‘Will you arrange that, Sergeant Burn?’ the captain asked.

  ‘I will, sir,’ Granddad said smartly. But he turned to the boys and murmured, ‘We could have a little problem there.’

  Chapter 4

  Sugar and spies

  Later that night Granddad stirred the cold ash in his pipe with a penknife while Jack stirred at the coal dust and blew it till it sparked into a feeble flame. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

  ‘The Taylor’s Treacle factory buys sugar, turns it into treacle and packs it into barrels.’

  Jack frowned. ‘We can’t get sugar. Not since the war started. Tommy Crawley says it’s because the sugar comes in ships and enemy U-boats sink them. Where do Taylor’s get the sugar?’

  Granddad nodded. ‘Good question. The answer is they don’t get very much sugar these days.’

  ‘So what’s in the barrels?’ Jack cried.

  Granddad held out his pipe and pointed to the bowl. ‘That.’

  ‘It’s empty.’

  ‘Exactly. And so are the barrels.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘So they won’t mind if we take half a dozen. Why did you say it’ll be a problem?’

  ‘Those barrels look like oil barrels,’ Granddad said. ‘The enemy planes try to hit the factory with bombs—blow up the oil and cause massive damage. When they miss the treacle factory they hit Robinson Terrace, see?’

  ‘The factory should cover them up,’ Jack said. ‘Somebody should tell them.’

  ‘I did,’ Granddad said quietly. ‘I went in my uniform after parade one night. There was a man on guard—a man in a wig. A ginger wig. And he’s Welsh.’

  Jack frowned. ‘Are the Welsh our enemies?’

  ‘They’re supposed to be on our side,’ Granddad said, sour as old milk. ‘But Wiggy Williams told me it would cost too much money to buy covers for the barrels. Then he went into his hut and came out with a gun. He said if I didn’t clear off he’d shoot me. He said I could be an enemy spy.’

  ‘Did you have your rifle, Granddad?’ Jack asked. ‘Did you shoot him?’

  ‘No, lad, I didn’t shoot him. He’s mad—mad with power. You give a little man a little job and he thinks he’s big enough to look after the crown jewels. He’s what we call a “jobsworth”... he says that breaking the rules is more than his job’s worth, see?’

  Jack took a piece of bread from the table, pushed a fork into it and started to toast it in front of the fire. ‘Mad with power. Like Mr Hitler. A sort of Wiggy Hitler.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Granddad said.

  ‘So there’s no point asking him for a couple of barrels.’

  Granddad poked a pipe-cleaner into the stem of his pipe. ‘That’s why I’m not going to ask him.’

  Jack’s mouth fell open. ‘But you promised. You told the captain you’d get a few barrels. You can’t break a promise, Granddad.’

  The man looked fierce. ‘A Burn never breaks a promise. I said I’d get some barrels and I will. But I won’t ask Wiggy Hitler. I’ll just take them.’

  ‘A robbery!’ the boy cried.

  ‘Not exactly. Those barrels are in prison. I’m going to set them free.’

  Jack gave a huge grin. ‘You’re great, Granddad. You’re going to rob an armed guard all on your own?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Granddad said. ‘You’re coming with me.’ And the grin slid off Jack’s face like jelly off a playground slide.

  Chapter 5

  Mates and maps

  ‘I was a sergeant in the last war… the Great War. The best sergeant in the Durham Light Infantry, Colonel Morris said. The best.’

  ‘I know, Granddad.’

  ‘And there’s two things made me the best. I’ll tell you what they are. First was planning. We knew every shell hole and every trench and every enemy machine gun nest for a mile.’

  ‘And second?’

  ‘Do you know how hunters shoot ducks?’

  ‘Ducks?’ Jack laughed.

  ‘They float a wooden duck on the water. The real ducks think there must be food there so they fly down to join it. The hunters shoot the stupid birds.’

  ‘Like sitting ducks,’ Jack said. He thought it was a good joke but Granddad wasn’t listening.

  ‘The wood models are called “decoy” ducks.’

  ‘We’re going to use wooden decoy ducks to fool Wiggy Williams?’ Jack asked. He was confused.

  ‘We’re going to use a decoy to get Wiggy Williams away from the barrels. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘Me?’ Jack felt his heart thumping fit to burst out of his chest. Excitement and pride that he’d be helping his granddad and the Home Guard win the war.

  ‘And the third thing is mates,’ Granddad began.

  ‘I thought you said there was two things,’ Jack cut in.

  ‘There was millions of men fighting in the Great War,’ the man went on. ‘Even if we never met in the war we all share something. We’re mates. And mates do favours.’

  ‘My mate’s Tommy Crawley,’ Jack said. ‘Can he come along?’

  ‘Can you trust him?

  ‘With my life,’ Jack said.

  ‘Then he can join the raiding party.’

  ‘Raiding party.’ Jack liked the sound of that.

  ‘His dad’s a rag and bone man isn’t he?’ ‘Yes, Granddad.’

  ‘Then tell him we’ll need his horse and cart at seven tomorrow night.’

  Granddad rose to his feet and put the cold pipe in a rack on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ve got this wrist-watch. I need another two watches. One for you and one for Tommy. Then I need to pay a visit to the air-raid post at the end of Hendon Road.’ He reached for his overcoat.

  ‘But what’s the plan, Granddad?’

  ‘First you get your mate Tommy to look around the barrel yard and draw me a map. Every gate, every wall and every watchman’s hut. I know the lad can�
��t read but he can do that, can’t he?’

  ‘He’s brilliant at drawing,’ Jack said, proud of his friend.

  ‘He has to find an excuse to get in there, get past Wiggy Williams, and have a good look round.’

  ‘Can I not do that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No, lad. I have a much more important job for you.’

  Jack couldn’t stop himself from shaking.

  Chapter 6

  D.A.F.T. and a duck

  The next day dragged on. Jack just wanted night to fall and the raid to start.

  Ten minutes to seven, Jack’s watch said. Granddad had borrowed the watch from one of the Home Guard troop. Jack carried a torch with tissue paper over the glass so the light didn’t show too bright and break the blackout rules. He studied the map one last time.

  Tommy Crawley had done a brilliant job. There were twelve rows of ten barrels in a large yard and a guard hut in one corner. In the other corner was a small air-raid shelter.

  Tommy had even drawn a picture of Wiggy Williams and used coloured crayons to shade it. Orange hair stuck out from under a blue tin helmet. Little wire-rimmed spectacles sat on a button nose. The cheeks were a hot red and the moustache small as a toothbrush.

  On the other side of the paper Jack studied the words he had to learn. ‘The Defence Against Factory Targets group.’

  Tommy sat on the driving seat of his dad’s stinking rag and bone cart, hidden in the dark back lane alongside the treacle factory.

  Granddad stood in the shadows of the grocer’s shop doorway opposite the high wooden gates of the treacle factory. There was a bright enough moon to see quite clearly. The gates were painted blue with white letters that read, ‘Taylor’s Tasty Treacle For Toffee And Tarts.’ Those blue gates were tall as a double-decker bus but there was a small door set in the side of them.