The Barrel Burglary Read online

  Five minutes to seven. Granddad gave a soft quacking sound. That was the signal for Jack the decoy duck to start his part of the plan.

  Jack walked across the road and hammered on the door in the gates. He began to shout, ‘Mr Williams… Mr Williams, open up. Mr Will-iiii-aaaa-ms!’

  There was the sound of the guard hutdoor opening and boots clattering across the yard. ‘Who’s there?’ a squeaky voice with a Welsh accent called from behind the door.

  ‘I’m Arthur Levy,’ Jack replied, borrowing the name of an uncle in Newcastle.

  ‘Go away or I’ll shoot you. I’ve got a pistol here.’

  ‘I have an urgent message from the Defence Against Factory Targets group.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘D.A.F.T.’

  ‘Daft? I’m not daft.’

  ‘But I am,’ Jack replied. It was four minutes to seven. ‘I’m a runner for the special Defence Against Factory Targets team. You must have heard of us.’

  ‘Never. Push off. I’ve got a machine gun aimed at the door.’

  ‘The people at D.A.F.T. have spies in Europe. We’ve just had a report that Sunderland is the target for an air raid tonight.’

  ‘What’s that to do with me?’ the guard behind the blue gate asked.

  ‘The Taylor’s Treacle factory is the main target. The enemy scout planes reported your barrels looked like barrels full of oil. Your yard will be wiped out at five past seven o’clock—in eight minutes’ time.’

  ‘I’ll believe it when I hear the air-raid siren, and I’ll be in my shelter,’ the man said.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Jack groaned. This was harder than he’d thought. ‘If a dozen bombs land in your yard you’ll be blown to mincemeat. You have to get a mile away to the shelter in Mowbray Road.’

  ‘I’ll leave when I hear the siren,’ the stubborn man said. ‘This is my duty. No siren, no go. More than my job’s worth.’

  Jack wailed, ‘It will be too late then. The siren will go at seven exactly. The bombers arrive at five minutes past seven. It’s two minutes to seven now. You have seven minutes to save yourself.’

  ‘If them sirens sound at seven I’ll have five minutes. I can run a mile in five minutes. Top-class sprinter for Wales I was, son.’

  ‘It’s not if the sirens go. The siren will sound at seven,’ Jack cried. The boy knew that because Granddad had arranged it with his mates in the Air Raid offices. There were plenty of false air-raid warnings. One more wouldn’t matter.

  Then something happened that Jack didn’t expect.

  Chapter 7

  Sirens and shelters

  The air-raid sirens began to wail. They were not supposed to start till seven o’clock exactly. That was why they had all checked their watches so carefully. Now everything would be rushed.

  The little door in the gate flew open and a face poked out. The face looked exactly like Tommy’s picture. ‘You were right, boy. I’ll just lock up,’ he said and stepped out.

  ‘No!’ Jack cried. ‘They are using high explosives. The blast will blow the walls down, and flying bricks could blow half of Hendon Road away.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Open the main gates wide. The blast will escape and do no harm.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really—it’s the D.A.F.T. thing to do,’ the boy told him.

  As Wiggy Williams struggled with bolts to throw open the main gates, Jack looked up into the purple skies. Searchlights sent their pencil beams up into the air. Barrage balloons glittered silver and floated in the breeze like kites on steel cables—cables that would wreck any bomber that tried to fly too low.

  Jack smiled across the road to where he knew Granddad was waiting in the dark doorway. The timing may have been two minutes early but everything else was wonderful. Granddad’s mates had put on a wonderful show.

  Then Jack frowned. As the sirens wailed on he heard another sound. The sound of aircraft engines. Jack shook his head in wonder. How had Granddad made that happen? Did he have mates in the enemy air force?

  As Wiggy Williams vanished down the street, Granddad appeared at Jack’s side. ‘Don’t stand there like a can of milk, lad. There’s an air raid on.’

  ‘No there isn’t. It’s a decoy,’ Jack argued.

  The Sunderland gunners sent streams of shells into the sky to try and hit the enemy bombers that were droning louder and closer. ‘Of course it’s not a decoy,’ Granddad groaned.

  He gave a sharp whistle and Tommy Crawley brought his dad’s cart clattering round the corner and stopped in front of the open gates. The horse was stamping and sparking its iron shoes on the cobbles, afraid of the noise and flashing lights. Jack held the reins while Tommy went to help Granddad roll barrels out of the treacle factory yard.

  ‘We have to get to a shelter!’ Tommy called.

  People were running down the street and heading for their nearest shelter, quiet and clutching at blankets, children with their favourite toys and some women still pinning their hats on. No one took any notice of the robbers.

  ‘No point going to the shelter. If a bomb has our name on it then it’ll get us. It’ll find us if we are in a shelter or riding a rag and bone man’s cart. Now help us get this last one on the back,’ Granddad grunted.

  At last the fourth barrel was on the cart. Explosions made the air tremble and fires erupted from the shipyards. Tommy slapped the reins and the horse shot off down Hendon Road. He laughed. ‘It’s like one of the cowboy films at the Marina cinema on a Saturday morning. We’re the wagon train racing to the safety of the fort.’

  ‘You’re crackers,’ Jack shouted over the crashing of hooves and clatter of barrels.

  ‘I may be crackers,’ Tommy said, ‘but you’re D.A.F.T.’

  Chapter 8

  Looting and saluting

  When the Home Guard met the next night in the church hall they were smeared with red paint and caked in sand but looked smug. A barrel stood at the end of the four main roads and each one was full of sand.

  ‘There was a lot of damage in the docks last night,’ the captain said. ‘And the church in Tower Street burned down before the fire brigade could get there.’

  ‘There’ll be a barrel of sand handy next time the fire bombs fall on Hendon,’ Granddad said quietly.

  The captain tucked a corner of his moustache into his mouth and sucked. ‘It seems a Mr Williams—a guard at the treacle factory—says there were four barrels stolen from the yard last night. Looters broke in while the raid was on. The punishment for looting is a very long spell in jail.’

  The men looked at their paint-stained hands and tried to rub them clean. ‘Four miserable empty barrels?’ Granddad muttered.

  ‘Worth two pounds each,’ the captain said. The men shook their heads in sorrow.

  There was a sharp rap at the door and a policeman walked in. ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ he said. His face was hard as teak wood as he let his sharp eyes slowly scan the room. The eyes rested on Jack.

  ‘There has been a report of a theft of some barrels,’ he said.

  ‘What colour?’ Tommy Crawley asked.

  The policeman pulled a notebook from his pocket and looked at it. ‘Blue, with white writing saying “Taylor’s Treacle”.’

  The Home Guard shook their heads. ‘Haven’t seen any blue barrels, have we, lads?’ the captain asked.

  ‘All I have is a report of a boy who was sent as a decoy. A small boy with a thin, pointed nose and ears like jug handles.’ The constable’s eyes rested on Jack again for a moment. ‘This jug-eared boy claimed to be from a group called…’ He looked at his notebook again. ‘Defence Against Factory Targets.’

  ‘That’s daft,’ Jack said, blushing and giggling in terror because he knew he’d been caught.

  ‘What’s your name, sonny?’ the policeman growled.

  ‘Jack Burn.’

  ‘Ah,’ the policeman sighed. ‘The decoy boy was called Arthur Levy.’

  ‘It can’t have been ou
r Jack, then,’ Granddad said.

  The policeman nodded. ‘So no one has seen four blue barrels? And no one had heard of this boy Arthur?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘And can you explain the red paint on your hands?’ the constable asked.

  ‘We’ve been painting windows with red paint instead of making blackout curtains,’ the captain said.

  ‘Of course you have, sir.’ The policeman’s face almost cracked into a smile. He saluted and turned to go. Granddad followed him to the door.

  ‘How have you been since the Great War, Cecil?’ Granddad asked him.

  ‘Fine thanks to you, Sergeant Burn. I’ll never forget you saved my life. They should have given you a medal for that.’

  ‘I was just doing my job. You were in my platoon. I had to look after you.’

  The policeman stepped into the cool evening air. ‘I owe you.’

  The two men stood silent for a long while. Finally Granddad said, ‘And this case of the stolen barrels?’

  ‘I believe it may have been a criminal gang from South Shields. I will tell my chief inspector to drop the case.’ He glanced back through the door at Jack. ‘I will stop looking for a boy calling himself Arthur Levy and I believe this Defence Against Factory Targets group is nonsense.’

  ‘Plain daft,’ Granddad agreed.

  The policeman tapped his helmet in a salute again then held out his hand to shake Granddad’s. ‘Good night Sergeant Burn—the best sergeant in the Durham Light Infantry. The best.’

  ‘I tell our Jack that,’ the man said. ‘So you’re off on patrol now?’

  The policeman looked at his hand. ‘As soon as I’ve rubbed this red paint off.’

  Granddad looked at his own stained hand. ‘Sorry about that, Cecil.’

  The policeman sighed. ‘We don’t want people thinking I’ve been painting stolen blue barrels red, do we?’

  And he walked off into the thick gloom, whistling.

  Epilogue

  The granddad in this true story was upset when the Second World War started. He was told he was too old to fight. He said he would dye his grey hair and lie to say he was younger. But the dye went wrong and he ended up with bright red hair.

  He joined the Home Guard and was annoyed when an air raid missed a store of barrels and damaged his street. He was sure the bomber was aiming for the barrels and believed they were oil drums. Granddad wanted them moved. They could be spread around the town as sand bins to put out fires.

  The owner of the barrels refused to give them away. Granddad decided to use his skills from the First World War to organise a raid and steal them. They were quickly painted red and filled with sand. The red paint didn’t fool anybody but the police didn’t bother taking the thieves to court. Even the owner of the barrels knew who had stolen them but decided it wasn’t worth making a fuss about it after all.

  The sand bins stood on the street corners for five years till the war was over. There was never another raid on those streets and the sand was never needed.

  But Granddad felt he had done his best to help Britain to win the war with his great barrel burglary.

  This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  First published 2015 by

  A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square

  London WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © 2015 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 James de la Rue

  The rights of Terry Deary and James de la Rue to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN 978-1-4729-1627-3

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-4729-1628-0

  ePdf ISBN: 978-1-4729-1629-7

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

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