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on the Keroman peninsula. This area had twin advantages: dry docks where boats could be repaired out of the water and a narrow entry point that was easy to defend against attack from the sea.
    ‘Stop looking so worried,’ Edith told Marc. ‘I’ve been here a hundred times, stealing coal.’
    Marc couldn’t focus his mind. He kept seeing his knife hitting the German’s chest and wondered if the man had been missed yet.
    ‘So what’s your story?’ Marc asked when the silence got awkward. ‘Don’t you have school or anything?’
    ‘The Krauts are talking about starting school again, because they’re sick of kids causing mischief. But I’m almost thirteen. By the time they get it sorted I’ll be past leaving age.’
    ‘What do your parents say?’
    ‘Not much, seeing as they’re dead,’ Edith said. ‘Madame Mercier gives me a bed. I earn my keep looking after her stables and doing odd jobs.’
    As Edith said this, she crossed the cobbles and deliberately mashed her boot into a puddle of oil, dirt and God knows what else.
    ‘Duck,’ Edith shouted, flicking her boot forward so that soggy clumps flew at Marc. He spun and ducked, but the dirt pelted his back.
    ‘You’re not exactly ladylike, are you?’ Marc moaned.
    Edith blew a kiss as she resumed their walk.
    ‘Why would I want to be?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow and baring yellow teeth. ‘So that men can feel me up, and pay twenty-five francs to screw me in a smelly little room?’
    ‘Twenty-five francs,’ Marc laughed. ‘You’d be lucky to get five.’
    Edith jabbed her thumb into Marc’s ribs. ‘Pig!’
    ‘Love you too,’ Marc replied. ‘How much further?’
    As they walked on it became a ghost town. Doors left open, windows boarded up.
    ‘Everyone was cleared out around here,’ Edith explained. ‘It’s all getting flattened to make way for another U-boat bunker.’
    They turned right, into a street of small houses blocked off by lengths of wire with enamel keep out signs. Edith cut into an alleyway, kicked a wooden gate, ran up a pile of rubble stacked against the garden wall and jumped down on the other side.
    Her speed surprised Marc and she scoffed as he hesitated before jumping down into mud and broken glass. They cut through the next house and emerged back on to the street, but inside the fence.
    Edith broke into a sprint. Marc followed, but it wasn’t easy with stiff new boots and a dodgy ankle. You could smell sea air as they turned right again, passing a group of lads, aged between nine and eleven. They sat against a wall aiming rocks at a line of rusty cans. Marc found their presence reassuring.
    ‘Fleabag’s got herself a boyfriend,’ the biggest one laughed.
    Edith gave the lad an up yours gesture as she led Marc beside a crumbling brick wall with mounds of coal poking over the top. She stopped by a section where a couple of dozen low bricks had been knocked out.
    ‘On this side kids get yelled at and taken back to the fence,’ Edith explained. ‘But the Krauts can get serious if they think you’re stealing coal.’
    Marc had to suck in his belly to wriggle through the hole after Edith. The coal caught the early afternoon sun as Edith clambered the mound fearlessly, her boots throwing dust into Marc’s face as he moved behind her. When she neared the top, she clambered on all fours to stay out of sight.
    ‘Good view,’ Marc said, as he propped himself on his elbows beside Edith.
    Little shards of coal chinked their way down the side of the heap as he nestled in the dirt and looked out. The man-made harbour was sixty metres across, and five hundred long. At the far end was a huge concrete slope, along with a ramp up which a small craft could be lifted for repairs.
    Marc unbuttoned his shirt and wiped his coal-blackened fingers down his trousers before taking out the matchbox camera. It had a fold-out wire viewfinder to frame shots and an exposure dial with settings for bright, dim or medium light.
    He guessed