Read Online Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 by Chris Ryan - Free Book Online Page A

they were scuffed, scratched and held together with bits of tape. He dreaded the day they broke. Joe could steal most things he needed, but a pair of prescription glasses would be impossible for a fifteen-year-old impoverished migrant to get hold of.
    It was a cold night, and Joe shivered. He looked to his right. Thirty metres away, set back from the road, a glowing fire burned in an old metal dustbin, with flames licking up from the rim. The silhouettes of several other people were huddled round the fire, but Joe kept his distance, just as he had ever since arriving in Greece. He knew that most migrants making their way across Europe towards the UK preferred to travel in groups. It was safer, they said, and they had more chance of making it if they could help each other. But Joe didn’t agree. He had seen the way people looked at these ragtag groups of foreigners, first in Greece, then in the Balkans, and all the way across northern Italy, Switzerland and now France. He had seen the hatred and mistrust in their eyes. By himself, he could be invisible. And he could move quickly, stowing away in the back of articulated lorries as they trundled across the continent and over borders. On his own, Joe had been able to move freely and easily.
    This final border, however, between France and the UK, was more problematic. Hundreds of migrants had congregated here. High wire fences prevented them from accessing the railway lines that led under the sea – though they didn’t stop people from trying. Armed police and soldiers patrolled the port, and lorries were meticulously searched. Joe knew it would take all his ingenuity to get into the UK.
    ‘Hey!’ one of the figures around the fire called. Joe started. ‘It’s OK, you can come and get warm.’ The man spoke in English, but with an accent. Joe, who had learned the language with no trouble at school back in Syria before the war, looked nervously from left to right. He wanted to stay apart from the other migrants, but he was very cold. Reluctantly, he approached.
    The people standing round the fire – four men, three women – were a mixture of nationalities. Middle Eastern and Eritrean, Joe thought. That seemed to be the mix here in Calais. One of them handed him a bottle of some clear liquid. Joe gingerly took a sip, then coughed violently as he handed it back. There were a few laughs as he screwed up his face in disgust. But then he felt the harsh alcohol warming him from within, and he muttered some words of thanks.
    ‘Where are you from?’ asked the man who had beckoned him over. He had reverted to Arabic now.
    Joe hesitated. He hadn’t discussed his journey with anyone, and he didn’t want to. But the fire was warm, and he was afraid that if he didn’t engage, they’d send him away. ‘Syria,’ he said. ‘Aleppo.’
    A few of the migrants made a clicking sound in the back of their throats: an acknowledgement that Aleppo was not a good place to be.
    ‘How are you going to get across?’ another man asked. He looked in the direction of the port.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Joe said. This was not entirely true.
    ‘You want to be careful,’ said one of the women. She wore a red headscarf and her face was pinched and lined. She suddenly started coughing rather violently, and took a moment to get her breath back. ‘Two of us have died in the last three days. One boy, about your age, from Afghanistan – he got on to the Eurotunnel yesterday, but was run over by a train. It dragged him along for 400 metres, ripped his body to shreds. They only knew who he was because he had his real name on a fake passport.’
    A few of the others nodded their agreement that this was a true story.
    ‘And two days before that,’ said a second woman, ‘an Eritrean man got into the back of a lorry. He must have dislodged some of the pallets inside, because when the lorry started off, they toppled over and crushed him to death.’
    There was more muttering. The group huddled a little