Just half a mile from the ferry terminal in Calais, a UK-bound
lorry driver at the weekend makes the mistake of slowing down
to a crawl on the A26 Autoroute des Anglais dual carriageway.
At a signal from their fixers, around 100 illegal migrants
arise from the wooded verge where they have been concealed
and try to swarm aboard the vehicle, and others behind, desperate
to find somewhere inside or underneath they could stow away
to reach the UK.
So intent are they to get to what they see as a land of easy
asylum, council housing and generous benefits that they risk
being crushed by the trucks' wheels. Some carry crowbars or
knives to try to prise open a chink in the lorries' defences.
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This time the traffic speeds up again and none gets aboard.
The migrants melt back into the woodland to await the next
chance of an ambush.
In a nearby industrial area, on the Rue des Garennes, a dozen
stowaways were discovered last week hiding inside an empty
tanker.
Workers were about to fill it with concentrated sulphuric
acid when they heard muffled cries coming from within.
Another few seconds and the migrants, Afghans and Kosovans,
would have been horribly burnt to death.
It's just another week in the relentless assault on Britain's
borders.
