An Island at War

by Deborah Carr

  They saw two German soldiers standing in front of Violet, who looked so frail beside them. One stood closer to a motorbike and the other was holding his hand out for something. Estelle was shocked to see Violet was sobbing and clutching something to her chest.

  ‘But this was my Harold’s pride and joy. Please don’t take it from me.’

  She and her grandmother exchanged horrified glances and Estelle ran ahead to comfort the older woman.

  ‘Violet, we’re here. It will be all right.’ Estelle reassured her, ignoring the two men pristine and imposing in their grey uniforms.

  ‘Oh, Estelle, you dear girl. Thank you for coming.’

  Gran moved and stood by Violet’s other side.

  ‘Dearest Marnie, I knew you’d come and help me,’ she sniffed, before blowing her nose noisily. ‘These soldiers want to take Harold’s Austin 7. When he was dying, I promised to always take the very best care of it but how can I do that if they take it away?’

  Estelle saw her gran’s eyes narrow as she turned her attention to the soldiers with their leather gun holsters shining clearly against their uniforms. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ she said, an obvious sneer of sarcasm in her voice. ‘Mrs Le Marrec’s car is old and it’s not that big. I can’t see how it can be valuable to you. Why do you need it?’

  They both gave her a polite nod but neither seemed to wish to speak first. Estelle thought that one of them at least appeared embarrassed by the distress his actions were so obviously causing. The other just looked peeved and irritated to be wasting his time having to wait for the old lady to acquiesce and give them what they wanted.

  ‘This vehicle has been requisitioned by order of the Kommandant. We will be taking it from here today.’

  Violet let out another sob and Estelle wished there was something she could do to help ease her pain.

  ‘Does it have to be today?’ Estelle asked. ‘Couldn’t Mrs Le Marrec at least be given a little time to get used to the idea of parting with the car?’

  ‘Nein. Today.’

  ‘Please don’t take it from me,’ Violet sobbed, her wrinkled hands clasped together as if in prayer.

  Estelle suspected that once the vehicle had gone and the soldiers left her home that Violet would be easier to pacify. ‘Why don’t you let Gran take you inside and make you a nice cup of tea,’ Estelle suggested, swapping pointed looks with her grandmother. ‘You can give me the keys and I’ll hand them over. That way you won’t have done it yourself so you won’t have broken any promises to Harold.’

  Violet shook her head violently. The sour-faced soldier moved his weight from one foot to the other and Estelle could see he was becoming impatient. So far any Germans she had encountered had on the whole behaved courteously towards her but how far could they be pushed before giving in to anger and force. Deep down, Estelle felt the stirrings of how unjust this all was, but remembering her promise to Gerard, she decided not to test this soldier’s temper today.

  ‘Come along, Violet, love,’ Gran said, reaching up and trying to gently take the keys from her friend’s grasp. ‘Estelle’s right. Give her those keys and you come inside with me. I could do with a sit-down, anyhow, and you can tell me all about what happened before we arrived.’ Estelle could see her gran’s fingers working their way into Violet’s.

  Finally, without warning, the older woman let go and the keys fell on to the dusty driveway. Estelle bent to pick them up quickly before Violet had a chance to do so. ‘Go inside with Gran and leave this to me.’

  Violet looked from one to the other of the soldiers and then back to the more serious soldier. ‘You look after that car. Do you hear me?’ He gave a brisk nod. ‘I’ll want it back after the war in the same condition as it is now.’

  Neither soldier said anything and Estelle watched as her grandmother soothed her friend and, putting an arm around her shoulders, quietly led her into the house.

  Estelle waited until the front door closed and then turned to address the soldiers herself. ‘Can you at least tell me if this car will be returned to her at any point?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘It will not. It is being sent to France, Fräulein.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll tell her that,’ Estelle said, almost to herself, as she handed over the car keys. ‘Please leave right away. I don’t want her to find you here if she does come back out.’

  She watched as one of them got into the car and, after a little difficulty starting it, drove it away, closely followed by the other soldier riding the motorcycle.

  Was this how things were to be from now on? Not only were they forbidden from using their own currency, but their personal possessions were being taken away. What would they be coming to collect from the farm, Estelle thought, trying not to panic.

  Seven

  Estelle

  Jersey, 13 July 1940

  The Grouville holiday camp had been taken over by the island’s military at the beginning of the war. They had surrounded it with barbed wire and converted it into an internment camp for enemies of Britain who were working on the island already. Now, though, it seemed that those men from Germany, Italy and Austria had been released and the camp was used to imprison British military personnel, like Gerard and Paul. At least, Estelle thought, that they were keeping the men on the island – for now.

  Estelle stepped off the bus in Grouville and led the ten other woman who had made the journey with her up Old Forge Lane to the old holiday-camp entrance. She was thinking back to the one time she had visited the camp with her father and sister several years before, to visit friends who were staying there on holiday, when her step faltered as she took in the dramatic change in the once lively, happy place.

  Now there was an atmosphere of fear and instead of shrieks of children’s laughter she heard a deep, guttural voice bark an order. The wooden chalets remained, as did the larger wooden building where they had eaten dinner after spending a fun afternoon swimming in the pool and playing tennis on the court, but now the area was surrounded by two rows of barbed wire, one several yards behind the other that Estelle estimated to be about ten feet in height.

  She noticed a few of the prisoners watching her and the other women as they hurried closer to the barbed wire in the hope of catching sight of their men. A German sentry yelled out an order to them to stop, waving them away and indicating to his rifle.

  ‘Another day of being turned away,’ one of the other women said quietly. ‘We were taking a gamble coming here but at least we can see where they are.’

  They began retracing their steps along the narrow lane towards the bus stop when she heard her name and turned to look back. Gerard was waving frantically to her. Delighted, she ran towards the wire to speak to him.

  ‘Halt!’

  She stifled a scream of frustration and she slowed to a walk, fearful that to ignore the soldier brandishing his rifle might mean that either she or maybe Gerard would be punished in some way.

  ‘You must go. Now.’

  She nodded meekly and turned as if to follow the others, who were waiting anxiously further along the road. When the soldier seemed happy that she was obeying his orders, she turned her head and saw that Gerard was watching her. He blew her a kiss. Estelle raised her right hand to her mouth and blew him one back, desperately hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she’d see him.

  As the bus services had been drastically reduced the women had to wait over an hour for the next bus. No one spoke. Each lost in their own thoughts. What would her father say if he had seen all this? What would he do? Having to conform to new regulations was one thing but imprisoned in your own home, all power and freedoms taken away.

  Later, as she got off the bus in town and waited to switch to another that would take her out to St Ouen, Estelle found herself drawn to the harbour and walked to the sea front watching as a German cargo boat drew slowly past Elizabeth Castle, sitting majestically close to the shore, and on through the granite walls of St Helier harbour. It was the first time she had been here. The harb
our. The place where her father had been so cruelly murdered. He hadn’t stood a chance she realised. The pier, where her father and the other farmers had been parked on that terrible evening, ran next to large iron cranes on the harbour wall. With a high wall to one side of them and a drop into the sea on the other she understood why in that split second he had made the decision to run and hide as far away from the parked vehicles as possible in case one of them received a direct hit.

  She cursed the German pilot. What sort of coward flies the length of a pier shooting indiscriminately at men who had little chance to escape? How terrified must her dear father have been as he ran desperately towards shelter just as the fatal shot struck him? Estelle squeezed her eyes closed as tears fell silently down her cheeks, wishing there was a way to stop picturing her father’s death.

  She tore her gaze away from the harbour and stared out at the sea for a few moments, struck by the contrast of the beautiful view of the blue sea, with Elizabeth Castle sitting proudly on its rocky mound in the bay and the curve of the golden sandy beach stretching to the right of her, against the menacing presence of the German army.

  Estelle and her grandmother now knew that her father was one of ten people who had been killed during the raid. They’d discovered a few days later that another poor soul had been killed on his way to Jersey on the lifeboat and countless others were slowly recovering from injuries caused by flying shrapnel, or bullet wounds received on that horrific day.

  She was confused. She had expected to feel raw hate watching the Nazi troops land en masse, but all Estelle felt right now was the pain of her loss. The panic she felt since her father’s death and not knowing how long it would be before she saw Rosie again swept over her in waves. Some days she almost managed to persuade herself that she was fine and strong enough to cope with whatever was thrown at her. On other occasions, she was so frightened of what lay ahead that it threatened to overwhelm her completely.

  Estelle anxiously watched the large boat dock and more and more uniformed Germans disembark.

  ‘What you doin’ there, my love,’ an elderly man she recognised as Lenny Aubert asked. ‘I heard what happened to your dad.’ He stared at the boat. ‘Bastards.’ He took off his worn cap and lowered his gaze to the ground. ‘Pardon me, I shouldn’t use such language in front of a young lady.’

  ‘Thank you, but please don’t apologise.’ Estelle agreed with him wholeheartedly. They were bastards.

  ‘How could they have shot those men like they did? It’s not as if they had anywhere they could escape to.’ He coughed up phlegm into a handkerchief he had been clutching in his hand and patted his chest. ‘I’ve been like this since their blasted chlorine gas got me in nineteen-fifteen.’

  Estelle thought of how much suffering Mr Aubert must have witnessed. ‘I hate them,’ she muttered. They had taken everything from her.

  ‘Why don’t you go home to your grandmother? It will do you no good hangin’ about here.’

  ‘I just wanted to see them arriving for myself.’

  ‘I can’t say I blame you for that. Unfortunately, that boat will be the first of many.’ He pointed out past Elizabeth Castle. ‘Look there’s another coming.’

  Estelle looked again at the sixteenth-century granite castle on the islet in St Aubin’s Bay, where her dad had walked with her and Rosie along the causeway, careful to return before the tide came in. The summer afternoons they had spent there had been so much fun, with her dad telling them stories about how Charles II had been given refuge at the castle during the English Civil War and how the castle, named after Elizabeth I, had helped protect the island for three hundred years. But no longer. He would be heartbroken to think it was now in German hands. She turned to Mr Aubert. ‘How many will there be, do you think?’

  ‘What Jerries, or boats?’

  She shrugged. ‘Both.’

  ‘There’s no telling, love.’ He took her by the shoulder and pulled her around to face him, his lined face etched with sadness. ‘That’s enough now. You’re not going to feel better by staying here and watching that lot march off into town, because that’s what they’ll be doing next, no doubt. They’ve been pleasant enough so far, but that was when there was only a few of them. Now they’re coming in bigger numbers, so there’s no knowing how things will be from now on.’

  ‘Will we be all right, Mr Aubert?’

  ‘Not for a while yet, my dear. They’ll be wanting to show us who’s in charge now, you mark my words. Look at him over there, for example.’ He pointed and Estelle followed the direction of his finger to see a German soldier fixing a sign on to one that already was positioned at the end of the road. ‘We’re all going to have to read flippin’ German now.’ Before she had a chance to answer, he added, ‘You get off home now to your grandmother, she’ll be needing your support. Things are only going to get worse from here on, I know it.’

  As Estelle made her way towards home, she could tell her fellow islanders were putting on a brave face from the dark rings under their eyes and the way they hurried about their business. There was an air of fear, but underneath that, too, she sensed a determination to overcome what was ahead. Already most of the luxury items in the shops had been bought up by the young German soldiers, to send back to their families in Germany, apparently. Shoes and clothes were having to be strictly rationed as it was already becoming difficult to buy them and with official food rationing of butter, sugar and cooking fats and meat the previous week, life was becoming harder.

  Estelle doubted she would ever get used to paying for things using Reichsmarks or seeing German signposts, or road markings in German painted above their own English ones. But she had to pull herself together. Gran needed her, now more than ever before. Even in the short time since her father’s death, Estelle had been shocked by the gauntness of her grandmother’s face. She had lost weight and it made her seem much older and more fragile. With Rosie in London and Gerard in the prison camp, she was all Estelle had left.

  She passed through Millbrook, taking her from St Helier and into the smaller, leafier parish of St Lawrence where her grandmother occasionally went to have her hair done, then on to the green expanse of Coronation Park and the glass church with its Lalique crystal to her left, donated to the island by Lady Trent. Estelle loved that church with its crystal Jersey lilies standing guard behind the magnificent altar. She hoped the Germans didn’t realise how valuable the contents of the church were, or worse, destroy it not knowing or caring how irreplaceable it was.

  As the bus wound its way into the countryside and out of the island’s main town, the houses became fewer and further apart and the windy roads more narrow, with thick hedges on either side. Estelle stared out of the window, wondering what was to become of the island. Her home. She always chose to sit on this side of the bus to make the most of this view especially where the houses gave way to the first of two mills in St Peter’s Valley and the lush meadows began. She had loved cycling through here with Rosie sometimes, preferring it to taking the main road home. Riding through this grassy, peaceful valley was always a joy.

  A German car displaying its Nazi insignia overtook the bus and Estelle was reminded once again that her sister was no longer with them and it could be a very long time before they were reunited and cycling through the enchanting countryside once more. At least she could hope to see her again, unlike her father. He was gone from their lives for ever.

  Estelle could feel the raw emotion building up inside her. So many heart-breaking changes in such a short time, she’d barely had time to figure out how to deal with them. She glanced at the other passengers in the almost packed bus and decided she needed to be alone before she made a fool out of herself and gave into the tears that she was finding difficult to suppress.

  She stood up and made her way to the front, asking the driver to let her off. As soon as the bus pulled away leaving her behind in the beautiful valley, she breathed in deeply. The scent of long grass, wildflowers and damp earth from the meadow nearby so
othed her sadness and she spotted a herd of Jersey cows, grazing peacefully on the long grass in between dots of yellow buttercups. What she needed right now was to spend some time relishing this peaceful, sunny place that depicted all that she loved about her life before this terrible war had encroached on their island.

  Walking into the sunny expanse of the meadow and listening to the bees buzzing at the flowers, Estelle couldn’t help smiling for the first time in weeks. She bent to pick a daisy and gazed at the three small granite cottages up on the bank across from where she stood. Each May and early June, one of them displayed thick purple wisteria tendrils reaching across the front of the small building – like a wizened arm trying to protect it from the outside world, Estelle thought.

  ‘You have no idea what’s going on, have you?’ she said out loud to the cottage, ‘Neither do I.’

  Estelle heard the sound of a car engine approach and, not wishing to be disturbed, sat down out of site, ignoring the damp dew seeping through her skirt. She peered through the long grass, spotting a small convoy of German vehicles, sprayed in the already recognisable Nazi grey and each with their hated red-and-black flag waving from the shiny bonnets as they drew ever nearer. She knew this small piece of paradise on the island was too good to be true. There was no escaping the Occupation.

  Estelle lay back as the cars slowed, her heart pounding in case they might have seen her. It was only when they sped up again and continued on their way that she sat up, resting on her elbows and realising only then how she’d been holding her breath in fear.