After Dunkirk

by Lee Jackson

  “MI-6 is set up to run spies, not execute rescue operations. But besides that, Claire is already trying to run it up through the Bletchley Park hierarchy, so it has a good chance of winding up there anyway. If it also comes to the higher-ups through another channel, it has a greater probability of gaining some attention and being acted upon.”

  “MI-9 isn’t being set up for rescue operations either.”

  “But Lord Hankey’s organization and yours are organizing networks inside the country to be run by the partisans themselves. You’ll arm them, equip them, fund them, and train them, and in many instances, the same people will accomplish missions for both organizations, probably for MI-6 too. With no outside assistance, the man we’re talking about already built a network like the ones you intend, and he saved the lives of his own people and our soldiers. We must help him save his organization.”

  Crockatt sat silently for an extended time, pressing a pen across his upper lip while he thought, never taking his eyes off Paul’s face.

  “And you’ll come over here if I help you?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  Crockatt smiled and tossed the pen on the desktop. “I would never make such a bargain, Lieutenant. I’ll help because, as you say, it’s the right thing to do. I can’t promise success. The last time you asked for help with the air support in Saint-Nazaire, we got nowhere. But I’ll try.”

  “Thank you so much, Major.” Paul started for the door, then paused midway across the office and turned. “Sir, if you’ll still have me, I’d be honored to work in MI-9.”

  Crockatt broke a slight smile. “I’m pleased to hear that, Lieutenant. We can talk more about it when we get through this business. I’ll place a call to his lordship now.”

  43

  Sark Island, English Channel Islands

  From the front window of the stone Seigneurie mansion, Dame Marian watched a man striding along Rue de la Seigneurie. Rarely given to emotion, she nevertheless felt her stomach tighten as if alerting her to a premonition. She recognized him as the mail carrier coming from the post office a few hundred meters away, but he was off schedule. Today was Saturday, and he should not be delivering mail. He brings no glad tidings.

  She ruminated as she watched his approach. The news circulating about the war had not been good, and events occurred so fast she could barely keep up, and then only from what came over the BBC. She knew that General Rommel, one of Hitler’s favorite generals, had burst out of the Ardennes Forest through Belgium and breached the Maginot Line. She scoffed. That expensive and “impenetrable” hunk of junk that was supposed to stop the German army along the French border.

  A rumor floating around told of Rommel ordering his tank commanders to point their guns to their own rear and charge across in front of the line waving black and white flags and yelling at the tops of their lungs. By the time the hapless French understood that the charging tanks were not those of the fleeing Belgian army, so the story went, the Germans were past their fortifications and poised with guns pointing at France’s unprotected rear.

  Whether true or not, Marian had no way to know, but regardless, the German army had flanked the Maginot in the northwest where it was weak and incomplete. Then they had penetrated into France and trapped the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk with thousands of fighters from the French 10th Army. Rommel had given his forces a six-day leave and traveled to Berlin for a planning conference with the führer. By the time he returned, the evacuation at Dunkirk had been completed.

  Another rumor was that Hitler had let the British and French armies escape so that their countries would be demoralized by the scenes of defeated fighters returning home and leaving their war material to him. A more sober explanation was that the fast-moving Panzer divisions had outrun their infantry and logistical support. The terrain around Dunkirk was not ideal for armored vehicles, and the pause allowed time for the trailing elements to catch up. Rommel’s men needed to rest and conduct critical repairs to and maintenance on their war machines before continuing the offensive.

  Marian sighed. Who knows why the maniac in Berlin does what he does? The news was that the Luftwaffe had been unmerciful in the air over Dunkirk, dropping bombs and mowing down troops on the beach. Maybe Hermann Göring convinced Hitler than he could destroy the fleeing army from the air. “That’s as good a theory as any,” she muttered.

  Dunkirk was only three hundred miles away, and now Continental Europe lay bare for Hitler’s army to overrun at will. Only Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal, protected by the Alps and the Pyrenees mountain ranges respectively, were poised to withstand him. Those countries had declared neutrality, but if push came to shove, Spain’s dictator, Franco, was decidedly pro-Nazi.

  To make matters worse, five days ago, the French government had determined that fighting Germany no longer made sense and moved out of Paris to Tours, where Marshal Pétain, the “Lion of Verdun,” promptly sought surrender terms.

  The next day, Marian had listened to de Gaulle address the citizenry on BBC. When he announced that the flame of French resistance would not be extinguished, she had muttered, “I hope you’re right.”

  Only four days ago, she had listened as Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced to the nation, “…the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin… Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “‘This was their finest hour.’”

  Does Britain’s finest hour mean abandoning her loyal subjects?

  Today, this very day, Hitler was in a train car at a park near Compiègne in France to seal a Franco-German armistice. And our tiny Sark Island is only a short boat ride from Normandy.

  With her reflections in mind and still observing the postman making his way toward the seigneurie, Marian put her hands along the sides of her temples and massaged them. “God help us,” she breathed.

  As the postman approached the main door of the house below Marian’s window, he moved out of her sight. Moments later, his errand completed, he reappeared and began his return journey.

  Marian waited. Minutes passed, more than anticipated. She heard footfalls on the stairs and turned, expecting to see the maid. Instead, her husband, Stephen, mounted the staircase. Even before he cleared the top, she saw that he bore an uncharacteristic expression, one that was at once grim, horror-filled, and sorrowful.

  Stephen was a tall, thin man with thick gray hair. He was tanned from constant exposure to sun, sea, and wind, and known to laugh often and long. Loved by his fellow islanders for his humor and humility, he lived the irony that he was their legal ruler despite having been born in America.

  Sark Island, although a British possession, governed itself under ancient Norman law. Being an only child, Marian had inherited her title upon her father’s death and had ruled Sark. Then she married Stephen.

  Under the legal concept of jure uxoris seigneur, meaning “by right of wife,” Stephen had gained the title of Seigneur of Sark Island and became its senior co-ruler. Although he carried out his ceremonial responsibilities dutifully, he was content to leave the real governing to Marian and otherwise enjoy his idyllic life.

  Now, alarmed by Stephen’s demeanor, Marian braced herself. Respected and admired by the populace, she was nevertheless known to be stoic. Her father had raised her to be independent, teaching her to shoot, climb the cliffs that encircled Sark Island, and think for herself; but he allowed for little emotional expression. She had once told Stephen, “I am fortunate to be unbound by the useless sense of self-sympathy.”

  Stephen entered the grand landing of the second floor holding a yellow paper between shaking hands, and he kept looking down at it with tormented eyes as he advanced. When he drew near Marian, he tried to speak but could not, and then she saw that tears ran down his face.

  “What is it, Stephen?”

  He stood in front of her holding out the yello
w piece of paper. “A telegraph from the War Office…” was all he could manage.

  Marian steeled herself. Already, the war had raged long enough that such missives throughout the British Empire were things to be feared, for with increasing frequency, they brought news of a war death within the family.

  “Was one of our sons killed?” she asked softly. “Which one?”

  Stephen shook his head numbly. “It’s Jeremy and Lance. I don’t know if they’re dead.” His voice broke. “Jeremy was at Dunkirk. I don’t know where Lance was. They’re both missing in action.”

  Marian and Stephen sat together in a small salon off the landing on the second floor of the mansion. She had taken a seat in a richly upholstered chair before a mahogany desk by the window, and he sat on a divan near the center of the room. She remained poised, unmoving. He lowered his elbows to rest on his knees and held his head in his hands.

  After several minutes, Marian broke the silence. “What was Jeremy doing at Dunkirk?” she asked, a rhetorical question. “He was an engineer, not a foot soldier. He’s not like Lance, who was eager to be in the war. The army sent Jeremy to France to construct airfields. He knows nothing of combat.”

  Stephen raised his head to hear his wife, and then returned his face to his hands. “As I understand things,” he said after a time, “Jeremy’s unit was thrown in with others to provide rearguard protection so that the units on the beach at Dunkirk could evacuate. That was a tiny force compared to the German divisions, so our army took every spare non-combatant soldier, including the engineers, and put them at the front.”

  Marian closed her eyes and breathed in. “So, our sweet Jeremy was fed to the wolves.”

  “Along with many other fine young boys.”

  Marian nodded almost imperceptibly. “Do we know how many of them survived, how many were captured, or how many died?”

  Stephen shook his head. “News is scant. The BBC hasn’t had much detail to report. The Germans claim they took tens of thousands of men as prisoners. I think Paul is still safe in London, and of course Claire is there, but I haven’t been able to reach either of them.”

  Marian stood, smoothed her skirt with a sweep of her hands, and crossed to her husband, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Our people will want to know about Lance and Jeremy,” she said. “They love them.”

  Stephen stood, and they embraced.

  “The times ahead will seem impossible,” Marian said, stepping back. “But I don’t have to tell you that.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples again. “The Germans will come. We have to prepare our islanders to meet them.”

  44

  Word went out that the Dame of Sark had called a meeting for that evening. She did not stress a priority but did not need to. All the islanders had seen the smoke rising over the ocean in the direction of Normandy two weeks ago and understood its significance; and among a populace of roughly four hundred and thirty people, few secrets survived. They murmured, horrified at the news that Lance and Jeremy were missing in action.

  Being the sole population in western civilization still ruled under the ancient Norman feudal system, albeit with greater benevolence than that recorded in other places at other times, the lives of the Sercquiais, as the citizens of Sark called themselves, were at once well-ordered and interference-free.

  Although Marian Littlefield held the fief by inheritance, she had gained her surname by marriage. During the last war, Stephen, the son of investment bankers in New Jersey, had taken up residence in Canada with several college friends so that he could fly fighters for the British Royal Flying Corps. Afterward, he remained in London as a banker and became a British citizen. It was there that he met Marian, a widow with four lively children: three sons and a daughter.

  On moving to Sark, he had been much surprised when he learned that he was legally the senior co-ruler of the island. His only objection to living there was that the island, at just over two square miles, was not large enough for a golf course. He contented himself with exploring the jagged cliffs of the forty-two-mile coastline with his stepchildren, sailing with them in the rough waters of the Channel, or engaging them in sport on the flatlands.

  When in 1565, Queen Elizabeth I conferred the fiefdom in perpetuity on Helier de Carteret and his heirs, she required that he keep the island free of pirates and that forty men live there who were British subjects. Helier met his obligation by subletting the island in forty parcels to tenants who agreed as a condition of their leases to build a house on their acreage and keep a man on each parcel armed with a musket.

  That arrangement had continued through the centuries even with the sale of the fiefdom. Marian, descended from the last purchaser of the lease, exercised the rights of lordship; and the families of the tenants descended from the most recent owners of their respective subleases retained their respective rights.

  Laws governing Sark were promulgated in the Chief Pleas, a parliamentary body with the tenants also inheriting voting membership. Pressure had built to convert to a more democratically elected representative system, but on this night, Germany subsumed all other concerns. Residents crowded into the ancient stone Chief Pleas Assembly building to hear what the Dame had to say.

  As Marian and Stephen entered and made their way to the front of the hall, the crowd parted to make way. The citizens’ sympathetic expressions signified that many had heard the news, conversation ceasing as Marian reached the front and turned to look across the concerned faces. Stephen, always supporting his wife, moved to a chair to one side at the front of the assemblage where he would remain unobtrusive.

  Marian took a breath. “My friends,” she began, “I don’t have to tell you that we face precipitous times.” She lowered her eyes to the floor momentarily, and when she raised them again, emotional pain creased her face. “You might have heard that our sons, Lance and Jeremy, are missing in action.” Tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed and wiped them away.

  She acknowledged audible gasps and sounds of empathy about the room with a bow of her head. “Thank you. The good news is that, as far as we know, Paul and Claire are still safe in London.” Her strained smile expressed that the optimistic tidbit did not overcome the worry.

  “I didn’t ask you here to sympathize with my personal concerns. We face a shared danger coming from the continent, and it is lethal.”

  She caught Stephen’s eye and took another breath. “As you know, I went to Guernsey three days ago. I wanted to see how our local higher government and neighbors prepared to meet the menace. What I saw disturbed me greatly. I am sad to say that our friends there reacted in panic. I saw lines at stores, at banks, and at wharves where desperate people jostled for passage to England. Our neighbors on Guernsey buried family treasures and heirlooms in their gardens, and they crowded veterinary clinics to put pets to sleep rather than leave them to the mercy of the Nazis.”

  The emotion of having to speak of her personal considerations passed, and her voice became stern. “You know from the news that, a week ago, our national government decided that these Channel Islands are to be demilitarized, meaning that the Crown will not defend us. The Germans will come, and no pretense of trying to stop them or put up a military defense will be attempted. On Guernsey Isle, the panic over that decision caused over seventeen thousand people to evacuate in one week.”

  She looked across her audience, her glance settling on many friends she held near and dear. “My visit affected me deeply. I watched the Guernsey we knew fade into history. Regardless of the outcome of this war, it will never be the same. Returning home afterward, I took some time to think before speaking with you about how we could best preserve our unique oasis of quiet and rest.”

  Waiting for her words to settle in, Marian continued. “We are the last feudal system in existence, at least in the west, and while such governance has a dismal history in general, it works for us. We write our own laws, empanel our own courts, have our own culture, even enjoy our own language. Those ethereal elements that defin
e the character of a people will be gone from Guernsey and will not come back. We cannot let that happen here, on Sark Island.”

  Approving murmurs arose from various quarters. “Dame Marian,” a voice called, “do you believe the Germans will come here?”

  “I do,” Marian replied somberly, “if only for the propaganda value of seizing British territory.”

  “Let them come,” someone else piped in. “I still have my musket.”

  A ripple of laughter circulated in the crowd. Marian smiled with genuine humor.

  “Yes, under our obligations to the Crown, we still defend our island with at least forty muskets, and we know they are all rusty.” Then she became serious again. “With London’s demilitarization announcement last week, as you know, came an offer to evacuate any of us who wishes for that. We will help anyone who chooses to go.”

  She paused to let the gravity of her pronouncement sink in. “Before you decide, think carefully about what your departure could mean. I believe that if we leave, the island we come back to will not be the one we know and love. Everything that makes us unique in this world will have been wrenched from us.”

  She took a deep breath as her eyes swept the room. “Therefore, Stephen and I have decided that we will not leave, and I appeal to you personally to stay with us.”

  No one stirred, no one spoke. Individual faces showed the weight of decision pressed on them.

  Laden with concern, a single voice broke the silence. “How will we meet them?”

  With a glance at Stephen and then at the floor, Marian lifted her head and steepled her fingers against her chin. “I have a few ideas. Hear me out. When the Germans come, the principle they must grasp is that while they occupy our beloved Sark Island, they will never dominate us. We are and always will be proud British subjects, and Sercquiais.”