When the Sky Fell Apart

by Caroline Lea

  ‘Think about when the sun comes up.’

  There was a silent moment as they all pictured it: the little boat, bobbing on the vast sea. Claudine wondered how many German planes and warships travelled across the channel every day.

  ‘Perhaps we could go back,’ Edith said. ‘Try again another night?’

  ‘We were lucky enough not to be caught on the way down to the boat,’ Maurice said. ‘It would be a miracle if we made it back unseen.’

  ‘Let us hope for some crisis on the island that keeps the patrols off the water,’ said Carter.

  Maurice started pulling on the oars again.

  When Claudine looked back, Jersey was like a shadow in a dream or a bank of storm clouds, where thunder was brewing.

  A cold wind picked up. She wrapped her arms around herself. She knew they were all imagining the alternatives, as she was: captured by a German patrol or rescued by the British. Or somehow, evading all the patrols and landing safely on allied shores. The very idea was make believe; she knew it.

  SUDDENLY Maurice’s stomach alarmed to a far-off sound. He stopped rowing and put his finger against his lips.

  They were all silent—the only noise was the splashing of the water as the sea gulped around the boat.

  He watched their faces in the darkness, and he could see each of them registering the sound, the horror creeping into their eyes. Quite distinct now, the hum of a boat’s motor, far away, like bees swarming in the distance, but growing louder.

  Maurice hissed at Gregor, ‘You said there would be no patrols on the sea tonight.’

  Gregor’s face was pale, panicked. ‘I do not know—’

  ‘And where are the bloody French?’ Maurice growled. ‘They’re supposed to be keeping an eye out, drawing any German boats away.’

  Christ!

  Maurice started pulling on the oars as hard as he could. He could hear his own breath, coming out like a whistle, but the sensation he had was of remaining still in the water, or of going backwards even. Yet the harder he rowed, the louder the roar of the engines grew, until it pulsed alongside his blood.

  ‘Perhaps it’s someone fishing?’ Claudine said. ‘From Jersey? Or one of the French fishermen? Someone who will help us. Perhaps they will give us a motor?’

  Maurice gasped, ‘The French don’t…use motors. Too… noisy.’

  Maurice rowed harder, his breath escaping in sobbing gasps. A darkness had started to creep in at the edges of his vision.

  Where was Marthe? Perhaps he could cover her in a blanket? He could hide with her? The Germans might not see them. Even as the thought flickered through his mind, he was aware of how ridiculous it was, how desperate. Yet he couldn’t let them take her. He’d given up everything to keep her safe. The wretchedness of being captured now, of watching them take her away, it was unbearable.

  He pulled harder on the oars. His back was aflame but it wasn’t enough; it could never be enough.

  ‘Maurice, dear.’ Edith’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Stop.’ She put her hand on his back.

  He shook her off and shouted, ‘No! No! Fuck!’ The wind whipped his words away and they mingled with the growing growl of the engines.

  ‘Maurice, love, it’s the finish for all of us, I’m afraid.’ Her voice was level, as if she was telling him there was fish for supper. ‘You’ve done your best.’

  He stopped rowing, bent double, gasping. His cheeks were wet with salt spray and tears. He reached out to stroke Marthe’s hair.

  The boat engines fell silent and, in the new soundless darkness, he listened. Without the engines, he could hear the blur of voices all around. Too far away to catch the words, but certainly German spiking through the gloom. Then glaring lights on the figures in the boat so they threw up their hands and turned their heads away.

  Maurice shut his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, my love,’ he whispered. But even if Marthe had been awake, she wouldn’t have heard him.

  He had been saying goodbye to her, an inch at a time, for years. Now they were both gone.

  He opened his eyes only to be blinded by the lights.

  ‘No!’ he cried. He felt the rage like fire in his bones. ‘I won’t have it. I shan’t let them take her. They won’t lay a finger on her. Damn that double-dealing Kraut!’

  ‘You can’t blame Gregor!’ Edith cried.

  ‘Gregor wouldn’t tell!’ exclaimed Claudine.

  ‘Who else would have given us away?’ Maurice snarled.

  Suddenly there was a loud German voice bellowing, ‘Halt!’ and then something indecipherable, jagged words rebounding off the water.

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  Gregor’s face was grim. ‘We are to put hands on heads. Like so. Or he will shoot.’ He dropped his own gun and laid his hands on his head.

  Maurice felt a wave of disbelief. It wasn’t real; they couldn’t possibly be surrendering, after all they had been through. Putting his hands up would mean the end for all of them. God knows what it would mean for Marthe, where they would send her.

  He stood and shouted, ‘Stay back! Stay back or I’ll have the lot of you, I swear I will. You’ll not lay a finger on her! I won’t let you.’

  ‘Maurice!’ Edith hissed. ‘Sit down, for God’s sake. Please sit down!’

  ‘They’re not having her!’ he roared. He heard his own voice as a raw, animal growl. Then he drew out his fishing knife and pointed it at the German boat. The blade was only as long as his little finger but any knife will reach a man’s heart with enough force behind it.

  ‘You’ll have to go through me first! I’m not afraid to use it, this knife. I’ll gut you all before you touch a hair on her! I swear it!’

  The German voice from the boat barked, ‘Sit!’

  Maurice felt a ferocious surge of fearlessness; he almost laughed. He was doomed, whatever he did. Whether he sat or stood or shouted or was silent, the Germans would kill him one way or another.

  ‘I’ll stab you through your Kraut hearts,’ he bellowed. ‘Every last one of you, before I’ll let you take my Marthe! I swear to God, I’ll—’

  There was an explosion and a crack like thunder. Something punched Maurice backwards and he sprawled in the boat, half across Claudine’s lap. He tried to sit up but his body was too heavy, and a sound like an alarm bell tolled in his ears. Over the ringing, he heard Claudine’s cry: ‘Edith!’

  ‘Maurice!’ It was Carter. ‘Maurice, get up.’

  Maurice tried to protest that there was nothing wrong, he was just a little winded, but before he could find the words, Carter said, ‘Christ! It’s in his chest.’

  ‘Prop him up.’ It was Edith, her hands strong around him.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Claudine’s face was like a pale coin above him.

  ‘On the count of three, lift him. One, two, three.’

  Maurice felt a gust of air and then, for the first time, pain. Searing agony in his chest. He cried out and looked to find the pain, but he could only see a blackness seeping from a gaping mouth in his chest.

  ‘Maurice! Maurice, say something!’

  He moved his lips and a whisper gurgled out: ‘Marthe?’ His mouth was full of a warm, thick liquid and the sour taste of rust.

  ‘She’s here, Maurice, right here. Look, I’ll lie you next to her.’

  He felt the warmth of Marthe’s body next to his. He closed his eyes for a moment, wished himself closer, wished himself inside her skin. How could she ever understand how much he loved her? Some feelings go beyond language.

  Edith took Maurice’s hand and put it on Marthe’s. ‘There. Feel that. She’s there. She’s safe.’

  He clung on to the sound of Edith’s voice, although it was harder and harder to hear her: like searching for smoke from a fading fire. He felt Marthe’s hand in his own—her skin was hot and vital and teeming with life, and he squeezed her fingers; he thought he did… Or perhaps he wanted to but couldn’t quite manage it.

  Part of him wanted to shout and rail against the way that e
verything was slipping away, like a rug being tugged from under him, no matter how he tried to grasp at it. There was a tingling over his hands and feet, a sensation that crept up his arms and legs, as though he were sinking into icy, black water.

  Slowly, the need to shout and rail faded too, and with the chill that crept through his body came a kind of stillness from yearning. Like a raging thirst, gently quenched.

  It reminded him of those mornings when they were first married: he would wake up with Marthe’s body warm next to his, his arm always numb and useless where she had lain on it all night. But like those times, there was no need to shift away. He had no desire to move.

  THERE was a gurgle in Maurice’s throat, then he slumped back and was still.

  ‘Oh Lord,’ Edith murmured.

  Claudine doubled over; dimly she was aware of a voice crying, ‘No! No!’ over and over again, and it was only when she felt Edith’s hand over her mouth that she realised the voice was her own. How was it possible for a person to be alive one moment and then gone the next?

  More echoing cries came from the German boats.

  ‘We must stand,’ Gregor said. ‘Hands on head.’ He stood, slowly. The boat wobbled. Shaking, they all did the same. More shouting, a shock of senseless percussive rumbles.

  Gregor said to Claudine, ‘Liebling, you must stand now. I will help you. Come, Claudine. Hands on head. Like so.’

  She shook her head. ‘I shan’t.’

  Edith said, ‘Come on, my love. Stand up.’

  ‘Please!’ Gregor’s voice was sharp with fear. ‘They will shoot, they say. You stand. Now!’

  Carter knelt next to her and put his hand on hers. ‘There now.’ His voice was calm and soothing. It made her remember the beach and Monsieur Hacquoil and the sour-sweet smell of burning—and how Dr Carter had made everything better.

  ‘Claudine, I need you to stand. I shan’t let them hurt you, I promise. You must trust me now.’

  She took Dr Carter’s hand and eased upright. The boat wobbled. She cried out, flailed, nearly fell. More growls. Metal clicks of guns all around. Every one aimed at her heart or her head. Her whole body tingled.

  Dr Carter squeezed her hand. He looked into her eyes and she saw something gentle there.

  ‘You have my word. I won’t let them hurt you.’

  She nodded, put her hands on her head.

  Then everything sped up. The Germans began shouting again and Dr Carter cried out, ‘Lean right and jump clear!’

  He threw all his weight to the right of the boat. Claudine hadn’t time to do anything more than take a gulp of air before the boat flipped over and the freezing water stamped the breath from her lungs.

  She broke the surface, gasping. There was solid darkness all around and everything was muffled. She reached out and touched hard wood in every direction.

  She had come up under the boat.

  Edith? Gregor? Breath ragged, she trod water and listened.

  She could hear the German voices shouting and then Dr Carter calling, ‘Here! Take me, I’m here.’

  Then, the thud of fists landing on flesh and Carter’s grunts and cries and moans. Claudine felt sick.

  He’d saved her. He must have known what the consequences would be and yet he’d chosen to give himself up.

  Then came a German voice she knew, raised in pain.

  They have Gregor too. No!

  Noises like the slapping of bread dough. A sound like the drumstick being ripped from a well-cooked chicken, followed by a shriek, cut short. Not a noise a man could make, surely?

  Claudine heard herself sob. She tried to make her mind blank because crying wasn’t going to change anything.

  Then there was someone in the water next to her; hands gripping her arms. Claudine gasped and thrashed out.

  ‘Hush now or they’ll hear us.’

  Edith.

  Her hands were strong; she wrapped her arm around Claudine’s chest and held her.

  Claudine struggled but she couldn’t break free. ‘We must help Gregor! And Dr Carter. The soldiers have them.’

  ‘Quiet now!’ Edith’s arm was iron around Claudine’s chest.

  Her insides jumped with a sick terror. ‘Edith!’ she hissed, ‘Edith, they have Dr Carter. And Gregor. They’re hurting Gregor!’

  ‘I know, love…’ Edith’s voice fractured. ‘But you must hush.’

  How could she, when she could hear two men being broken? When their screams and the cracks and groans of their splintering bones echoed over the water.

  ‘We must help them,’ she wept.

  The German voices sounded triumphant, and somehow closer. They had heard her.

  ‘Take a big breath’ Edith said. ‘Now!’

  She gripped Claudine’s shoulders and suddenly they were underwater, Edith’s hand tugging on hers. Claudine followed—what else could she do?

  They swam until her chest was all tearing claws. Claudine saw the blink of the searchlight above them, the shadow of the German boat as they swam beneath it. She could still hear the shouting, but it was dull, like the leaden grumble of far-off thunder.

  The burning crawled from her lungs into her arms and legs, then heaviness, until she felt she could no more move her body than heave one of the rocks from the sea bed.

  Just as she was about to wrench her hand free and open her mouth, they broke through to the surface, next to an outcrop of rocks. Claudine wheezed.

  ‘Hush now,’ Edith said as she propped her on the rock. ‘Here. Some vraic. On your head. Like this, see? Lean into the rock—but silence. Or it’ll be a bullet for both of us.’

  ‘Marthe—?’

  ‘The Germans must have pulled her from the water too,’ Edith hissed. ‘They’ll not hurt her. Now quiet.’

  ‘But Gregor—’

  Edith’s voice was hard. ‘You can’t help Gregor by getting both of us killed. Not another word!’

  There was no space for thought, only Edith’s voice. The searchlights and the boats and the German voices shouting were all around but at the same time, they were years and lifetimes away. Claudine slumped against the jagged rock and closed her eyes.

  Perhaps she slept. Her head was full of screaming. Maurice and his chest like a shouting mouth, hungry and belching blood. The tattoo of fists on flesh, the sharp clap of shattering bones. Cries of pain like the desolate shrieking of gulls in the sky.

  But when she opened her eyes, everything was silent.

  ‘Edith?’ Claudine whispered, to see if they were still alive.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Where are the boats?’

  ‘Gone.’ Her voice was flat.

  Dr Carter, Gregor and poor Marthe—gone? It was impossible to imagine.

  ‘Will they…kill them?’

  Edith sighed. ‘I don’t know. I pray… I pray not.’ Her voice faded to a whisper and Claudine realised Edith was choking back tears herself.

  ‘They’ll hurt Marthe, they’ll—’ Claudine began.

  ‘Marthe was fast asleep with what I’d given her.’ Edith’s voice shook.

  ‘But you said they would have pulled her out…’

  ‘I didn’t see. Perhaps they did.’

  ‘You think she drowned?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my love. She was asleep. She wouldn’t have known a thing—’ Edith gave a strangled cry. When her breathing had steadied again, she said, ‘I don’t think they’ll be back for us. They didn’t search for long. Suppose they thought we’d drowned. We were well hidden. They’ve trophies to take back to the Commandant anyway.’ Her voice was bitter.

  Claudine closed her eyes again. Everything seemed far away, as if it had happened a long time ago to somebody else. The past, viewed through ten different telescopes, each one telling a different story. She listened to the placid splashing of the sea against the rocks.

  ‘Will we die, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve not planned for it, no.’

  She could hear the smile unfolding the edges of Edith’s voice. Cla
udine stretched out in the dark and found Edith’s hand; she was already reaching for her. They held fast for a long time. Time measured in slow, shuddering breaths.

  Finally, Claudine said, ‘What will we do?’

  Edith sighed. ‘Swim back to Jersey, I suppose. Then try to hide. We’re half a mile out, I think. We’ll swim until the current catches hold of us and pulls us back.’

  ‘But they’ll find us. And they’ll kill us. Like Maurice. And Gregor.’ Claudine couldn’t quell her frantic panic: there was no escape.

  ‘There now. No noise, do you hear? Crying won’t help us—plenty of time for tears later.’

  Claudine tugged on her hair and counted her teeth with her tongue until the roiling spinning terror in her head stilled. Then she said, quietly, ‘Could we swim to England? People do.’

  ‘How far would we get, do you think, before we drowned?’ Edith laughed. It was a raw, desperate, savage sound that Claudine had never heard from her before. More like Maman’s laugh. Then Claudine heard something else.

  ‘Hush, Edith!’

  And there it was: a musical splash, splash, splash. The watery march of approaching capture and death.

  Edith and Claudine both breathed the word ‘Oars’ and Claudine gave a desperate cry because she knew it was the Germans, come back to take them away, to send them to a prison or to shoot them. Their blood would ooze into the black mirror of the sea.

  She hid under the vraic again, because she suddenly felt a fierce, hopeless longing to lie down next to Maurice and Marthe, deep under the weight of the sea, eyes closed, head calm and quiet. She didn’t want this terror squirming inside her, she didn’t want to be dragged into a boat or shot in the sea or to starve to death in Germany or go back to Hans.

  But then Edith called, ‘Hi there! Over here!’

  The splashing stopped and a voice called, ‘Où êtes-vous?’

  THE fishermen gave them blankets. Edith cocooned Claudine in the soft wool and pulled the girl into her lap—she was shaking so hard Edith could hear her teeth rattling. She stroked her hair and pulled her in close and kissed her forehead.