‘Good grief. There’s no navy escort,’ Ivy said. ‘We’ll be sitting ducks for planes.’
‘My case!’ Rachel peered over the sea of faces. ‘Did you see what happened to my case?’
‘Sorry, Rache. I just couldn’t get to it. There’s too many people.’
The last boat was almost full, and the next surge crushed us up to the turnstiles. All around was the stink of wet mackintosh and wool, and cries of ‘Let my children through!’ and ‘Please, my daughter must go on that boat.’ A tweed elbow dug into my side, and a male voice hissed in my ear, ‘Get out of the bloody way.’
I stood firm, though my arm ached from clinging to my case. The moustached official at the gate asked for papers and funnelled the people in front of us through. He held up three fingers and said, ‘Only three more.’
Ivy, her face wild with panic, scooped Dottie from Rachel’s arms and pushed her way through the turnstile, so desperate to get aboard that she left her suitcases stranded on the quay.
‘One more,’ the man said.
‘You go,’ I said, thrusting my case towards her.
‘No,’ protested Rachel, ‘You —’
Our hesitation was enough time for the tweed-jacketed man to shove past us both and through the turnstile. Behind us there was an immediate outcry of ‘Shame!’ The gatekeeper clicked the padlock on the gates shut and walked away.
Hopelessly, we watched the boat draw away from the quay, and at last the crowd stopped its press so we could breathe.
‘When will there be another boat?’ someone shouted.
The officials turned away and didn’t answer. The harbour was empty. The small boats in the distance were just specks amid the grey heaving sea. The disgruntled crowd milled around for another half hour in the drizzle as the dawn light pinked the clouds, and it became obvious another boat wasn’t coming.
‘I’m going to see if I can spot my case, then I’m going home,’ Rachel said. All over the street were abandoned cases and bags, hats and umbrellas. A man in a trilby knelt on the cobbles next to Rachel’s case, trying to open it.
‘What the blazes do you think you’re doing!’ she shouted. ‘That’s my case.’
We ran towards him.
‘Sorry, miss,’ he said, standing up and holding his hands up. ‘I thought you’d gone on the boat and wouldn’t be wanting it.’
‘You worm,’ I said, snatching it from under his nose. ‘Come on, Rache. Come back with me. I’ve some eggs; we can have a proper breakfast. You look like a drowned rat.’
‘So do you.’
We stared at each other, two bedraggled women, both soaked to the skin.
Rachel laughed. ‘It’s wetter on land than at sea!’
‘Looks like we’re stuck here,’ I said.
‘I didn’t really want to go anyway,’ Rachel said. ‘I feel safer here, where my friends are.’
‘The Germans won’t come here now,’ I said. ‘Why would they? There’s nobody flipping left, except us.’
But despite my bravado, as I walked past the luggage abandoned in the rain, and the shuttered empty shops, I couldn’t help wishing we’d been on that boat. There were so few of us left now, and making a living would be harder than ever. There’d be no chance of resisting any invasion, and if the Nazis came, where would we go? The thought kept going round my head: left behind.
Neither Rachel nor I spoke. The reality of our situation had struck home. I stared at the cruet and our greasy plates, and wondered what I would do, now that Albert had gone and Tilly too, and there was nobody to help me. I knew hardly anything about baking, because Fred used to do all that. Though I’d never admit it to Rachel, I’d thought by now we’d be starting a family, and as well as keeping shop, I’d be using my hard-won nannying skills.
Unusually for her, Rachel was silent, and I wondered if she was thinking about the rumours again: the stories that all over Europe, Jews were being rounded up and deported into ghettos. Her hair was still soaked, and she seemed deflated, as if all the energy had drained away with the rain.
‘I suppose I’d better go and see if there’s still work for me at the bank,’ she said.
‘Will it be open?’
‘I’ve no idea. I don’t know what I’ll do for money if it’s not.’
‘Chin up,’ I said. Fred’s favourite English phrase.
‘I’m just tired. Thanks for breakfast.’
We parted at the door and I watched her hurry away, still carrying her precious suitcase. Coming up the hill in the opposite direction was a stout square woman on a bicycle, obviously finding it hard going. Near the top she dismounted and propped the bicycle against the wall.
‘Phew,’ she said, flapping her hand in front of her face whilst she got her breath back. ‘I’m Mrs Flanders, from Flanders Farm. Who was that coming down the road? Friend of yours was it?’ She didn’t stop for an answer. ‘Will you be wanting milk, because no one’s been to collect it in the van?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Albert used to do that, but he’s gone.’
‘My farmhands too. It’s a total disaster. You’re our biggest customer and the milk’ll go to waste if nobody comes for it. I’ve done my best to do the milking myself, but I can’t manage without more help. Terrible thing, the men all running away like that. And now the women too. Cowards, the lot of them. And me, a poor widow-woman with no man to help. Is Tilly still here? I’ve come to ask if she’ll lend a hand with the milking.’
‘I’ve seen no sign of her. I expect she’s gone.’
‘She was always a flighty little madam. You’d best get started with the baking then. Don’t let me hold you up.’
‘Albert’s gone and I don’t know how the mixing machine works or what temperature to set the ovens.’
‘Let’s have a dekko.’ Before I had chance to stop her, Mrs Flanders was in the bakery, loading flour and yeast extract into the big bowl and setting the electric mixing machine churning. ‘Matches?’ She held out her hand.
I obliged, and she opened the big oven doors, and for a moment all I saw was the broad beam of her backside in its black serge frock and the soles of her sturdy shoes. Within a few minutes, she’d got the gas going. ‘Can you drive?’
I shook my head, feeling even more hopeless.
‘Well, you’d best learn, ducks. Have you got the keys to the van?’
‘Yes, over here.’ I pointed to the board behind the door where all the keys hung.
‘I’ll take it, then, and fetch you the milk.’
‘I’m not sure —’
She already had the keys dangling from her hand. ‘You’ll need milk for the scones and to make butter, won’t you?’
‘Yes, but —’
‘Let the bread prove,’ she called as she opened the door. ‘Twenty minutes. Then in the oven on a slow heat. Keep an eye on it whilst you make another batch. I should be back by then. I’ll drive you over to the farm later, to help with the evening milking.’
The door banged, and outside I heard the grunt and roar of the van starting up, and she was gone.
I don’t know what I would’ve done without Mrs Flanders. Always in black, always matter of fact, she had more energy than a carthorse. What I wasn’t to know then was that she knew everyone’s business, and was the greatest gossip in the whole of Jersey.
CHAPTER 4
Cherbourg, France
May 1940
Fred
My raincoat flapped round my knees, drenched from being on deck. The half-mile walk from the docks to Cherbourg’s Gare Maritime gave me a chance to push down my seasickness and regain some sort of equilibrium. By the time I reached the concourse I’d put down my case, shown my papers, and made that damn Nazi salute ten times.
Who in the name of God had designed such a ridiculous salute? One that might knock off a hat or catch someone with a stab in the eye? I’d forgotten it, in all my years away, though I’d been proud to do it first thing this morning. It was exciting. But after so much repetition, the novelty
had worn thin.
The station was familiar; I’d been here with Céline on holiday. Cherbourg station, with its iron beams and lofty glass roof, had always seemed quite glamorous — we used to laugh at the idea that we were treading in the footsteps of celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and the Roosevelts. Now though, the Hollywood colour and gloss had gone, and the platforms heaved with the grey-green uniforms of my countrymen.
At the turnstile out of the station, I saluted the cheerful-looking Wehrmacht officer, showed my papers again, and asked in German for the barracks. He pointed down the street towards what had obviously once been a fin de siècle hotel, all sinuous curves and stucco, the frontage now festooned with enormous red and black flags. I stopped to stare, unable to help myself. I felt a surge of pride at these giant swastikas as big as a house, a fizz of excitement as I realised my country had really taken over France, and that in some strange sense, I now owned this city.
I dodged a passing bicycle and lugged my suitcase towards the columned portico. In what had once been the car park, a platoon of soldiers goose-stepped past. I stood in awe, envying their precision, their shiny uniforms, the sheer sharpness of their silhouettes. I took a childish thrill in the thought that I was destined to join those gleaming ranks.
I passed behind them, a kind of first-night nerves making me loiter a little before walking through the hotel lobby. My wet shoes squeaked on the red-tiled floor, causing the two older uniformed soldiers at Reception to look up as I hurried forward.
Again the salute, again my embarkation papers, my orders, my Reisepass: my German passport.
I took a surreptitious look at these soldiers and noticed the more senior one sported a small square moustache, a square black stamp, like the Führer. Unlike my elder brother, I thought Hitler’s yelling and posturing faintly ridiculous. Still, Hitler was the cause of all this military splendour, so I had to give him grudging respect.
Now I had more to sign: next of kin, and an oath to the Fatherland. A thumb had to be squashed into ink and then pressed into the brown book that I was surprised to see already bore the photograph I’d sent ahead from Marriot’s, the photographer’s in St Helier.
‘Sign here.’
A stab of something as I signed it: a mixture of pride and regret. That I’d gained Germany but somehow lost Jersey, and, waiting at home, Céline. What would she think? Her face swam before me, eyes laughing behind her owl-like glasses, the dimple in her chin. The ache in the pit of my stomach at leaving her was still raw.
I was brought back with a start as the rubber stamp thumped down on my new Soldbuch.
The men gave the ledger a cursory glance. ‘Siegfried Huber. Yes. Third floor. Uniform stores. Your platoon drills at sixteen hundred hours. Heil Hitler.’
As the hand shot out, I did the same, but my hand hit the lip of the counter.
I winced but covered it with a smile. They saw, and one of them smirked.
The lift, with its curly iron grille, had tape across it, so I took the wide staircase from the lobby, surprised it still had its plush maroon carpet and brass stair rods. An unlit chandelier dangled lopsidedly from the roof with some of its crystal missing. Tall windows let in the dull afternoon light as, puffing slightly from climbing all the stairs, I followed the German signs to the uniform stores.
The stores turned out to be what had once been a bedroom suite, complete with enormous walnut armoires, and a sink with a mirror, at which another uniformed man was examining his reflection. The corner housed a pile of suitcases just like my own, hung with brown labels, by a door that obviously led to another room.
I approached the long trestle, piled with grey-green field uniforms and concrete grey fatigues, where a soldier barked out, ‘Height?’
I hesitated, trying to remember what was on my papers, but couldn’t. Not in centimetres anyway. Only in inches. Five foot ten and a half inches. I fumbled to open my Soldbuch to look. The soldier raised his eyebrows to his neighbour. They thrust a pile towards me. ‘These should fit. Boots and pack in room seventeen. Helmets on the numbered racks below.’ He thrust a key into my hand. ‘Locker key: matches the number on your tag.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
The man at the sink turned to me and grinned, patting his tunic front. ‘Smart, eh?’
I nodded and smiled back, though his feet ruined the effect as one big toe was poking through his sock. He was an older chap, in his forties at a guess, with a red weather-beaten face and a white mark where a full moustache used to be.
‘You need your medical first,’ he said, ‘then you can change, collect your boots, and go downstairs for your pack.’
The German language flowed over me, thick and growlingly familiar. It reminded me of my father. The hole in my chest at leaving Céline was soothed by my sense of homecoming. But of course that was absurd; I had to remind myself, this was France, not Germany.
‘Oh. Thanks,’ I said to the other soldier. ‘My first day.’
‘Mine too.’
‘No chat in the ranks,’ the soldier at the trestle said. ‘Through that door.’ He stabbed a finger towards the adjoining room.
Naked except for underpants, I stood goose-pimpled and humiliated before two uniformed medics. Their white coats were buttoned tightly over their uniforms. I surreptitiously pulled in my stomach and pushed out my chest, ashamed of the soft whiteness of my belly and the flabbiness of my chest. I pushed my damp hair out of my eyes and tried to ignore the indignity.
An excruciating twenty minutes later, I was pronounced fit, then shorn, shaved and dressed in a uniform that was far too small around the girth.
I passed through the room with the mirror, not daring to look. I must lose weight, I thought. My jacket was so tight I could barely bend to pick up my new boots, which again were as narrow and stiff as cardboard. What size were these? I checked them again and forced my calves into them.
After emptying my case into a canvas sack I headed for my billet, and every other man I passed on the way was slim and trim, and in a uniform that didn’t crease across the stomach. I went into another hotel room with eight beds jammed together. The sight of them reminded me I hadn’t slept last night, and now all I wanted to do was lie down. No one else was in sight, so I dumped the sack on the nearest bed and flopped down full length.
When I closed my eyes, it felt as though I was still rocking on the boat. I turned on my side and let out a sigh.
‘Hey, that’s my bed. Get off.’ The tone was not one of friendly jesting.
I shot to my feet. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘That one’s free.’ He pointed to the one crammed up behind the door. I dutifully heaved my sack to the bed in the corner, casting a quick glance at him as I went. A tall young man with a pale, almost luminous complexion, protruding lips, and a look of the upper classes in the raised set of his chin.
‘I’m Siegfried,’ I said, attempting to make amends with a smile. ‘People call me Fred.’
‘No first names,’ the youth replied, frowning, standing too close and looking down on me from his height. ‘You may call me Leutnant Obenauer. And you are Private…?’
‘Huber.’
‘Huber what?’
The language was no problem at all; I could segue easily between English, French and German, but the army? Well, that was another language altogether. I suddenly understood. ‘Huber — sir.’
‘Well, Private Huber, we’ll soon get you into shape.’ He shot a patronising glance to the straining buttons of my jacket. ‘What did you do before you joined up?’
‘I was a chef pâtissier.’ Too late, the French words were out.
‘A what?’
The French term obviously meant nothing to the man before me. ‘A chef.’
Still a blank stare.
‘A baker, sir.’
‘A baker. I see.’ His few words held a sneer. ‘And where did you do your basic training?’
‘I haven’t done it yet,’ I said. ‘They told me to report here.�
��
A pause. Obenauer frowned. ‘Not even a basic fitness test? Where do you live?’
‘I came straight here from Jersey.’
‘Jersey?’ His tone made it sound like the moon.
‘It’s an island off —’
‘I know where it is. What on earth were you doing there?’
‘It’s where I live now. I married a Jersey girl, and —’
‘But your family, where are your family from?’
‘Dortmund. The Ruhr. My father’s an engineer in the Hoesch factory.’
‘Then why didn’t they send you back there to take your basic fitness test?’
‘I suppose they thought it would be quicker to send me here.’
‘No training at all? You mean you came straight to France, straight to the front line, from your bakery?’ He was staring now, incredulous. ‘No weapon drill, no learning of ranks, flags, or orders?’
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’ve told you. I was ordered to report here, to Kommandant Zweig.’
A slight smirk enlivened Obenauer’s features for an instant. ‘That’ll be fun,’ he said, and sauntered out.
At four o’clock I found myself outside in the car park with sixty other men, a pack on my back, the strap on my helmet chafing at my chin, and a rifle on my shoulder, which, following everyone else, I’d been issued from the coach house at the back of the hotel.
Having no idea what to do, I positioned myself at the back of the ranks and copied the rest.
‘New?’ the man next to me asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You should be there.’ He pointed. ‘You’re number 564. You should be there, between 563 and 565.’
I strode purposefully to the correct place. Further forward in the ranks I could see the other new recruit, the older red-faced man I’d met earlier, only now he had his boots on. He seemed quite at home, and snapped briskly to all the orders. Determined to be just as good as him, I followed as the platoon moved out of the car park onto the road. I hadn’t done the goose-step walk since I was a child playing at soldiers, and it was hard work, especially in these damn boots.
The Occupation Page 3