Island Madness

by Tim Binding

  Like many houses looking out to sea, the rooms were set in reverse order, the utility rooms, kitchen, storerooms, washrooms placed at the front, while the main rooms, the library, the dining room and the drawing room, were found at the back. Dividing the two were the stairs to the cellar, the main staircase leading to the first and second floors and the billiard room. The house was quiet.

  It was obvious there was no one there to greet him. He had expected someone, Zep or Molly. Even Marjorie could have put in an appearance. Lentsch felt cheated. He had brought gifts for them all, three hours spent in Granville hunting for presents he knew they would appreciate—dance records for Isobel, a twelve-year-old Armagnac for the Captain, a pair of silk stockings for Molly and a traveller’s set of Guernsey’s most famous author, Victor Hugo, for Marjorie. Dropping his bags on the tiled floor he strode down the hall and flung open the doors to the drawing room. The armchairs and sofa had been shoved back against the walls. The radiogram from his study had been moved in, his box of seventy-eights on the floor beside it. So this is what they got up whenever he left. Albert stood in the doorway, trying to hide an expression of guilt.

  “You should have cleared up,” Lentsch told him. “I don’t mind parties while I’m away, but…”

  Albert limped in and in a slow, deliberate move, pushed the sofa further back.

  “It’s for you,” he said. “They’re planning a little get-together. I wasn’t meant to do this until later, but I promised Mrs H. I’d go to town before the shops shut. She’s got some shoes that need mending.”

  Lentsch felt his spirits soar, though he tried not to show it.

  “Who’s coming? Do you know?”

  “The usual crowd. The Captain’s organized it all—he and Miss Molly.”

  Lentsch walked into the hall, picked up the receiver and gave the number.

  “You’re not meant to know,” Albert warned. “If the Captain finds out I’ve let on…”

  Lentsch winked.

  “Don’t worry. I…” One ring and someone had lifted the phone. He turned quickly, waving Albert away.

  “Yes?”

  She’d been waiting for him! He kept his voice as light as possible.

  “Isobel! It’s me. I have just returned. I was hoping to see you. Tonight, perhaps?”

  She spoke quickly. “I can’t, not tonight. I’m sorry.”

  Lentsch smiled to himself. He could imagine her, standing over that glass-topped table in the drawing room, looking round to see if her father was in earshot. Soon she would piek up the receiver and move over to the staircase. It was where she loved to sit, talking, reading, painting her toenails. Her hair would be bunched back, her legs bare. He tried to sound disappointed.

  “Never mind. I am sure I can find something else to do, down at the club perhaps.”

  There was a silence at the other end.

  “Isobel. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Quite all right.”

  “Your father—is he well?”

  “Yes. He’s dining with Major Ernst tonight.” She lowered her voice. “Across the road.”

  “In the Major’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will be all alone?”

  “No, no. Some friends are coming over.” She was finding it difficult to lie, bless her.

  “And did you miss me?” he asked.

  “Not as much as I had thought.”

  Lentsch closed his eyes. It wasn’t the reply he had expected. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Oh. I had hoped…”

  She corrected herself.

  “I did miss you. It was just I did other things.”

  He teased her some more.

  “If I cannot see you tonight, how about tomorrow? Perhaps we could go riding. I have not taken Wotan out for weeks now.”

  “Wotan. Such a ridiculous name for a horse.”

  “To your ears, perhaps. For us it is a strong name, a strong name for a strong horse.”

  “A beautiful horse,” she agreed.

  “I thought I might take him over to Vazon and stretch his legs. Why don’t you come too? I could call for you in the morning.”

  “Don’t you have work to do?”

  “On Sunday?”

  “You shouldn’t neglect your duties, Gerhard, even for your horse.”

  “That is exactly who I should neglect my duties for. My horse is the second most important creature on this island.”

  Lentsch could hear her laugh despite herself.

  “Father will be gone all afternoon,” she relented. “Call for me then. Look, I’ve got to go.”

  “Oh. Until tomorrow, then.” He shouted the last sentence to an empty line.

  Albert was waiting in the drawing room, pretending not have heard a single word. Lentsch put his hand round his shoulders and walked him through onto the veranda.

  “Let us walk around the garden,” he suggested. “Have you time? How are the moles?”

  “Three while you were away.”

  “Three? Pretty soon you will be able to make a coat,” Lentsch joked.

  “Pretty soon we’ll be eating them. Our rations have been put back again. Is it any wonder we’re all dropping like ninepins. And we had another blessed break-in last night.”

  “Another? The third in how many months? Have you told your nephew?”

  “What can he do? It’s not us locals, Major. It’s the foreigns. They’re all over the place.”

  There were sixteen thousand foreign labourers on the island, part of His vast army of slave workers, men stolen from the captured lands of the continent and put to work for the Organisation Todt; in Germany they worked in factories, built roads, mended railways. Here they were building the Western Wall. The whole area around the old quarter of St Peter Port was filled with them; Spaniards, Poles, Russians, and a huge contingent of North Africans. The Kasbah, Albert called it.

  The two men walked to the end of the lawn and looked out. The boat had gone now, and the bay’s still emptiness accentuated its deep beauty. Since they had placed even further restrictions on civilian movement there were parts of the island which grew more sacred by the day. Lentsch shivered. Ernst’s threat came ringing back at him. He pointed across to the squat bulge of concrete billowing out of the cliff on the other side.

  “The artillery want to get their hands on this,” he blurted out. “Another one of those somewhere down here. Can you imagine it, with paths and cables and bunkers for the men. Not to mention the noise.” He held his hands over his ears. “It’s Major Ernst, you know.”

  “What is?”

  “The house. He wants to live here too.”

  “But there’s no room. Not with you and the Captain and everyone.”

  Everyone was Bohde, the island’s censor. Albert did not like Bohde ever since he had caught him in the fruit garden stuffing himself full of loganberries.

  “He will try and get rid of one of us,” Lentsch explained. “Make me look not capable in administration, or the Captain’s security procedures, perhaps. Something like that. Still, for the Villa, for you and Marjorie, it might be for the best. That way, there would be no new battery. Of that you could be sure.”

  Albert did not know what to say. Like Lentsch he saw himself as the Villa’s guardian rather than its occupier. Change, however, was never welcome. Lentsch tried to reassure him.

  “Don’t worry. It might not come to it. But the lower part of the garden, after the roses, where we play the polo. This I think we should dig up and make for some potatoes and vegetables. That way the garden would not look so…” He searched for the correct word.

  “English?” Albert ventured.

  “Privileged,” Lentsch countered. “I’ll get Helmut to start as soon as he’s back on his feet.”

  Lentsch turned and they started back to the house.

  “It’s good to be back, Albert. Good to see Saints Bay again and the house. And you, of course.” He paused for a moment, unsure of how to cont
inue. “Things back home are not so good. My mother and sister are very much afraid. Bombs, you know. We did not expect it in Germany.”

  “No.”

  “On homes and churches. We did not expect it.”

  “No.”

  “We call them Meier raids, on account of Goering’s boast. “If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, you can call me Meier!” We have Meier raids every day now. Not much of a joke, Albert. Not for my mother. Not for anyone.”

  “No. I can see that. Still…”

  “We only have ourselves to blame, you’re thinking?”

  “Not you personally, Major. I’ve never thought that.”

  “But as a people?”

  “Well, I’d have to, wouldn’t I? We were all getting along fine before all this. Still, I don’t wish any harm on anybody.”

  Lentsch was silent for a moment. That wasn’t true at all. Everyone wasn’t getting along fine before all this. There was a time when everything had been terrible. And then, the soul of a nation had been woken, practically overnight. It had been marvellous! How could he explain?

  “And you,” he asked suddenly. “You are well? Have you heard from your daughter?”

  Albert shook his head. “I was hoping I might have got a postcard through the Red Cross. Last week was the anniversary of Mum’s death.” He began to cough. Lentsch looked down in case the old man was trying to hide his tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not know.” Albert, shaking his head, dismissed his condolences.

  “She would have hated to see the place as it is now. All the guns and barbed wire. But I do miss our girl, I still don’t know if I did the right thing, staying put while she left with the rest of the evacuees. She was late in our life, was Kitty. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.”

  Lentsch was anxious to cheer him up. If there was going to be a party tonight he didn’t want Albert’s long face spoiling it.

  “Course you will, my good chap,” he breezed, clapping him on the back. “The way things are going it might end quicker than any of us think.” Changing the subject, he added, “Has anything else happened while I was away? The Bloody Boiler behaving?”

  “The Bloody Boiler’s been going since early this morning, Major.”

  “Excellent. I shall go for a bathe, take a bath and, if the weather holds, maybe sketch for an hour.” He pointed to the Martello tower on the opposite side.

  “Same view?” Albert asked.

  “That’s just it, my friend. It is never the same.”

  Albert waited as he disappeared into the house, emerging a few minutes later in civilian clothes with a towel under his arm. He watched as Lentsch ran down the path, his body hidden by the tall ferns. It was the one thing he could not understand about the Germans, this obsession with fitness and the outdoors. The Major had reached the shoreline and was walking along the rim of the bay in his bare feet, his shoes hanging round his neck. Climbing onto the jetty he stripped off and dived in. He might not be blond and six foot tall, but he was lean and fit and held himself like a man with strong blood in his veins.

  A car spat up the drive, brakes, doors and horn sounding all at once. Albert recognized the mixture. Captain Zepernick, driving with the top down. “Only a plague of locusts, a forty-degree frost, or the certainty of sexual intercourse in broad daylight will make me put up the hood,” the Captain had once joked. From the hurried demand of his footsteps coming down the red-tiled hall, Albert could tell he was not joking now.

  “He has returned?” he demanded, stepping out onto the veranda.

  Albert pointed to the sea.

  “Did he see?”

  Albert nodded. The Captain cursed in German. It was not Donner or Blitzen or that other word which Miss Molly once whispered in his ear in front of the whole company trying to embarrass him, but it was a swear word nevertheless. Albert wished that one time one of them would say Donner und Blitzen, if only to satisfy himself that those words were real words used by real Germans in times of anger and frustration, but though he had cooked their meals, served their drinks, ironed their shirts and stood by their side for the past two years listening to them carrying on like spoilt little madams, he had never heard one of them say it, not even when the weather was there to give them their cue. It annoyed him that they should be so wilful and choose not to do what was required.

  The Captain had reached the beach and was calling out to the Major as he tried to run over the shifting shingle.

  “That’s right, me old china,” Albert said, looking down. “You tell him. Donner and Blitzen. Double donner and double blitzen, with the best porcelain whistling round your ears.”

  Down on the jetty the two had met up. The Major stood quite still, his towel hanging limply at his side. He would be frozen when he got back. A hot bath with a glass of brandy on the side would be what was required. Albert turned back, shaking his head. Major or no Major, he could at least cover himself up.

  Two

  It had been warm that day, the first for weeks, but now the wind was getting up again, coming in from the north, with a chili in its heart that only an island feels. Inspector Ned Luscombe was waiting for the post when he heard George Poidevin heaving himself up to the office with another tale of woe weighing down his lumbering frame.

  The police station had expanded in the last few years but it was still primitive compared with what he had been used to. On the ground floor stood the cramped reception area, with its counter and one long bench opposite and a picture of the old king hanging crookedly on the wall. Behind it was the Sergeant’s room and adjoining it, with a door leading to the washroom and the yard, an even smaller room where the police doctor used to examine the drunks. There was no cell. The prison was only forty yards away. Privacy was at a premium too. Before the war, whenever anybody was arrested, a crowd used to gather on the pavement outside to listen to what was being said. It was a foolish man who confessed his sins in Guernsey’s sole police station.

  There were two other floors, reached only by the outside steps that ran up from the yard. The top floor was let out to the Guernsey Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society. Below that was Ned’s own office, as big as the rest of the station put together. Though he’d put down an old carpet to dampen the sound of the men playing cards down in the back room, if he’d been sensible he would have hauled it above his head and nailed it to the ceiling. They were a keen bunch upstairs and practised regularly. Babes in the Wood, Private Lives, Full House: Ned knew them all off by heart. In the middle of the room stood a large table with a long drawer underneath one side, the only article of furniture in the entire building which possessed both a lock and a key. In the far corner stood a coal stove, its cracked lagged pipe leaking a continual thin spiral of smoke. Two chairs, a filing cabinet and a torn map of the island held together with glue and brown paper were the only other furnishings. One telephone upstairs, one telephone downstairs, a spare bicycle and the Yellow Peril pressed into spasmodic service after their brand-new five-seater had been requisitioned by the Geheimnis Polizei. That was it.

  George Poidevin, foreman for one of the island’s leading construction firms, was a pasty man and indignation quivered on him like cooked fat on the bone. He lived above a small grocery shop which his wife ran, close to St Sampson’s harbour. Recognizing his malevolent wheeze Ned had hastily checked his desk to ensure that nothing of any note lay for George’s greedy eyes to devour.

  “George,” Ned said gaily. “What brings you here? Come to turn yourself in?”

  George wheezed his way over, put his hands on Ned’s desk and panted across the stained woodwork. His breath smelt of strong sausage. The man had been eating meat!

  “Do you know?” he said, blinking hard. “Do you know what they’ve just told the wife?”

  Ned shook his head, hoping that George’s weight might prove too much for the table’s tired frame. Its legs were splayed out like a dog caught on an iced pond. When it fell apart he intended to chop it up for firewo
od.

  “No,” he replied. “I don’t know. What have they told her? Something interesting? Eva Braun’s favourite recipe?”

  George leaned further across, resting his weight on his ten fat fingers. The table creaked. The right far leg slipped further out. Ned prayed. A little further, a little further.

  “They’ve only issued instructions that they be put on heavy workers’ rations, that’s all. Can you believe it! The bloody nerve!”

  Ned wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “They, George? Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Them whores! Them bloody whores. There’s my femme working all the hours God sends her and Elspeth wearing her pins to a frazzle counting out their useless money and does either of them get heavy rations? Does they buggery. But it’s all right for these French mamselles, flat on their backs all day.”

  It was all Ned could do to stop himself from laughing out loud. Another brothel had opened in January. There was the officers’ one over at St Martin’s, a spacious affair set in its own grounds, filled, it was said, with cancan girls from Paris; the one for the Todt officials halfway up George Street; and now a couple for the troops over at St Sampson’s. In the afternoons you could see the men standing patiently in an orderly queue stretching halfway round the little harbour, smoking treasured cigarettes or exchanging the odd rueful joke, hands in pockets, buffeted by the winds, just like the rest of the population waiting for the bread shop to open. It always made him smile. Even the Germans had to queue for something. Now that the weather was getting better, when they weren’t working the girls would start sunning themselves out on the roof, gazing out to where their homeland lay. Last year George had marched to the Feldkommandantur and complained that his wife could see them through their bedroom window.