The Guernsey Saga Box Set

by Diana Bachmann

  Sarah felt a bit embarrassed about God, because since her marriage she had undoubtedly neglected her religion. St Saviour’s, at the other end of the island, had always been ‘her’ church but was too far away now to be practical. The Gaudions had belonged to Bordeaux Mission, but Alice had abandoned it years ago complaining that it was impossible to hear the minister because he mumbled into his moustache. From time to time she and Greg had attended the ancient church of St Sampson’s, comparatively near their home, but had never become an integral part of the congregation.

  William telephoned his parents to relay the news that Sarah and Greg had a son named Richard and the three of them were well. Suzanne received Aline’s letter containing the good news a few days later. She was wildly excited about having a brother.

  *

  By this time, in fact, Richard was not well at all. Recurring high temperatures alarmed his parents and Sarah called Dr Walker.

  Switching off the roaring engine of his motorbike, the GP strode upstairs in breeches and leggings. ‘So what have we here, little fellow?’ Sarah held the thermometer under the baby’s arm while the doctor sounded the little chest, took the baby’s pulse and then peered down his throat. ‘Very red down there. Could be tonsilitis. Keep him in bed and give him plenty of liquids. I’ll get the girls to put up a bottle of medicine at the surgery.’

  Two minutes later he was gone and Sarah wondered just how correct the brief diagnosis might be. It was to be the first of many similar episodes, each one worse than the last.

  When Richard was well again, Greg and Sarah began their new social programme. It wasn’t easy at first because so many of their old friends had left, but those who remained developed a close bond of camaraderie. Newly-opened clubs brought people together quite quickly and one was the ballroom dancing club. Greg and Sarah had always enjoyed dancing together at balls and parties, chiefly because they were used to each others unauthentic steps. Now they learned to do foxtrots and tangos, waltzes and quicksteps correctly, with the experts. The intervals formed almost as important a part of the afternoon sessions as the dancing itself. People arrived with their own refreshments and settled in groups to exchange occupation news and information received in Red Cross messages. From these groups it was easy to pick out those who reflected one’s own interests and thinking, possible future bridge partners or opponents.

  But, of course, there were others. One afternoon Greg and Sarah sat with different groups at separate tables. A large man Sarah had never seen before dominated her table, giving his unwilling listeners the benefit of his opinions.

  ‘Dreadful the way the locals panicked last June; appalling bad show!’ he was saying. ‘Stand firm, I say. No need to let the Hun get the better of one.’

  Others at the table looked at each other, eyeballs rolling.

  Sarah was seething but kept her voice cool. ‘What makes you think they panicked?’

  ‘Saw them with my own eyes, little woman.’ He glanced round at the other men, smiling.

  ‘So you were on the White Rock yourself?’

  His bushy brows came together in a slight frown. ‘Yes! Yes I was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Eh? What do you mean, why?’

  ‘Why were you there? You must have had a very good reason,’ Sarah persisted.

  His expression became aggressive. ‘What has it got to do with you, why I was there?’

  ‘I’m sure we’d all be interested to know. You’re English aren’t you? Didn’t someone say you had only settled over here last year?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So as you were not a local grower trying to export his produce, one wonders what persuaded you to go down to the White Rock and get caught up in all this so-called panic.’

  The entire room was silent, every ear tuned in for his answer.

  Blood rose up the Englishman’s neck suffusing his fat chins and cheeks. His eyes darted from one face to another.

  ‘I know why he was there,’ came a voice from the back of the room. ‘I was seeing my wife and the baby onto the ship, and he all but pushed her into the harbour trying to scramble onto the gangway.’

  ‘So it wasn’t the islanders who were panicking, then?’ the dance mistress remarked.

  The Englishman’s chair fell backwards with a crash as he lumbered to his feet. ‘It’s a lie. A damnable lie. I’ll sue, you know!’ And he stormed out of the room.

  Within a year, while his fat belly remained and others shrank, he was to become notorious as a first-class collaborator, earning himself the nickname Herr Bootlicker.

  Occupation stories abounded, some sad, some hilarious. A friend of Greg’s was a pigeon fancier, but unfortunately the Germans were neurotic about information being sent to England regarding the occupying forces. Nothing would convince them that homing pigeons will only fly home, not away, and the distraught man had to stand by and watch thirty of his beloved birds destroyed. However, justice was served. His next-door neighbours had fled the German advance leaving their home and chickens unattended, and the pigeon fancier, not wanting the birds to suffer, had made it his business to crawl through a hole in the fence each day to feed them, despite the irritation of being woken at dawn each morning by the noisy rooster. Only for a few weeks, though, until the house was requisitioned by the Germans and three officers took up residence and their batmen took over the duties of feeding the hens and collecting the eggs. Every week there was a great squawking and shouting as a batman caught a bird for the pot, but the rooster, largest of them all, continued his dawn reveille.

  Christmas approached and the Guernseyman guessed who was destined to roast on the festive day. Two days before Christmas Eve, the hole in the hedge was used again; while the Germans were out and about their duties, their neighbour crawled through, with a fistful of corn, calling feeding noises. The batmen hunted and called next day, joined by their seniors. The neighbour was visited and questioned but his innocence was obvious so they never searched, never thought of looking in the clothes boiler. The pigeon fancier’s sister and her husband who lived in the Axce Lanes had a splendid Christmas dinner.

  Greg had a close encounter one day. He had cycled out to St Saviour’s to fetch milk for Richard, and after a few words with John he decanted the milk into two screw-capped bottles Sarah had given him and stowed them in his jacket pockets, under his overcoat, for the ride home. He hadn’t gone far when it started to rain and he found himself wading through a river of leaves and mud at the roadside, as he tried to push the bike uphill against the current. The German soldiers often tried to be friendly—by missing their own families back home whom they hadn’t seen for years in some cases—while the majority of islanders, though sympathetic but having no wish to collaborate, politely but firmly rejected their overtures. It wasn’t easy, when a German tried to help in some way, not to seem churlish and possibly risk earning some angry, unpleasant reprisal. Soaked to the skin as he laboured up the hill, Greg heard a lorry approach and pull up beside him. In a flash two young German soldiers had jumped out of the cab, picked up the bike and heaved it into the back and, with charming smiles, invited Greg into the cab with them, asking in broken English where he was going.

  There was nothing he could do about it. He climbed in and, freezing though he was, the two bottles of illicit milk burned holes through his pockets as he attempted to puff out his mack to conceal their shape. He tried to persuade the soldiers to drop him in Town, but nothing doing . . . they insisted on taking him all the way to Bordeaux and he felt an absolute worm at the sight of their disappointment when he failed to invite them into the house as they had lifted his bike down for him.

  ‘Thank God they couldn’t speak much English,’ Greg told Sarah through chattering teeth. ‘If they’d started asking me where I had been and why, I would probably have given the game away.’

  Sarah folded up, laughing. ‘Too right. You’ve never been able to lie successfully. Now get those clothes off, you are frozen rigid.’

  ‘If you
’re referring to my shakes, you’re wrong. I’m sheer, bloody petrified!’

  *

  Leaving Richard with Daisy, early one sunny morning in May, Greg and Sarah cycled together to Val du Douit. No one was about as they propped their bikes against the wall in the yard, and as the doors of the old farmhouse were locked, Sarah wandered round to the back-door of John’s house. It was open so she called out and walked in, wandering from room to room hunting for him. Something seemed strange. Her forehead wrinkled as her eyes drifted round the sitting-room, seeking clues. What was it? Then she noticed a book on the arm of a chair . . . Precious Bane by Mary Webb? Not John’s type of reading, surely. And knitting . . . and flowers!

  ‘Ahh! Oh, Sarah . . . Mrs Gaudion, you did give me a fright!’ A woman stood in the doorway in her dressing-gown, hand over her mouth in surprise.

  Sarah stared at her. ‘And you are . . .?’

  ‘Edna. Edna Quevatre, Jean’s cousin.’ She blushed.

  ‘Yes. I remember seeing you, somewhere. Probably at one of the hay picnics.’ But what was she doing here? Or wasn’t it just too obvious?

  Edna read her thoughts. ‘I’m John’s . . . Mr Ozanne’s housekeeper, now,’ she began hastily. ‘He’s no good at cooking, you understand . . .’

  Sarah suspected she understood only too well. But John? Had it been Bertie or William, she wouldn’t have felt so surprised, in the circumstances. But serious, po-faced John? Then the funny side got to her and she had to turn away so Edna couldn’t see her trying to keep a straight face.

  ‘He’s gone up to the top fields to fetch the cows down . . .’ the woman hugged the loose gown round herself. ‘I’ll go and get dressed. He’ll be back soon.’

  Sarah escaped back to Greg and collapsed in his arms, laughing.

  ‘Come on. Tell me you idiot!’ He held her away, grinning at her wrinkled nose, white at the tip.

  ‘It’s John! He’s taken unto himself a woman!’

  Greg dropped his hands to start tickling her ribs. ‘Try pulling the other one!’

  ‘Stop it, I can’t bear it!’ She sat on the grey granite mounting block. ‘No, honestly. I walked in and there was this woman pulling on a dressing-gown!’

  Greg snorted. ‘So your brother’s more of a man than we ever thought he was.’

  ‘But what about Mary? What would she say if she knew?’

  ‘She won’t know. And in the meantime perhaps he can get a bit of joy out of life,’ he said, adding, ‘for the first time in years! I would have done a runner many moons ago if I had to wake up with that misery next to me on the pillow every morning.’

  ‘Greg! I do agree with you but you shouldn’t say such things. Poor Mary can’t help it.’

  ‘Well poor Mary should help it. She casts gloom in all directions wherever she goes.’

  Sounds of shouting and mooing reached them. ‘Here is John, now, with the herd.’

  Greg slid off the wall and brushed the moss off his slacks. ‘Shall we go and meet him?’

  ‘Better wait here. We might spook the cows.’

  When he joined them, John had obviously seen Edna and been briefed. ‘Hallo! Knew you were coming today but hadn’t realised you’d be here so early.’ He was slightly flushed. ‘Gather you’ve seen Edna.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, grinning at him.

  ‘She’s my housekeeper, now.’ He was trying to look serious.

  ‘So she said.’

  The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Truly,’ he insisted.

  ‘Of course,’ his sister responded. ‘You need a housekeeper. In fact you thoroughly deserve one, and all the comforts she can offer.’

  John hunted her face to see if she was leg-pulling. ‘You mean that?’ A smile started to spread over his face.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  ‘Mind? Why should I mind? Nothing to do with me, except I like to think you’re happy.’

  He reached out to squeeze her arm. ‘You’re not a bad kid.’ Then he turned to Greg, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  Greg smiled back. ‘Let’s go and see if Edna can manage a cup of tea . . . or whatever.’

  It was the beginning of a totally new relationship between brother and sister. Between all four. For so many years Sarah and Greg, while not actually avoiding John’s company, had certainly not sought it. Now they all seemed to be on the same wavelength, and every week thereon, either John and Edna would cycle down to Bordeaux, or Greg and Sarah would find their way up to the farm.

  After the seemingly total disintegration of the family, Sarah was delighted; as children the eight years’ difference in their ages had given John an insurmountable seniority—to him she had been a tedious and irresponsible irritation, to her he had been impossibly bossy, more of a disciplinarian than their father. Now the combined effects of maturity, crisis and a common enemy brought them into a closer unity than they might ever have known in normal circumstances. John remained serious but Edna had quickly developed in him a hitherto unnoticed sense of humour; lightened and brightened his outlook in a way Mary could only have opposed—whilst John himself was grateful for Greg’s and Sarah’s complete acceptance of his new domestic arrangements. Edna, learning to play tennis and bridge, and the source of some amazingly clever culinary ideas, was soon an integral part of the family.

  *

  Meanwhile, the overall situation remained critical. It seemed certain that Hitler would invade England soon—and then what? Greg and Sarah desperately wished that, after all, they had kept Suzanne here with them. However, the Führer was content to invade Yugoslavia and Greece instead, at the beginning of April 1941, though their capitulation by the end of the month only renewed fears of him turning next to England, especially with the intense bombing of Plymouth docks. To protect his invasion fleet from the Royal Navy? Everyone was holding their breath.

  *

  Food was the main topic of conversation. The bread ration of 5 lbs for men, 4 lbs for women and 3/12 lbs for children would not have been so drastic had other provisions been more plentiful, but the fact was that bread was the basic, staple diet for so many. A pitifully reduced ration of skimmed milk meant that people with children gave the little ones all they had, leaving none for themselves; fresh fruit was scarce and as for eggs . . . but for John’s help, Greg and Sarah would share one or two per week with Richard, the latter always getting the lion’s share.

  If only there had been a reasonable supply of fish . . . a bone of contention among the locals. The Germans had made it abundantly clear that if anyone attempted to escape by boat, all boats would have to be laid up, including fishing boats. But a group of men did go.

  George Schmit was furious. ‘If I could have got my hands on those mindless morons I’d have rung their bloody necks!’ he exploded. ‘No thought for those of us left behind. Now all the fishermen lose their livelihood and with the food rationed as it is, they’ve deprived us now, of our main source of protein!’

  ‘Confounded idiots!’ Sarah agreed. ‘You’d think they’d know better.’

  ‘Idiots nothing!’ Greg snarled. ‘Those bastards were a bunch of bored businessmen who knew damn well what they were doing to us. Yes, we’d all like to get away . . . we’re all bored . . . we all want to see our friends and families again, and there are lots of us with boats and the know-how to get up and go.’ He was looking at George the yachtsman as he spoke. ‘But we have respect for our fellow islanders! We are not all a bunch of selfish, irresponsible bastards!’

  ‘I can’t imagine how people who live in town are coping,’ Sarah regularly remarked as Greg brought in vegetables from the greenhouses. He had pulled up much of the tomato crop last summer and replanted with late beans, carrots and a number of things to be preserved or dried like butter beans and haricots. Together with a pig’s trotter, a nourishing Guernsey ‘beanjar’ could be produced if one could find someone willing to accommodate the jar in their furze oven. Most of the ancient furze ovens in the island had been obsole
te and bricked up for years, but several were now unblocked and brought back into use. The principle was simple. From the many acres of common land round the coasts, wild gorse was cut, pushed into the ovens and set alight, burning fiercely until the bricks had absorbed optimum heat. Ashes quickly removed, the ovens were ready for baking bread, dough for each loaf piled on a cabbage leaf, and for Guernsey gache and biscuits. After they were all removed and the oven cooled slightly, they were replaced by well-identified ‘beanjars’ which cooked for several hours . . . preferably over night.

  The family’s diet at Les Marettes did have its drawbacks. Having fed and bathed Richard and tucked him into bed, and settled the old folk one evening, Greg and Sarah welcomed Ted and Julia Martel for a good long session of bridge. They were comparatively new friends: though Ted and Greg had known each other vaguely at school, the age difference had been too great for close friendship, Ted having been an illustrious prefect while Greg was still a junior. But comparing notes in a food queue on the Bridge one day, Julia revealed to Sarah that their children, too, had been evacuated with the schools, that they had come to live with her aged parents in St Sampson’s and found it difficult to know how to pass the time, so far removed from their own home and remaining neighbours in Torteval. Sarah had immediately thrown out an invitation and soon they had been meeting quite regularly though as yet they remained on fairly stiff and formal terms. Ted was, after all, a partner in a firm of architects and always arrived in a three-piece suit.

  On this particular evening they finished listening to the news and while the cards, pencils and score pads were laid on the table, Toby curled himself up at their feet, modestly contented after his meagre supper.

  Half-way through the first rubber an appalling effluvia suddenly rose from under the table. ‘Toby!’ Sarah wailed. ‘Out!’ She got up and tried to drag the dog away, apologising to the guests. ‘I am so sorry! It’s all those vegetable peels and limpets I’m afraid.’ Toby gazed at her with liquid brown eyes.