Julia was an animal lover. ‘Oh poor lamb! Don’t put him out, he can’t help it.’
Sarah looked round at Greg who shrugged. All agreed.
Ten minutes later it happened again. ‘Right, that’s it. He’ll have to go!’ Sarah exclaimed. She felt so embarrassed.
Greg scratched his scalp, blushing. ‘I cannot let the poor little beggar take the blame,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it was me.’ Adding, by way of explanation, ‘We had beanjar for lunch.’
The immaculate architect’s lip quivered, then he let out a bellow of laughter. ‘So did we. The first one was mine!’ He bent down to pat Toby’s head. ‘Sorry about that, old fellow. Letting you take the rap for me.’
From that moment on, the friendship developed a new rapport.
*
‘I don’t think I can darn these socks anymore,’ Sarah told Greg. ‘They are past redemption.’
‘I can’t buy anymore till the new coupon books are issued.’
‘Even then you’ll need all your coupons for shoes and new trousers.’
‘We’ll all be barefoot and grass-skirted if this goes on much longer,’ he joked, snatching an antimacassar from the back of a chair and skipping round the dining-room table.
Sarah put down her darning mushroom, frowning. ‘What about your father’s socks?’
‘Shouldn’t think they need mending, he never gets out of bed to wear them.’
‘Exactly. So why don’t you . . . borrow them?’
‘Good thinking. I’ll have a look in his chest of drawers when I go up to read to him tonight.’ They took turns on alternate evenings to sit by the old man’s bed for an hour, reading aloud from the newspaper or a book. Edward always told them exactly what he wanted to hear, but they learned long ago that they could choose the reading material for themselves; Edward’s concentration and memory had deteriorated so much he couldn’t remember the subject matter from one sentence to the next.
‘Make sure your mother doesn’t see you, she’ll throw a fit!’ Sarah warned.
The borrowed socks were a bit small, but better than nothing. However, Greg felt guilty only a fortnight later when, quite suddenly, the old man’s heart gave out and he died in his sleep. His demise was not entirely unexpected: totally bedridden for over a year and ‘not himself’ as Alice put it, for several years before that, his health had steadily deteriorated.
George, and a ninety-year-old neighbour of Edward’s, were the only non-family to attend the funeral, and afterwards the old man’s Advocate came to read the will. Everything was to be evenly divided between his two sons, but Alice was to have life enjoyment of Les Marettes and an annual income from the greenhouse profits. What profits? Greg wondered.
Alice, who had criticised and grumbled at the old man for as long as Greg could remember, was grief-stricken at his death. She stumbled from room to room, weeping, picking up his long-discarded possessions and replacing them exactly where they were.
That evening of the funeral after they all went to bed, the entire household was thrown into chaos when the widow’s shrieks and screams echoed from attics to cellar.
Greg, Sarah and Daisy dashed in their nightclothes to Alice’s room. It was empty. They found her in Edward’s bedroom, standing at his chest of drawers, pointing into the open sock drawer. ‘Look! Look! We’ve had burglars! Call the police!’
It took over an hour of constantly yelled explanations down the ear-trumpet to quieten her, but Greg was never totally forgiven.
*
The night the news broke that Hitler had turned his back on England and elected to invade Russia instead, Greg and Sarah gave a party. They telephoned everyone they could think of, with instructions to bring their own food, bottles and bedding. The Martels came with three precious bottles of beer. John and Edna turned up with a piece of illicitly-slaughtered pig which the latter had cured and cooked, and she brought two bottles of home-made elderberry wine. No one asked George where he had procured his bottle of brandy and Gelly arrived with him carrying a large, poached bass.
Alice was invited to join them, which she did, thoroughly enjoying herself until someone got through to her on the ear-trumpet that they were not celebrating the end of the war, only the fact that Hitler was ‘going the other way’. ‘Well!’ she exclaimed. ‘If only you’d asked me before I could have told you, and saved all the trouble!’ With which edifying statement she went off to bed.
Ham and bass notwithstanding, the food was not sufficiently abundant to counter the effects of the various beverages. After supper they congregated round Greg at the piano to sing ‘We’re Gonna Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’ and ‘Run Rabbit Run’, past caring whether any passing Jerry might hear them. Then Sarah produced three packs of playing cards which were shuffled together to start an uproarious game of rummy.
Not until four o’clock next morning, Monday June 23rd, 1941, had the strongest amongst them finally capitulated and collapsed onto a bed or settee. No one who didn’t have to get to work by nine o’clock had made the effort to rise, and it was Daisy, hammering on the bedroom door, who eventually roused Sarah. She was shaking like a leaf. ‘Mrs Gaudion! There’s Germans at the door. Ossifers!’
Sarah squinted, yawned and, at last surfacing, shouted over her shoulder at Greg. ‘Get your clothes on, quickly, and get downstairs. Daisy, go down and tell them we’re coming.’ She fumbled with the buttons on her nightie, hunted for her brassiere, terrified all the time as to what crime, in German eyes, brought soldiers here to question them.
Greg dragged a comb through his hair, took the stairs two at a time, and tiptoed past the sleeping guests to the back-door.
He returned before Sarah had her shoes on. ‘We are to have a lodger,’ he announced, clicking heels and doing a Hitler salute.
‘Not a German?’
‘Yes. Very polite fellow. Asked if his batman could move his cases in tomorrow.’
‘Where’s he going to sleep?’
Greg shrugged. ‘In Dad’s old room, I suppose.’
‘Your Ma won’t like that!’
Alice didn’t. ‘Your father’s clothes will stay just where they are, in his wardrobe!’
‘But the German officer will need the wardrobe for his own things,’ Greg argued.
‘German? What German? I thought you said they’d all gone to Prussia!’
‘Russia,’ he shouted. ‘And they didn’t all go. Not the ones who are here.’
‘Yes I can hear, thank you very much. And no German is going to steal your father’s clothes. We’ve had enough of that sort of thing round here,’ she added, with a meaningful stare at her son. A week later the true facts were still filtering through to her, slowly, but with much muttering and many dirty looks she gave in.
They called him Wolfgang, though they never did discover his real name. He was immaculate in dress and manners, clicked heels and bowed whenever he passed Sarah or Alice in hallway or stairs, and smothered himself in scent. Greg, Sarah and Daisy were polite in return, but no effort was made on either side to be friendly and the only indication of his presence in the house was his razor and toothbrush on the bathroom shelf.
Like most car owners, Greg had jacked up his father’s old car on blocks in the garage and removed the wheels and battery to preserve both vehicle and tyres from deterioration. He wasn’t sure whether Wolfgang discovered it and reported its existence, or if the German authorities were working their way through the registration lists, but a letter arrived two weeks after Wolfgang, stating that the car was to be handed over. Much later, Greg learned that most confiscated cars had been sent across to France, which was doubtless why Edward’s car was never seen on the island again.
*
‘We really will have to get Richard christened,’ Sarah said over breakfast, early in July, a week after the baby’s first birthday. ‘We can’t go on waiting for the family to return before doing it.’
‘Do you want a party, afterwards?’ Greg asked.
‘Of co
urse. And a cake.’
‘Made of what?’
‘I’ll think of something.’ What, she hadn’t a clue.
‘Where?’
‘How about an alfresco meal in the garden at the bungalow?’
‘Sounds good. And the garden is looking very colourful at the moment.’
‘So it should! I’ve been putting in hours of hard labour there every week.’ She loved tending plants, pottering, taking cuttings, particularly in the garden she had created herself. There was no garden to speak of at Les Marettes: two squares of gravel in front, with a diamond-shaped border cut in each for a pair of ragged-looking dracaenas. The backyard which was shared with the packing sheds, proudly sported an unhappy red geranium in a concrete pot.
It was a good idea. The service in St Sampson’s church was held on Sunday, August 24th and Richard laughed and gurgled all the way through. The weather was sultry, overcast but dry and, as usual, everyone brought their own ‘picnic’. It was Edna who produced the cake. She and Sarah had finally divided up the remaining food in Marie’s store, and at the back of a shelf had found a packet of mixed, dried fruit; very dry and gone hard and sugary. Undaunted, Edna had soaked it, rendered some pork fat, and using some of her own sugar ration as well as Sarah’s, cooked up a concoction which everyone agreed tasted superb. Whether they might have given the same verdict prior to the war was open to question.
*
Snug in the privacy of their own homes, or those of close friends, islanders dared express the horrors they felt following reports of Nazi atrocities against their continental captives.
‘Do you think the BBC are relaying these news items as a kind of Allied propaganda against the Germans, or is it true?’ Julia Martel asked across the bridge table one evening at the end of a rubber.
‘Certainly it makes one wonder,’ Sarah nodded. ‘If our families in England are hearing this, they will be worried stiff that the same is happening to us. But if the stories are true, then why haven’t we seen anything of it here?’
‘Because we are co-operating with the blighters?’ Ted suggested.
Greg grunted. ‘I don’t think I’d go so far as to call it co-operating. Just because there aren’t any lunatics keen to knock some Jerry’s teeth down his throat just for the hell of it, doesn’t mean we are all therefore collaborating.’
‘I said co-operating, not collaborating. There’s a hell of a difference.’
‘There is? What is it?’
‘Hold it there and I’ll tell you.’ Sarah pushed back her chair and reached up to the bookcase behind Greg’s head. Flicking pages she said, ‘The Oxford Concise Dictionary tells us, quote . . . “collaborating is co-operating treacherously with the enemy”, unquote.’
‘Treachery being the key word,’ Julia observed.
‘So what is treacherous about not knocking the enemy’s teeth down his throat?’ Greg asked.
‘Depends on your reason for doing it or not, surely,’ Ted replied. ‘I mean, if you are deliberately putting him out of action while your pal pours concrete down the barrel of the cannon the man was guarding, thereby saving the lives of British servicemen, then I suppose it is your duty to destroy his dentures if you can. However,’ he held up his hand as Greg tried to interrupt, ‘if you punch him just for the hell of it, knowing full well that it achieves nothing but reprisals against innocent fellow islanders, then it is my opinion that you are a mindless moron.’
‘What’s that to do with treachery? Unless you believe that by not hitting him one is making his life in the island more comfortable,’ Sarah argued.
‘In other words co-operating?’ Julia asked her. ‘Is that what you mean?’
Before Sarah could answer Greg put another question. ‘When is collaboration treacherous?’
‘When you shop your fellow citizens to the enemy.’ Ted was positive about that.
‘What about those people who have chummed up with the Germans so they can get more food and cigarettes than the rest of us?’ Sarah wanted to know. ‘Could it be said that they are making life so easy for the enemy that they are enabling him to do his job better, fight the Allies more effectively?’
Julia laughed. ‘You have Bertha le Huray in mind, I imagine.’
‘And Mildred Mahy! Both Jerry bags.’
‘Come now,’ Ted wagged his finger at the two women. ‘You are being a bit hard on them. They are missing their menfolk!’
‘So are a lot of others who are not behaving like low class tarts!’ Sarah retorted, eyes flashing. ‘It makes me sick to see those bags queening it over the rest of us with their privileges and smart clothes while being driven around in our stolen cars.’
‘Don’t get into a tizzy! I was only joking,’ Ted reeled back from the onslaught.
‘It’s no joking matter,’ his wife admonished. ‘However, I don’t think we should lose too much sleep over the Berthas and Mildreds of this world. They’ll undoubtedly get their come uppance when the war ends.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Sarah said, savagely. ‘At least we know who they are.’
‘And fortunately we can count them on the fingers of one hand.’
Greg grinned at Ted. ‘I’m damned glad I’m not a Jerry bag, falling into the hands of these two!’
*
The subject of collaborating came up again a few days later. George had been fishing from the rocks off Bordeaux and brought round a couple of small Guernsey whiting.
‘My goodness, what a treat! Are you sure you can spare them?’ Sarah was delighted. Food became more of a problem every month: flour was almost nonexistent and as for meat . . . even half a pig’s trotter to flavour a big beanjar was a rarity.
‘I kept a couple for our supper tonight . . . er, that is, Gelly said she’d come round and cook them for me. Felt I wanted a bit of company so I asked her. You see I had a bit of a shake-up this morning.’
Greg came into the kitchen as George was speaking. ‘You did? How come?’
‘I was down at the yard when a carload of Jerries drove in. One of them, an officer, got out and asked me, in atrocious English, if I could help him.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Well you daren’t be rude. So I led the way to the office, you know the little shed at the top of the slip, and he opened his case on the desk and brought out several charts of local waters.’
‘Sit down, George,’ Sarah interrupted. ‘Want a cup of bramble tea?’
He sat, leaning his elbows on the table, and grinned. ‘Yes please. Better than nothing I suppose.’
‘Go on,’ Greg prompted, sitting opposite him.
‘I asked him what his problem was and he said that the charts were good, but didn’t show everything in detail. Well, I could have told him that. Then he went on that they believed I was an expert on local navigation, and would I take some of them out in my boat and show them the landmarks and marker beacons, and the ways through the channels and passages.’ He sighed, running his fingers through his bushy hair.
Greg and Sarah were alarmed. ‘What did you say?’ Sarah asked.
He shook his head. ‘I hadn’t the faintest idea what to say. I think I just sat there with my mouth open. And he smiled at me all nice and charming, waiting. You can imagine what I wanted to tell him to do with his blooming charts, but not being the suicidal type I held back . . .’
‘And . . .?’
‘. . . I decided I couldn’t. It would have been technical assistance, wouldn’t it?’
Greg nodded. ‘No doubt about it.’
‘So I stood up, looked him in the eye and said, “You know that I cannot be expected to help in this matter, don’t you?” And I tell you, my knees were weak as water. I was all but wetting my pants.’
‘They don’t appear to have chopped your head off, yet,’ Sarah laughed. ‘So how did he react?’
‘Like a perfect gentleman! Explained that as my surname is Schmit he had hoped I might be sympathetic to the Nazis, but he quite understood. Bowed from the waist, shook my hand, and apologised for asking!�
��
‘Good Lord!’ Greg exclaimed, adding to Sarah, ‘What were we saying the other night about collaborating?’
‘So we ask again, are all those stories on the BBC of Nazi atrocities true?’ she mused.
*
Forms were frequently printed in the local newspaper for the islanders to complete and return to the authorities and the ones at the end of October were for householders to give all details of their homes and accommodation facilities: number of rooms, number of bathrooms, availability of water, gas and electricity services.
John telephoned Sarah. ‘I’m worried about the main house being empty,’ he said. ‘If I tell the truth, and frankly I do not intend to put my head in a noose by lying, then the Germans may well take it over. So what about the furniture and all their things?’
‘Ever thought of moving in there yourself with Edna?’
‘Yes. But it’s pretty big for just two people. Don’t you think they’d just tell us to move out again?’
‘Maybe, but what is the alternative? Move all their stuff into a depository, where the Germans will requisition whatever furniture they want?’
‘It may well come to that, unless we can find friends who will put various pieces into their houses and we’ll collect it all up when the war ends.’
Sarah giggled. ‘Sounds horrendous. But there’s no point in meeting trouble half-way. Wait and see what happens.’
So the forms were filled in with varying degrees of accuracy and pliable half-truths, handed in and hopefully lost amongst the millions of others.
*
Christmas 1941 was approaching. It had been awful enough to live through the Christmas of 1940 without their precious Suzanne—or the rest of the family, but no one had imagined they would have to face another festive season pretending to be happy and jolly for the sake of one’s companions.
Seeing Richard taking his first baby steps, Sarah had wanted to weep that Suzanne was not there to share the excitement. He was saying a few baby words, now, and loved looking at Suzanne’s first books kept so lovingly by her mother. At least they were assured that Suzanne knew of Richard’s arrival: her Red Cross message had said ‘Congratulations darlings. Am so delighted.’ So grown up sounding from their little girl. Where would she spend this Christmas? Certainly not in Guernsey; the war news gave no hope of that. In fact there was no end in sight. And then at the end of January it would be Suzanne’s twelfth birthday. If only they could even see a photograph.
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 18