by Janet Tanner
‘I could go,’ he said to Lola, and she nodded. She was under no illusions about how dangerous it would be. The Germans would stop at nothing to hammer home their advantage and finish off the Allies whilst they had the chance. And Charles’ boat, though in quite a different class to the old rowing boat he had inherited from Grandpa Carteret all those years ago, was a small craft to pit against the notorious currents of the Channel and the heavy surf that would be running off the Normandy beaches. But she was filled with pride, all the same, and she was glad to know that beneath his quiet exterior Charles was still the same brave man she had married.
When he left the whole family went down to the harbour to see him off and were amazed at the ferment of activity. Every little boat that could sail was going, it seemed – fishing smacks and motor boats, pleasure craft and even old Joe le Feuvre, wrinkled as a bit of dried-up seaweed, in his battered old ketch Flighty Lady.
‘Mama?’ Catherine said as the little boats moved, one by one, out into the sparkling water, ‘do you think Papa will bring Nicky home?’
Lola’s mouth softened. She was wearing a vivid red scarf knotted over her hair in what looked like a gesture of defiance but her eyes were suspiciously bright.
‘I doubt it, darling,’ she said, putting an arm around Catherine and pulling her firm little body close, ‘but God willing, someone else will.’
But there was a darkness inside her, a shadow on her heart that refused to go away.
As the German Me 110 swooped over, Nicholas Carteret threw himself face down on the beach, automatically covering his head with his hands as the staccato gunfire began and the sand flew up in a cloudy but strangely neat line just a few feet from him.
He was half-expecting to be hit, half-expecting the sharp penetrating pain followed by agony or oblivion, but somehow he was too tired to be frightened any more. For two days and two nights he and half a dozen others of the remnants of his unit had marched towards the sea, forcing themselves into some sort of discipline though their feet were swollen, bruised and blistered and their stomachs aching from hunger. What had become of the rest of their battalion they did not know. They had become separated from them in the hellish confusion that had broken out when the German army had swept through the gap in the French and British lines, cutting off their retreat. Their only course of action, they knew, was to make for the sea. There they would be shipped out to regroup and continue the fight. So they had plodded along the lanes, busy with refugees, feeling almost guilty because they still had homes to go to when they could cross the Channel whilst these poor souls were fleeing from theirs. Nicky’s tender heart bled for them; a year’s soldiering had done nothing to brutalise his essential compassion though the sights he had seen and the grief and anger he had felt in the last weeks had hardened him in other ways. When he looked at the old folk, trudging along with all the belongings they could carry thrust into handcarts; when he saw children not as old as Catherine digging with their bare hands in the fields in the hope of finding a turnip or swede to eat; when they overtook women pushing prams full of bags and children whilst those who were big enough to walk dragged behind holding onto their mother’s skirts; then he hated the Germans so much that he knew if he came face to face with one he could kill without compunction. But for the moment there was no chance of that. The most important thing was getting out of France alive to fight another day.
At times Nicky had been convinced that he and the others would never make the sea and when the first tangy whiffs of salt and seaweed had reached them on the wind he had been wildly euphoric. But he had soon realised that though the sea might be in sight, just over the ridge of dunes, home and safety were as far away as ever. For the beaches were jam packed with men, trapped between the approaching enemy and the sea, and the low-flying fighters of the Luftwaffe were using them for target practice.
‘We’ll never get out of here!’ Des Collins, Nicky’s best pal, said, and there was a note of panic in his voice. ‘We’re trapped!’
‘We’ll get out,’ Nicky said. But he was not sure if he believed it and with each German plane that came sweeping over, machine-gunning and strafing, he believed it less.
The boats were out there, a whole flotilla of little craft which could get into the beaches where the big ships could not. But what chance did they stand with the Luftwaffe controlling the skies?
Nicky raised his head as the Me 110 went away down the beach and the splutter of gun fire and flying sand became fainter.
‘Christ, that was close!’
Des sat up, spitting out sand. ‘Too bloody close! We’d better find some shelter in the dunes until it’s dark. Then we might stand a chance.’
They crawled from shell-hole to shell-hole until they were back in the dunes where they found themselves a dent beneath a few tufts of stringy grass. With their hands they dug deeper, then they crouched in the rat hole they had made, eating the remains of their emergency supply of chocolate and singing to keep their spirits up whilst they waited for dark.
Presently a pattern began to emerge. For about ten minutes the beach and the water’s edge would be under fire, then for an equal amount of time the German attack would be concentrated on some buildings just above on the coast road and soon the little boats were taking advantage of the lulls to come in. But there were so many men to be taken off – the surf was full of them, wading and shouting, hoping the water would protect them, and there was a smell of death in the air.
Suddenly it seemed Des had had enough. His fevered eyes saw boats at the water’s edge as a man in the desert may see an oasis.
‘Come on!’ he shouted, jumping out of the shell-hole and running down the beach.
He never saw the shadow of the Me 110, never heard the drone of its engines. Too late Nicky yelled a warning. The air split with an orange arrow of gunfire. One moment Des was running, the next his arms spread wide and he arched back as if he too intended to take to the skies. For a moment he seemed to hang there motionless, silhouetted against the sky, then he took one pace forward and another, his legs buckling more with each step until he pitched forward on to his knees in the sand.
‘Des!’ Nicky screamed. ‘ Bloody hell – Des!’
His insides had turned to water now, the shock of seeing his friend mown down in front of his eyes blasting through the exhaustion and the numbness. He pulled himself out of the rat-hole, running down the beach towards Des, now lying twitching oddly whilst the sand turned scarlet beneath him.
This time it was Nicky who failed to notice the enemy aircraft approaching until it was almost overhead. His head jerked around, his expression one of total surprise. Then the hail of bullets caught him, the sand came rushing up to meet him and in the midst of confusion there was nothing but stillness and a white hot pain spreading and floating him towards oblivion.
Paul, Sophia and Catherine were down at the harbour watching the little boats straggle back when they were joined by Bernard Langlois.
Bernard had been working for Charles for nine months now and he was very concerned to hear that Charles had sailed off to France. For one thing Bernard genuinely liked Charles, for another he was all too painfully aware that if anything happened to his employer he would be out of a job.
Not that there was any guarantee that he would have a job much longer in any case. Now that the war was hotting up Bernard could not see that there would be much call for an entertainments agency for visitors for he was very much afraid that in spite of all the assurances of the Tourist Committee there might not be any visitors. If this happened he was not at all sure what he would do. It was possible he would be conscripted into the array, of course, and even if he wasn’t perhaps he ought to volunteer. But as long as he still had a job he was reluctant to do that – he did not want to come back and find someone else installed in the position he had come to think of as his own.
Today, however, it seemed selfish even to think of such things. On the other side of the Channel men were fighting and dying –
that had to be the first concern of any decent person.
‘Is there any news?’ Bernard asked, making his way over to where the Carterets were standing in a tight little huddle.
‘Of Papa you mean?’ Paul said. ‘ No, I’m afraid there isn’t.’
His tone was cool and unfriendly and he turned away, looking out to sea and shading his eyes against the sunlight dancing on the water. Paul was not exactly a snob but he, too, was worried about his father and his anxiety took the form of disdain for a boy he felt was his social inferior.
‘What about your brother?’ Bernard persisted. ‘Wasn’t he in Belgium?’
‘Yes, he was, but the chance of a Jersey boat picking him up is pretty remote I should think,’ Paul said shortly. ‘Shouldn’t you be working, Langlois? Isn’t that what my father pays you for?’
Bernard coloured but before he could reply Sophia spurred up.
‘Paul, how can you be so rude? I’m sorry, Bernard, this is all a bit scary. We saw Joe Renouf come back just now and he said it’s terrible over there, with German planes bombing everything that moves.’
Her face was pale with anxiety but Bernard thought how pretty she looked, her hair flying loose from a broad Alice band and her eyes flashing indignation on his behalf.
‘Look, Langlois, there’s nothing you can do here,’ Paul said. ‘We’ll you know as soon as we hear anything.’
‘Thanks, I would be grateful,’ Bernard replied, determined that his tone should sound neither subservient nor insolent. ‘And tell your father not to worry if he’s too exhausted to come in for a day or two. I’ll look after things.’
‘I bet you will,’ Paul said, watching him walk off along the harbour wall and wondering just why the thought filled him with such anger.
‘I’m scared,’ Catherine said, ‘I don’t think Papa is ever coming back.’
It was three days now and still there was no word of him. The girls had gone to the kitchen, where Lola was making pastry, because at least there was a certain amount of comfort in being together and neither of them could bear the thought of another day spent with Paul on the harbour looking out to sea for the boat that never came. But here too the tension was almost too much to bear and Lola was glad that although she had a breakfast chef these days she still did all the cooking for the main meal herself. At least it gave her something to keep her busy and she thought it would be better if Sophia and Catherine had something to do too.
‘Catherine – I want those apples peeled and sliced,’ she instructed. ‘And Sophia, you can chop the herbs to make the stuffing for the lamb. No, don’t look like that … it is better to keep busy. And besides the guests will expect their dinner on time. It is no concern of theirs that we are worried.’
When dinner had come and gone, however, with still no news, and no sign of Paul returning either, even Lola began to show signs of strain.
‘Where is that boy?’ she demanded crossly. ‘You’d think at least he would come home and let us know what is going on …’ She broke off as the sound of a door slamming echoed through the house. ‘Perhaps that is him now. Paul! Come in here! Where do you think you have been all this time?’
‘Now, Lola, don’t use that tone. Is it any way to greet your husband?’ It wasn’t Paul – it was Charles! He stood in the doorway looking for all the world like a parody of his usual self, hair blown by the wind into wild quiffs that his mother had used to call ‘cockatoos’, clothes crumpled, stiff with sea water and stained with oil. His chin sprouted three days’ growth of beard, his shirt tail hung out of his trousers at the back. But he was grinning broadly.
‘Charles!’ Lola cried, rushing towards him. ‘You’re home!’
She threw herself at him and they embraced, oblivious of Sophia and Catherine, who had leaped up eagerly, and Paul, who stood behind his father in the doorway, grinning. Then she pulled away, holding him at arms’ length.
‘Wherever do you think you have been, Charles Carteret? I have been worried out of my mind. And just look at the state of you!’
Charles grinned ruefully. ‘Yes, sorry about that. My motor packed up and I had to get a tow home. But the boat that helped me out came from Ramsgate and he took me back to his home port.’ His voice was quite calm and apologetic – he might almost have been talking about a Sunday morning outing that had gone wrong. But his casual response was deliberate. He had no intention of telling Lola what hell it had been.
‘Did you manage to bring anyone out, or did your motor go before you went in?’ Lola asked.
‘Oh, I managed three or four trips,’ he said casually. ‘And I brought three lads all the way home with me.’ Again he did not mention that one of his passengers had been badly wounded – a boy of about Nick’s age with a blood-soaked bandage covering his eyes. The boy’s mates had led him through the surf to the boat, keeping him afloat when he lost his footing, and hoisted him in, and Charles was very much afraid that the boy had been blinded.
Lola was nodding, satisfied. ‘Good. They are all someone’s sons. And so many boats went, didn’t they? I am sure one of them will have picked up my Nicholas.’
Her voice was strong and confident and Charles did not disillusion her. ‘We will wait,’ she went on. ‘Soon there will be news of him, you will see.’
It came in the form of a telegram. Corporal Nicholas Carteret was in a naval hospital at Weymouth, having been wounded in action in France.
‘You see?’ Lola cried jubilantly. ‘I told you he would be safe! I told you Nicky would come home!’
But the telegram had contained only the barest facts; it did not elaborate on the wounds Nicky had received and it did not tell the story of how he had been rescued.
Fortunately for Nicky two more members of his original unit who had marched with him to the sea – had seen him hit by enemy fire as he bent over Des’s body and at considerable risk to themselves they dragged him to cover when the German plane went away. They knew he was badly hurt but to leave him on the beach was unthinkable. Under cover of darkness they managed to carry him down the beach, his arms straddled around their necks, his legs dragging behind him in the sand, and into one of the little boats that had managed to come in close to shore. Then as he lay helplessly in the boat they protected him with their own bodies first from the angry attack of German planes, then from the icy sea spray that washed over him as the Channel waves broke over bows never intended to withstand such seas. Nicky had been taken to Weymouth and now he was safe from the guns and the bombs and the angry ocean.
But his injuries were terrible. Luckily – or unluckily, as he was to say in his moments of darkest despair – none of his vital organs were damaged, though he needed a transfusion of four pints of blood by the time he reached the naval hospital. But one of the bullets that had torn into him had lodged in his spine, just above the waist, and it had cut clean through the spinal cord.
What Lola did not know as she tossed the telegram down and swung Catherine round and round in a fit of euphoria, was that Nicky’s injuries were such that there was no hope of him ever walking again.
Chapter eleven
Viv was desperately worried. It was almost a month now since Dunkirk and she had heard nothing from Nicky. Surely if something terrible had happened to him she would have heard? So why didn’t he write? Was he still in France, his whereabouts kept secret for reasons of security, or was he amongst the ‘missing’? Viv thought she would go crazy not knowing. But then the whole of her life seemed to have taken on a nightmare quality these days.
The war that had once seemed so distant now seemed terrifyingly close. From the south-facing cliffs it was easy to see the pall of black smoke hanging over the French coast as the retreating Allies burned their oil dumps; the Jersey Defence Volunteer Force were busy drilling up at Fort Regent and a whole army of British troops had arrived, digging trenches, erecting fences and mounting anti-aircraft guns in the People’s Park. The schools were closed to allow the children to help with the potato harvest – with so ma
ny young men away fighting the farmers were desperately short-handed. But Vivienne saw it all through a fog of misery that clouded her every waking moment and invaded her dreams.
This is my punishment for what I did, she tortured herself. Perhaps now I will never know what it would be like to have Nicky’s child.
How ironic it seemed though that a decision she should have taken so lightly should have affected her so deeply. Dr Bodell had warned her, of course, of the way she might feel but she had not listened. Now there was a hollow sadness that never seemed to leave her and she woke night after night from tormented dreams, her face wet with tears though she scarcely knew why she was crying. Sometimes she thought it was because of Nicky. But at other times she knew it was because she was longing for her dead baby.
Throughout those bright summery but nightmarish weeks Viv watched and waited for news. The tired and anxious circles beneath her eyes darkened and deepened and she lost weight because she felt too sick to be able to eat properly. But even when France finally fell she did not realise fully the seriousness of the situation though like everyone else she was frightened to think that the Germans were just the other side of the narrow strip of water. And it came as a complete shock to her when her mother broke the incredible news that the British intended to pull out their troops.
‘What are you talking about?’ she yelled at Loretta. ‘What do you mean – the Channel Islands are not going to be defended? You’ve got it wrong. You must have!’
‘It’s true I’m afraid, darling.’ Loretta’s voice, which had once graced English provincial repertory stages, was light and musical. ‘Isn’t it a beastly nuisance? They say because we are so close to France it would be practically impossible and the best thing for everyone is to completely demilitarise.’
Viv stared at her mother in disbelief.
‘But if we aren’t defended surely the Germans will move in and take us over?’