by Janet Tanner
Somehow, with Bernard, it had been different. She had flirted, she knew, and she had actually enjoyed it. With his first blush her confidence had soared and somehow after that she had not been able to stop herself. Only afterwards had she been convinced she must have made a complete fool of herself. And it had honestly not occurred to her for one moment that he might seek her out in an effort to see her again.
When she left the surgery and saw him waiting there she could hardly believe her eyes and her first thought was that he wanted her to take a message of some kind to her father.
‘Bernard!’ she said. She felt clumsy and awkward, no trace now of the coquetry that had given her such heady power in the garden. ‘What do you want?’
A dark flush spread up Bernard’s neck. Truth to tell he was feeling just as awkward as she was. He could hardly remember his carefully rehearsed words but he had to say something.
‘You know the revues they do at the Opera House? Well, there’s a new one on now called Hello Again and we’ve helped them stage one of the scenes – the Electricity Company, that is. I wondered if you’d like to go.’
Sophia was so surprised she, too, was lost for words for a moment.
‘I thought tickets for the Opera House Revues were like gold dust!’ she said.
‘They are. But they’ve given the Electricity Company some complimentary ones and I’ve managed to grab a couple for us – if you’d like to come, that is …’
‘Well …’ Sophia hesitated, a little frightened suddenly by the startling consequence of her afternoon’s flirting. Then, as she saw Bernard’s quick defensive look she made up her mind.
‘Thank you, Bernard,’ she said. ‘ I’d love to.’
The show was a triumph and Sophia, who had rarely been to the theatre, enjoyed every moment of it. Bernard, looking very smart in a sports jacket and slacks, met her outside, and the apprehension she had been feeling about her first real grown-up ‘date’ disappeared in a thrill of pride as he ushered her inside, steering her protectively through the crowds thronging to see the new hit entertainment. By the time the curtain went up every seat had been taken, even the chairs which had been set out in the aisles, and more people were standing at the back. Sophia glimpsed a couple of German officers amongst them and felt a twinge of discomfort. But this was soon forgotten as the smell of the greasepaint wafted out, the orchestra tuned up and the show began. Sophia wondered if Bernard would hold her hand but he made no move and after a while, as the music of Ivor Novello’s Lilac Time stirred her senses and resurrected the exciting sense of power she had experienced in the garden, she took the initiative and slipped her hand into his. They sat very still, Sophia frightened for a moment by her own boldness, Bernard almost afraid to believe his luck, until the big scene to which the Electricity Company had lent their expertise began.
‘This is what we did,’ Bernard whispered proudly and Sophia watched in breathless admiration as the spectacle unfolded – the stage in complete blackout whilst the costumes of the performers were all outlined with light. When a flowerseller appeared with a basket hill of illuminated flowers she could contain herself no longer and let go of Bernard’s hand to clap enthusiastically.
‘It’s wonderful! Bernard – you are so clever!’ she cried above the roar of applause and was delighted when he took her hand again.
When at last the show was over and they were filing out Sophia felt she wished it could have gone on forever. But the evening was almost at an end for she knew Paul would be waiting outside to see her home. There was no way Bernard could have taken her back to St Peter himself and then got home to St Clement before curfew and Lola had insisted it was improper for her to walk home in the black-out alone. When she saw Paul’s tall figure waiting her heart sank a little but Bernard caught her arm, holding her back for a moment.
‘Sophia – can I see you again?’
‘Yes,’ she replied without hesitation.
She wasn’t in love with him, but she had enjoyed herself all the same and she was already looking forward to repeating the exercise.
But that night, for the first time in years, she dreamed of Dieter.
Chapter thirteen
‘Mama, do you think we’ll ever see Nicky again?’ Catherine asked.
It was a winter’s evening, past curfew, and all the family with the exception of Paul, who had explained he was staying the night with a friend, were gathered around the kitchen table playing ‘sevens’ and shivering a little as the fire burned low in the grate. Fuel was in short supply now – Paul and Catherine brought home as many sticks as they could find in the woods and fields but often there was nothing but sawdust to burn.
‘Well of course we shall see him again! What a thing to say!’ Lola drew a card from her hand and laid it on the table.
‘But it seems so long since he went away and we never hear from him and …’
‘We can’t hear from him because he is in England and Jersey is quite cut off,’ Charles said. ‘You know that, Catherine.’
‘Yes and it’s hateful! Hateful!’ Catherine cried.
‘It certainly is but we just have to pray that Nicky is well and safe, as we are,’ Lola said. Her voice was level but her haunted eyes told their own story – all very well to try to be philosophical but when it was so long since you had heard from your son and the last news had been that he had been wounded, possibly seriously, it was impossible not to worry. ‘One of these days it will all be over,’ she said, but Catherine, who was cold, tired and thoroughly fed up with herself, only echoed all their innermost thoughts when she wailed:
‘Yes, but when?’
‘I think we have played enough cards for tonight,’ Charles said. ‘Let’s finish this game and pack up.’
‘Oh Papa …’ Catherine’s voice tailed away as a sudden noise made them all start.
‘What was that?’ Lola asked sharply.
‘There’s somebody out there …’ Charles was already on his feet when it came again, the sound of someone blundering into the corrugated tin of the lean-to shed in the darkness.
‘Be careful!’ Lola warned as Charles hurried to the door and Sophia slipped out of her chair, taking the poker from the fireplace and following her father. Her heart was hammering but she was determined that if someone was trying to steal their meagre reserves of fuel or vegetables they should not get away with it!
Cautiously Charles lifted the latch and opened the door. ‘Who’s there?’ he called. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ There was a moment’s silence in which Sophia could hear the ragged rasp of breath then a figure appeared out of the darkness. She raised the poker ready to hit out but to her surprise Charles caught her arm. ‘Sophia, no!’ Next moment the figure materialised in the light spilling out from the doorway, a stumbling figure, gaunt and bearded, holding onto the wall for support. Charles took a step towards him just in time; the man’s legs seemed unable to support him a moment longer and with Charles’s arms around him he half-fell into the kitchen.
‘My God!’ Lola gasped. ‘It is one of the prisoners!’
It seemed now that Jersey was full of prisoners-of-war. There were thousands of them here now – Polish and Czech, Jews from Alsace and Russians, as well as the Spanish who had been the first to arrive. Whereas that day in August Sophia had stared at them because she had never seen anything quite like them before now, they were all too common a sight as they were marched along the roads to the sites where they were forced to work, building fortifications on the coast, constructing the railway that was almost within sight of the Carterets’ cottage and tunnelling into the hillside to build bunkers and the underground hospital. In spite of this Sophia had never grown used to the horror of it or immune to their plight and she was filled with impotent anger whenever she saw them and witnessed the inhuman way they were treated. The soldiers who had charge of them were very different to the ones who marched, singing, along the lanes and arranged entertainments in an attempt to win the friendship of the islanders.<
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But there was so little anyone could do to help them. Sometimes when she saw them queued at the field kitchen for their daily rations of watery gruel Sophia would take some crusts of bread out and drop near them, but often, hungry as they were, they were too afraid of their guards to pick them up. All were pitiful but even so there were some who tore even more painfully at Sophia’s tender heart – a skeletal lad, not much older than Catherine, with the terrible hacking cough of consumptive tuberculosis, another, who shivered ceaselessly and convulsively. When they disappeared from the daily procession Sophia tried to tell herself they had been relocated but in her heart she knew it was not so – they were dead, buried in mass graves with no respect and no stone to mark the place where they lay, unmourned by anyone but their companions who were themselves too sick and starved to have any emotion to spare.
Occasionally one of the prisoners escaped and sought shelter at a farm or remote house but the penalty for helping them was instant deportation. Sophia had once asked Lola what she would do if a prisoner ever came to them for assistance and Lola had replied tartly that pity was all very well but the safety of one’s family must be the first consideration. Now, however, suddenly faced with this very situation, she did not hesitate.
‘Quick, Charles, bring him inside and shut the door!’
Sophia shrank back as the man, still supported by her father, almost staggered into her. His clothes were nothing but filthy rags, hunger had made his eyes huge and hollow and above an unkempt beard his cheekbones made angular ridges in the bluish tinted skin.
Charles eased him into a chair and he slumped there, totally exhausted. Then, as he whispered something hoarse and barely intelligible Lola pressed her hands to her mouth.
‘My God, he’s Russian! The brandy, Charles, for God’s sake give him some brandy!’
Many times the Carterets had been tempted to drown their sorrows in the brandy which they had dug up from the garden at La Maison Blanche and transported here hidden in Catherine’s dolls’ pram. But the bottles had somehow been too precious to tap. They were an insurance against things getting worse – to be opened only in an emergency. But this was an emergency. Charles went to the dresser, taking down the big three-pint china jug which hung on one of the hooks and extracting the bottle. The label had long since gone, but when Charles opened the bottle the smell of the brandy wafted out, strong and almost stomach-turning. He poured some into a glass and put it to the man’s lips but he was almost too far gone to drink it – as Charles tipped the glass a small stream of brandy escaped and dribbled down into the thick beard. After a few minutes, however, the spirit began to revive him and he stirred a little, finishing the drink and mumbling in Russian.
Lola dropped to her haunches beside him, talking to him in his native language, though after so many years of speaking nothing but English she found it strangely awkward. Then she got up, bustling to the small walk-in larder.
‘I must get him something to eat – he is starving.’
In the crock were the remains of a loaf which had been intended for breakfast; Lola sliced it and spread it with a little of the precious butter Sophia had earned from the piano lessons she had given this week. The prisoner ate it ravenously.
‘Haven’t we anything else we can give him?’ Sophia asked. ‘ What about Paul’s dinner?’
‘Oh yes!’ Lola had forgotten about that. Tonight they had had a delicious stew of vegetables and a woodpigeon Charles had managed to shoot. There had been very little meat on it but the flavour it had given to the vegetables had been mouth watering and Lola had set aside a portion for Paul, who had eaten, as well as sleeping, at the friend’s house.
The prisoner was recovering a little now, and as the immediate danger of him passing out – or even, heaven forbid, dying – right there in the kitchen, receded, Charles was becoming increasingly edgy.
‘How long is it since he escaped?’ he asked and once again Lola conversed with the man in Russian.
‘He says he slipped away from his working party this afternoon,’ she said after a few moments.
Charles frowned. ‘They must have missed him by now then. Why haven’t they been around looking for him? Well, we’ve done all we can. He’ll have to go now.’
‘No!’ Lola said sharply.
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘We can’t turn him out, Charles. It’s bitterly cold. And I’m sure they won’t come searching for him now at this time of night.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘Well, I can’t, but …’
‘And what would we do with him?’
‘There’s the attic. Paul is not here tonight. He could sleep there.’
‘Are you mad? He’s probably alive with fleas!’
‘Well, let him sleep in the shed then. I’ll make up a bed with some blankets. Oh please! He is one of my countrymen and he is very sick. Besides, he is not much older than Nicky. Wouldn’t you like to think someone was being kind to him if he was in this position? Dear God, he might be for all we know!’
Charles shook his head. His better judgement was telling him that to harbour this prisoner was an extremely foolhardy thing to do but he knew from experience that arguing with Lola when her mind was made up was a waste of breath. Besides, he supposed she was right – they weren’t likely to come looking for him at this hour if they had not already done so.
‘Let’s get this light out – we don’t want to advertise the fact that we are still up. We can manage with a candle. Catherine – you get off to bed. Sophia – fetch the old bedding your mother is talking about.’
The fire had died away now and the kitchen was growing rapidly chilly. When Charles opened the back door to take a peek outside the cold air came rushing in and the Russian began to cough.
‘We can’t put him outside like a dog!’ Lola protested. ‘Just listen to that cough – it will turn to pneumonia if he’s not looked after. Look, why not let him sleep down here on the floor? I’ll put another shovelful of sawdust on the fire and at least he will have one night to recover a little before he has to go off fending for himself again.’
Charles sighed. He was beginning to feel very tired himself. Perhaps there was no harm in doing as Lola wanted and anyway there wasn’t a lot of satisfaction in looking after your own skin if you knew you had sacrificed someone else to do it. What was more, if the Germans did come prowling they would be less likely to find him in the house than if he was in the shed – all very well to try to pretend he had crawled in there of his own accord, if he was wrapped in their blankets the story wouldn’t hold much water!
‘Just for tonight, then,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But tomorrow he has to go.’
Sophia was sleeping badly, continually disturbed by bad dreams. For most of the night she tossed and turned thinking of the Russian downstairs and listening to his bouts of racking coughing. But towards dawn she dozed off, sleeping more heavily than she had done all night, and when the loud banging on the door began she woke with a start, trembling all over.
‘What is it?’ Catherine asked in terror. She was sitting up in bed, clutching the sheets up to her chin.
Sophia shook her head mutely. She knew what it was all right. The Germans had come, searching for the escaped prisoner. But her lips refused to form the words just as her limbs refused to move.
‘Wait a minute can’t you!’ she heard Charles call as the banging came again. ‘ What is the matter with you? We are all in bed!’
They must be trying to hide the Russian before opening the door, Sophia realised. But where? There was nowhere to conceal even a cat in the cottage – except perhaps Paul’s attic. Oh, why had they not allowed him to go up there in the first place? What were a few bugs compared to this?
The thought restored the use to her paralysed limbs. Sophia pushed aside the covers and leaped out of bed. Paul’s attic door was opened by means of a long pole; she reached for it, inserted it into the handle and turned. Charles was shepherding the Russ
ian up the stairs. As the attic door swung open Sophia hooked down the rope ladder. ‘ Quick!’ she hissed.
The Russian, clumsy in his haste, grabbed the ladder and hauled himself up. When he had pulled the ladder after him Sophia slammed the door and stood the pole back in the corner. It fell with a crash. At the same time Lola was throwing the old blankets onto Catherine’s bed.
‘Stay there, you two!’ she ordered.
The girls did as they were told, sitting white-faced with their dressing gowns hugged around them as they listened to the sounds of the search below. Then to their horror there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and a German, one of the Feldgend-armerie, came into the room.
Catherine sobbed with fear as he dragged the blankets off the beds but Sophia, though shaking inwardly, managed to glare haughtily at him so that a faint colour rose in his cheeks. Sophia thought he would surely notice that those disreputable old bedclothes did not belong on their faded, but well-laundered beds, but he did not appear to. Perhaps it was going to be all right …