The passionate fury in her voice had diminished slightly as she had been speaking; now she just sounded tired. She paced a little, but then sat in her heavy reading armchair. ‘The only choice I had was to leave, to find another place, a better place, and now the Nazis are here too.
‘They’re doing the same thing here now,’ she said. ‘On the island. Soon the people here will agree with them. I can see it happening again. My family were ripped apart by them. My father’s business, a business he had built from the ground, destroyed because he was a Jew. Who cared what happened to us, as long as the Aryans were happy? They put my father in a camp.’
Jack opened his mouth, then shut it again, before eventually managing to formulate some words. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he asked, slightly hurt. He would have listened, and he might have understood. Now he knew he longed to do something about it.
‘How could I? It all sounds crazy,’ Johanna asked. Her voice was faint, close to a whisper. She looked into her hands, wrung so tightly in front of her that they had become ever paler. ‘How could I possibly make you understand? Before now, before seeing the Nazis for yourself, then you would have thought I was over-reacting. You might still think that.’
He knelt down and gently lifted Johanna’s chin to look her in the eyes. ‘I don’t think you’re over-reacting,’ he said, lowering the volume of his voice to match hers. ‘I have known you long enough now, long enough to see when you are truly upset or angry.’
He tried to smile. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘I have always believed you.’
Johanna broke into tears. They streamed down her cheeks, turning her eyes red. A sob racked her body and Jack pulled her closer. He allowed her to weep for a few minutes while he held her tight. Something in the back of his mind told him that she needed a release more than anything right now. After a while he could hear her trying to form words through her tears.
‘Thank you,’ she said eventually, each word punctuated by a tear.
‘For what?’
‘For believing me. No one else ever has.’
Those words cut him to the bone. How could anyone have thought she was lying? There was nothing about Johanna that made her a liar. The darkness and the horror she had seen were clear in the depths of her eyes.
Chapter 23
November 1941
The Kriegsmarine carefully guided the big troop ship into the harbour, as Jack watched on. The ship was very similar to the mail boats that used to service the island – a wide hull, low on the water – but bigger. The mariners patrolled the deck in their navy-blue uniforms, clutching submachine guns. There were a few harsh barks from officers as the ship bumped against the pier, before its mooring ropes were hauled overboard. It was not the first such ship to arrive in the harbour, and Jack was far from the only Islander who had been curious about them. For what seemed like days now thousands of people had come to the island, and Jack had never seen anything like it. It was as if they were preparing for an invasion, but they had already occupied the island. It was like the army evacuation, but in reverse. Only it seemed like there were far more men squeezed into this ship than there had been on the ships leaving. They were crammed in every available space, and it can’t have been happy sailing over from the continent.
The gangways came down like hammers against the deck of the pier, and the guards stalked along them, carrying their guns. The first ships to arrive had mostly contained civilian labourers, of various nationalities. Those men had now taken up the empty houses across the island. Presumably to help out on the farms and with other manual labour, but there were more of them than there had ever been before the war.
This ship was different. As with those that preceded them, the passengers wore civilian clothes, but many of them were dishevelled and dirty, clothed only in basic cloth rags that covered their torsos, their limbs open to the elements. Some were barefoot as they stumbled down the gangway, and others had simple shoes or wooden sabots. They looked like prisoners or slaves, not caring about their new surroundings. Their gaze was fixed on the floor in front of them as if the effort of taking each step was going to sap the last of their energy. Some were little older than children, young men who could have been in school rather than here. Jack couldn’t tell how he knew, but they all looked like they hadn’t eaten in days.
The Germans kept a close eye on them as they were handed over to the OT officers. One man, hunch-backed and sickly pale gestured to Jack for a cigarette. The others around him took up the sign, placing thumb and forefinger together and placing it against their lips, but Jack had to decline. He would have given them a cigarette if he had them.
‘Back!’ one of the soldiers barked in Jack’s direction, but it wasn’t clear who he was shouting at. ‘Back! Schnell!’
The labourers shrunk away from him, like chastised pets. The smell was overbearing, like cattle but much worse. These men had not washed in days, and as a collective that stench had only grown, permeating the very air around them. He wanted to hold his nose. Even the smell of the ships in the harbour, the fishing equipment and oil, couldn’t break through.
Jack strode up to one of the soldiers nearby who wasn’t involved with shepherding the labourers to their camp. ‘What are they for?’ he asked. The soldier must have recognised Jack as a policeman, as he didn’t order him to move. ‘Surely you don’t intend to build factories on the island? It wouldn’t be worth it. Where will they all go?’
‘Do not worry, Organisation Todt workers will be housed in camps, and kept away from the general population,’ the soldier replied, apparently misunderstanding Jack’s question. ‘The Führer has ordered that the islands be fortified. It is for your own good. We will not desert you, not as the British did.’
Those words hit Jack like a hammer. What could the German know of how it had felt to be abandoned by the British army? Worse than that was the thought of the island being fortified. The British had been correct – it wouldn’t keep bombs out, and it wouldn’t make the island any more defensible. Using these poor slaves as labour was an appalling abuse of the Germans’ power. The Islanders had fallen on hard times with limited rations and the Germans controlling everything that came into the island, but the labourers looked much, much worse. They were a sorry example of the possible future for the Islanders, and a wave of fear rose up as Jack watched them go.
The soldiers formed them into lines and marched them from the boats. Rather than directing them through the centre of town, they led them down the coastal road, to wherever it was they were going to set up camp.
*
A few days later Jack had spotted a German as he caught young Francis vandalising a signpost. The boy had fled along the road and ducked into a side street. Jack, giving chase, stopped dead as he turned a corner, hot on the German’s heels. The soldier raised his pistol and pointed it at the young Islander. He swore in German, harsh and guttural. The pistol was one of the angular Lugers they all seemed to have, and Jack was sure that it was loaded. The German’s eyes bulged and his cheeks were red. Jack didn’t want to provoke the soldier, but he could see him visibly trembling. Jack wanted to wrench the gun out of the German’s hand, but he knew that it would only go badly for all of them. He took a step closer to the German, who glanced at him without moving his head.
‘What are you doing?’ he enquired with that thick-accented English that was now so familiar.
‘Easy,’ Jack said, his voice lower, as calm as he could force it to be in the situation. ‘Easy.’
Normally in situations like this he would talk to the culprit calmly, as if they were a child, but he had never before encountered an angry German with a gun. He had no idea how this man would react. The slogan Francis had been in the process of scribbling had certainly not helped matters, when the “V” he had already drawn was offensive enough to the Germans. He almost whimpered where he stood, holding up his hands either side of his head.
‘Step away, this does not concern you,’ the German said,
without looking at Jack. ‘I will deal with it myself.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t allow you to do that. This is a civil matter. The military shouldn’t be getting involved.’
For the first time the German soldier looked at him. ‘Do you want to get involved here?’ he asked, frowning at Jack. ‘You would be better to walk away.’
‘You could get a court-martial for this.’ Jack wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but it sounded believable enough. The soldier’s gun wavered for the first time. ‘And if they find out that I was here and did nothing, then I would get in trouble too. It would be better for you to walk away and leave this to me.’
The German soldier held Jack’s gaze and there was something in those grey eyes that Jack couldn’t put his finger on. At first he thought it was hate, but the more they stared at each other, the more he realised that it was fear. ‘Leave it to me,’ Jack said again, pressing the point. The pistol trembled in the soldier’s hand, and his finger edged closer to the trigger. Jack felt a bead of sweat trickle down between his shoulders. He wondered what else the German soldier had gone through to bring him to this point. Shooting a teenager for insulting the Reich was crazy even for the Nazis.
The pistol dropped back to the soldier’s side and both men let out a breath. ‘I want him punished,’ the soldier said as he clipped the pistol back into its holster at his waist and pointed with his other hand.
‘Of course,’ Jack replied, words tumbling from his mouth in relief. Jack fully expected this soldier to follow it up and even come into the station. He knew Jack’s face, and if he made enquiries it would become difficult for Jack. It may even bring up what David had got up to on the road those few months ago. No, there would be another young man occupying a cell in Guernsey that night, and Jack would be the one to put him there.
Chapter 24
The bicycle’s makeshift tyres clattered over the road, slipping as the rainwater greased the surface. The station office had received a desperate call from a woman on the other side of the island and due to the car being already in use by another PC, Jack had been dispatched to investigate. He rode as hard as he could, but the irregular surface and the hosepipe he was now using for tyres only made things more and more uncomfortable. Just when he was getting used to it another bump would come along and unsettle him again. He pulled into the narrow lane that led to the woman’s house. It led up the hill to a cottage, with perfect views over the Channel. From there he could smell the salt of the sea and hear the gentle crash of the waves against the cliffs.
His first sight was a group of labourers marching up the lane, led by one of the Operation Todt officers. Jack cycled past them, through the narrow gap by the side of the lane. Some of them watched him go with hollow eyes. There were a few soldiers by the front gate to the house, and as Jack pulled up he noticed that two of them were almost physically holding back the owner of the house.
Unsurprisingly, Henrik was already there. It seemed his German counterpart was everywhere he went these days, but on the island that was hardly surprising. He smiled and shook his head as he saw Jack.
‘I should have known they’d send you,’ he said.
‘What’s going on?’ Jack asked, without returning the smile. He marched through the gate, past Henrik and up to the house. Jack heard Henrik sigh and fall into step.
‘The OT workers are up here to build a gun emplacement. There on the hill.’ He pointed past the house to a grassy bit of land that stuck out. This was only the latest in a series of development works for the island. It was now clad in concrete, vast grey shapes that were designed to keep the enemy out, like a fortress, but it felt to the Islanders much more like the walls of a prison. They ran for miles along the coast, turning the glowing green grass to dreary grey.
‘But that’ll be next to the house. They can’t build there – there’ll be soldiers traipsing all over the land, and the owner of that house will hear nothing but guns.’
Henrik shrugged, as if he simply didn’t care.
‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘I wish I could. But I have orders just like the rest of you.’ He sighed again, and Jack felt it in his bones. Henrik stepped around so that Jack was between him and the others. ‘I wish I could just walk away,’ he continued. ‘But in a way I’m trapped on this island too. I do what they say, otherwise …’
Henrik drifted off into silence. Jack had never really thought about it like that. He was used to taking orders in the police force, but at least he could resign. These soldiers had no choice. It didn’t matter that they were posted here and away from the war front; they were still trapped.
‘Is there nothing that can be done?’ he asked, already making a mental note to question his superiors about it.
‘I am afraid not, Jack. These orders come from the very top, the Führer himself.’
Henrik’s voice changed when he said that name, and Jack shook his head.
‘The bloody Führer,’ he said, as loudly as he dared. ‘You all treat him like some kind of god.’
Henrik’s eyes widened. ‘I am not a National Socialist, Jack,’ he said. ‘Never think of me as being like them. I am not a card-carrying member of the Party, but as much as I want to, I can’t stand in the way of his orders. Even discussing them is dangerous.’
Jack felt a pang of guilt at the look in Henrik’s eyes. It reminded him of Johanna.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This is all frustrating. Our lives are decided for us now. The police can do nothing.’
‘I know, but I cannot speak of it anymore, not here.’ He wheeled around again, so that Jack was closer to the gate. ‘Please, go,’ he said. ‘We will deal with this as best we can. Perhaps we can convince the Todt officers to move the site further away. But you must go.’
As he left, Jack took one last look at the woman who owned the house. He didn’t know her, but he knew now exactly how she felt as she argued with the Germans who had arrived on her doorstep.
*
That Christmas would be no better than the last, but then he hadn’t expected it to be. He supposed that they should hold on to what they had and take joy in all the little things. There was no telling how much worse it would get. His grandmother’s health was declining, and Doctor Abbott had been to see her a few times already in the last few months. According to the doctor, her heart was failing, but Jack didn’t know the full details. He had known that his grandmother had been struggling to cope without her husband, and it seemed likely that she was dying of a broken heart.
They had a small affair, sitting around his grandmother’s bed, sharing what food they’d saved up for the Christmas meal. He and Johanna sat one side of the bed, talking softly to each other as his mother knitted and his grandmother rested. Sometime in the evening there was a gasp from the other side of the bed and Jack stood. His mother was leaning over the bed, her head moving between resting on the older woman’s chest and looking into her eyes. ‘Help me,’ she cried. ‘She’s not waking.’
Jack moved to the bed and took up his grandmother’s arm. It was frail and limp in his grip as he checked for a pulse. He waited for a minute, but the only sound in the room was his mother’s soft sobbing as she held her mother close. Jack walked around to her and gently pulled her from the bed, putting his arms around her and making soft comforting sounds. Johanna’s practised hands were checking over his grandmother, and she nodded to him as he looked on.
‘She’s gone,’ he said, hearing the words as if they had been spoken by someone else. His mother’s sobs filled the room again, like waves against a cliff. At that point he knew that Christmas would never be the same again, for any of them.
*
‘Someone’s been shot, Jack.’ William slammed the telephone down on its cradle as he turned from the clerk’s desk. Jack had been dreading the New Year’s Eve night shift, not just because of the relaxed curfew, but because of the number of drunk German soldiers they would no doubt have to deal with. However, he hadn�
��t expected anyone to utter those words. ‘That was the St John Ambulance. Get yourself down to Mahaut Gardens and find out what the hell is going on.’
Jack grabbed his helmet on the way out. He wasn’t sure if it would do him any good against a deranged gunman, but he would rather have it than not, and if the old man saw him without it he would be fined for improper conduct. His bicycle leant where he always left it, its hosepipe tyres making it look like some kind of toy.
It only took Jack a few minutes to cycle up the hill to the block. He leant his bike against the first block, occupied by Germans who were still partying at quarter past midnight, and ran around to the rear. There was a group of people standing outside the building near a St John Ambulance. One of them, a young man whom Jack had seen in a shop on the High Street, beckoned him to their door. Jack ran through it, nodding a ‘thank you’ to the man. He easily found the paramedics inside the building; the smell of iron was thick in the air. They were kneeling over a man who was spread out on the floor. The man was groaning faintly as they tried to stop him bleeding. One of them pulled back on some gauze to replace it, and Jack could easily see the hole through the man’s chest.
‘What happened here?’ he asked the nearest medic, as commanding as he could possibly be. The island police didn’t have much experience in dealing with shootings, and Jack had not seen someone wounded like this before. A female voice answered from the other side of the room.
‘A German soldier pushed his way in here,’ she said. She stood cross-armed, worry etched deep into her face as an older version of her sat on a chair crying into a handkerchief. ‘I’m Ruth Martel. He’s my father, Richard.’
The German Nurse Page 20