Daughter of Riches (24 page)

Food was in short supply now, not just luxuries but everyday fare too. Sophia began giving music lessons to a farmer's daughter in exchange for half a pint of milk and a half dozen eggs, but Lola's prudent little stockpile of flour, sugar and currants had long since run out and the cakes and puddings she had once made were nothing but a sweet memory. Pea pods and blackberry leaves went into the teapot in place of tea leaves and Paul and Sophia often cycled to the coast, crept under the barbed wire that edged the beaches and filled a jamjar with sea water which could be boiled off to provide salt. And it was not only food that was scarce. Charles, who had always enjoyed a pipe of tobacco, took to smoking dock leaves and rose petals, and when Lola's broom wore out he replaced the bristles with lengths of rope.

As for new clothes, there were none to be had. Here Catherine, who was still growing, came off worst, for even when Charles cut the toes out of her sandals they were soon hurting her again and when her skirts became too short to be decent Lola had to scout around to find something to make her new ones. At first she achieved this by cutting up dresses of her own and when they had all gone she used the faded chintz curtains which had used to hang in the girls' bedroom and which she had dared to bring with her when they were turned out of La Maison Blanche.

When the first crop of wheat was ready for harvest in the fields near the cottage all three Carterets went to the farm to offer their help, working as hard as they could to earn half a sack to take home to Lola. But on the second day Sophia was disgusted to discover Paul snuggled in a corner of the barn with the farmer's daughter – a big brawny girl of his own age.

Sophia had known Paul was developing an interest in girls. She had seen him flirting often enough, trying out the power that had come from growing to be nearly six feet tall and almost as good looking as Nicky. She had even covered up for him a few times when he had sneaked out on his bicycle to meet one or other of them because she knew Lola would not approve. But discovering him with the beefy, red-faced farmer's daughter shocked her sensibilities and somehow marred the golden image of her elder brother.

‘How could you, Paul! She's hideous!' she chided the moment they were alone. Paul flashed her a wicked grin.

‘You won't be so bad tempered about it if I can get us an extra bit of butter or even some bacon. Can't you just smell it now, sizzling away?'

‘That's immoral!' Sophia snapped, but she could no longer really blame Paul. The prospect of a rasher or two of bacon was already making her mouth water.

A day or two later there was news of yet another restriction. All wireless sets were to be handed in to the authorities.

‘My wireless set!' Paul exclaimed, as horrified as Sophia had been at the loss of her piano. ‘I saved up for ages for that!'

‘And how will we know what's going on?' Sophia chimed in. ‘We shall really be cut off if we can't listen to the wireless.'

‘I don't think we have any option,' Charles told them. It's so big, Paul, it would be very difficult to keep it hidden. But perhaps …' He broke off, a sly twinkle in his eyes. ‘Perhaps we could get someone to make a little crystal set for us. That should be easy enough to hide. It would be a risk, of course – the Germans would deal very harshly with anyone caught breaking such an important regulation. If you can be fined for riding your bicycles two abreast and sent to prison for insulting Hitler, I dread to think what the punishment would be for holding a wireless set illegally. But I think I'm prepared to take that chance.'

‘Do you know someone, Charles, who could do this for us?' Lola asked. She was beginning to look gaunt, her violet eyes huge in a face that was fast losing its smooth roundness.

‘I think so, yes. Do you remember Jack Ozouf? He was a wireless operator on my ship. I ran into him the other day and we were talking about old times. I think he could make a crystal set – if we could provide him with the bits and bobs he would need.'

‘What sort of bits and bobs?'

‘Well, something to make a head piece for a start. I should think a telephone receiver would do very well. We could creep out after lights-out, Paul, and get one from the telephone box down the road.'

He looked at Paul and winked. Paul grinned enthusiastically, enjoying the new found bond of solidarity with his father which the occupation seemed somehow to have strengthened. Paul knew that Charles knew about more than one of his escapades, and he also knew that Charles had not told Lola, who would have been horrified at the risks he took when he joined his friends to daub the town with V-signs or played football with a German helmet, and the feeling of conspiracy that came from knowing he had not only escaped German retribution but also Lola's fury was a heady one.

‘When can we do it?' he asked.

The sooner the better, I should think – before someone else gets the same idea,' Charles said drily.

So Paul's precious wireless set was dutifully handed in, Jack Ozouf was contacted, and the first black moonless night Charles and Paul crept down to the telephone box, cut through the flex and brought the handset back. Their hearts were pounding and their palms damp but they were as triumphant as if they had captured Hitler himself.

When the crystal set was made Lola wrapped it in Catherine's shoe bag and hid it beneath a loose floorboard in the bedroom. Every evening it was brought out so that they could listen to the news and then hidden away again. And though their nerves were always on edge for fear of discovery they all felt a sense of profound satisfaction that they were managing to outwit the Germans over this, if nothing else.

At the end of the summer term Sophia left school. With things as they were there seemed little point in staying on and she was lucky enough to find a job right away – as a junior receptionist with one of the dental practices in St Helier.

‘Mr Shenton says he will train me as a dental nurse if I like,' she told Lola.

‘Ugh!' Catherine said, squirming, and Lola merely looked sad. ‘I suppose it will do for the time being. But I still hope when the war is over you will be able to go to music college in England,' she said.

Somehow, when they talked of the end of the war, it was always on the assumption that when it was all over things would go back to being the way they always had been. And they never for one moment considered the possibility that
Germany
might be the victor.

One day in the middle of August Sophia was sent out by the chief receptionist to post some letters. It was a fine warm day when the sun sparkled on the blue water of the harbour and Sophia decided to take the long route back to the surgery.

As she approached the pier she could see there was a great deal of activity. Her curiosity aroused, she went closer in an effort to find out what was going on.

A ship, flying the German flag, was anchored at the end of the pier.

As always the sight of that hated flag was enough to make Sophia boil inside with rage and frustration but when she caught sight of the human cargo streaming off the ship and on to the pier Sophia's eyes widened in disbelief and horror. There were hundreds of them – bearded, unkempt men, women with matted hair and haunted staring eyes, children so thin that their bones jutted out. Their clothes were filthy and dropping off them, some had rags wrapped around their feet, others staggered barefoot. They lurched and clung together, swaying and stumbling because their poor weak legs had forgotten what dry land felt like.

Sophia stared, trembling with outrage, not wanting to see yet quite unable to tear her eyes away. She knew they must be prisoners of war, sent to join those who had already arrived on the island in the spring. But Sophia had not encountered any of those other prisoners. She had heard talk of them, of course, but that was all and she had never, for one single second, imagined they might look like this.

The procession came nearer, passing so close they could have reached out to touch her, and Sophia shrank back, ashamed of the revulsion that accompanied her pity and horror yet quite unable to help herself. One man, gaunt and lice-ridden, carried a child whose face was covered in sores, a bedraggled woman had a baby at her scrawny breast. All of them stared straight ahead, eyes dead and hopeless in their ravaged faces. And with them, crowing, strutting, pitiless, came the Nazi guards, jabbing at the stragglers with their rifles. Sophia wanted to scream at them, ask them how in God's name they could behave in this inhuman fashion. But the words were nothing but bitter bile in her mouth.

When the procession had passed she forced her trembling legs to move, first into a stumble as halting as the prisoners', then, as the use returned to them, to a run. Sophia fled, breath rasping in her lungs, heart full to bursting. She did not stop until she was back at the surgery.

On the following Sunday afternoon Bernard Langlois was working in the parish of St Peter when he happened to run into Charles.

In the two years since the Germans had come to Jersey and Charles had been forced to close up the offices of Carteret Tours Bernard's life had changed completely. It was not a change for the better, he sometimes thought ruefully, but it had been inevitable and since he had never been one to waste energy fretting about those things over which he had no control, he congratulated himself that under the circumstances, he had really done quite well for himself.

The day after Charles had broken the news to him that the agency was to close he had taken a long walk along the beautiful St Clements coast road. He was still in a state of semi-shock as a result of the bombing on the previous afternoon and the fact that he was now out of a job had been made to seem unimportant by his brush with death. He could very easily have been killed, he realised. Had the bomb fallen on the offices instead of in the street the problem of what to do with his future would have been the least of his worries. At worse there would be no future, at best he could be lying in hospital, terribly injured, like the girl in the white dress. Bernard could not get her out of his mind. However much he tried not to think about her the images kept flashing back – her body, limp and broken, in the midst of the debris, the bloodstains on the white dress, the fluttering emerald headscarf. Several times during the night he had woken, his whole body bathed in perspiration, and lain staring into the darkness seeing it all again. But with daylight Bernard's sound common sense had asserted itself – on a conscious level, at any rate. What had happened had happened. Going over and over it would not change a thing. He hadn't been killed or injured but being grateful for the fact wouldn't keep him or his family in food or keep a roof over their heads. Life had to go on, and he had to make plans for it.

Bernard walked and walked, his chin bent to his chest, hands thrust into his pockets. The sky above the bay was clear blue and unbroken by so much as a single white vapour trail and after a while the stiff breeze off the sea began to clear his head and calm his jangling nerves. But the problem remained – what could he do to earn a living in an island occupied by the enemy?

Perhaps, Bernard thought, he should have gone off and joined the forces whilst he had had the chance instead of delaying out of loyalty to Charles. Thinking of what the German plane had done to the girl yesterday he certainly wished he had – he would like to have been able to personally dispose of the man who had dropped the bomb, and killing a few of his countrymen would have been the next best thing. But there was no point now wasting time regretting his inaction, no point going over what he
should
have done. What mattered now was what he was
going
to do.

Almost as soon as he put the question to himself Bernard was aware of the answer, though at first he tried to avoid it because as a solution it did not appeal to him one iota. But after a few minutes of trying to dream up an acceptable alternative and failing miserably his common sense again took over.

There was nothing for it, he would have to go back to the Electricity Company – if they would have him. Whatever his personal feelings it had a good deal to recommend it. No matter who was in charge in Jersey the basic amenities were still needed – water, electricity, gas and lines of communication – and would be however bad things might become. The Electricity Company could be the lifeline that would provide him with the income that was necessary to his family's survival.

One thing Bernard was determined on, however – he was not going to be trapped in the offices again. He had not the slightest intention of remaining with the utility once the war was over and he thought there were a great many skills that would be far more use to him than understanding the company's filing system.

The very next day Bernard had gone to see his old boss and spelled out what he had in mind – omitting to mention his plans for the day when the war would finally be over. To his immense relief he found himself offered a position as an apprentice engineer – subject, of course, to the approval of the German command.

In practical matters Bernard was a quick learner – in many ways he found it came to him more easily than the academic studies he had sweated over in the classroom. There was an order and a method to the skills he was learning which seemed to him satisfyingly sensible. Now, two years later, he was as capable of doing the job as many men who had spent their lives at it and was certainly better qualified than his father – though he had the kindness and tact not to broadcast the fact. And he was grateful that for the duration of the war at least he was in an occupation that not only paid a reasonable wage but also gave him a certain amount of freedom to move about in an island choked by curfews and restrictions.

On the afternoon when he happened to run into Charles, Bernard had been working on a cable fault in St Peter. He was about to pack up his equipment and head back for St Helier when he glanced up and saw his former employer walking on the opposite side of the road.