Sea Gem (40 page)

One evening, just before locking up, she took the bull by the horns. ‘What do you think about all this, Alice?’ she asked quietly.

Alice was a lot more mature than her age indicated. She thought a lot and, though not bright, she was no fool. She had been heartily glad to leave school and get this job. When Madam was away,
she ran the shop to suit herself and she enjoyed the work. She was a short girl with a figure which would get dumpy with the years but she was clean, fresh faced and if she had shortened her hair,
she could have made herself look more attractive than she did.

‘I don’t mind,’ Alice replied slowly.

‘What don’t you mind?’ Mary asked puzzled.

‘I mean I don’t mind whom I serve, Madam, as long as their money is all right!’ she said with a flash of shrewdness.

‘Well,’ Mary replied uneasily. It was not up to her to take a parent’s place but Alice was so quiet and gentle. ‘Just be careful. Don’t get too friendly with these
Germans. They won’t be here forever and girls who go with them might have a bad time when it’s all over!’

Alice considered, then gave her employer a rueful smile. ‘I don’t expect they’d want to bother with me, would they? I mean, my pa says I’m nothing to look at for a
man.’

Mary bristled in a flash. What a thing for a father to say.

‘Handsome is as handsome does, my dear!’

Alice flushed, then dimpled. She liked Madam very much but was a little in awe of her. She was so efficient and nearly always in a hurry, rushing in, then departing in a flurry.

‘I don’t want anyone going upstairs to my flat,’ Mary said casually. ‘I’m going to keep all my accounts there because it is quieter to work here than at home
especially if troops are billeted upon me. It would be such a nuisance if they were disturbed or I was bothered, wouldn’t it?’ she asked hopefully.

‘I’ll tell no one, Madam, and neither will you be bothered when I’m here,’ she promised, pleased to be appealed to.

With that Mary was content as she settled into her routine of travelling around the island, ostensibly on business but carefully noting all which she saw that was easy to memorise.

The Germans fixed an exchange rate of five marks to the pound which was outrageous and caused massive protests as they grossly over-valued their currency at the expense of sterling. Already
prices for goods had begun to climb swiftly as they descended like a plague of locusts upon the town shops.

With the troops came others including the German secret police who Mary learned were called the Geheime Feldpolizei and who were a back-up to the ordinary military police. Although the secret
police wore civilian clothes, they stuck out like sore thumbs and an islander could spot one at a distance.

Mary drove her legs to a peak of fitness as well as establishing her presence on the roads and lanes. She absorbed everything and later wrote it down in the flat using tiny script on fine paper
though there were many times when she asked herself whether what she was doing was of any value.

At least, she told herself, the occupation has passed off without the rape and plunder feared by the islanders. The Germans were exceedingly well disciplined and, by and large, polite with the
islanders, wanting to make friends with their British ‘cousins’. They paraded in St Peter Port with their band and were stared at by cool-faced islanders who were totally
unimpressed.

Like all newcomers to Guernsey, the Germans were baffled and confused by the maze of winding lanes with their high hedges. The islanders had carefully removed every signpost before the
occupation and the new arrivals were left with an unmapped, bewildering new land. One amusing story reached Mary’s ears, which she carefully noted down. A patrol was sent out and simply
vanished. A second was sent to find it and this too seemingly went off the face of the earth. Eventually, in worried desperation, the occupiers sent out a third patrol to find the first two. After
much marching, twisting and turning plus peering over high hedges, all the Germans did meet up to their intense relief. They had not been killed but simply lost in Guernsey’s lanes and when
they had questioned the few locals they met, each had turned out to be a halfwit; an act at which an islander was an expert when it suited him. The next thing Mary learned was that the occupiers
had decided to map the island themselves.

Mary mulled over this information carefully. She went up to the glasshouses where Raymond and William were working together amicably. Mary pulled on an old coat and started to help them clear
some spare ground for root crops.

‘What’s going to happen to all the tomatoes?’ she wanted to know.

Raymond stopped hoeing. ‘We can sell to the Germans.’

Mary considered. Would that be collaborating? She hesitated and decided it would not—yet.

‘That’s true and what we don’t sell can go to the islanders to be made into jam—if they have any sugar. The trouble is, it’s going to take us ages to get anywhere
with horses or bullocks. I get so lost in the lanes,’ she lied easily. ‘It is a shame no one ever mapped this place.’

Raymond regarded her innocent face, then had to agree with her. He had already made a few delicate contacts, which William had encouraged.

‘I’ll see what I can do in that line,’ he told her and Mary was content. A detailed island map would be of great value to her and a copy could go to her contact when he
called.

Emboldened, Raymond spoke again. ‘Some German officers want flowers as well as tomatoes. Two came here. William spoke to them,’ he added.

Mary turned quickly to her son who flushed a little uncertain as to how she would react.

‘It’s just business,’ he stammered, furious at himself. Why did she continue to make him apprehensive and in front of the hired man too.

‘Of course!’ Mary agreed quickly, weighing him up in a flash. ‘This is our only source of income now so, by all means, develop it,’ she told both of them. ‘Just as
long as no one can say afterwards that
we
were collaborators,’ she warned them coldly.

William grinned at her departure then turned to Raymond, eyed him and chuckled. The officer who had approached them had been haughty to start with until William talked to him in his language.
The German had been startled not only because of William’s fluent German but also because of his polite attitude.

Mary kept a discreet eye on the airfield without getting too dangerously close. More and more planes came in to help in the Battle for Britain. These joined others based in occupied France and
Mary could not but feel the distress of islanders who had let their children go to Britain. As the skies filled with droning planes, all heavily loaded with bombs, Mary’s heart would sink
low.

There were nights when she could not sleep. There were days when she worried anew especially after a couple of exploratory raids were made by soldiers from Britain which infuriated the Germans
and horrified the Controlling Committee. What if reprisals were taken?

Mary fretted about her lack of money, worried about the position of food supplies and viewed the coming winter with apprehension. At home William was quietly smug but had sense enough not to
upset his mother. It was true the occupiers were bending over backwards to appease the locals. They were not too dictatorial and their censorship was strictly correct but none of this could
alleviate the general atmosphere and worry about loved ones far away with no postal links.

The Jerrybags appeared. It did not take long for some women to realise that fit and healthy soldiers with plenty of money were there for the taking, at a time when young Guernsey men were
absent. So, very slowly, some of the islanders started to side with the occupiers and Mary even heard of two foolish girls who wished to marry German soldiers. This was strictly forbidden by the
Germans themselves but it all began to leave a nasty taste. Soon the Jerrybags, shortened to plain Bags, provided the services needed which, as Raoul pointed out to her solemnly, at least kept rape
in check even if there should be a harsh day of reckoning.

Then Mary received official notification that all her holiday cottages were to be requisitioned for troops and in addition a billeting officer turned up at her home.

She had been half expecting this but made no attempt to welcome the stiff officer. Mary showed him around her home, watching while he made notations on his clipboard, then suddenly realised she
was going to be lucky.

‘You will have officers, Frau Noyen,’ she was told.

Mary knew that attack was always the best form of defence. ‘In that case, your young officers had better realise there will be house rules in my home,’ she started coldly.

‘Frau!’

‘Don’t you Frau me!’ Mary shot back at him, ignoring his stern expression. ‘This is my home. There are many fine objects in it. Your officers will treat my home as they
would respect their own. They will wipe their feet before they enter. They will not bother my kitchen help. They will cause no damage whatsoever because—’ she paused for effect
‘—I will not hesitate to lay a complaint in the correct direction.’

The billeting officer’s face had gone cold, so Mary fixed him with a piercing stare.

‘But of course,’ she said then with sudden sweetness, ‘German offizieren will know their manners, won’t they?’

The German blinked, totally thrown by this flanking attack. He nodded slowly, aware he had been trounced without quite knowing how. Frau Noyen looked at him with a charming smile on her
face.

‘Good!’ Mary told him, nodded her head and walked away leaving him flat-footed and too astounded to be furious.

The next day four young, very uncertain Germans appeared with the billeting officer. Mary took a deep breath and kept them waiting for exactly five minutes before going down to the front lounge
where Amelia had placed them. At her entrance the young men sprang to their feet clicking heels then stood at ramrod attention.

‘Ha!’ Mary exclaimed, acting her part. ‘The young offizieren! Gentlemen! My house rules. No damage to my property in any way. No loud noise at night and no women either. My top
floor is where my room is and that is “Out of Bounds’ to you. Is that clear?’

‘Ja, meine Frau!’ they chorused together.

Mary had to stifle a grin. They looked almost terrified of her. Good God, they seemed to be as young as William. Then she turned back to attack the billeting officer once more, pressing home her
advantage.

‘I employ a husband and wife here as well as at my glasshouses. I was going to dismiss them,’ she lied casually, ‘but with four extra men in the house I’ll need help but
who is going to pay for their time here?’

‘We will pay,’ she was told.

‘What about rations?’ Mary asked sweetly.

‘They will bring their own food and perhaps a little extra?’ the Hauptmann countered, starting to enjoy the game.

Mary pretended to think about this in an infuriatingly casual way. ‘Yes, that might mean better meals for them,’ she finished tongue in cheek. She and the German eyed each other,
both acknowledging they had scored some points and the Hauptmann’s eyes twinkled a little. This Frau Noyen was interesting and he had heard she was a widow too. Well, well, he thought to
himself. Will the non-fraternisation rules be changed for officers?

Mary stifled an internal chortle. From the corner of her eye she could see the young officers still standing straight as if made of wood. She felt she had won some small victory and her morale
had improved. The Germans might be difficult but they were most certainly not invincible.

When they had gone she met Raoul and Amelia down at their cottage and told them the story. To her surprise, Raoul became hostile.

‘I don’t fancy working for the Boche,’ he growled.

Mary was thunderstruck at the mulish expression on his face. ‘But we all must!’ she cried sharply. ‘Look, if it is going to be a long occupation what about the food stocks?
While we billet Germans they have to provide for us too. We can then sneak some away to those less lucky than ourselves.’

Raoul was good and loyal but sometimes slow to assess a situation. Mary bit her lip with anxiety. She would be lost without these faithful workers and friends.

‘You must!’ she repeated anxiously. ‘There’s no telling what we might learn with Germans here and there is also William. You know what he’s like.’

Raoul gave her a long, probing look. ‘I understand, but don’t expect me to like it,’ he agreed reluctantly.

Mary felt exasperated with him. ‘Well, how do you think
I
feel with them in my home?’ She turned to Amelia. ‘Steal whatever food you can from them without being found
out, especially things which will keep like sugar and flour, tea, coffee, anything like that, then hoard it for the bad days.’

Amelia was also a bit slow, like her husband. ‘The bad days?’

Mary nodded grimly. ‘I cannot see relief for us for a while yet,’ she told them slowly, ‘so let’s look on the black side for our own protection and that of
others.’

Raoul and Amelia exchanged looks before Raoul turned back to her. ‘I didn’t think,’ he said lamely.

‘Forget it!’ Mary smiled with relief.

Raoul turned, nodded at his wife who, understanding some secret message, left them alone. Raoul took Mary’s hands in his and looked her firmly in the eyes.

‘Don’t you take any risks either. Your daughter charged me with your safety when she left. I want to be able to look her in the face when she returns.’

Mary was stunned. ‘She did?’

‘You are a brave, bold woman with a bad son,’ Raoul continued, pausing to frown and chew his lip. ‘You lost a son in weird circumstances. We have both often wondered about it
because you’ve never liked William. Did he quarrel with Edwin?’

Mary lowered her head. Was this the time to tell him the truth? Surely she could trust him implicitly but she remembered James’ warning. On the other hand though, old Tante had thought the
world of him. Perhaps it would be prudent to warn Raoul so he was always on his guard too.

She lifted her head to hold his eyes again. ‘William murdered Edwin but I could never prove it.’