Sea Gem (44 page)

She limped home with blood streaming down her legs, ruining her slacks. They flapped from two large tears and she knew they too had reached the end of a long line. By the time she stumbled up
the drive she was sweating and muttering to herself. She hurt, she was upset for Margaret. She was worried about Michael and she was in a funk of fear for Victor. So it was unfortunate that the
first person she met was William.

William liked to show alertness to the Germans, so jumped forward as Mary wearily halted by the front door. Raoul came from around the back and two middle-aged officers also appeared behind
William.

‘Where have you been, Mother?’ William demanded.

Mary turned hot eyes upon him. ‘Swimming of course!’ she snapped.

She turned upon the Germans. Attack, she reminded herself, still remains the best form of defence. ‘While you are on this island, you might at least keep the lanes in good repair. When we
were wholly British, people did not fall off cycles and ruin them to boot!’ she said caustically. Then she turned her wrath upon her son. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ she
barked.

William went red. ‘I’m a man, not a boy. I work!’ he retorted.

‘You are still a minor living in my house and responsible to me!’ Mary shot back at him. She glared at the astounded lieutenants. ‘Is this what goes on behind a mother’s
back? I think I shall be making a strong complaint to the Hauptmann in the morning. My injuries have been caused by you people and my son, employed by Germans, shows disrespect to his mother. I
thought you people believed in discipline in the home?’ she ranted, temper and shock all combined with worry and fear. ‘Until my son is of age he does as I tell him. After that, he can
go and live elsewhere!’

The German officers stood aghast at her fury. They had had little to do with her, their welfare seen to by Frau Amelia. Frau Noyen had been polite when she met them but very distant; suddenly
they saw another side to her as she faced them with stiff jaw and eyes blazing anger. They were impressed as most Germans were, Mary knew, by force and authority. They were under strict orders to
maintain good relations with these occupied Britons and they
had
been in the wrong, teaching the Frau’s son to play cards and sing
Horst Wessel
songs. They blanched
nervously.

‘Well?’ Mary grated. It had been a terrible evening and now these Germans stood before her doing nothing, and William’s face wore a look which infuriated her.

Raoul stood holding the battered cycle, astounded at Mary’s temper. This was most unlike her and he wondered uneasily what had been the real reason for her delay in town. Never for one
moment did he believe she had come off her cycle through the bad road surface. Mary knew every pothole between here and St Peter Port.

William took one step forward, quivering with rage and embarrassment. How dare his mother make such an exhibition of herself! This was nothing but a childish tantrum in front of his German
friends. Who did she think she was?

‘Mother!’ he remonstrated coldly.

Mary forgot her bloody knees. She whipped around with speed which astonished all of them and let fly with the palm of her right hand. It hit William across the centre of his left cheek. William
had no idea she was capable of such physical power. He rocked back on his heels, swayed precariously, tried to readjust his balance, failed and went flying backwards to land ignominiously on his
bottom.

‘Do not use that tone of voice to me!’ Mary cried and turned back to the German officers who stood frozen and appalled. ‘As to you officers,’ she spat at them, ‘you
disgust me! Look at my son! Defying his mother. This is your influence and I will certainly see about taking this matter farther. A lot farther!’

William scrambled sullenly to his feet, scarlet with humiliation and fuming with rage. All his carefully controlled emotions were shattered for once and now he regarded his mother with something
not far short of hatred. That one blow, delivered before the audience that he had been trying so hard to impress, finished something which had inadvertently been started at his birth. Gritting his
teeth, William glowered at her with clenched fists, vowing she would pay for his embarrassment.

The Germans were rattled. They sprang to attention, clicked their heels, and stammered their apologies; then the senior turned to the red-faced William.

‘Obey your mother!’ he ordered harshly.

Almost weeping now, William turned on his heels and bolted indoors, shaking with temper, vowing all sorts of revenges. She would pay. She would suffer. He would deal with her as he had that fool
Edwin.

Raoul tactfully moved off quietly, half carrying the ruined cycle while Mary swept past the Germans and climbed to her room. She felt emotionally drained and all she wanted was her bed. Whether
she would sleep she did not care to contemplate but sleep she did later. Only it was shattered when the nightmare came yet again in the same form with the menace larger and more horrendous. Once
again she awoke with a violent start, heart-pounding terror, shoulders slumped. She shook her head, gritting her teeth. She would not let it get her down. Thank God she had Raoul and Amelia to turn
to because there was no one else and even then, she could not confide everything to them.

One evening Mary was sitting in the half-darkened shop which had officially closed but with the door unlocked in case of a caller. This was her practice two or three evenings a
week when she would then walk home. The cycle was past redemption and another was impossible to obtain, even with rope tyres.

It was not that Mary minded walking. Under normal circumstances she would have thrived upon the exercise particularly as her island knowledge allowed her to take useful short cuts. The trouble
was that she did not feel very strong. A walk was inclined to leave her far more tired than it should have but she knew what ailed her. Lack of proper food was affecting everyone similarly.

Amelia was a genius with what she managed to conjure up for their meals, which Mary now ate with the Ozannes at their cottage. The Germans themselves were not as well provided for as before but
they did better than the islanders except for those engaged in black market profiteering. What William did or where he ate she neither knew nor cared. Since the day she had hit and humiliated him,
something irrevocable had come between them. They saw each other rarely and when they did, passed each other in studied silence. Mary occasionally saw William with Raymond but she was far too tired
to delve into their activities.

When the shop bell tinged she looked up hopefully but saw only a grizzled old man wearing a guernsey which, if it had been white, had long since forgotten that shade. He was a short, squat
fellow with a black beret on his head from which peeped white strands of hair. His trousers were dark, tucked into rubber boots and from him came the unmistakeable odour of fish.

He stood for a moment, looking around owlishly then turned to her with grey eyes, narrow and sharp. Mary put him in his early sixties and his face was new to her.

‘I’m really closed,’ she told him gently.

He gave her a long, hard scrutiny. ‘They say the fish will rise well tonight when it’s high tide at Brecqhou!’

Mary caught her breath and slowly stood, going round to lock the shop door before facing him coolly.

‘I expect they will get an even better catch around Burhou!’ she replied.

They looked at each other. The old man spoke with a thick patois as if reluctant to use English and Mary had automatically switched to that tongue herself.

‘Upstairs,’ she told him and went to check the back door was bolted before following him.

The old man’s aroma of fish floated from him, making her nostrils twitch. This was the genuine article and he was no Guernsey man either, she reflected. His patois held an edge unknown to
her and she wondered about him curiously, though had no intention of asking questions.

‘I don’t have much food but I’ll give you what I can spare,’ she told him as he stood looking around, examining her flat carefully before lowering himself into a
chair.

She gave him dry bread with the inevitable tomato jam and some tea made from her remaining precious leaves, which were carefully drained off and kept for reuse. The tea was wishy-washy but at
least she had not sunk to an ersatz variety.

He pulled a much folded, badly creased and smelly letter from somewhere under the folds of his sweater and Mary’s heart flipped over as she recognised Margaret’s handwriting.
Quickly, turning her back, she pulled up her man’s shirt and slipped it between her breasts. Then she gave him her notes and watched as he carefully wrapped these in waterproofs and tucked
them back next to his body.

He said not one word though as his keen old eyes studied her and the start of an approving smile touched his lips. He gave her a little nod then stood slowly, as if his knee joints were inclined
to ache. Mary led him back down the stairs, opened the rear doors waving with one hand for him to wait. She walked silently down the track and looked carefully up and down the road, then hurried
back and nodded to him.

Then he was gone and Mary took a deep breath. That was the most silent man she had ever met but she had a letter. She must get home and read it! Throbbing with excitement, she went through her
checking routine, took the trouble to make sure both doors were secured then set off walking more briskly than she had for a long time. Again she was completely unaware anyone else was around and
had no idea at all that this time she was under the observation of four eyes, two of which had no knowledge that another two were bent upon the same task.

Margaret’s letter was brief, as if she had been given short notice again but Mary pored over the words with loving care, trying to read between the lines. Now Margaret was a transport
sergeant and happy except for Michael’s disappearance; then, at the bottom was a postscript, scribbled in haste. Splendid news had just arrived. Michael was alive and hopefully well in a
German Stalag as a prisoner of war.

Now all she wanted was news of Victor but realised she was unlikely to get any. A man of his age could hardly be a front-line fighting soldier but with his skills he was no doubt a partisan
somewhere, which would make any form of communication impossible.

* * *

Since that initial visit the old man had made three more visits to her, always picking closing time. Once he even brought her precious fish, which she had hurried home to Amelia
who had cooked it that night. The three of them had sat down and slowly savoured each gorgeous mouthful, only wishing it had been larger but thankful to have it at all.

Guernsey bristled with guns. By careful observation Mary learned there were eighty-eight very heavy flak guns plus innumerable smaller calibre ones. One thing was for sure, she told herself,
with all this fire power the Allies would be mad to invade Guernsey. The loss of life would be devastating, so did this mean they would be ignored? This awful question was one she kept to herself
with growing apprehension as months slid into years.

In 1941, the Germans shot two islanders. One had sent a message to Britain by pigeon and another died for daring to favour Britain against Germany. There were a spate of V-signs chalked up on
buildings which aroused the Germans’ fury until they turned these into victory signs for themselves. Not to be outdone though, the natural Guernsey humorists pointed out that Sieg was the
correct German word for victory and that the German version stood for Verloren or lost. After this the V-signs slowly faded away as Germans and islanders ran out of polite insults.

The next step of controlled defiance was the start of GUNS, the Guernsey Underground Newspaper dreamed up and run by very brave men. Raoul received a copy from a hidden source and when the three
of them had read it, he then passed it on. Recipients of GUNS were carefully checked to avoid letting a copy fall into the hands of collaborators.

Sometimes Mary, Raoul and Amelia thought their little island must sink beneath the weight of German boots and slaves’ rags. The TODT organisation had brought to the island thousands of
wretches to work on the defensive fortifications. They were deliberately starved, dressed in threadbare rags, skeleton thin and often with lice on their bodies. The plight of these miserable men
and boys was something the Germans tried to hide from the islanders’ eyes without great success.

Rumours from Alderney reached them, which caused horror. Ill or sick slaves were thrown into liquid concrete as an easy way to dispose of their remains with barbaric ill treatment for those who
had the misfortune to live. The males were a mixture of French, Spanish Republicans, Belgians, Dutchmen, Russians, Algerians and Moroccans.

Mary felt her gorge rise as she noted down this information. One day there would be the most terrible reckoning but what good would that do to those pitiful boys and men who laboured and died as
slaves, treated worse than those owned by the Ancient Romans?

She had to admire German efficiency and forethought. Their fortifications were often built six feet thick, then sometimes disguised as artificial cottages with false flowers standing in open
‘windows’. Her lovely Rocques was transformed with a garish concrete monster and she wondered what Victor would think about it all—if he were still alive.

Mary saw Amelia was cooking something that was a weird colour and texture. She and Raoul exchanged a look, but knew better than to say anything. Amelia did the best she could with what she could
scrounge, steal or find. If the ingredients should be questionable, their job was to eat what she offered without comment or question.

Mary balanced on the edge of the kitchen table and started scanning the adverts in the paper.