Dr Jackson
St Helier, June 1940
It was a perfect June evening that began with hope and ended in despair. Every detail is tattooed on my brain, as if the movie of my life stopped midframe, frozen in time. It was twilight, that enchanting part of a summer’s day when it feels as if the light will go on forever, as if night will never fall. Margaret and I had just finished tea in our new house on St Mark’s Road and we were sitting by the French windows that opened onto our orchard, watching the blue haze of dusk begin to settle over the trees. A flurry of wings and a murmuration of swallows flew above the apple and pear trees in splendid unison. A moment later they were gone.
Margaret was knitting another matinee jacket with matching bootees in the palest lemon wool, her needles clicking away, while I sipped a glass of aged French Armagnac, a gift from a grateful patient to her even more grateful doctor. The cognac warmed and softened every part of my body and a rare sense of contentment flooded over me. We had bought our dream home, my practice was growing, and in two more months our family would be complete.
For the second time in my life I was seized by wild excitement. The first was when I held Margaret in my arms on our honeymoon. I could hardly believe that the girl whose delicate beauty had made my heart turn somersaults from the moment I first laid eyes on her was mine at last. The enchantment hadn’t faded, and now I couldn’t wait to meet our baby and look into its eyes. I’m certain she felt the same excitement, but she was more reserved, and said less. While she knitted, we discussed names as we did so often. She liked Vivien for a girl because she had recently seen Gone with the Wind. Her choice for a boy was James. ‘Not Rhett or Ashley?’ I teased.
As we waited for the BBC News on the wireless, I marvelled at how fast the tiny jacket grew under her nimble fingers. The last of the daylight filtered onto the polished timber floor and lit up Margaret’s hair, which fell across her cheek as she bent to pick up the skein that had fallen from her small basket.
She sat up as soon as we heard the familiar fanfare that heralded the start of the news. We listened. A moment later, I put down my glass and she put down her knitting. Hardly breathing, we leaned towards the wireless so as not to miss a single word.
In a sepulchral voice, the announcer stated that the British government had decided that the Channel Islands were to be demilitarised.
Margaret looked at me in alarm. ‘What does that mean?’ she whispered.
‘It means we are now on our own,’ I said. ‘Undefended, unprotected and betrayed.’ Suddenly I remembered something my late mother once said: Life fulfils and then betrays all your hopes. In the space of that hour, I had experienced both.
It turned out that we’d been living in a fool’s paradise on our peaceful little island, believing that our cocooned existence in Jersey would continue as usual, and that the war raging on the other side of the Channel didn’t concern us. As if to reinforce our complacency, thousands of sun-hungry tourists from Britain continued to flock to our sandy beaches as they had always done.
Looking back, I think the world as we knew it had begun to crumble four years earlier, with the abdication of King Edward VIII. At the time, we saw it as a regrettable but isolated event, but in light of later developments, I think it indicated a general lowering of moral standards and foreshadowed a succession of unsettling events that threatened our comfortable lives.
Margaret applauded Edward’s decision as a triumph of love over royal privilege, but I saw it as a dereliction of duty, and I suspected that it had as much to do with his distaste for royal responsibilities as with his inability to live without Mrs Simpson. And I felt sorry for his stuttering brother, who was now thrust onto a throne he didn’t want.
For some reason, my attitude seemed to irritate Margaret, who became quite vehement in her criticism.
‘You don’t have a single romantic bone in your body,’ she said. ‘How can you put duty ahead of love?’
I replied that if everyone followed Edward’s example and decided to abandon their duty, society would disintegrate, and I suggested that perhaps her condition had made her overemotional. This sparked a row, and we argued heatedly, not suspecting that the conflict between love and duty would soon be acted out in our own lives.
About eighteen months after the abdication, our country suffered another moral lapse, when Prime Minister Chamberlain travelled to Munich to appease a tyrant who seemed to believe he was entitled to trample over other countries with impunity. Mr Chamberlain came back waving that piece of paper and talking about nice Mr Hitler.
‘Chamberlain’s an idiot,’ my father had fumed. Father was a retired army major who had fought in the Boer War, and later in the one they called the Great War, and he didn’t mince words. ‘You can’t negotiate with bullies, and you certainly don’t reward them. You whack them hard to teach them a lesson.’
As usual, he was right. Father, who never suffered from doubt, died in the spring last year, and I missed his dogmatic certitude. Encouraged by naïve politicians who averted their gaze, Hitler continued invading neighbouring countries until on 3 September our leaders finally opened their eyes and declared war.
So we entered 1940 at war with Germany. After that shock announcement, some patriotic Jerseymen enlisted in the British army, but then nothing happened, or so it appeared to us in Jersey. Although the British government had entered the war to support Poland’s sovereignty, no British soldiers or fighter planes were sent to defend it from German tanks. War was being fought far away. We read about it, but it didn’t affect us. In the meantime, merchant ships kept docking in our harbour, loading up tons of Jersey tomatoes and potatoes, the tourists kept coming to sunbake on our beaches, and life continued as usual.
But as the year progressed, it all changed. In May, the war exploded into our consciousness, first with the defeat of Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, and then with the shocking defeat of France. We were appalled to see photographs of the swastika hanging from the Eiffel Tower.
Now the Germans were practically on our doorstep and we held our breath as we read about the plight of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers stranded on the beaches of Normandy. When they were rescued in the great evacuation of Dunkirk, we toasted the boats, the sailors, Mr Churchill, and our British refusal to surrender – unlike the French, whose capital had just been invaded without a single shot being fired. We vowed we would fight the Germans and we would never surrender.
All this time, we still felt protected by Britain. It was blitzkrieg in Europe, but we knew that Britain would never abandon us. Our connection went back almost a thousand years to William the Conqueror. The Channel Islands were the oldest part of the British Empire; that had to count for something.
Inside the Cock and Bottle, where I sometimes dropped in for a pint of our local Mary Ann ale, tempers flared as people argued about our future. Some predicted that as we were only a tiny speck in the English Channel, closer to France than to England, we were of no value to anyone and would be left alone. Just as well, as Britain was overstretched and didn’t have the resources to defend us. The cynics maintained that Britain would throw us to the wolves if they thought it was expedient. Others shouted them down for being unpatriotic, but as I swallowed the last of the ale and wiped the foam off my lips, my stomach was churning. Mr Churchill had been warning parliament for years that Britain was dangerously unprepared for war. If push came to shove, what would they do?
And then, in that beautiful June twilight, we found out. Britain had decided we were expendable.
As soon as they announced a voluntary evacuation, the panic started, and our capital, St Helier, began to resemble an ant nest with people running in all directions, desperately trying to find out what it all meant and what they should do.
To add to our distress, we were only given twenty-four hours to decide whether to stay or go. Those who wished to leave had to register at once. How did they expect people to make such a major decision in such a short time? Some of the older Jerseyites decided to stay rather than become refugees in a strange place, but the dilemma weighed heavily on the rest of us. How much danger were we really in? Should we sacrifice our comfortable, familiar life for an uncertain existence elsewhere? Parents wondered if they should just send their children away. And if they decided to leave themselves, what if their elderly parents refused to go?
All over St Helier, in homes, pubs, hotels, tearooms, on street corners and over back fences, everyone was on edge. How could Britain abandon us like that? How could we defend ourselves if the Germans invaded? While some scoffed that there was nothing here to entice the Jerries except cows, tomatoes and potatoes, others argued that we were strategically important, an easy stepping stone to France. I felt apprehensive. Hitler had made no secret of his ambition to conquer England. What a feather in his cap the conquest of the Channel Islands would be.
I kept hearing heartbreaking stories from our neighbours. Mrs Bennett sobbed so much, she could hardly get the words out. ‘We had all decided to leave, so I had our faithful old dog Sally put down. She was one of the family but we couldn’t take her with us. She looked at me so reproachfully when I left her at the vet’s, as if she knew I was abandoning her. I feel like a murderer.’ She had to pause to wipe her eyes. ‘We all rushed to the dock, but when we saw the coal boat we’d have to travel on, I knew I couldn’t put my old parents on that, so we turned back. Now my children won’t forgive me because I had our pet put down for nothing, and I gave away their bikes!’
In the panic to leave Jersey, long queues formed at the ticket office as people desperate to leave tried to get a berth on any vessel that would take them to England or Wales – mail boats, coal boats, barges, or cargo ships loaded up with potatoes. One patient told me her neighbour had been in such a hurry to rush to the ticket office that she had left a hot iron on her ironing board. Another swore she saw a woman rushing towards the dock without any luggage at all, just a Picasso under one arm and her fur coat in the other!
From the moment they announced voluntary evacuation, I knew that Margaret would have to leave. I couldn’t risk her safety or that of our baby. But I knew I had to stay. Some doctors had already left, and I couldn’t let down the pregnant women whose babies I had promised to deliver, to say nothing of the diabetic and cardiac patients who were counting on me to look after them. Knowing Margaret’s quick temper, I dreaded telling her that I’d decided to stay, so I put off telling her as long as possible. But, I assured her, it would only be a brief separation. Just as soon as I had delivered the babies, and organised medical care for my other patients, I would join her. It would only be a matter of weeks before we were reunited.
At this point, I’d like to explain my special bond with my pregnant patients. For one thing, I’d promised to deliver these babies, and I’ve always regarded promises as sacred. For me, obstetrics is by far the best part of medical practice. There is nothing as exhilarating as delivering a baby, assisting at the miracle of birth, which is really the creation of a whole new world. This is the only part of medicine that doesn’t deal with morbidity and sickness, but with affirmation of life and hope. The look of joy on the mothers’ faces when they see their babies for the first time always brings tears to my eyes. This is the best reward for my long years of study and training.
Although I’d explained this to Margaret on numerous occasions, she was even angrier than I expected. Her face, usually so pretty and soft, was distorted, her lips taut, her eyes narrowed, glaring at me.
‘You’re taking the Hippocratic oath to ridiculous extremes!’ She practically spat the words. ‘It’s all very well being noble, but what about your own baby? What about me?’
She was sobbing now, the tears running down her cheeks as she patted her large belly under the loose maternity smock. ‘You can’t abandon your patients, but you can abandon me. You don’t even care about our baby. How can you do this to us? What kind of man are you if you can’t look after your own family?’
Shaken by her accusation, I suddenly remembered something Professor Ross had said on my first day of lectures at the medical school in Edinburgh.
‘Jung once said that people become doctors for the right reasons but also for the wrong reasons,’ he told us in his broad Scots accent. Then he raised his bushy eyebrows and surveyed us with a quizzical expression, as if waiting for us to decide which category we belonged to. We were expecting an inspirational pep talk, not a philosophical conundrum, and we glanced at each other, puzzled by this statement that made no sense.
But now, feeling guilty for choosing duty, I thought about Jung’s words for the first time in years, and wondered whether I’d made my decision for the right or wrong reasons. My father had always impressed on me that it was actions, not words, that revealed a man’s true character. He once said, ‘One day you’ll come to a crossroad that will test your moral fortitude, and the path you take then will affect the rest of your life.’ Father didn’t talk much, not even about the battle at Verdun where he had earned the Victoria Cross, and that’s probably why his words made such an impact on me.
I knew that I was now standing at my moral crossroad, and if I took the easier path, I would let myself down. If I deserted my patients, I could never live with myself. I took comfort in the thought that our separation would be temporary and that we would be reunited in time for our baby’s birth, and I hoped that would be the end of our conflict.
‘It’s only for a short time, darling,’ I tried to reassure her on that last day, reaching for her hand, which she kept pulling away. ‘You’ll only be across the Channel, in England, and I’ll phone you every day. Before you know it, we’ll be together again.’
But she shook her head, and from the look in her eyes I sensed that she was staring into a different future from the one before my optimistic eyes.
The queue of passengers waiting to board the boats stretched for several blocks from the ticket office in Royal Square, all the way up to Gloucester Road. There must have been over a thousand evacuees, mostly women trying to cope with fractious toddlers clinging to their skirts as they wheeled perambulators and push chairs and dragged heavy suitcases along the ground on that blistering summer’s day. The wharf resembled a chaotic car yard, with hundreds of vehicles scattered about, abandoned by people who were evacuating.
My heart ached as I watched Margaret step onto the mail boat with her valise, face averted, refusing to wave or even look back at me as I stood on the wharf, hoping that at the last minute she might relent and turn to smile or wave. As the boat pulled away from the crowd that had gathered to see their friends and relatives off, those left behind were crying. Someone started to sing – I think it was that popular Vera Lynn song, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ – while I stood silent and alone in the heart-aching splendour of that summer’s day, feeling my resolve dissipating in the foamy white wake of the steamer that was taking her away from me.
Although I’m not usually given to dwelling on my emotions, and introspection is not my style, writing this down has given me the opportunity to try and understand what has happened. It has also filled the long lonely evenings in between house calls when, with a comforting balloon of French Armagnac in one hand and my fountain pen in the other, I have tried to record the extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves.
It would never have occurred to me to keep a journal, but when, about a week after Margaret sailed away, I read the notice in the Jersey Evening Post that a government department was looking for people to keep a daily record of their experiences during the war, I surprised myself by signing up for what they quaintly called a Mass Observation Project.
I have no idea who, if anyone, will ever read this, but if they do, it might give them an insight into what it was like to live through this period of wartime history. It has occurred to me that like so many government initiatives, this one could well end up shoved into some dusty drawer, unseen and unread.
But signing up for something implies an obligation and a responsibility, and no matter what becomes of it, perhaps in years to come I will read what I once wrote and come face to face with the young, idealistic doctor I used to be. I wonder what I will think of him. Margaret and I might read this together, surrounded by our children. By then I will know if I’ve made the right choice.
In the midst of these ruminations, the deafening roar of aeroplanes flying shockingly low made me drop my pen and run to the window. I recognised the distinctive streamlined design of German Dorniers. A moment later I heard deafening explosions so terrifyingly close that the windows in my study rattled, the branches of the apple and pear trees swayed and shook, and the whole house vibrated.
In the distance, I saw thick black smoke rising from the direction of the harbour. What was going on? The only thing on the wharf was a convoy of trucks loaded up with potatoes from fields near Gorey. Why on earth would they attack us? Don’t they know we are demilitarised?
I sank back in my chair and sat there trying to comprehend what I had seen. There was no question: we were at war.
I remember thinking, what will become of us?
And what will we become?