Tom
St Helier, July 1940
It was war but it wasn’t war. Not like any war he’d ever read about, anyway. Ever since he could read, Tom Gaskell had steeped himself in adventure magazines like Hotspur, Rover and Wizard, where heroes performed daring deeds in wartime, but to his disappointment, apart from occasional German planes that flew low over Jersey towards the end of June, practically nothing had changed. They had all been issued gas masks, and he had noticed that sandbags had been stacked around public buildings. Self-important air-raid wardens patrolled the streets late at night, telling people off for lights-out violations, but no-one took any of it seriously. In fact Tom and his friends Frank and Harry used the gas masks to make farting noises, to their parents’ disgust. As far as Tom was concerned, the war could have been on Mars.
Riding his bicycle after school, he raced Frank to the top of the hill overlooking St Aubin’s Bay, where they watched German planes flying over the port. As the slim fuselage of a plane swooped low over St Helier, he shouted, ‘That’s a Dornier Do 17. Do you reckon they’ve come to count the number of potatoes in the trucks down there?’
Frank gave him a mock punch, which he returned with interest. Frank was shorter than he was, but he was stronger than his compact build suggested. Their boisterous laughter resounded all over the grassy hill as they sped down the slope towards the slip at Havre des Pas to buy a penny ice-cream cone from Gino’s red, white and blue cart by the water.
Tom was convinced that Jersey was the best place on earth, and that nothing would ever make him want to leave. He was relieved his parents had decided to stay, and felt sorry for his schoolfriends who had been forced to evacuate. Nothing could match the joy of exploring the cliffs and caves along the coast, climbing the rugged rocks above the bays, swimming, running, and cycling all over the island. He reckoned he knew every little cove, beach and clifftop.
There was another reason why Tom didn’t want to leave, and her name was Milly. She had a smile that dimpled her pink cheeks, and eyes that were bluer than the sky on a summer’s day. He was smitten the minute he saw her, struck dumb really, because he couldn’t get a word out at the time. Just thinking about her aroused thrilling sensations in his body.
And he could tell from the way she looked back at him that she liked him too. He was only fourteen but he already knew there would never be another girl for him. For now, though, it was enough to know that she existed, and breathed the same air he did.
It wasn’t until St Helier was bombed that he realised the war had really begun, and they were in the thick of it. He had been at Harry’s place when they heard the roar of plane engines overhead, and they’d rushed to the windows. Flying above them were Junkers and Dorniers. Suddenly Tom pointed. Standing in the door of the plane, not very high above them, a gunner was firing and he seemed to be aiming straight at them. Harry’s father yelled for them to come away from the window, and they jumped back.
‘Reckon they’re trying to scare us?’ Tom whispered.
A few seconds later he had his answer. Deafening explosions and stuttering machine-gun fire came from the direction of the port. Harry lived at the top of Pier Road, overlooking the harbour, and, ignoring his father’s order to stay put, both boys raced outside, mounted their bicycles, and pedalled at breakneck speed to the weighbridge to see what had happened. Already from a distance they could see that some of the fishing boats had been destroyed, and that shattered trucks lay on the dock, some of them on fire. A bossy air-raid warden shooed them away, but they cycled halfway up Pier Road and then came down to the harbour again by a different route and heard the warning bells of ambulances heading towards the port.
Down on the dock, the scene resembled a battlefield. Among the crumpled parts of blown-up trucks, burnt and wounded people lay on the ground with blood pooling around them. Some were screaming as ambulance men lifted them onto stretchers. Tom stared, horrified to see that one of the victims had one side of his face blown away and had only one eye left. He overheard an ambulance officer saying that the buggers had attacked La Rocque as well, while his colleague muttered something about shrapnel and bullets.
Transfixed by the scene, Tom couldn’t move, and Harry was white as a ghost.
‘You boys shouldn’t be here,’ someone said, and Tom looked around to see Dr Jackson.
‘Did you see them, Dr Jackson?’ Tom asked. He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘First there were three Heinkels, and then three Dorniers – the Do 17s they were. It’s really war now, isn’t it?’ he said, then added, ‘But why did they attack us?’
Dr Jackson didn’t know either. This surprised Tom, who thought that Dr Jackson knew everything. He was their family doctor, one of the few adults who never talked down to him. Tom could tell the doctor anything. Dr Jackson would always put down his fountain pen, lean forward, and give him all his attention. He never interrupted or passed judgement. Tom had even told him about Milly, and Dr Jackson didn’t dismiss it as an infatuation, as if it was a disease he would grow out of. He seemed to understand how he felt. Tom knew that Dr Jackson’s wife had recently evacuated, and he wondered if that was why the doctor had that faraway look in his eyes whenever they talked about the war.
As Tom and Harry cycled away from the devastated harbour, they headed for Frank’s house to talk about the attack. The three of them had been inseparable since junior school, and had shared adventures, scrapes and accidents. After Tom read Dumas’s novel, they called themselves the Three Musketeers. They went over the incredible event that had taken place that evening, furious with the Germans, and bewildered by Britain’s lack of action. How could they have allowed this to happen on their own territory?
But no matter how they looked at it, they couldn’t come up with an explanation.
‘It’s just that they’re Krauts. They wouldn’t care that we’ve been demilitarised.’ Tom shrugged, and they left it at that.
Even Frank’s father, who usually had a lot to say about politics and politicians, all of it bad, couldn’t explain the bombing. Before parting, the boys placed their right hands on top of one another, closed their eyes, and repeated their motto. As they intoned All for one, and one for all, they sensed that this might now acquire new significance.
Tom’s cynical view of the Germans, which had been formed by reading adventure stories and fanned by his father’s hostility, was soon reinforced by what followed. The Germans demanded that large white crosses be painted on the ground in St Helier’s squares and ports, and that white flags be flown from all homes, offices and public buildings, as signs of surrender.
It was bad enough seeing the white crosses, but when Tom saw his mother hanging a large white towel out of their upstairs window, he was outraged. ‘You’re a coward,’ he said.
‘It’s the law,’ she shrugged. ‘Let’s see what kind of hero you turn out to be.’
In reply, Tom ran to the laundry, hung out a pair of unwashed underpants on his fishing rod and stuck it out of his window.
‘That’s what I think of the Krauts,’ he muttered, feeling good about his display of rebellion. Out in the streets of St Helier, white sheets, towels, vests and tablecloths fluttered out of windows all over town, a depressing sign of their shameful capitulation.
Once the surrender was confirmed, more ignominy followed. Several days later, Luftwaffe planes landed on the tarmac and out stepped several crisply uniformed German officers, their black jackboots and silver insignia gleaming in the July sunlight. They were followed by a large contingent of troops who lined up on the tarmac. From the hill overlooking the airport, Tom, Frank and Harry watched the scene unfold, and what they saw shocked them into silence. Tom couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Bailiff and the Attorney-General not only coming to meet the German invaders, but actually shaking their hands. Like a welcome party, he thought.
He cycled home as fast as he could to tell his parents what he had seen. ‘They’re here! They’re here!’ he yelled. His mother came out to see what he was shouting about.
‘What’s all the commotion? What are you making such a fuss about? You almost deafened me,’ she said, holding her perfectly manicured white hands to her ears.
Everything was always about her, Tom thought, and he waited until his father emerged from his darkroom where he developed the photographs he had taken of visitors at the beach. Stanley Gaskell’s expression grew sombre as he listened to Tom’s account of the surrender.
‘Bloody Krauts,’ he muttered. He reflected for a few moments, then added, ‘And bloody Brits. We sacrificed ten thousand men in the Great War to save one line of trenches in France, and we did it not just once, but over and over again, but they didn’t even fire a single shot to defend us,’ he said bitterly. ‘And now the Krauts are at it again.’
He liked reminding Tom that they were descended from a long line of warriors, some of whom had fired crossbows at the battle of Agincourt, and he was outraged at what he saw as cowardice on the part of their leaders.
‘Does that mean you wish they’d sacrifice ten thousand men now as well?’ his mother commented, overhearing their conversation. Tom and his father exchanged glances. It was no use trying to reason with Alma. A neighbour who fell out with her once said that Alma drank vinegar for breakfast instead of tea, and Tom could see her point.
At least his father was usually on his side. Tom admired his father, who could build anything. Resourceful, too. He was a photographer and took advantage of the self-indulgence of tourists who couldn’t resist having a record of their holiday. For those who took their own shots, he installed special boxes in hotel lobbies where guests could drop the films they’d exposed, so that he would develop them and return the prints the following day.
His father’s pleasant manner was an asset in his business, but why this kind and affable man had married such a bad-tempered woman who was impossible to please, Tom couldn’t fathom. People often commented on his mother’s beauty and said she made heads turn, but Tom only knew that she made his head spin. Nothing he did ever pleased her. He suspected that his mother would have happily put him on a boat to England, not so much for his safety as for the relief of being rid of him, but luckily she had left it too late, and he’d literally missed the boat. In any case, he had already resolved that even if she’d bought him a ticket and pushed him onto a boat, he would have jumped overboard and swum back. He hadn’t won swimming trophies for nothing.
In no time, the hated swastika was flying from the top of Fort Regent, its black tentacles looming over the town. Tom often cycled to the top of the fort on Mont de la Ville to gaze over St Helier. According to his teacher, a circle of prehistoric stones and megaliths had once stood on that site, but Tom was far more enthralled by an incident that had taken place here back in 1804, when the fort had caught fire. Inside were five thousand barrels of gunpowder that would have blown up the entire fort if three heroic men hadn’t rushed in and risked their lives to put out the flames. Now, seeing the fort desecrated by the Nazis’ crooked cross, Tom felt disgusted and ashamed.
His father’s spirit had also taken a battering. ‘The Krauts must be laughing their heads off back in Germany,’ he remarked one evening. ‘They couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams that they’d get to invade part of Great Britain without a fight. Do you realise that we have the dubious honour of being the first British possession to ever fall into enemy hands? And if that wasn’t bad enough, we surrendered not to a general but to one of Göring’s officers. Without a single shot being fired!’
Tom’s mother wasn’t impressed. ‘You men are so bloodthirsty. Surely surrendering is better than getting people killed.’
As usual, Tom and his father exchanged exasperated glances. Alma was too pragmatic. She didn’t understand about honour and pride.
She turned her sharp gaze on her husband. ‘Anyway, this might turn out to be an opportunity.’
Stanley stared at her. His usually quiet voice rose. ‘Opportunity for what? For going into business making white flags and swastikas? Don’t you understand? We’ve just been invaded. We are being occupied.’
Ignoring his outburst, Alma turned her attention to Tom. ‘As for you, instead of wasting your time riding that bicycle and hanging around with those useless friends of yours, you’d better start learning German.’
Tom was horrified. Trust his mother to come out with some outrageous scheme. What would his friends think if they found out he was toadying up to their invaders by learning their language?
But before he could object, Alma added, ‘You’re not bad at languages, but French isn’t going to help you these days. I’ll take you to Professor Strauss tomorrow. Two hours a week, and you’ll soon be speaking tolerable German. Might be able to help your father in his business.’
Tom looked helplessly at his father, who just sighed. ‘You know your mother, once she makes up her mind about something, you might as well stop fighting and give in.’
Tom detected a note of admiration in his father’s voice and wished, not for the first time, that Stanley had more backbone.
‘Give in, like we did to the Germans I suppose,’ he retorted. ‘And speaking of giving in, did you know we’re not allowed to listen to any radio stations except the ones the Krauts control?’
His mother tightened her vermillion lips. ‘You’d better stop calling them Krauts from now on.’
Ever since the Germans had invaded, one restrictive order had followed another. All boats were confined to the inner harbour, all firearms, weapons and ammunition had to be handed in, and all orders had to be obeyed to the letter or else there would be serious consequences. Before they had time to absorb one lot of orders, new ones were posted in the Royal Square.
They were also published in the Jersey Evening Post. His father knew the editor, who had confided that the Germans checked every word before they allowed him to go to print and deleted anything they considered hostile. Now that they could only listen to German-approved radio stations, and read only German-approved articles, it was clear that from now on their main sources of information would be censored by their occupier.
The Kommandatur, as the German administration was called, had taken over their Town Hall, which they called the Rathaus, to the amusement of the locals who enjoyed emphasising the first syllable to get their own back for the swastika that fluttered over the building. But for Tom, the most galling of the new regulations was the one that affected the time. From now on, all clocks had to be moved forward by one hour, to be in sync with those in the Reich.
Now we really are part of Germany, Tom thought. If only he could find a way to avenge their humiliation.