Dr Jackson
St Helier, July 1943
I wrote my will yesterday.
This might sound dramatic, but I feel as though Damocles’ sword is poised above my head. There’s an outbreak of diphtheria in St Helier at the moment, so last week, when a woman telephoned to ask me to see her son who had a bad cough, I suspected diphtheria straight away. And as soon as I saw the child, my suspicions were confirmed. He was in a very bad way with a thready pulse and that dreadful hacking cough. He didn’t look as if he’d last the night, but the panic-stricken mother was still insisting that it was just a cough, so I offered to look at his throat. I bent over him to demonstrate what I meant by opening wide, and at that precise moment he coughed right into my open mouth. The poor child was so far gone that there was nothing I could do for him, and he died that night. But considering the high rate of contagion, I expect I’ll catch it now, and as Jersey’s supply of anti-toxin is severely depleted, my odds of surviving are not favourable.
Contemplating how to dispose of my worldly goods has been a salutary experience. Taking an inventory, I realised that apart from the house, my second-hand Austin and my bicycle, I have little of value to bequeath. And with the dire shortage of petrol, the car is not a great asset.
It’s not much to show for so many years of study and medical practice. When I think about it, the best indication of the state we are in is the fact that my most valuable assets are probably my Kilner jars of preserved chickens and bottled fruit, dried bread rusks, French wines and spirits, and the barrels of cider I made last autumn from my apples.
The house I will leave to Jamie, the bicycle to my friend Will de Gruchy, and I’ll distribute the food among my patients, many of whom are suffering as a result of rationing. To give an example, while the Germans in their comfortable leather boots are gorging themselves on full cream milk and first-rate beef, housewives queue for hours in their wooden clogs – there are no shoes in the shops, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to afford them – to get their small ration of skim milk and two ounces of scrawny French beef.
When I considered what I could leave my darling Aoife, I decided the best thing would be cash, so that she can purchase whatever she needs for herself or for the hospital and, as she has a very sweet tooth, I’ll leave her my jars of honey.
Have I mentioned the honey? I don’t really know what possessed me to buy a swarm of bees last summer from one of my patients, an elderly widow who lives near the Marais du Val. All my life I’ve been terrified of bees, having been stung so badly as a boy that for days I couldn’t open my eyes and thought I was going to die. So I don’t understand the crazy impulse that made me decide to buy the whole swarm.
As I tried to follow the apiarist’s complicated instructions about buying hives and brood boxes lined with wax, I became thoroughly confused, and wondered what on earth I’d let myself into.
My heart was in my mouth while I was taking her swarm home in a hive, and I listened with trepidation to the frightening racket the bees made in the car. I didn’t breathe out until I opened the hive and they flew out in search of elder, hawthorn and clover.
But in the end, my mad impulse was richly rewarded because these bees produced the best honey I’ve ever tasted. I ended up with over one hundred pounds of it, which is a welcome sweetener now that sugar has disappeared from our rations.
‘You were very brave to take the swarm when you were so frightened of bees,’ Aoife said when I gave her a jar the first time she came to my house for dinner. In the interests of honesty, I was about to explain it was madness rather than courage, but she was gazing at me with such admiration that I accepted the compliment with a smile.
Dinner that night was an enormous success. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I brought out one of the chickens I’d preserved. But my attempt to provide a postprandial smoke was a dismal failure. It turned out that, like me, she enjoys smoking after dinner. Cigarettes are a rare luxury but someone had advised me to try dried blackberry leaves as a tobacco substitute.
Unfortunately the leaves emitted thick black smoke that tasted foul and made us both dizzy. But at least it gave us a good excuse to go to bed early.
It might seem that these experiments with bees and leaves are a bit of an adventure, but there is nothing exciting about having to live on two ounces of meat a week and scrounging to make the other meagre rations last until the next allocation. Although I prefer to describe successes rather than dwell on failures, I don’t want to create the impression that life during the Occupation is a series of triumphs over adversity. It is a constant struggle.
I should add that my situation isn’t typical because I am more fortunate than most people here. For one thing, I live alone, and for another, I anticipated the shortages and not only began to prepare provisions from the very start of the Occupation, but I also planted out vegetables and bottled my summer fruit. What’s more, patients who own farms often supplement my rations with a piece of pork or beef, or a pat of butter.
But by far the luckiest aspect of my life is sharing it with Aoife.
‘Do you ever feel guilty that we are so happy together when most people are suffering?’ I asked her one night, propping myself up on an elbow to gaze at her, to convince myself, yet again, that she was really here, lying in my bed.
She shook her head, and her russet locks spread out on the pillow reminded me of a sensuous pre-Raphaelite painting.
‘I grew up in Ireland, and I was brought up on guilt and hellfire, but I got over it. Life is a gift we only receive once, and we have to treasure every single minute while we still have it,’ she said.
Just the same, there are times when I can’t stop thinking of what lies ahead for us. We know that the war must end sooner or later, and, judging by the defeat of the German army in North Africa, which I was overjoyed to hear about recently on the BBC News, perhaps that will be sooner rather than later.
On a personal level, though, I wonder what will happen to me and Margaret. Our situation, living in marital limbo, can’t continue forever. What if she returns to St Helier with Jamie? I don’t suppose she’ll want a reunion after the rift that has widened between us over so many years, but will she agree to a divorce?
Some women refuse to divorce unless their spouse admits to desertion or adultery, but a public admission of adultery would be embarrassing for me and for Aoife. She might lose her position at the hospital due to the scandal. And how will I feel when I see my boy for the first time? Will I have to make a choice that involves giving him up?
I know I want to be free to start a new life with Aoife. The joy I feel with her is so intense that I never want our lovemaking to end. I never knew it could be like this, that I was capable of feeling such passion and delight. Sometimes I feel such ecstasy that if I died in her arms, I would die happy. Compared with the way I feel about Aoife, everything I have experienced in the past is a pallid imitation.
But whenever I talk about the future, Aoife places a finger over my mouth and whispers. ‘There is no future and no past. There is only now.’
I admire her philosophical attitude, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t focus fully on the present. I have always sought answers. I have never felt comfortable with doubt, and now a dark corner of my mind dwells on an uncertain future.
But from what I see in my surgery every day, I realise that the only certainty we have is that the future is unpredictable. As a doctor, I feel helpless when I’m unable to provide the medications patients need. Just the other day Miss le Prevost was in tears as she begged me to do something for her diabetic mother, but we’ve run out of insulin, so there’s nothing I can do. When I make house calls, distraught parents wring their hands because their children are hungry and they don’t have enough food for them. Young girls are distraught because they have fallen in love with a German soldier and are terrified of what their parents will say.
That brings me to Betty, a street-smart nineteen year old who came to see me last week, her face partly covered by a scarf. When she removed it, I was shocked to see her black eye, split lip and swollen cheek.
‘My dad,’ she said before I had time to ask what happened. ‘Someone told him I had a German boyfriend. He said I was a whore and belted me.’ A venomous look came over her pretty face. ‘But I got me own back. I went to the police and told them he had a pistol hidden in the attic.’
I was aghast. I didn’t know what horrified me more, his violence or her vengeance.
‘Did you realise what might happen?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘They’ll probably send him to jail. That’ll give him time to think about what he did to me.’ Then she added, ‘This wasn’t the first time he beat me up. At least Otto is nice to me.’
I looked at Betty, sitting there with a defiant expression on her bruised face, and I was at a loss what to say.
‘Do you love each other?’ I asked at last.
She gave a sly smile. ‘He gives me perfume and flowers, not like the local fellows.’
For all she knew, he might be married, and I was about to issue a kindly warning, but something about her made me stop and look at her more carefully. Unlike most of my patients, Betty had put on weight, and I wondered if she had told me the whole story.
‘Do you think you might be pregnant?’ I asked.
She looked down and pressed her lips together, and I knew the answer.
After telling her how to reduce the swelling on her face, I advised her to come back and see me in a month’s time so I could monitor the pregnancy. After she left, I thought about her situation. What she had done in denouncing her father was reprehensible, but if he had a history of violence, perhaps she had been driven to it.
Sometimes it’s hard to refrain from making judgements, but the more you know about people’s lives, the harder it is to judge their actions. Betty would need all the support she could get in the coming months, and I decided that the most important thing was for her to know she could come and talk to me.
Looking after a baby in these times is very difficult and I don’t envy new mothers, even when they don’t have the added stress of German boyfriends and furious parents. Aoife has told me how hard it is to keep premature babies alive in hospital when power restrictions and fuel shortages mean that they only have candles for lighting and hot-water bottles to keep the babies warm. I’m amazed that despite those problems, very few babies have died, but that’s due to the superb nursing at the hospital.
From my patients I know how tough life is for new mothers who have to get up on cold nights to feed or pacify babies in the dark, without being able to keep warm or heat up their food. You can’t find a thermos flask for love or money.
I was still thinking about Betty the following morning when I left home to do my rounds. I was humming ‘You Are My Sunshine’ as I headed for the Jersey Maternity Hospital, which is always my first call of the day. At the hospital Aoife and I always maintain a professional demeanour, careful not to give ourselves away by our lingering glances. Clearing my throat, I said ‘Good morning, matron. I came to see if I’m needed today.’
‘Oh, you certainly are that,’ she replied, with that mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
The sky looked bluer than usual and the sun shone more brightly as I continued my daily rounds. This time I was heading along the east road towards Gorey, one of my favourite places on the island.
The view of Mt Orgueil looming over the harbour never fails to make me catch my breath, and I’m always struck by the contrast between the grandeur of that medieval fortress and the rustic furrows of the ploughed potato fields rising steeply above the fishing village that faces the port.
But this time I hadn’t come to have tea and scones in one of the charming little teashops in the village. I was hurrying to get to Trinity up in the north-east.
My motive for going to this distant part of the island wasn’t connected with patients but with escaped slave labourers. I was heading for an old stone farmhouse that belonged to Mary and Will de Gruchy, who were part of our rescue network.
Sheltering escaped slave labourers has become more dangerous than ever, as the Germans spare no effort to track them down. But knowing the cruelty they face if they are caught has made us redouble our efforts to prevent them from falling into the brutal hands of the German overseers of Organisation Todt. It is horrible to know that on our island innocent people have been starved, beaten to a pulp, strung up by their thumbs, or stripped naked and doused with iced water, and we are helpless in the face of this barbarity.
Ever since Mrs Carter took Sasha under her wing, we have been able to shelter another escapee. Pierre was found emaciated and in rags, devouring raw potatoes on Will de Gruchy’s farm. Distressed at his plight, Will brought him inside and gave him the first proper meal the starving man had had in months.
I’ve known the de Gruchys for many years. They’re the kind of people who are often described as the salt of the earth, hardworking, warm-hearted and reliable. Will’s wife Mary had sounded me out several weeks ago about my attitude to the slave labourers, and had offered to become part of our rescue network.
They liked Pierre, and as they had no children, and their farmhouse was fairly isolated, they decided to let him stay, as the risk of being exposed was negligible.
The only regular visitor to the farm was Mrs de la Mare, who came in twice a week to do the cleaning. ‘She’s been with us for years, she’s like one of the family,’ Mary assured me.
All had gone well apparently until the previous day when I had a phone call from Mary, who sounded unusually flustered. She rang to ask me to come over as soon as possible. I usually ride thirty to forty miles a day on my bicycle, so I wasn’t looking forward to adding to my mileage by visiting their remote farm on what didn’t appear to be a medical issue, but Mary wasn’t prone to needless panic, so that morning as soon as I had attended to my other patients, I cycled over.
Will met me at the farmhouse door. He spoke unusually fast and sounded agitated. It turned out that when they discovered that their trusted cleaner had stolen some money from them, she threatened to tell the police that they were harbouring an escaped slave labourer.
‘I don’t give in to blackmail,’ Will told me. ‘I warned her that if she said a word about Pierre, I’d charge her with theft, and I sacked her there and then.’
I advised them to move Pierre to another safe house as soon as possible, and to destroy his clothes and every sign that he’d ever been there, but I had a feeling that they hadn’t heard the last of it.
As soon as I got home, I telephoned Bob Blampied. I didn’t trust the telephone exchange, and just in case someone was listening in, I told him that my cat had just had a litter of kittens and I needed a home for one of them. He understood and promised to make inquiries.
It’s been at least a week since my last entry, but I have been so busy that by the time I return home, I’m too exhausted to write. So I’ll continue where I left off. The day after my visit to the de Gruchy farm, as I was having my usual breakfast of hot water and lemon sweetened with honey, and one of my dried rusks with a boiled egg, my telephone rang. It was Will de Gruchy, and he seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth.
‘Please come as soon as possible. Mary is desperately ill. Be sure to bring your doctor’s bag.’ With that he hung up.
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with Mary, who had seemed perfectly well the day before, but from Will’s tone and strange final comment, I knew something serious had happened. It’s not often that a patient reminds a doctor to bring his bag.
As I hurriedly pulled on my trousers, I noticed that I would have to punch another hole in my belt which wasn’t surprising, considering all that cycling and my diminished diet.
Their farm is picturesquely situated at the foot of Les Platons, the loftiest point on our island, but I was too preoccupied to appreciate the view, and kept cycling until I reached the farmhouse.
No wonder Will had sounded panic-stricken. Parked outside were two Opel police cars. As I had feared, Mrs de la Mare had denounced them. The front door had been left unlocked and, as I walked in, my heart was hammering in my ears and I wondered how I could possibly help.
Downstairs, two policemen gave me a suspicious look, but seeing my doctor’s bag, they waved me through and continued rifling through drawers, throwing the contents of cupboards onto the floor, and poking at the back of shelves. I couldn’t help wondering why someone searching for a fugitive would be rifling through drawers, but I suppose they were searching for incriminating items. I held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t find Will’s hidden radio.
‘Doctor, thank goodness you’re here! Come upstairs, Mary has taken a turn for the worse,’ Will was shouting from the top of the stairs. I ran up two at a time, and saw Mary lying in bed, propped up on a large pillow while a German Feldgendarm was checking every coathanger.
She certainly didn’t look well, but at that moment I didn’t feel too well myself, and as for Will, his face had a greenish tinge.
‘How’s your cough today?’ I asked, giving her a meaningful look.
She got the message and uttered a hacking cough. This wasn’t difficult as she was a heavy smoker. I had warned her for years about the dire consequences of smoking, but on this occasion, her cough was a godsend. I took out my stethoscope and made worried noises. She coughed again, so loudly that the police officer turned around.
‘I’m afraid it’s very serious,’ I said to Will with as much gravitas as I could muster. ‘I think she’s got diphtheria. Make sure no-one comes anywhere near her, because it’s terribly contagious.’
At this, the Feldgendarm went downstairs and whispered something to his colleagues, and a few moments later the front door banged behind them.
After the police cars had roared away, Mary slid out of bed and almost collapsed in Will’s arms. When she had recovered, she pulled out the pillow she had been lying on, and showed me the radio hidden inside the pillowslip.
As I set off for home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mary and Will’s fate had the policemen found the radio. The Germans dealt severely with people who broke their rules, like young Tom and his friend who were caught trying to escape from Green Island. I’ve heard that not even their parents have been permitted to visit them, which is very odd, as they are such young lads.
No-one seems to have a clue what happened to them, whether they are still on Jersey, or whether they have been sent to France or Germany. It must be nerve-wracking for their families not to know what has happened to them.
I’m very relieved to say that, despite my fears, I didn’t contract diphtheria. But I’ve left my will inside my favourite book, The Citadel.
One never knows.