Over the next weeks I oversaw the bakery as best I could without Fred to help me. I had Albert, Fred’s nervous young assistant, and Tilly, our shop girl and chief fetcher and carrier, who lived in. Albert lived at home but came at dawn and did the early baking: all the bread for the hotels on the seafront. When that was done, he and Tilly made pies and pastries for the tourists, for we still had plenty of summer visitors, despite the war.
One morning though, when I came down to the bakehouse, there was no smell of bread. I put my hand out to the bread oven. It was cold. There was no sign of Albert. Was he sick? I went to the door to see if I’d missed a sick note, but there was no letter, and the shop door was still locked. Nor was there any sign of Tilly. How odd.
I went up to her room, but the bed hadn’t been slept in. She’d been to visit her mother on the other side of the island the previous night, but I’d expected her back for the morning jobs. I lit the oven myself and dragged a sack of flour from the brick storeroom at the back of the house.
The doorbell sounded and I hurried into the shop. It was Rachel, her dark hair tousled by the wind, and a look of agitation on her face. She always came in for her boss’s bread before she went off to the bank where she was a cashier, and sometimes she’d stop for a cuppa whilst we caught up with each other’s news.
Before she could even ask, I threw up my hands. ‘Sorry, Rache, I’ve no bread yet. I can’t think what’s happened. Albert didn’t come in this morning and the ovens haven’t been lit.
‘Haven’t you heard? He’ll have gone to sign up.’
I was bewildered. ‘For the army?’
‘No, silly. Evacuation,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s chaos. I’ve just been down there. They’re taking precautions in case the Channel Islands are invaded. There are notices up everywhere.’
‘No! Whatever for?’ I stared at her, unbelieving. ‘They won’t come here. The Jersey Evening Post says these islands are not worth conquering. At least, not unless Hitler wants an ice cream and a ride on a donkey.’
‘We’re so close to France though. And my boss, Mr Scott, says that on the other side of the island you can hear the boom of the German guns and see the smoke from bombs. I don’t know what to do.’ She stopped and bit her lip. Fred’s name hung unspoken between us. She was the only person I’d told that Fred was fighting for the Germans. Everyone else assumed he was fighting for the British. I’d had no news of him, and his absence chafed every minute. ‘I thought you’d have heard,’ she went on. ‘They’ve called women and children, and men between the ages of eighteen and thirty. That’ll be why Albert’s not at work. We’ve got until ten o’clock tomorrow morning to register.’
‘Oh Lord. I bet that’s where Tilly’s gone too. She’s probably still with her mother. She could have let me know! What will I do with no staff?’
‘It’s so quick. There’s no time to make proper arrangements. They’re sending everyone to England. Where will we all end up?’
‘Will you really go?’ I asked.
Rachel leant over the counter, tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. ‘You know my situation. It’s hard with a name like Cohen. Mr Scott says he’ll keep my job open for me, but that I should go if I get the chance. I weighed it up before, and I really think I’m safer here than in England. That’s the place the Germans really want, and they’ll go all out to get it. And I’ve no job or house in England. But now, with all this talk of invasion, it’s getting scary.’
‘I won’t go,’ I said. ‘Someone’s got to feed everyone. Do you really think Albert will be going? He’s got two small children.’
‘A lot will go,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s queues already around the town hall. I came to see if you were going.’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘People are saying that if trade routes to England get cut off, and Germany holds France, we’ll starve. But Mr Scott won’t budge. He says you can only take one suitcase and he doesn’t want to be a penniless refugee at his age. He’s nearly sixty.’
I went to the window and turned the hanging sign to closed. ‘I’d no idea. I haven’t been into town. I’ll get my coat. Better take a look at those notices.’
But even before we got anywhere near the port, the queues wound around the town like a thick dark snake. I gripped Rachel’s arm, unable to believe what I was seeing. ‘Bloody hell. Half the island must be going.’
‘Do you think they know something we don’t?’
As we got closer, waves of panic and indecision came from the queue. A large woman in a flowery apron was begging her husband to tell her if it was better for her children to be bombed in England or starved in Jersey, and meanwhile, hearing all this, the children clung to her apron in tears.
‘There’s a new notice gone up,’ Rachel said, pushing through the queue towards the bank.
I pulled on her coat sleeve. ‘Rachel, this looks bad. If this many are leaving, maybe there’s some truth in it, and we might be taken over by the Germans.’
‘Let’s hope it’s just scaremongering,’ Rachel said, but her usual carefree face was pinched. The document pinned to the bank door was headed ‘Evacuation’.
‘£20 is the maximum withdrawal allowed,’ I read aloud. It was signed, ‘by order of the Bailiff.’
‘It looks terribly official,’ Rachel said. ‘It looks like the bank will be cleaned out.’ She twisted her hands around the strap of her bag. ‘What do you think, Céline?’
‘I think you should go. I’ve heard rumours, passed from the French fishermen to ours … about what happens to Jews when the Nazis arrive.’
‘I’ve heard those rumours too. But they must be an exaggeration, surely? Wartime propaganda and all that. I can’t believe they can be true. What would Fred say? Does he think they’re true?’
‘He’s just a baker, not a politician. Before all this he couldn’t decide if Hitler was a genius or a madman. But he told me there’s strong anti-Jewish feeling in Germany.’
Rachel dragged me away from the crowd around the notice.
‘I know one thing. He wouldn’t want me to abandon the shop.’
The thought of Fred, fighting somewhere in France, and then coming home to no shop, made me cover my mouth to stop it trembling.
Rachel put an arm around my shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I know he had no choice.’
‘Oh, it’s all such a mess.’ I fished a handkerchief from my pocket, took off my glasses, and blew my nose. ‘But one thing I do know is, if the troops come here, we’d never get out of their way. There’d be nowhere to hide. Can you imagine? Jersey’s only eight miles long; they’d overrun us in a few hours.’
She blanched. ‘Then it’s time for me to leave. I’ll put my name down, if you will.’