Bea lay awake in the darkness imagining every creak and rustle to be an intruder. Three hundred thirty thefts reported last month alone. Locals blamed the Germans, the Germans blamed the slaves, the slaves were voiceless.
Next door in Jimmy’s parents’ room, she could hear the soft cluck of chickens in a box under the bed. In this climate of fear, Mrs. La Mottée, like most of her neighbors, had started taking her rations and chickens to bed with her. It was a far cry from the pre-war days when they’d never even bothered to lock their doors.
Horror mingled with excitement crashed over her at the thought of what lay ahead. It was total madness. England was 85 miles away, through a treacherous tide and lethal reefs. The chances of success were infinitesimal. A vivid image sprang into her mind of the slave, his feet dangling between the two Germans, of her father’s blood on the planks of his fishing boat. She knew what he would say. It was better to die in pursuit of freedom than live a life of degrading subjugation.
Finally, at 3 a.m., Bea heard a tap on the door. Silently she pulled back the covers. She was dressed and bundled up in an old pair of Jimmy’s trousers tightened with string, and his old jersey, which he’d instructed her to put on.
He held up a finger to his lips, the whites of his eyes vivid in the gloom. They crept down the hall, past Grace’s bedroom and Bea fought the urge to wake her.
The guilt was overwhelming. She, Jimmy and Grace did everything together. Bea had come so close to telling her last night but something had stopped her. Grace wouldn’t consider leaving in a million years. Her friend was cautious and measured in everything. She couldn’t jeopardize Jimmy’s plans and yet the longing to knock gently on her door, pull her from her sleep to say goodbye and hug her one last time choked her. Jimmy took her hand, led her on.
Outside they drew out their bikes from the barn. Bea froze.
“What was that? I swear I heard talking from the shed.”
“You’re imagining it. Come on. We can’t afford to hang about.”
Mounting their bikes they began to cycle down the road, through St. Ouen’s, heading in the direction of the beach. The darkness was like a velvet blanket, muffling her senses. Bea swore she could almost hear the sea breathing like a siren’s call as they pedaled in the direction of the coast. She felt the comforting sea mist shroud her face and form droplets on her eyelashes. The mist was so thick it would help keep them hidden, but they would now have no chance of knowing about the enemy until they were on them.
The Germans were increasingly paranoid since Denis Vibert’s escape and regularly patrolled the coastal areas by night. Like an automaton Bea kept on cycling, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on Jimmy’s back, ignoring the iron fist that was gripping her heart. Twenty minutes later she heard the suck and rush of water on shingle.
“Follow me. Stay close,” Jimmy ordered as they dismounted by the coast path. They tucked their bikes in a clearing in a small wooded area before making their way on foot down the path which spilled onto the beach. They walked in silence, their feet crunching on the shingle, past the barbed wire, past the verboten sign and onto the forbidden beach. Bea was shaking so much, her legs seeming to move of their own accord.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear,” she repeated as they walked, but as they spotted the boat, Bea was so terrified she could feel her heart smashing against her ribs.
They reached the far end of the rocky cove where a wooden rowing boat, painted green, was waiting by the water’s edge.
“You’re late,” said Jimmy’s old school friend Francis, and then his anger turned to disbelief. “And what the hell is she doing here, Jimmy? We don’t need any bloody women getting in the way.”
“We have space and Bea’s stronger and fitter than most of you.” Jimmy’s tone brooked no argument, but she felt hostility crackle from the group of young men. The tension was so thick you could taste it in the salt-brined air.
“Where’s this fisherman then?” Bea asked.
“He’ll be here,” said Francis.
“He’d better be,” Jimmy muttered. “We’ve got no hope of navigating our way to England without him.” Bea’s thoughts turned uncomfortably to François Scornet, the paroled French soldier who had escaped from Brittany in an attempt to join the Free French Forces, and landed on Guernsey, mistaking it for the Isle of Wight. The Germans had executed him before a firing squad not five miles from here.
“I don’t like this,” Jimmy said, drumming his fingers on the side of the boat. “Why isn’t he here?” They scanned the high black cliffs, looking for the faintest sign of life.
Just then the mist cleared a little and broken moonlight spilled onto the beach, illuminating the group.
“I say we go now,” said Jimmy. “It’s madness to wait any longer.”
He placed his hand on the small of Bea’s back, urging her to get in the boat.
“No, we must wait,” Francis urged. “We’ve no hope without him.”
Bea was struck by the most horrible feeling of terror. It drenched over her like a wave. Rather than being an escape group, it suddenly occurred to her they were more of a sitting target.
“How well do you even know this fisherman, Francis?” she demanded. “How do you know he’s not an informer, or an undercover—”
The shot rang out like a full stop, bouncing off the cliff face.
“Halt! Hände hoch!” A guttural German voice tore through the darkness, followed by a sweeping beam of light from further up the cliff path.
“We’ve been betrayed,” Jimmy cried. Bea felt like she might crash to her knees from the fear.
“Come on, everyone,” Jimmy urged, pushing the boat. “Get the boat in the water.”
He and the rest began frantically hauling the boat toward the water’s edge, but then a second, more powerful arc of light caught him in its beam.
“Halt!” They heard the sound of an engine roaring up the slipway.
“Jimmy, put your hands up,” she begged. “We’re surrounded.”
For a moment his body stilled. His eyes flickered toward her and she saw desperation, a wildness which vacillated between fight or flight.
He raised his hands slowly, playing for time. “Bea,” he murmured, “get on your hands and knees and crawl. Go now. Save yourself.”
“I can’t leave you, Jimmy,” she sobbed.
They heard the sound of heavy boots crunching on the shingle. The Germans were on the beach.
“Leave now, Bea!” he ordered. “If you love me, you’ll go.”
She pressed her fingers to his face, hoping to convey the fierceness of her love through that one touch, but it was all futile. The game was up.
Wordlessly, she slipped to her knees and began to crawl up the beach, the rocks cutting into her flesh, tears streaming down her cheeks, choking from the unmitigated horror of it all.
She made it to a small rocky outcrop and hunkered down behind a rock. Five, no, seven black figures were running up the beach with dogs, torches bouncing.
As they got closer, Jimmy lowered his hands, slipped his right hand into his pocket and pulled out the gun.
“Legte die Waffe nieder!” screamed a voice.
Jimmy threw the gun backward and it landed near her foot with a crack. Bea stuffed it in her satchel.
All was chaos. Screams, barking dogs. The shriek of bullets.
Jimmy was pushing the boat once more, with all his might, alone now, as the figures closed in.
Surrender, surrender, she urged under her breath, but even as she said it, she knew he never would. All of a sudden his body seemed to jerk and then bounce back onto the shingle. An explosion like a great crack of thunder reverberated off the cliff top. Jimmy’s head hit the edge of the boat and he slithered, face-down at the water’s edge.
Then the Germans were on him. One roughly kicked him over and horror clogged her throat. The color had drained from his face. A hole had been punched clean through his cheek, oozing red and gelatinous, his eyes clear and vacant.
There was a high-pitched whining in her head, like someone fiddling with the frequency of a wireless. The Germans were yelling, their mouths like black maws spilling demands into the darkness, as they cuffed the rest of the group. Then suddenly the noise burst back to life.
“Den strand durchsuchen.” Search the beach.
For a moment she was frozen in indecision. Her legs felt like they were being dragged through a thick treacle of fear, but then something primal kicked in. Bea slithered her way toward a bank of pine trees at the far end of the cove. She knew of a steep path that zigzagged up the side of the cliff. As a kid she and Grace had shimmied up it many times, pretending they were the children out of Swallows and Amazons, prowling Wild Cat Island on the hunt for stolen treasure. How ridiculous those childhood games seemed now as she climbed.
Taking the cliff path she scrambled up. She was unaware of anything but survival, not the barbed wire ripping her shins to pieces, nor the sting of thorns as she smashed through gorse bushes and over boggy marshland. Had they seen her? Were they chasing? At the top of the cliff, she hurtled headlong into the woods and finally she reached the clearing where she had hidden her bike. She climbed the lower branches of a tree and waited immobilized by terror.
Bea waited for the stentorian voice of a German, the trampling of jackboots. God knows how long she waited there, rigid among the treetops, while with every creak of a branch, images came to her like awful snapshots. Jimmy’s head, the spongy crimson mass, the awful look of his surprise on his face. Her fingers were like claws, clinging to the bark, and she was shaking violently.
The clean, sharp smell of pine seemed to bring her to her senses. If she waited here they’d find her. She scrambled down the tree, survival penetrating the fog. She had to get out of there and fast. Once word got out there would be patrols. This place would be crawling with Germans before long. She had the advantage. She knew these fields and footpaths like the back of her hand. If she was careful she could make it all the way back to St. Helier.
Bea pulled her bike out and pushed it fast to the furthest end of the wood that met a small track she knew would take her back and connect her to St. Helier. As she cycled, tears streamed down her face, the wind whipping her hair loose. The split-second awfulness of it consumed her. Just an hour before life had been filled with hope, bravado and the promise of the rewards that come with great bravery. Jimmy’s name in the same breath as Denis Vibert’s, a homespun hero, a tale that would be repeated to their grandchildren. Now there was nothing. No future.
Bea made it to a field on the outskirts of town and waited for the nightly curfew to pass, sliding Jimmy’s tin ring compulsively round and round her finger. Why had she not told Grace? One word from his cautious younger sister and she would have talked him out of it.
A rim of crimson slid over the horizon and the birds began their dawn chorus. She thought of Jimmy’s mum, discovering their disappearance, the confusion and pain that would explode in the hours and days to come. The total dismantling, not just of a family, but of multiple lives. Bea picked up her bike and slid through the shadows back into town. Avoiding the barbed-wire checkpoint at Havre des Pas, she left her bike in the alley at the back of her home and shinned over the wall.
The kitchen was dark and smelled brackish. Something smoldered on the fire.
She crept toward the door, but a hand wrenched her back.
“You dirty stop-out!” Her mother delivered a stinging blow to her face. “I’ve been out of my bleedin’ mind all night. I…” Her voice trailed off.
“Bea, what’s happened?”
“It’s Jimmy. He’s dead.” She peeled off her wet jumper and satchel.
The gun dropped between them and fell on the floor with a dull thud.
“Oh, Mum. What have I done?”