Attorney General’s Chambers
Jersey
28 June 1944
Dear M. Le Connétable,
I have been informed by the Court of Field Command 515 that, by decree of that tribunal dated 22 June 1944, the following convictions and sentences were imposed:
LA MOTTÉE, Grace, Acting Chief Librarian, single, born 22.5.1918, aged 26, of St. Ouen, Jersey. Sentenced to five (5) years’ imprisonment for aiding and abetting breach of the working peace, concealment and issuing of forbidden literature and inflammatory material likely to cause offense and embarrassment to the Third Reich. Sentence to be served in Germany.
GOLD, Beatrice, Postmistress, single, born 14.8.1918, aged 25, of St. Helier, Jersey. Sentenced to one (1) year imprisonment for illegally intercepting and opening mail bound for the occupying authorities. Sentence suspended. Tuberculosis certified.
TOPSY, Peter. Born 2.1.1929, aged 15, of St. Helier. Found not guilty of espionage, after medical report and intervention plea by our bailiff, Alexander Coutanche. Child to be released to the care of Jersey Home for Boys.
GOULD, Louisa, née Le Druillenec, of St. Ouen, born 7.10.1891, aged 53, sentenced to two (2) years’ imprisonment for failing to surrender a wireless receiving apparatus, prohibited reception of wireless transmissions and aiding and abetting breach of the working peace and unauthorized removal. Sentence to be served in Germany.
Would you please have these sentences inscribed in the local police register?
Yours faithfully
Attorney General
C. J. Cuming, Esq.
Constable of St. Helier.
28 June 1944
Bea sat under the shade of an apple tree in Mary La Mottée’s back garden while her four-week-old son slept in his coach pram next to her. The sun blazed high in a sky as blue as harebells. The air smelled of apples and cordite.
Nothing could come close to expressing the crawling horror she felt at Grace’s sentence. Five years! To be served in Germany. Six days on from the end of the bombshell trial, she was still no closer to processing the sacrifice Grace had made for her. The German tribunal had made an example of her. They didn’t need evidence to convict, they’d already proved their justice was a sham, but in Grace’s case, they actually had it by the bucketload.
A whole secret drawer of verboten books in the library. Grace’s signed confession that it was she who’d sourced and loaned the Russian–English dictionary from the library to Louisa Gould. She too who’d tipped off Louisa Gould about her denunciation. All of which of course, combined with Louisa’s conviction and those of five more members of Louisa’s circle, meant that they had all they needed to hand down sentences which would act as a deterrent to the whole island.
Grace was popular, that much was evident by the throngs of people who had gathered outside each day of the trial to show their support. For once, troops hadn’t been ordered to send the crowds packing. It was precisely the show trial the authorities wanted.
As for Bea, the Germans had suffered no loss of face in giving her a suspended sentence. Especially as she was “sick.”
Nobody had been more surprised than Bea when, three days after she had given birth, Dr. Lewis came and told her she and the baby were to stay in isolation in the Dispensary until after the trial and then be discharged into the care of Mary La Mottée. Dr. McKinstry’s production of a swapped medical sample, which proved without a shadow of doubt that Bea had “tuberculosis,” had guaranteed her passage to safety. But it had also given her so much more. It had given her the chance to stay with her baby.
Dr. McKinstry had confided that Grace had negotiated with the Wolf to secure Bea’s release, but fearing that he would renege on it, she’d already asked the doctor to fake Bea’s illness in a letter posted before she’d arrived at Silvertide. It was an insurance policy that Grace had been clever enough to take out, because 30 minutes after her confession and subsequent arrest, Bea had also been formally charged. Thank goodness for Grace’s foresight. She had outwitted the Wolf and proved that when it came to Nazis, there was no negotiation.
The gate at the end of the apple orchard creaked and Bea looked up. She squinted as a tall figure opened the crooked wooden gate and walked toward her. Her heart leapt into her throat. Jimmy? She had barely been able to keep her thoughts from him recently. The swell of longing for him was even more potent since she had given birth. She yearned for him with fresh sadness, as if his death had been only yesterday. How proud he would have been of his son. Their child was the spitting image of him. Every time Bea looked into her son’s eyes something inside her soul folded. The ache of love was like nothing she had ever experienced.
There was only one name for him of course, Mary had seen to that. Personally, Bea would have preferred something a little less predictable, but she owed Mary so much she hadn’t put up a fight. And so Bea existed in a dream-like space, torn between bliss and heart-battering guilt that Grace wouldn’t get to see her nephew, little Jimmy, grow up.
The figure drew closer.
“Arthur. Please tell me you didn’t cycle all the way across the island with your leg.”
“As if. I got the bus, you daft sod.”
He peeked in the pram.
“He’s a little treasure, Bea. Wish you’d told us.”
She shrugged. “You know what society’s like.”
“Aye, that I do. I’m glad Grace’s parents have seen sense and are supporting you. You deserve to be a mother after everything you’ve been through.”
“Of sorts.”
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated. Should she trust Arthur with this information, but in the finish she couldn’t really see what harm it would do. She was sure half the island was gossiping about it anyway.
“Mary is passing her new grandson off as her son. Apparently she’s telling people she thought it was,” she inverted her fingers into commas, “‘the change,’ but it turned out to be a surprise baby. Little Jimmy is a blessing from God after her son was killed.”
Arthur’s eyebrow lifted.
“She’s told the story that many times I think she actually believes it.”
“I suppose such situations are commonplace,” he replied. “And you, Bea, don’t you mind?”
She shook her head.
“Honestly, if it gives me a chance to be near him then no. Mary has said I can live here as long as I like, and as he grows up he’ll be told that I am his big brother’s widow.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Saves the scandal—as if such things matter at times like these. Half you lot at the post office know the truth, but she’s banking on your silence and the fact that in time the gossip will fade and people will just see him as her child.”
“But that will be hard on you, no? He’ll grow up seeing you as the maiden aunt.”
“It’s a sacrifice worth making and in truth, I have no other choice, not if I want to see my son grow up.”
She picked up a bruised apple and rolled it between her palms.
“Besides, my sacrifice pales in comparison next to Grace’s.”
In Arthur’s gentle presence she felt the dam inside her break. Hot tears tracked through the dust on her face. “The awful thing is, growing up, I was always getting Grace into trouble.”
“But you can’t think that Grace would not have the courage of her convictions. She is the most moral woman I know. She wouldn’t have reached her decision lightly.”
“Perhaps, but I’ll always blame myself. It was me who talked, no, begged, her into delivering that warning to Louisa Gould.”
Her tears fell faster and harder and she leaned into Arthur.
“I miss her so much.”
A tremendous, earth-shattering boom seemed to lift the hairs on the back of her neck. They stared over at the cloud of black smoke muddying the horizon over the French coast.
“There goes another French town,” Bea winced. “The Allies are making good progress it seems.”
“And that’s our hope, Bea,” Arthur said. “It’s been twenty-two days now since the invasion of France. We’ve been counting them off on the walls of the post office.”
“You think they’re coming for us?”
“Unlikely. They’re pressing eastwards, with Berlin fixed firmly in their sights. Besides, Hitler won’t give up these islands without a fight. He’s invested too much in their fortification. He’ll insist the garrison fight to the bitter end.”
“So why is this a cause for hope?”
“Because the more cities and towns the Allies re-occupy, the less chance Grace has of being deported. With any luck, the prison they’ve earmarked for her, Louisa and all the others will soon be dust.”
“So, are you saying Grace’s entire life rests on the battle raging over there?”
“Yes. We have to hope the Allies bomb the hell out of those prisons and work camps, before it’s too late. Please God the link to France is soon severed.”
They lapsed into silence, both of them staring over at the mushrooming cloud of darkness seeping over the blue. The most tremendous battle was raging 17 miles from them, one which their entire fate rested on, and yet here they were sitting in a sunny apple orchard with a sleeping baby. The dichotomy of life in wartime. Bea closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer. She had never much been one for church—that belief had been shattered when she’d watched Jimmy die in front of her—but tomorrow, she vowed she would go and pray like never before that the link, as Arthur described it, was blown to oblivion.
“Oh, Bea, I’m sorry,” Arthur said suddenly. “I am that hungry my brain seems to have melted. I have a message for you. Your sister Nancy’s boyfriend gave it to me to pass to you.”
“That—” Bea went to spit out the word “Jerrybag,” but somehow couldn’t summon the anger.
“What does she want?”
“Read it and find out.”
Bea missed her mum dreadfully. Queenie Gold had come to Mary’s to meet her grandson only once, but the effort had clearly been a tremendous strain and by all accounts she barely left the house these days. Guilt sliced savagely as Bea realized the stress of her arrest would have contributed to that confinement. She opened the note, written on thin tomato-packing paper.
Please find a way to come home as soon as possible. Do not delay. Yours, Nancy
Mary was of course all too happy to take over the care of Jimmy Junior and an hour later, Bea had packed a bag while Arthur waited outside to escort her on the bus back to town.
“Don’t try to get back tonight. You can’t afford to miss curfew and get into any more trouble,” Mary fussed, plucking Jimmy from Bea’s arms. “This little one and me will have a lovely cuddle. Get to know each other a little better.”
An ugly spike of jealously lanced Bea’s heart. He’s my baby, not yours.
She fought the temptation to take him back and smother him in territorial kisses. The pain in her chest was physical as she watched Mary cooing over her little boy. What kind of bargain had she struck? The chance to watch Jimmy grow up was going to come at a terrible cost if it was Mary he ran to, Mary he called “Mama,” Mary who would be the center of his world, while she was relegated to the role of spinster auntie.
A voice hissed in her head. “Take him. He’s your child. Run. Before it’s too late.” But where on earth would she run to? A chain of events had been set in motion now, and with Grace having made the ultimate sacrifice, how could she reject her mother’s offer of a home and respectability?
Her arms ached at their sudden lightness.
“I’ve expressed some milk. It’s in a bottle in the kitchen,” Bea said, stroking Jimmy’s soft hair. “And he gets terribly gripey if he’s not winded properly after a feed.”
“Stop fretting. I have raised babies, you know. Go on, shoo. Your mother needs you.”
The bus ride into town was even more arduous than usual, with many usual routes now closed off by the Germans. Bea hadn’t realized, cocooned as she had been in the countryside, the diabolic fate of islanders now that their food supplies from France had been cut off due to the bombing of French ports. Every face she saw out of the bus window was gaunt with starvation. Women trudged along the streets like they barely had the strength to lift their toes.
When the bus finally lurched into St. Helier, Bea could see the town was absolutely crawling with armed Germans on high alert in steel coal-scuttle helmets. Guards had been doubled outside their billets and Red Cross flags fluttered from the hospital.
Bea said goodbye to Arthur and wandered through the streets feeling like a stranger in her own town, her empty arms aching, missing the weight of him, the sweet, milky smell of her boy.
The fish market had been closed down and a communal feeding station set up in its place. All the cinemas and the theaters were shut. Windows and doorframes all over town were cracked and shaken loose.
But it wasn’t until she walked through the Royal Square that the changes finally sank in.
Library closed until further notice she read, rooted to the spot. Guilt punched her heart and it took her a moment to remember how to breathe.
Her usual route home past the French Harbour was now sealed off and heavily guarded. Beyond the barbed wire round the docks, Bea made out a morass of slaves and forced laborers being kicked and whipped onto waiting ships—the Germans trying to get rid of more of their vile war crimes before the Allies arrived.
Still, she cheered herself with the prospect of a hug from her mum. Queenie Gold’s hugs were legendary and what a treat it would be to curl up in her mother’s warm and cozy kitchen.
But when she pushed open the door the house was cold and silent.
“Cooey, Mum, it’s me. I’m home.” She reached into her string bag and pulled out a loaf wrapped in a cabbage leaf and a paper bag with three precious eggs. “Mary’s sent supplies.”
She placed the food on the kitchen table and looked up as Nancy came into the room, her face drawn. “She’s in bed. Dr. Lewis is with her. Come up.”
Bea followed her up the stairs, a dreadful sinking feeling pressing down with every step she climbed.
“Mum, I’m home, I’m sorry I didn’t bring Jimmy,” she whispered as she walked into the bedroom. “Mum?”
Her mum was asleep, the doctor sitting by the side of her bed, baggy-eyed with exhaustion. The curtains were drawn and a strange antiseptic smell hung over the darkened room, stirring the silt of unease inside her.
“Why she’s asleep at this time?”
The doctor looked at her with compassion.
“Bea, you’ve been away from home for over four weeks now. In that time, your mother’s health has deteriorated.”
Nancy stood beside her. “Bea, she’s not asleep, she’s unconscious.”
Bea wanted to shake her silly younger sister.
“Impossible. I saw her just after I had Jimmy. She seemed all right…” Her voice trailed off. Who was she kidding? She had looked awful.
“It’s her diabetes, Beatrice,” the doctor said gravely. “With no insulin, I’m afraid she is dying.”
The truth was eviscerating. What planet had she been living on? She had been so absorbed in her own troubles that she had failed to register the severity of her mother’s illness. Bea gripped the bedframe.
“Then we must get her some now. What are we standing around here for?”
The doctor and Nancy looked at her with pity, their faces resigned.
“This is ridiculous. Do something! NOW!”
“Bea,” Nancy said softly. “There is no insulin anywhere to be had on this whole island.”
“It’s true, I’m afraid,” said the doctor. “Yesterday I received word that a shipment had got though from France. I rushed down to the docks myself to sign for it so that I might administer it immediately, but when I opened the crate, it was empty.”
He shook his head in exhaustion and agony. “It’d been raided in France. Insulin reaches a high price on the black market. I am a doctor who can no longer treat my patients.”
“But surely there’ll more supplies sent soon?” Bea protested. “The Red Cross perhaps?”
“We don’t know when we’ll next get medicine. It’s not just your mother. There are people all over this island dying from preventable disease and malnutrition. It’s not just medicine we are now cut off from, but food.” He stood up and reached for his doctor’s bag. “We are under siege conditions now. The invasion that promised us our freedom is now the very thing that could kill us.”
“All we can do is make Mum as comfortable as possible,” said Nancy. “That’s why I sent word.”
The doctor reached the door. “I shall leave you in peace while I check on another patient.” He hesitated. “I urge you to say what needs to be said.” And then he was gone.
“NO! Please, don’t go,” Bea pleaded, her voice growing louder as he walked down the stairs, his footsteps heavy. “Don’t go! Do something.”
At her cries, her mother’s eyes flickered open.
It seemed to take a while for her gaze to focus and register Bea’s arrival and when she did her hand crept along the bedsheet.
“Love, you’re home.” Her face was deflated—no, ravaged—and Bea’s rage gave way to tears.
“Mum, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
She looked down in dismay as she realized her breasts were leaking milk, staining the fabric of her thin cotton dress.
“Come closer,” Queenie whispered. “I need to see your face.”
Bea kicked off her shoes, got onto the bed and cradled her mother’s body in her arms.
“You’ve lost so much weight.”
Her mother laughed, a sound as dry as the rustle of autumn leaves and her whole body seemed to shudder from the effort.
“I needed to shift some of the timber. Still I might have gone too far. These old legs are so bandy I couldn’t catch a pig in a passage.”
“Mum, you don’t have to do this—put on the Queenie Show for my benefit.”
She ran her hand shakily across Bea’s cheek. “No show. I have two things to ask of you.”
“Anything, Mum.”
“First, kiss my grandson, would you?”
At the thought that her mother would never hold or know Jimmy, tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“All that little mite needs is love,” Queenie whispered. “Love him fiercely. Love him enough for me too.”
“I will, Mum. I can promise you that.”
“Good. Now one more.” She gestured to Nancy, who came and sat on the other side of the bed and took her hand.
“What is it, Mum?” Nancy asked.
“You both must promise me to set aside your differences. Make your peace.”
Nancy looked over at Bea and she glanced away, studying the faded print of the yellow buttercup flowers on her mother’s coverlet.
“Cherish and hold each other tight. You only get one family.”
Bea felt her mother’s fingers squeezing hers, imploring her.
“No more rows.”
A silence stretched round the room and Bea looked over at her younger sister.
“I’m sorry, Bea,” Nancy said. “I won’t apologize for who I choose to love, but I should have been more sensitive to you after Jimmy died.”
Bea nodded and felt a hot, scorching sensation prickle through her breasts, a visceral reminder that her body, which had just welcomed a new life into the world, was now preparing to say goodbye to another.
“I’m sorry too,” she choked, “for all the things I said and all the stupid things I did. I wasn’t thinking straight after Jimmy died.”
Nancy smiled in relief and in that moment Bea suddenly saw with dizzying clarity how she had demonized her little sister, wrongly channeled the vast weight of her grief into blaming her.
She looked down at her mother, ready to smile and reassure her that their peace had been made but her face was still, her eyes oddly vacant.
“Mum?” She bent down and kissed her cold forehead. “Can you hear me, Mum?”
Nancy shook her head. “She’s gone.”
Gently, reverently, Bea closed her mother’s eyes and then kissed her on the cheek one last time. She knew that at any moment the pain and grief would come calling, but for now, it was something to be cocooned in numb disbelief.
“I love you all the money in the world and two bob,” she managed. “You go and rest with the angels now, Mum.” She reached across her mother’s body and threaded her trembling fingers through Nancy’s. “I promise, we’ll do you proud.”
In the distance, heavy bombing rumbled and Bea felt the bedframe tremor. The war was still raging, but Queenie Gold’s battle was over.