“You want a book? You think this is a library?”
The snub-nosed guard laughed as if he’d said the funniest joke, then slapped her face hard. Grace fell to the ground, felt a blow to her lower back. That one action opened the flood gates. Kicks, fists, feet rained down on her. She curled protectively into a ball. Then came a sharp kick to her spine which sent her back into spasm, just as a steel-capped boot made contact with her tummy. The pain was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Grace felt something break inside her, felt the warmth of blood fill her mouth, then mercifully the walls closed in.
Later when she regained consciousness in her prison cell, Louisa was holding her, her rage simmering.
“Guards, we need water,” she cried. No one came. No one ever did, apart from to shove some cup of greasy water with bits of turnip floating in it through the hatch.
From the moment their boat had docked at St. Malo, it had been a filthy, frightening, violent blur. They had been herded onto busses and cattle trains and held in anonymous gray transit cells before being moved again. No one told them anything. Justice was a remote and shadowy concept and in all the time since they had been deported, Grace had realized, as political prisoners, they were numbers, not names. They were lost to the world.
“Why did they do this to you?” Louisa wept, holding Grace as tight as she dared. “I’ve nothing to clean you up with.”
The wounds on her face and body would heal in time, but Grace had the terrible feeling that the kick to her abdomen had done something terrible, something irreversible.
“You must stop speaking back to them,” Louisa implored. “Say nothing.”
Grace knew she was right, but she also knew she couldn’t stay silent, not when she was witnessing so many atrocities. It had come as a genuine shock to see their treatment at the hand of the Third Reich and had made them both realize how civilized their occupation in Jersey had been compared to the violence and depravity meted out here. She thought they had been isolated in the Channel Islands, but that was nothing to the filthy fog of silence they had sailed into. The gloves were off. The ground rules had changed.
“I’ve been living in a fool’s world,” she whispered, scarcely able to comprehend the savagery of her downfall.
Louisa took off her cardigan and tied it around Grace’s abdomen to stem the flow of blood.
“Hush, my love. Only positive words and thoughts. We can’t let these bastards beat us, Grace, we mustn’t. We will get through this. As long as we stay together.”
Grace nodded, too lightheaded to speak.
“We must stick together,” Louisa whispered.
Exhaustion gnawed at her bones, and a tiredness so colossal swamped her. She closed her eyes.
Days bled into weeks and then they were on the move again, this time washing up in Jacques-Cartier Prison in Rennes, Brittany. On the way in Grace had been stunned at the size of the prison. As she and Louisa and the other prisoners in their consignment had been processed and herded up long corridors she’d heard the calls of German, French and Polish women.
Nights were the worst. Sleep never came. Grace looked over at Louisa, sleeping in her small iron bed, her breath ragged, and moved quietly to the cell door. Grace was worried about Louisa. She had withstood the suffering, the cold and starvation with a quiet dignity. True to her word, she never indulged in self-pity, often encouraging Grace to talk about their beloved Jersey, and yet, she was suffering. She had taken to shaking her head involuntarily and her legs were covered with raw ulcers and sores, which had to be causing her immense pain.
Outside the tapping started up and Grace sighed. She’d never guessed how noisy it could be in a prison, especially at night. Prisoners calling to empty their slop buckets, mysterious tapping on the heating and toilet pipes and over it all, guttural German orders. A howl reverberated up the corridor, two women fighting, followed by running footsteps.
“Oi, keep it down,” yelled a woman’s voice from the cell next door.
Grace felt a ridiculous surge of hope.
“You’re English?” she called into the darkness.
Silence.
She climbed on the six-inch heating pipe which ran the length of the cell and used it to hoist her face closer to the small cell window.
“Please. Talk to me. I heard you speak just now. You’re English.”
Grace rested her face against the cell wall and closed her eyes. “Please, I need…” She tailed off. What did she need? To speak with someone whose language was familiar, to know that she was alive?
“Keep your voice down. The guards’ll hear.”
Grace’s eyes snapped open. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Who are you?”
“Never mind that.” Her accent was cut-glass, home counties English. “You’re Eingänge?”
“Sorry?”
“Newcomers.”
“Yes, sort of, though I can barely remember a life before this.”
A dry rustle of a laugh.
“Yes, a Nazi prison will do that to you.”
A tearing pain flashed through Grace’s abdomen and she groaned.
“They have quite the penchant for brutality, don’t they. God, what I wouldn’t do for a smoke.”
“We’re from Jersey. How did you end up here?”
“Listen. Take my advice. Keep your head down. Stay silent. Use every opportunity to escape.”
“But how?” she stammered, her throat locked.
“Look here. I didn’t say I knew how. Just keep your eyes open for possibilities. This is your last chance. This prison is the last stop before Germany.”
Grace felt a hot lance of terror.
“How do you know?”
Silence.
“I only helped to pass on warnings, a few books,” Grace protested. “I’m not a member of the Resistance.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve made yourself an enemy of the Third Reich.”
The mysterious woman fell silent again and something told Grace she had said all she was going to.
Exhausted, she fell back on her bed and stared at the wall.
Graffiti smothered it. Grace reached out and traced her fingers over it, feeling the dent and jagged groove of words written in moments of pure desperation, or perhaps resignation to their fate.
“Mort pour la France,” she whispered out loud, feeling out the words with her fingers like braille. Despair blanketed her. She thought of the people she loved, her family, Red, Bea and her library friends. Why hadn’t she said goodbye properly? She saw Red’s face behind barbed wire and the longing to hold him, tell him that she loved him madly, desperately, burst out of her in a shudder of regret.
Grace managed to drift off, but sometime in the dead of night, she was awoken not by a noise, but a vibration. She sat upright, her head spinning, the clenching pain in her stomach almost drowning out rational thought.
She held onto the edge of the bed and felt the thrum of the cool iron.
“Lou, can you hear that?”
Lou stirred groggily and started to shake her head.
“What’s that noise?”
Her voice was drowned out by the unmistakable drone of aircraft.
Grace climbed onto her bed, her palms so slippery with sweat she struggled to get a hold on the prison window. Through the narrow sliver of bars she saw in the distance a church spire, a dense jumble of blacked out buildings and chimney pots… above only a dark empty vault. And yet…
“It’s bombers,” said Louisa. “It must be Allied bombers.”
The vibration grew to a roar and though they couldn’t see them, the whole prison suddenly seemed to shake. An enormous flash lit up the interior of the cell and Louisa’s face appeared, frozen and white, like a tableau against the filthy prison wall.
“They’re dropping—”
She never finished her sentence. The force of the explosion was deafening. The air was filled with a thick choking acrid smoke. Grace gripped Louisa’s hand.
“I can smell burning.”
“Stay calm,” Louisa ordered.
Another explosion, this time closer. Then another. It was like being trapped in a metal bin with someone beating the lid with a jackhammer. The walls of the prison seemed to buckle and groan.
“We’re trapped,” she gasped, feeling in her panic like she could smash the walls down.
“Hush. Breathe,” Louisa ordered, pulling her in and encircling her with her arms.
Grace clung to Louisa, her eyes tightly closed, feeling the hammering of Louisa’s heart through her ribs.
“I don’t want to die here, Lou, I’m not ready to die.”
A bomber’s moon crept out from its hiding place and the cell lit up with moonlight. It stole across the walls illuminating the graffiti.
“Mort pour la France,” Grace repeated.
“What’s that? Don’t be silly. No one is dying, do you hear me? They sound closer than they really are. And really, why would the Allies bomb a prison?”
Suddenly, their prison door was wrenched open. The glint of a steel helmet, a blank void for a face.
“Raus jetzt!” Out now.
Beyond him, they saw more guards, ushering women up the corridor. Bodies bumping, the smell of shit and cordite filled the air.
“Keep together,” Louisa urged as they filed out into the tidal wave of prisoners.
Grace felt the hot press of stumbling bodies and a voice in her ear: “Keep your eyes open.”
She whipped round but a guard grabbed her arm and twisted it painfully up her back.
“Bleib in bewegung, Englãnderin!”
Grace and Louisa spilled out into a central courtyard. The cold air and the toxic smell of burning smacked them like icy water.
The courtyard was filled with guards, their necks craned skyward. Searchlights cut dusty ribbons through the sky. Above were the Allied aircraft, RAF most likely, as it was night. They were so tightly bunched, you could scarcely put a pin between them. Grace felt a ridiculous surge of hope, even when sticks began to fall from their undercarriages.
Pandemonium broke out. The prisoners screamed and ran around in circles, but there was nowhere to hide. Dogs barked. Shots were fired.
Grace and Louisa stood in the middle of the chaos, gripping each other’s hands, rooted to the spot as great dark waves of fear rose and plunged.
A bomb dropped on the furthest corner of the courtyard. A colossal boom and the sky seemed to rain bricks.
“Get down.” Grace pushed Louisa to the concrete floor and draped herself over her. They were enclosed in a hot swirling morass. Grace realized she had been holding her breath and now desperately needed to breathe, but as she lifted her head, her lungs filled with a bitter choking dust.
Eventually, she dared to lift her head a few inches off the ground. As the smoke cleared she felt the last of her breath leave her body.
One side of the courtyard wall had been destroyed and the adjoining prison wall was flattened, as if someone had punched a giant fist through it. Prisoners were disappearing through the hole, a silent steam of bodies, running without looking back.
Grace staggered to her feet, ears ringing, and it was then that she realized Louisa was lying motionless, a rag doll on the cobbles. Had she pushed her too forcibly to the ground?
“Lou,” she cried, her voice sounding so far away.
The older woman pulled herself up on all fours and began to cough.
“Lou, are you all right?”
She coughed again, saliva spooling from her mouth.
“Yes… Yes, I think so. Just winded.”
“Lou.” She looked about, lowering her voice. “This is our chance. We have to go.”
“Go? Go where?” Lou looked at Grace as if she’d just suggested popping to the shops.
“See…” Grace gestured to the shattered wall. “It’s twenty feet away at most. Then we have to navigate our way past that prison entrance, but it’s chaos so we might make it. But we must leave now. Right now!”
Louisa closed her eyes and Grace had a terrible feeling.
“I can’t run.”
“You don’t have to,” Grace said, frustration mounting. “You can lean on me, I’ll support you. Please get up… please.”
For a moment Grace thought Louisa was trying to stand up. She fell back on her haunches, swayed slightly, then sat back, crying in pain.
“Come, Lou, take my arm. Let’s go.”
Louisa shook her head.
“I can’t do it. I can’t run. I don’t have it in me.”
Desperation clogged Grace’s throat.
“We made a promise to stick together. Please, Lou. You must get up.”
She sat motionless in the prison courtyard. In the distance, Grace could see a group of guards forming.
“You go, Grace. Take your chance. You’ll do it on your own, without me slowing you down.”
Her lungs burned and throat was raw. Tears and snot streamed down her face. How could it come down to this? Grace gripped her fingers. “I’ll carry you if I have to. This is our only chance. I beg of you, Lou.”
Louisa crossed her arms. “No, my love. My running days are over. I am too old. I’ll take my chances.”
“But I can’t leave you.”
“Go, child. And if you should make it back, you tell them Louisa Gould will be fine. I am a tough Jersey woman.”
She stared one last time at the older woman’s face and saw the fear radiating out from the edges of her bravado. “Go, Grace. I’ll see you in Jersey. I’ll be a little bit behind you, that’s all, my love.”
Tears flowing down her face, Grace turned and ran across the prison yard, legs pumping, heart shattering.
She imagined Red, vaulting over the prison fence, running with ferocity into the black of night, beckoned by the call of the wild. He had taken his chances, and now, so must she.
Grace plunged into the inky blackness. At the gates, a guard lay dead, his torso severed in two by the glass window which had blown out from his sentry box. Behind him another guard dangled limply from a tree, his entrails hanging down from the branches. Grace cried out in horror and carried on running, waiting any minute for a bullet to take her down.
She carried on running through fields of wheat and past bomb-shattered farms, their charred rafters jutting into the sky like bony fingers. Thirty minutes later, maybe more, she came to a village and finally she stopped.
Skeins of smoke drifted across the square burning her throat. Grace was so thirsty. In the center of the square, next to a memorial to the Great War, was a water fountain, but she didn’t dare leave the shadows.
Her gaze flickered up the street. A large wooden loaf of bread hung over a shop, creaking gently in the wind. The boulangerie. The sirens carried on blaring, reminding her that she had to take cover fast. She knocked four times on the door.
“Please, please, please, answer.” She murmured silent prayers under her breath.
A woman opened the door a crack and on seeing Grace quickly babbled something. A man, her husband, Grace supposed, came to the door. Neither said a word, just stared at her. She looked in the man’s face for softness, warmth, some sign of humanity she could appeal to but saw none. Just suspicion.
How she wished she’d learned to speak Jèrriais now. It might not have helped her to communicate with them perfectly, but it would have been a start.
“Evade de prison…” she said, overgesticulating with her hands.
The man’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head, already closing the door in her face.
Surprised at her own desperation, Grace stuck her foot in the door.
“Mon nom est Grace La Mottée. Je suis bibliothécaire de Jersey.”
She looked at the wife imploringly. “The Bibliothèque Publique, St. Helier. S’il vous plaît aider?”
The woman’s face softened, the door opened wider and Grace stumbled into the kitchen. Inside, away from blaring sirens, in the normality of a home for the first time in months, Grace went into shock and started to shake violently. How queer it seemed to be among domesticity, things, people, the smell of bread, rosemary and thyme. Grace had no idea whether these strangers would turn her in, but they were her only chance of freedom.
The woman wrapped her in a blanket and sat her by the fire, barked incomprehensible orders at her husband, who reluctantly began to pull down copper pans from over the range.
“My name is Madame Josephine,” she said in halting English. “You can stay only until the Americans or the British come. We will keep you safe.” She pointed to a small door in the corner of the kitchen. “In the pantry.”
From his place by the stove came a grunt, then a torrent of angry French. Madame Josephine silenced her husband with a wintery expression.
She turned back to Grace and her whole face softened, an almost shy smile lighting up her eyes. “I like books very much.”
As a cup of something warm was pressed into Grace’s hands she realized for the first time that one side of the higgledy-piggledy kitchen was absolutely rammed with books. They teetered in piles and ran off like dominoes over the shelves, across the top of the range shelf and even piled up like doorstops on the floor. She was a bibliophile and suddenly Grace realized, she could trust this woman.
A horsehair mattress was laid down in the still room and Grace fell exhausted onto it. It was dark and quiet, all she could make out was the glimmer of glass jars on the shelves above her. The smell of bottled fruit, dried herbs and vinegar filled her nostrils. The stench of prison and the wailing of sirens faded. She fell into the deepest sleep of her life.
When she woke, the door had been opened a fraction. The house was silent. She blinked groggily. Her insides felt eviscerated. Now the adrenaline had worn off she felt her body grow rigid with pain as if something deep inside was rotting.
Stacked by the entrance to the still room was a pile of soft blankets, a candle, a baguette with butter and a bowl of café au lait. The coffee had already formed a skin. How long had she been asleep for? Grace reached shakily for the bowl and her fingers brushed paper. Madame had left her something else and her soul leapt. It was a book. She picked it up, felt its well-thumbed pages and slowly felt her humanity restore.
She pushed the door to the still room open as far as she dared, until the milky light of morning poured into her dark hideaway.
“The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.” Grace read aloud and half-laughed, half-sobbed. As well as being a bibliophile, Madame had a sense of humor. “A very good choice,” she murmured.
A note slipped from its pages: Another escape for you, Mademoiselle La Mottée. Until la liberation.
Grace tried to read, but she couldn’t follow a sentence. Her thoughts grew jumbled and she began to burn with a fever. Louisa’s face slipped into her mind.
I’ve changed my mind. Please wait for me.
Grace cried out and reached for her face, but she vanished to the touch. Grace’s hands groped in thin air and then she was spinning, faster and faster. She felt a mixture of pain and fear so sharp she thought it would kill her. Grace slumped back on the bed, spilling the bowl of coffee. A dark brown stain seeped across the mattress.