Breathing hard, Ivy staggered backward. The keys glinted on the floor. Could she? Should she lock up her own sister?
With Charlie’s life at stake?
Ivy snatched the key, thrust it into the lock, and turned it. “I’m sorry, Fern.”
“It’s no use.” Fists pounded on the door from down by the floor. “The police will be here any minute. They’ll let me out. They’ll find you. Where do you think you can go?”
France.
Ivy clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d promised to stay, to care for her patients.
But if she were arrested, she couldn’t care for them, nor could she if she went into hiding. No matter what happened tonight, the practice was lost.
And if she were arrested, she’d risk the lives of dozens.
She had to escape from Jersey. And now.
Fern screamed and kicked at the door and called down curses.
A pit formed in Ivy’s stomach. No matter what happened tonight, her relationship with her sister was lost forever.
“Goodbye, Fern,” she said softly.
With her bicycle locked inside, she’d have to drive and pray the remaining drops of petrol would take her to Fauvic. She scooped up her medical bag and ran into the garden, to the garage.
Prayed she didn’t arrive at Fauvic too late to join the men.
In the distance, police sirens whined.
Prayed she wouldn’t be captured.
“Lord, please.” She unlocked the garage and slid into the car. “Please start. Please.”
chapter
41
Fauvic
Inside the granite barn, a young lady served hot carrot tea to Gerrit, Bernardus, and Jack, a youth who would be escaping with them.
Gerrit studied the navigational charts on the barn floor as an elderly fisherman instructed them how to avoid the many rocks, reefs, and currents in the waters.
Jack and three of his friends had planned an escape for tonight and had secretly moved a twelve-foot dinghy from storage in St. Helier to Fauvic and had gathered supplies for the voyage. But his friends had been arrested earlier in the week for stealing food, stranding Jack without companions and opening room for Gerrit, Charlie, and Bernardus.
By the door stood their contact, Bill Bertram, around fifty years old, bespectacled, with thick silver hair receding above the temples.
Charlie lay on a stretcher beside Gerrit, covered with blankets, his face red and sweaty, his eyes bleary. And too quiet. Between the gunshot wound and the infection, he was too weak to walk.
The carrot tea tossed in Gerrit’s stomach as he memorized the instructions. He didn’t dare correct the men’s information on the coastal defenses. For islanders to knowingly help uniformed membersof Organisation Todt to escape would be a grave offense in German eyes. It was best if these men assumed Gerrit and Bernardus were forced workers—and forced workers would be ignorant of military information.
“Do you understand?” the fisherman asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gerrit said with the others.
Bill tipped his head to the dinghy. “It’s ten fifteen. German patrols pass at ten o’clock and again at midnight. If you move quickly, you’ll have plenty of time before the moon rises.”
Gerrit warmed his hands on the cup. He alone didn’t wear an overcoat or hat. His greatcoat and cap bore OT insignia, and he refused to take clothing from his friends in Jersey when replacement was impossible.
