Fighting her heavy eyelids, Ivy stood with Fern in the crowd at the Weighbridge. She’d stayed up late the night before, writing as many exemptions as possible, consoling those who didn’t qualify, and writing prescriptions for the journey.
All morning, she’d sat with her patients before the board ofphysicians—three Jersey doctors and three German. Some exemptions, like Mr. Sanderson’s, had been accepted. Some had not. The German doctors at least had the grace to apologize for the deportations.
A queue of several hundred deportees snaked past the crowd and onto Albert Pier, where two ships awaited to carry them away. Charlie and theOrmerhad left for France yesterday, so he wouldn’t have to witness the travesty.
Frank and Edna Walters passed, and Ivy managed a quivering smile and wave. Like all the deportees, they carried bulging suitcases and wore as much clothing as possible, despite the excessive heat.
Mr. Sloan-Huntington passed with his wife. Officiousness hardly qualified the man for deportation, and sympathy rippled through Ivy’s chest, but accompanied by a ripple of appreciation for her fellow doctors for refusing to bend to his demands. The island’s physicians might treat her dismissively, but they were men of principle.
Then came Mr. and Mrs. Carter and their two nearly grown daughters.
Fern sniffed. “At least the Germans allow families to stay together.”
“Oh?” Ivy ripped her gaze from the poignant scene to her sister’s stony face. “I imagine most of these men would prefer for their wives and children to stay at home.”
One shake of Fern’s lovely head. “Families should be together, even if Bill disagrees. How can that man think a husband should abandon his wife and tear little boys from their mother?”
Ivy suppressed a sigh and patted her sister’s arm. How often had she tried to help Fern see that Bill had to fight for his country, that he wanted his boys to be safe, that he’d begged Fern to join them? But Fern saw what she wanted to see.
A sound arose, melodic and rhythmic, floating down from Mount Bingham on the east side of the marina, where boys inschool blazers lined the hill. As their song flowed downhill, it gathered voices in its wake.
They sang “There’ll Always Be an England,” and Ivy’s breath caught.
An ardently pro-English song.
By deporting the English, the Germans hoped to widen the existing divide between those born in Jersey and those born in England, to curry favor with the locals.
The song grew in strength and volume and fervency, enveloping the crowd, and Ivy joined in.
“Ivy!” Fern nudged her. “Hush. You’ll get in trouble.”
The song would indeed anger the Germans, and Ivy sang louder, her voice snagging on her throat, swollen by tears.
Tears for those being deported to an unknown fate, simply because of the place of their birth. Tears for a world rent by war and occupation and oppression. And tears of pride for her fellow Jersey folk.
Today they were all Jersey folk, and they were all English folk.
In this, the Germans had failed.
chapter
5
Noirmont Point, Jersey
Thursday, September 17, 1942
Bernardus and Gerrit walked from one massive naval gun platform to another, along a path among yellow gorse bushes.
“We should quit,” Bernardus said in Dutch.
“Kalm aan!”Gerrit pressed a finger to his lips and whipped his gaze around. About fifty meters behind them, Oberbauführer Ernst Schmeling stood chatting with the naval commander of Batterie Lothringen, but the warm wind blew the Dutchmen’s words down the steep rocky cliffs of Noirmont Point and into the sea.
“We need to quit.” Bernardus’s voice dropped in tone but not intensity. “We can’t do this.”
“I want to quit too.” Gerrit slowed his pace so they wouldn’t reach the gun platform—and its German crew—too quickly. “I want to go home to my family and my job, but we cannot quit.”
“We’re volunteers. We can quit. And we must.” Bernardus stopped, and his hands fisted at his sides. “You only agreed to do this if we could help the Allies. I promised you. And now...”
