Across the narrow grounds, Riedel crossed his arms and studied the Spanish workers.
“I may have swayed Riedel’s thinking.”
“Don’t trust him, Gerrit. He’s a Nazi.”
“I’ll be careful.” But careful words could still sway hearts.
chapter
8
St. Helier
Wednesday, October 7, 1942
Chemists often rang Ivy with questions about prescriptions, but not with summons to their shops.
Regardless, Ivy entered Carter’s Chemist’s. At the counter, Miss de Ferrers handed a bottle to an elderly woman.
After the patient left, Miss de Ferrers locked the front door, flipped the sign to “closed,” and strode back toward the counter. “Please come with me, Dr. Picot.”
Ivy suppressed a smile and a “good afternoon to you too.” The chemist certainly didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
“Come on through.” Miss de Ferrers led Ivy behind the counter and into a small office with a desk strewn with books and jars of what looked like dried herbs and flowers.
Ivy read the title of the top book, “Pharmacognosy.”
The chemist crossed her arms. “The study of deriving pharmaceutical compounds from plants. We can no longer purchase most commercial medications, but Jersey has a wealth of plants, many of which were formerly used for treatment.”
Ivy leaned down and smiled at a jar of foxglove flowers, a sourceof digitalis, used for treating coronary disease. “Reviving the ancient arts.”
“You must wonder why I rang.” Miss de Ferrers cleared a pile of books from a wooden chair. “I want you to examine a patient.”
Ivy’s eyebrows arched high. What an odd inquiry from a chemist.
“I needed to ask in person, because the Gestapo are known to listen to telephone conversations.” Miss de Ferrers motioned Ivy toward the vacated chair.
Ivy lowered herself to sitting. The Gestapo hadn’t come to Jersey, but the GermanGeheime Feldpolizeiemployed the Gestapo’s plainclothes spying tactics—and their cruelty. “Why...”
Miss de Ferrers perched on the side of her desk, threatening a stack of papers. “Some patients do not wish to be found.”
“Oh.” Lately, theEvening Postprinted German demands to turn in escaped foreign workers. The poor men often sneaked out of their camps in search of food, and some islanders were known to shelter them.
Ivy swallowed hard. “Is he sick? Injured?”
“Are you willing to risk prison?”
Ivy folded her arms across the thinning green wool of her coat. She would be risking not only her own freedom, but her family’s as well. The Germans arrested first and asked questions later.
But Dad wouldn’t hesitate to relieve suffering. And Jesus had healed the leper and the lame, the rich and the poor, the Jew and the Gentile. He’d broken the law to heal on the Sabbath.
Ivy drew in a slow, steadying breath. “I’m willing.”
Miss de Ferrers leaned forward, and one tiny auburn curl defied the hairpins over her ear. “Can we trust you? Many lives are at stake.”
The escapee, the family sheltering him, Miss de Ferrers, and whoever else composed the “we” she referred to.
“I would speak of it to no one, and I’d keep no charts or records.”
