Thursday, August 13, 1942
At Uncle Arthur and Aunt Opal’s dairy farm, Ivy parked her bicycle outside the farmhouse of rosy Jersey granite. “Uncle Arthur? I came to patch you up again.”
“It’s nothing to bother about.” Uncle Arthur emerged from the barn, also of granite. “You shouldn’t have come all the way out here. Not that you aren’t welcome, mind.”
Yet Ivy noticed a hitch in Uncle Arthur’s step. “Since I’m here, I might as well look.”
“No escape now.” Charlie trotted out of the barn. He’d taken a summer job at the farm, mainly because the Germans allowed extra rations for laborers. Regular rations didn’t provide enough for a growing fourteen-year-old boy, even with Fern and Ivy surreptitiously slipping him extra portions.
Uncle Arthur pulled off his cap and entered the house. “Opal? Ivy’s here. Your doing, I suppose?”
“Of course.” Aunt Opal set a plate of potatoes on the table and motioned for Charlie to sit and eat. “Ivy and I are conspiring to keep you alive, cruel and conniving women that we are.”
With a dramatic sigh, Uncle Arthur flopped into a woodenchair at the table. “If only your ravishing beauty hadn’t enticed me into marrying into a medical family.”
Aunt Opal kissed the top of her husband’s head and brought a pot to the table. “Water’s been boiled and cooled for you, Ivy, and I have clean bandages. I’m afraid I have only a sliver of that awful green French soap.”
“It’ll do.” Jersey had run out of soap in the early months of the occupation, and the Germans sent a low-quality soap that didn’t even lather. After Ivy washed her hands at the sink, she sat at the table and opened her bag. “No use hiding. Show me.”
Much grumbling emanated from Uncle Arthur’s square face, but he rolled up his trouser leg and propped his foot on an empty chair.
An unbandaged, three-inch laceration cut across his calf. Ivy palpated the red, raised edges. “As soon as you get a cut, you must cleanse it with water and soap if you have it. Then bandage it to keep it clean. With our poor diets, we can’t fend off infections as we ought. Simple cuts are taking six weeks to heal.”
Uncle Arthur groaned, this time closer to acceptance.
Ivy cleansed the wound with soap and water. Over the past two years of the German occupation, the Jersey Medical Society had met monthly to discuss the worsening health situation. The “occupation ulcers” developing from simple cuts. The cases of life-threatening sepsis. And the scarcity of medications.
“This will sting.” Ivy opened a bottle of iodine and painted the wound area.
Uncle Arthur hissed through his teeth.
“I’ll visit again tomorrow. In the meantime, keep the wound clean and bandaged.” She glanced up to Aunt Opal.
Aunt Opal patted Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie and I will tie him up if we must.”
Charlie swallowed a bite of potato, pan-fried without any fat. “May I, please?”
Uncle Arthur gave his nephew a mock glare. “Cheeky lad.”
Charlie pinched his own cheek. “The cheekiest.”
Ivy chuckled and pinned a strip of fabric around her uncle’s calf. Uncle Arthur would surely miss Charlie when the boy returned to school at Victoria College in a few weeks.
Uncle Arthur tugged down his trouser leg. “Would you like to hear the latest news?”
In June, the Germans had confiscated ten thousand wireless sets in Jersey. Losing the news on the BBC made the islanders feel more isolated than ever, with only censored news allowed in theJersey EveningPost.
Ivy didn’t want to know where Uncle Arthur had hidden his wireless, but she did want the news.
Uncle Arthur rested his sturdy forearms on the table. “The Germans have already told us about their advances on Stalingrad.”
“Of course.” German victories received full coverage.
“But they didn’t tell us American pilots are arriving in England. The BBC did.”
Charlie’s dark eyes darted around. “Then they can send soldiers. Then they can invade.”
“Someday,” Uncle Arthur said. “And soon.”
