Ivy managed to smile. Although the Channel Islands had surrendered to the Germans without bloodshed—other than a couple dozen poor souls killed in Luftwaffe air raids to Jersey and Guernsey—the Germans certainly wouldn’t allow the Allies to land at so low a cost.
Aunt Opal cleared away the extra bandages. “Remember not to spread the news. If you must, speak in Jèrriais.”
“Oui,mabouonnefemme,” Uncle Arthur said in the local patois. Before the war, Jèrriais had fallen into disuse, but it was regaining popularity. Since it was descended from an ancient Norman tongue, it sounded a bit like French—but not enough for a French speaker to follow.
“Mêfie-té,” Aunt Opal said.
“I’m always careful.” Uncle Arthur clapped his hands to his knees. “Come, young Charlie. Let’s see to those cows.”
“Thank you.” Charlie handed Aunt Opal his plate. “Ivy, tell Fern I’ll be home in an hour.”
“I will.” Ivy glanced at her wristwatch. How had she lost track of time again? “Oh no. I’m late. I told Fern I was low on iodine solution, so she rang Carter’s Chemist’s. They were to have a bottle ready for me an hour ago.”
“Carter’s?” Aunt Opal washed Charlie’s dish. “The Picots have always used Island Drugs.”
“Mr. Johnson retired and closed his shop last week.” Ivy packed the empty iodine bottle in her medical bag next to her sketch pad. If only she hadn’t stopped to draw that sweet patch of bell heather. “I must rush. Fern scheduled two appointments in the surgery late this afternoon.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Without Bill and the boys, Fern has only us to boss around.”
“Oh, hush. She’s trying to keep the practice afloat. And Iamalways late.” Ivy kissed her aunt and uncle goodbye and rushed outside.
She pedaled hard down narrow roads bound on each side by unforgiving granite walls. If only she could drive to save time.
Not long after the Germans arrived, they’d requisitioned Ivy’s brand-new car. As a physician, she’d been allowed to keep Dad’s older-model car and to receive a petrol ration, but a small one, best reserved for night calls and emergencies.
She turned left onto Route de Beaumont, cutting close to the corner.
A lorry came straight at her. Ivy veered to the left and rammed sideways into the wall. She cried out, planted her feet, and grabbed her left wrist.
“Watch where you’re going,” a soldier shouted in a German accent from the lorry. “Stupid girl.”
Ivy knew better than to tell him to drive slower. Far too many islanders had died due to reckless German drivers.
She palpated her throbbing wrist. Nothing broken—except her wristwatch.
“Oh no.” She’d never be able to get it repaired. The jewelers’ shops had closed long before, with no stock and no spare parts. Now punctuality would be even more difficult.
Ivy mounted her bicycle and crossed the road. The previous summer, the Germans had switched traffic from the left to the right.
She coasted downhill through verdant hills, lightly forested, bright with sunshine and flowers and begging to be sketched.
Around the bend came the sound of harsh voices and tramping feet.
Ivy slowed down.
Ahead of her, men trudged along the road, five abreast, some wearing civilian clothes, some wearing an unfamiliar army uniform. Torn. Ragged. Colors muted by filth.
A filth that penetrated Ivy’s nostrils. The smell of unwashed bodies and dirt and bodily fluids—and disease.
A pudgy German soldier marched up to Ivy, waving a truncheon.
Ivy gasped and yanked her bicycle off the road, onto a drive heading into the valley.
The motley column marched past her, dozens upon dozens of men.
The guards wore the brown uniform of Germany’s Organisation Todt, which built the hideous fortifications marring Jersey’s landscape. They’d brought in hundreds of foreign workers, mainly Spaniards and Frenchmen, but these men now marching up Route de Beaumont had a Slavic look about them. And the uniforms—they were Soviet.
Ivy’s breath snagged. The Nazis considered the Slavic peoples to be “subhuman,” and from the condition of these men, they treated them accordingly.
