The Book of Ebenezer le Page (47 page)

I played the dirtiest trick on Louisa. I am not going to make excuses. All is fair in love and war. I said I would go with her. I didn't pack a bag, because I didn't have a bag to pack. I have never been nowhere. I put on my best clothes, and wore my thick overcoat; though it was going to be a blazing hot day. I said it would come in handy for the winter. She believed me. I carried her suitcase; and she hopped along beside me to the bus, holding my arm. When we got off at the bottom of St Julien's Avenue, I put down her suitcase. I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to bring any money; except for the few shillings I had in my pocket! I would have to go back home and get some, I said; but she must go and wait for me on the boat. She wouldn't. ‘I have plenty for both of us,' she said, and opened her black bag. It was chock block full of five pound notes! I don't know where she got them from: the banks was only letting people have twenty pounds each, I think it was. She must have had them hidden away somewhere, the wicked old thing! I said I couldn't possibly live on her money; but she threw her arms around my neck and began to cry and scream: ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do?'

I didn't know what I was going to do; let alone what she was going to do. I don't know yet what I would have done, if Bill Vaudin hadn't happened to pass down the Avenue; and I verily believe he was sent by the good God to save me. He worked on the White Rock. ‘Hi, Bill!' I shouted. ‘This lady want to go on the boat. Will you please see she get on safe; and come back and tell me. I will be worried to death until I know.' ‘She will have to hurry, then,' he said; and picked up her case, and caught hold of her. I don't think she knew if it was him or me: she was so frightened! The last I saw of her was going along in front of the Fruit Export with a hop and a kick; and Bill Vaudin making her run. In a few minutes, I saw the boat go out past the pier heads. I was praying she was aboard. Soon Bill came back wiping the sweat from his brow, and said she was the last up the gangway. As it happened, it was the last boat to go; so Louisa Trouteaud was the last person to leave Guernsey willingly; except for a few fellows who escaped in small boats later on. I breathed again. I was safe.

When I got home I thought seriously about what I was going to do with my money. I hadn't worked and saved all my life for the Germans to come and have it. I wasn't bothered by people coming to ask for advice that Saturday afternoon, for those who was going was gone, and the others was home in their houses wondering and waiting for what was going to happen next. I made my plans. I decided to leave what was in the china fowl where it was. Besides what I kept in the china fowl for expenses from day to day there was more than a few hundred pounds locked up in the cash-box. It was a strong iron cash-box I had bought from Leale on the Bridge; and I always carried the key to it on my watch chain. I emptied the cash-box and hid the money in a place where nobody would think of looking. It was easy because it was all notes. It was my golden sovereigns more than all else I didn't want the Germans to find. I got the pied-du-cauche down from up the chimney in the wash-house and I emptied it into the cash-box. The sovereigns filled it right level with the top. I locked it. I waited until it was getting dark, and then went outside and dug a deep hole under the apple-tree. There wasn't a living soul about and nobody saw me. I put the cash-box in the hole and filled it in and raked around. When I was done there wasn't a sign of the crime. My sovereigns are buried there to this day.

Tabitha turned up on the Sunday morning, though I hadn't expected her that week. She said she had come to say she was going to live with me. I didn't argue. I felt a great relief. She had settled it with the Priaulx. Gervase and Louise was gone to England, so she didn't feel under any obligation. Actually, Gervase served in the Air Force during the War, and won a medal like his father. Louise joined the W.R.E.N.S., the Navy for women. Jack Priaulx and Annette was in good health yet; though Annette died during the Occupation, and Jack soon after the War was over. They had both wanted Tabitha to stay with them, but she said, ‘My place now is with my brother.' They knew there was no chance of moving Tabitha once she had made up her mind.

She had brought a few things with her, and Jack brought the rest of her belongings in his motor-car on the Monday. The Sunday was a happy day. It was just Tabitha and me again. It might have been the old days when my father was alive. I told her what I had done with the sovereigns and she laughed. I said if the Germans got me and not her, they was for her. She said, ‘The Germans won't get either of us.' She sounded so sure I believed it. She cooked me a darn good dinner; and in the afternoon, we sat on La Petite Grève and made stones bounce on the water like when we was kids. The weather was perfect. In the evening, everything was so peaceful I couldn't believe there was a war on in the world anywhere. I didn't know the Germans had already landed on the Airport. It wasn't until the next day when the
Press
came, I knew Guernsey belonged to Germany.

I had heard from Liza that Raymond was happily settled in, and being most helpful. He didn't speak much to people, she said: but everybody around there liked him, only they thought he was a bit simple. She didn't. ‘He is hardly of this world,' she wrote. ‘I wish I knew the half he knows.' He didn't write to me himself. He said he didn't have the words to say what he wanted to say to me, but made Liza promise to say ‘God bless Ebenezer.' After the Germans came, I got a letter from Liza about every six months for two or three years. Raymond was the same, and she wouldn't be without him for anything. He had kept remarkably well; and so was she. He grew quite a lot of stuff in the garden for them to eat; and, for the rest, spent most of his time up in his attic room. Occasionally she heard him talking to himself up there. Otherwise he was quite sensible, though he did stray off sometimes and go where he wasn't allowed to go by the Germans; but they were kind to him. She didn't believe there was a German would do him any harm.

I didn't altogether like her trust in the Germans, but daren't say a word of warning when I wrote back, for I never knew who might get hold of my letter. I wasn't feeling very friendly myself towards the Germans by that time: I was learning what it was like to go hungry. I noticed Horace was looking as prosperous and as well-fed as ever. I also knew he was making a fortune in German marks. He certainly had the knack of getting in with the right people: it didn't matter if they was Guernsey or German. He had a pass to go down to the harbour whenever he wanted to, though nobody knew what for, and he got to know chaps on the barges and ships that came over with provisions from France, and what he got off them on the Q.T. was nobody's business. The Arsenal Stores was never without anything. It is true when you went in, it looked pretty barren, but there was plenty hidden away under the counter. He kept his motor-van longer than practically anybody else on the island was allowed to run a car; and though the Germans requisitioned it eventually, he was well paid for it.

I bought some goods off Horace myself; even though it nearly ruined me. I got pounds of sugar from him, when it was very short: I was tired of seeing Tabitha boiling beetroot. I bought quarter pounds of real tea from him. Tabitha was one who liked a good cup of tea; but she stopped me buying it when she found out where I got it from. She said I was helping the Germans, whose duty it was to allow us enough food; and it wasn't being fair to Gervase and Louise, and so many other Guernsey boys and girls who were in the Forces. I had no argument against that. All the same, I kept on buying tobacco from Horace. I am not sure now what the marks was worth; but I think I paid him round about eighteen bob for half an ounce, or was it an ounce? Anyhow, it was like smoking gold; but dock leaves and rose petals made me feel sick, and I couldn't smoke the tail of a donkey. Horace's argument was there would be more people miserable and starving on the island if it wasn't for him. He was doing the best he could for Guernsey in the circumstances; and keeping up morale. Besides, anything he got on the sly, he had to pay through the nose for himself. The one thing I will give him credit for is he didn't give his customers away. He wasn't the informer sort; and there was plenty of those about. He gave each of us a number, and we had to say our number, if we wanted anything wasn't on the ration. I remember my number was one thousand two hundred and three.

He didn't go round for orders once his van was gone; so I was astonished when one day he turned up at Les Moulins. He looked haggard and in great suffering, as I had never imagined he could look. It was then he begged me to tell him where Raymond was. I said, ‘Raymond is well where he is.' He said, ‘I am not!' I said, ‘That is your own look-out. Why don't you marry Gwen?' He said, ‘She is the last woman on earth I would ever marry; or anything else. She loves me.' I thought well, perhaps there is something decent in old Horace after all and I wondered if I was right in not giving him a chance to go and see Raymond. I also thought it might make Raymond very happy. I said, ‘He is living in the house of Liza Quéripel at Pleinmont.' He said, ‘I know the house. It is far enough away.'

I didn't really think he would go. At that time we was all staying in our own parishes as much as we could; and nobody was going to make the journey to the other end of the island, unless he absolutely had to. He would either have to walk, or go on a broken-down old bike with rope for tyres. Horace must have gone next day. It wasn't a week later when Gwen came to see me. She hadn't seen Horace for days, and he hadn't been back at nights. She wasn't a woman to make a fuss over nothing; but she said she was afraid she might give him away without meaning to. The customers didn't bother to say their numbers half the time, for Horace knew; but she was afraid to ask. How was she to know who had to be given a chicken from under the counter, when they asked for an ounce of fat? If she made one mistake, somebody might talk, and there would be a search.

She brought a book with her she had found under some sacks in the woodshed. In it was the numbers and the names of the people they was for. She asked me if I would keep it until Horace came back. I said I would but, while he was away, she had better give people only what they was allowed. She could make out she didn't understand. I thought it was only fair to let her know he had gone to see Raymond; and, as it was my fault, I said the only thing for me to do was to go myself, and find out what had happened. She said I had taken a great load off her mind. After she had gone, I had a look through that book, and even I was surprised at the people whose names was in it; and there was nearly as many Germans as Guernsey. When I got back from Pleinmont, I burnt it page by page.

I didn't know what I had let myself in for when I said I would go to Pleinmont. I wasn't as young as I was; and I was weaker than I thought, from not having enough to eat. I didn't notice it so much while I was working. If I felt hungry, I had a smoke; and when I got tired, I sat on a box. Sometimes I got mixed up in the head, and found myself doing stupid things: like going to the well with a full bucket. I would have to walk all the way to Pleinmont. My last bike, which was a Humber and a good bike in its time, was in bits and pieces; and I had given some of the parts to young Le Boutillier, so he could fit up his to ride to work on. He worked at the Airport for the Germans; though he did as little as he could. Luckily, I had a pair of good boots with leather soles an inch thick; and those was rare those days, I can tell you. They was almost too precious to wear.

I had good old Jim Le Poidevin to thank for those soles. When I took those boots down to him to mend, the uppers was as good as new, but the soles was all holes, and I didn't expect he would be able to do much to them. All I had else to wear on my feet was sacking and brown paper. I had no sooner got inside Jim's cabin and said Hullo, than in walked a smart young German officer. He was carrying a lovely pair of high boots in his hand, the same as he was wearing, and the soles might have been thin but, as far as I could see, wasn't worn out. Jim turned his head away from me, as if I wasn't there, and said ‘Good-morning, mein Herr,' to the officer, and what could he have the pleasure of doing for him? The officer was as polite as Jim was, but didn't mind getting in front of me, and being served out of his turn. He didn't see Jim give me a quick wink. I knew old Jim was up to something. He examined the officer's boots and tapped the soles and said they were fit to be mended, and he would do his very best to make a good job of it: but had the Herr Lieutenant brought a piece of leather for him to do it with? The Herr Lieutenant had not brought a piece of leather. It was very sad, said Jim; but he had no leather, and could only mend the beautiful boots with linoleum. There was broken pieces of worn-out linoleum all over his bench. The officer said it was very sad, it was very bad, ya, but linoleum would not do and he would have to take the boots elsewhere. Jim said he could not be more sorry, and thanked the lieutenant for doing him the honour of coming to him first. The lieutenant bowed stiff from the waist up, and said thank you, and Jim said thank you again, and the lieutenant said thank you again. When he had gone, Jim waited until he was out of sight, and then pulled a thick piece of leather from under his bench. ‘This will do for yours,' he said.

I trusted those boots to get me to Pleinmont. I didn't know they was going to weigh ten ton before I got there. I left home straight away after breakfast, which was a turnip and a piece of bread, and something supposed to be coffee. Tabitha wanted me to take the rest of the bread to eat on the way, but I wouldn't hear of it. She said I must try and find somewhere out there to sleep and come back the next day. I said I would do nothing of the sort. I wasn't going to leave Tabitha by herself all night. The only robberies we had suffered so far was from the fowl-house; but you never knew who was about at nights. If for any reason I had to sneak out, I used to creep along by the hedges like a criminal, and was always in before midnight. I promised Tabitha I would be at home by curfew, which was at eight. I had the whole day to go ten miles or so and back.