The Book of Ebenezer le Page (51 page)

When Otto stepped into my boat I knew he had never stepped into a boat before. I thought the Germans must be mad to send such a boy. He was twenty-three or four and looked as strong as a bull; and surely could have been more use to his great Master than watching out I didn't sail away. It was the last thing in the world I intended to do anyway. He sat stiff as a ramrod right middle of the bànc, looking straight ahead of him as if he was doing eyes front in drill. I thought well, this is an object, if ever there was one! I let go, and when we got out the pier heads I looked at him, and he looked at me. I have to say he wasn't bad to look at. He had a sunburnt skin and short fair hair, and every feature was perfect and strong; but his face looked as if it was carved out of a block of wood. He had big blue eyes and they looked at you wide open. I don't know what he thought of the rough old Guernsey museau he saw in front of him, I am sure. I didn't say a word; and he didn't say a word. I thought, I will have to manage by myself: I can't ask this thing to give me a hand. I didn't expect to catch much fish that day.

It was a fine day with a few clouds and bright sunshine, but quite a high sea running. I thought well, I will make him seasick, if I do nothing else. I wasn't in a hurry: I had all day. I made my way between the Fourquies and the Platte Fougère, where it was real rough; and trailing nothing until we got round the Brayes. There wasn't a sausage; and not a word had been said. I thought if I don't get him to say something soon, I will bust. If only I can get him to say ‘Heil Hitler!' it will be something. I said, and I made it as clear word by word as I could, ‘The fish go away because you have come.' I didn't know if he understood the English and, if he did, it was certainly taking a long time to go in; but after five minutes I should say, to my great astonishment, he opened his mouth like Balaam's ass in the Bible and gave forth a mighty deep roaring laugh that shook the boat. ‘If I on a rock do sit,' he said, ‘the fish then will come, yes?' ‘Perhaps,' I said. Well, the good God made the rock, and there it was handy; and I drew in alongside and let him step out and sit on it. I think he felt safer sitting on the rock than in the boat.

I got quite a good catch between there and the Silleuse; but all the time I was trying to make up my mind whether I would go back for him or not. The tide was coming in and the rock he was sitting on would not be a rock above water for long. I would try and save him, of course; and even call out for help. There was boats within hail; but it would be too late. That would mean one German mouth the less for us to have to feed. I wouldn't be to blame. I couldn't have put him there by force; for he was armed, and I wasn't. I could see him in the distance, sitting like a fool on that rock; and I laughed. Then I thought to myself no: he trusted me; and I turned the boat round. I only got there just in time. He was standing up and the water was over his feet. I gave him my hand to help him to step in; and he gripped it hard and stood looking at me straight in the eye in the rocking boat. He knew quite well what I had thought of doing. I felt ashamed. When we got back to Town and I left him, he said, ‘I with you again come.'

He came out with me many times. He was waiting every time I went down to the Albert Pier, and he would push his way out of his turn to come with me; or make a sign for me to hang back, so as it would be him I would have with me. He soon learned to make himself useful; and I looked forward to the days when I would be going fishing with him. He was simple in the mind; he could only think one thought at a time; but he was as open as the day. He told me his name was Otto Schmidt; and in Germany he lived in a small place which, as far as I could make out, was in, or by, a big forest. What he liked most in the world was to be among a lot of trees; and, before the War, he used to camp out in the forest with his friends; and in the evening, they would sit around a big fire in the open air and play music and sing. That was his greatest happiness. He had never seen the sea until he came to Guernsey; but he said the sea and the rocks made him feel happy like being among the trees. He didn't like cities or any place where there was a lot of houses.

He spoke the English quite well. If it come to that, he spoke it better than me. He had learnt it from books when he was to school; and knew the big words. He spoke every word very exact; but sometimes he put them round in a funny way. I learnt a few German words from him; but not enough to speak with. He told me he had an older brother and a sister. His father was dead, and the sister was living with his mother in Germany. His brother came with him to Guernsey, but got into trouble with the German authorities because he fraternised with a Guernsey girl. Otto said there was nothing wrong in it. They was in love and the girl was willing to marry Hans, and he wanted to marry her; but the German boys wasn't allowed to marry Guernsey girls, though nobody bothered much if it was anything else. So Hans was sent to the Russian Front. Otto didn't expect he would ever see his brother again.

I didn't like to talk to Otto about the War, or how he came to be in the War, for when he was with me in the boat, I couldn't believe we was on opposite sides. It was him brought it up. ‘In my country I am for my country,' he said, ‘but the countries of other peoples I to have do not wish.' ‘It is the same with us,' I said. It was true of Guernsey, anyway. He said, ‘I you my country would be happy to show, and the house where I live; now I your so beautiful island have seen.' One day when we was coming back with our catch by the Boue La Grève, I pointed out Les Moulins to him and said that was where I lived. ‘Ach, in a stone house it is you live,' he said, ‘in a wood house, I.' I asked him if he would like to come ashore and see it inside. He said, ‘Yes, very much, thank you.' It was easy to run into La Petite Grève: there was nobody about. When I had grounded the boat, I picked out some of the best of the fish to take indoors. He didn't say nothing, though he knew I wasn't allowed. I was a little worried as to how Tabitha was going to feel. She had never spoken to a German. I had told her about Otto; but she had listened and said nothing.

She was in the kitchen boiling the everlasting sugarbeet, when I asked Otto to come in. He came in and stood to attention as if he was on parade. ‘This is my friend Otto,' I said. She turned round from what she was doing and faced him; but stood as stiff as he was, and didn't make a movement to shake hands, nor say a word. I said to Otto, ‘This is my sister Tabitha. She is a widow. Her husband was killed in the First World War.' I trusted him to understand why she was behaving as she was. He said, ‘My father was also.' Tabitha held out her hand. He took it in his and bowed his head over it. ‘I've brought some fish,' I said; and put it on the table. She said, ‘I will cook it now, if Otto can stop and have some.' He said he could. Well, she cooked it and made real tea with some was left over from what I had bought from Horace, which she would never have done otherwise; and there was bread, though it was mousey bread rather, and even a wisp of butter. I taught Otto to say ‘orfi'. He said it was good. I know it was the meal I myself enjoyed most of any I ate during the whole of the Occupation. Nowadays, when every year there is a celebration of the Liberation, it isn't so much the cheers and the excitement of when we was freed I think of, though I was as glad and excited as anybody, but of Otto, Tabitha and me sitting round the table eating long-nose. That was Liberation Day.

Otto and me got away and well out, before our pet nuisance was on his round; but we was a bit late back to the Harbour. It was nearly dark, and the patrol boat was out looking for us. I tried to explain to the Jerry in charge we was held up by firing practice off the west coast, which was always a good excuse; but he wouldn't listen to me and yapped at Otto in German like a machine-gun. Otto stood like the wooden block he was when I saw him the first time; but when he saw I had to go, he smiled and shook hands as usual, and said, ‘Auf wiedersehen.' I didn't see him again. I went week after week hoping, but it was always some other fellow; and I gave up going. I don't like to think what happened to Otto.

I don't know the name of the other. I don't know what nation he belonged to. The only word I heard him say was in German, but it was a word I use myself; for we use it in the patois when we say ‘mais non nein dja!' and mean ‘no!' very emphatically. He may have used it because he was speaking to a German; or he may have been a German himself, for among the slave-workers who was brought over from being prisoners in Alderney I heard some had been put there for resisting Hitler. He might have belonged to the French Resistance, for the French are not all dark-haired; but he was tall for a French boy. If I had seen him in peace-time down the Harbour, I would have taken him for a Norwegian off one of the timber boats; but I don't know. All I know is he looked like the son of a king.

He was younger than Otto, I thought, though he looked older because he had suffered more; and he wasn't the solid bull Otto was, but quick in the mind, I am sure. He was weak from hunger, but you could see what a fine strong boy he would have been with those broad shoulders and slim body and long legs; and I always remember his proud head. He was in rags with rags on his feet, and sometimes bare feet; and he wasn't very clean, but he tried to keep himself clean, I know, for once I saw him shaved and he was never as dirty as the others. It wasn't I saw him often, for the gang went to work early in the morning and came back late in the evening; and some soup was taken round in a cart to them at dinner-time. I bet it wasn't very good soup. They troubled Tabitha more than they did me at first. She would say when we was eating what little we had to eat, ‘I wish I could give some of this to those poor prisoners.' I didn't like to think of them myself. One couldn't help knowing they was there, for they was everywhere building those ugly forts the tourists come and stare at, but they was only animals who we dare not think of as fellow creatures, for at our worst we was living in luxury compared to them. I was mean enough to think they was robbers and murderers, if the truth was known; but I couldn't think that when I saw that boy.

Tabitha had pity for the lot, murderers and all; and she would have had them all in the kitchen and fed them, if she could. She said, ‘It is not against those Gervase and Louise are fighting.' Well, it wasn't much we had to throw away those days, but there was a barrel out the back where I threw such scraps as we had: a green crust of bread perhaps, a bone not even good enough for soup, fish-bones and bad fish, or fruit gone rotten; and I emptied it from time to time in the cesspit. One evening when it was nearly time for us to be indoors and Tabitha was getting in the washing off the line while I was in the greenhouse going to lock the end door, I saw the shabby gang of ruffians come shuffling down the hill. They passed rather nearer to Percy's wall than usual; and it was in the corner the barrel was. There was an armed guard behind them and in front, and an armed guard each side, and I wouldn't have thought those prisoners had enough heart left in them to notice anything; but there was a sudden rush and they was over the wall and on to that barrel, fighting each other like wild beasts for those dirty scraps. The guards shouted and I thought was going to shoot; but the prisoners was back in their wobbly lines in half a second. I was watching from in the greenhouse, and noticed the boy was the last back. He hadn't rushed or fought, but managed to get a rotten apple that was left at the bottom. I saw him break it in two and give half to the chap next to him, who looked a double-dyed villain, if ever there was one. I thought, that boy is somebody.

Tabitha said in future it must be food fit for human beings to eat was left in the barrel. I washed it out and filled it nearly to the top with straw; and spread out the few bits we could spare. It wasn't much, but it was clean and could be eaten. The first time, Tabitha and me watched from the greenhouse to see if they would be allowed to take it; but long before they came to the corner of the wall I heard the guards shouting, and it seemed nobody would dare to leave the ranks. I was thinking how with the best of intentions we had wasted our time, when, like a streak of lightning, the boy was over the wall and had scooped everything into a sort of blouse he was wearing and was back in his place. The guard said nothing to him. I thought now for a fight and a scramble, but no: he shared out what he had among those around him, as far as it would go; and they took quietly what he gave them, as though they knew he would by nature share it fair. I saw him going down the hill chawing a raw carrot.

For the few times more they passed there was always something for them, and it was always the boy fetched it and shared it out; and the guard let him. I noticed it was always the same guard his side. There was something about that guard I particularly didn't like; and yet I wasn't sure what. He was as lean as a whippet, but it wasn't because he was underfed: he was full of energy. He had a lean hard face, and was very smart. The boy must have known he was being favoured. I noticed when he broke ranks, the guard smiled; but it wasn't at the boy, it was to himself. I didn't like that smile. The last time we saw them the job must have been finished and they had knocked off early, for they passed in broad daylight and along the path in front of the house; so that day they didn't get what was left for them. I was working in the front garden and when I saw them coming I called to Tabitha, who was indoors, and she came and stood with me by the gate to see them pass. The boy looked our way and I saw his eyes wrinkle and light up and thought of Jim, and he gave a sort of laugh straight to Tabitha, and she put out a hand as if she would have liked to have touched him. I was glad for him to know he had a friend in Guernsey. I only saw him the once more.

Since the day I found out what happened to Raymond and Horace, I wasn't feeling so willing to lie low as I had been. Even before then, I had been going along to the Hamelins from Les Mielles to listen to the radio, after Monsieur Le Boutillier's had been taken away and he was in prison in France. It was a good distance for me to have to go, but I knew every inch of L'Ancresse and would creep along by the hedges and not make a sound. Nellie Hamelin was the jolly sort and Jack, her husband, said she could diddle any German any time. He admitted he couldn't have himself: he would have looked guilty, even if he was innocent. She looked on it as a game, and the house was searched time and again by the Germans; but they never found the radio. I was worried leaving Tabitha for the evening, but she insisted I went as it did me good to go there for a change. Julia Le Boutillier used to come across to keep her company, while young Jean stayed at home with his mother.