Chapter 8
chapter
St. Helier
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 source of 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 German Geheime Feldpolizei employed 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, the Evening Post printed 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.”
Miss de Ferrers studied her with an incising gaze. “If we are satisfied, would you be willing to see more such patients?”
For months, Ivy had ached to help the bedraggled workers. “I would. But why ask me?”
The chemist’s gaze skittered away, and her jaw shifted to the side. “I . . . was not kind to you. Yet you’ve been persistent in your kindness to me. After Mr. Carter was deported, the shop lost many patients. A woman in charge, you know.”
“I know, but my referrals to your shop have been earned.”
Miss de Ferrers jerked one shoulder. “You’d best move along. Here’s the address, in St. Brelade. Please burn this.” She handed Ivy a slip of paper.
“Thank you.”
Miss de Ferrers strode out toward the counter. “If we should need you again, I’ll ring. I’ll speak only to you, not your receptionist.”
“I understand.” Fern would too, since she couldn’t answer questions about prescriptions.
“I will tell you Mrs. Smith—or a similar name, it matters not—told me you were making a home visit, and would you please pick up her prescription on your way.” Miss de Ferrers swung open a half door in the counter and led Ivy through the shop.
“When you arrive here, I’ll tell you the actual name and address, and I’ll give you a medication to take with you as cover. ”
“Very clever.”
“Good day to you.” Miss de Ferrers flipped the sign back to “open.”
“Good day to you too.” Ivy smiled, but the chemist was already halfway across the shop.
Outside, Ivy mounted her bicycle and headed west out of town. Miss de Ferrers might never be a friend, but at least Ivy had earned her respect—and that was a cherished gift.
A mist hung over St. Aubin’s Bay, obscuring the horizon. If Ivy were to treat escaped workers on a regular basis, she’d have an even greater need to follow Fern’s plans to simplify her rounds.
Yet the waves called to her to be sketched. The tiny flowers that would emerge if she stopped to look. The curlews hopping on the sand, ignoring the barbed wire and the German signs warning of mines.
She loved caring for patients, but without her sketch pad, she felt . . . diminished.
When she reached St. Aubin’s village, she turned right, then found the road leading to the Bullard home.
Mrs. Bullard, a thin woman in her forties, rushed Ivy inside and upstairs to a bedroom, where the curtains were drawn.
A paraffin lamp revealed a young man lying on the bed, wild-eyed, his wrists tied to a bedpost. A streak of red stained his tattered trousers.
“I—I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Mr. Bullard stood at the foot of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck, his face contorted. “He was in my rabbit hutch, had my best breeder by the throat. I—I didn’t think. I clobbered him with a piece of lumber. But there was a nail.” His voice broke.
“It’s all right. I understand.” Ivy stepped closer to the bed. “I’m Dr. Picot, and I’m here to help you.”
“He doesn’t speak English,” Mrs. Bullard said.
“We had to tie him up.” Mr. Bullard gestured to the bed. “He keeps trying to run away, but if they catch him—”
“He’s just a boy.” Mrs. Bullard clapped a hand over her mouth.
He was indeed a boy, no older than Charlie, and he shrank back from Ivy, chattering in Russian or Ukrainian.
Ivy knelt a few feet away from the bed. “I’m a doctor.” She displayed her medical bag, then removed her stethoscope and showed it to the boy. “Doctor.”
“Our neighbor came by,” Mrs. Bullard said. “He told us to ring—”
“Hush, Mabel.”
“But Dr. Picot is part of the—”
“No one,” Mr. Bullard said. “No one. Remember?”
Ivy edged closer to her patient, lifting her stethoscope and a gentle smile. The details of the ring—or whatever it was—that she now belonged to concerned her far less than the deep gash on the boy’s thigh. As filthy and malnourished as he was, the risk of sepsis was high. And tetanus as well.
Gerrit van der Zee’s face flashed in her mind.
He and his friend had attended church the past three Sundays in a row, despite the cool reception from the congregation.
When Ivy had overheard Gerrit chatting with Charlie, he’d sounded thoughtful and mild.
But had he beaten young boys like the one before her?
Or stood by whilst others did? Approved of depriving them of food, driving them to the dangers of escape and theft?
Ivy inhaled a quick breath to clear her mind. “Mrs. Bullard, please boil some water, add soap, and bring me cloth for bandaging.”
“Here you are.” She brought over a basin from the bureau. “I tried to bandage the wound myself, but he won’t let me near.”
The boy’s pale blue eyes still stretched wide, but he’d stopped pulling against his restraints.
Ivy moved up to the bedside and lifted the bell of her stethoscope. “May I?” She wasn’t worried about his heart, but she needed to establish trust.
His breathing quieted.
Murmuring softly, Ivy pressed her stethoscope to the boy’s thin chest. His heartbeat hammered her eardrums.
“Very good,” she said with a smile, and she pointed to his leg. “May I?”
Ever so slightly, he scooted his leg closer.
“Very good.” She shifted the remnants of his trousers away from the wound and examined it. After she tested the water temperature, she began cleansing the wound.
The boy grunted in pain, but he allowed her to work.
“Has he had anything to eat or drink?” Ivy asked.
“He won’t let us near,” Mrs. Bullard said.
“He may now. Mrs. Bullard, please bring him some food. Mr. Bullard, offer him something to drink and untie his restraints. Then he’ll know you mean him no harm.”
“But I’m the one who hurt him.” His voice choked off.
Ivy gave Mr. Bullard a reassuring smile. “It’s clear in any language how sorry you feel.”
He nodded rapidly. “I’ll fetch some tea.”
“Thank you.” Ivy resumed cleaning the wound. If they could hold off infection—and the Germans—the young man might stand a chance.
St. Helier
Tuesday, October 20, 1942
Ivy’s stomach growled after the meager dinner of limpet stew and rough rationed bread, and she set the last patient chart on the sofa beside her and stretched.
Most of the day had been spent visiting patients in Jersey General Hospital and Overdale Isolation Hospital. A diphtheria epidemic had taken hold, ravaging adults as well as children. Ghastly disease, and the doctors in Jersey hadn’t enough serum to treat the ill.
She’d also visited the Ukrainian boy the Bullards had nicknamed Henry. He was recovering well, even though two days had passed before he’d allowed her to inject tetanus antitoxin. Surely he had received more and better food from the Bullards than if he’d succeeded in killing their prized rabbit.
But how long could the Bullards keep him hidden?
Fern sat sewing in an armchair next to Ivy, and Charlie played the piano across the room.
It was good to have him home, even if foul weather was the reason for it.
Ivy lifted a sketch pad and pencil from her basket by the sofa. Evenings had always been her favorite, but the warm blanket of family felt as thin and frayed as Ivy’s tweed skirt. She shivered in the cold as she sketched her sister’s profile.