Chapter 22
chapter
St. Aubin
Standing on the breakwater, Bernardus gazed down into the water, bright turquoise in the afternoon sun. “This would be perfect for sabotage.”
Gerrit whipped his gaze in all directions. No one else stood on the breakwater at St. Aubin, but dozens of men worked at the adjacent gun battery. “We’ve already discussed this.”
“Everything’s changed.” A frenzied look filled Bernardus’s light blue eyes. “The network is blown, and we have no way to help.”
“I hate it too.” Gerrit scanned the bay capped by St. Aubin’s Fort on its tiny island. “We have to take comfort in knowing dozens of our maps were delivered.”
“Or captured.” Bernardus clapped his hands to his hips. “And for what good? The Allies just invaded Sicily. In the Mediterranean. They aren’t coming to France.”
Not this year, and Gerrit shoved his jaw forward. Would his maps even be relevant when the invasion did come?
“Here we are, building for our enemy.” Bernardus jerked his head toward the gun battery of sand-colored stone. “But I have an idea.”
“I don’t want to hear about—”
“Listen. On a dark night when the tide is out, we creep along the base of this breakwater, plant explosive charges, and blow up the breakwater. That will wreck this harbor.”
“Bernardus.” Gerrit bored his gaze into his friend. “You know all the reasons sabotage is a bad idea. We cannot do this.”
Bernardus pulled back a bit, and his gaze darkened. “You mean you cannot do this.”
Down by his side, Gerrit’s left hand flexed. Was he trying to control all the details again? Or was this as awful an idea as it seemed? “You’re right. I cannot. And you should not, especially alone.”
Bernardus wrenched his head to the side. Whatever plan he was concocting, he couldn’t do it by himself.
Then Bernardus fixed a fierce gaze on Gerrit. “The Allies will win.”
“Yes, thank goodness.” Even the Germans seemed to know it.
Bernardus poked a finger at Gerrit’s chest. “What will they say about us after the war? They’ll call us collaborators, even traitors.”
“We’re working for the resistance. They’ll—”
That poke turned to a shove. “They’re all dead. Or will be soon. See if that changes your mind.” Bernardus pushed past him and marched up the breakwater.
Gerrit groaned and followed. Surely, some in the network survived. Surely, some of the maps had reached England and would prove their loyalty.
At the base of the breakwater, Gerrit headed for the shed used for construction site headquarters. With RAF raids increasing, the “Aubin Hafen” open casemate was scheduled to be enclosed with reinforced concrete to protect guns and gunners.
In the shed, Ernst Schmeling leaned over a table spread with blueprints. He smiled at Gerrit as he entered. “You’ll be pleased to hear we caught the murderer yesterday.”
A sickening feeling twined in his gut. “Murderer?”
“That Russian swine we saw murder a German guard.”
Not “manslaughter” or “self-defense,” but “murder.” Marchenko would be executed after all, and Gerrit could no longer help him. “Where—where has he been?” His voice sounded choked, sounded like treason.
The Jounys, everyone who helped Marchenko—all were in danger.
Schmeling pushed back from the table and crossed his arms. “He refused to say who hid him, even though he was questioned all night.”
Gerrit fought back a grimace. What had that questioning entailed?
“He insisted he hid in the woods and stole food and clothing.” Schmeling released a scoffing sound. “Liar. He was too well fed, too clean, too well healed from his gunshot wound.”
With every bit of effort, Gerrit echoed the scoffing sound. “Someone hid him.” At least Marchenko hadn’t named them yet, but how long until he broke?
“This is our only clue. The swine had it in his pocket. I’m showing it around.” Schmeling pulled a square of paper from inside his jacket, unfolded it, and tossed it on the table.
A pencil sketch of a horse, a bright-eyed horse, trotting, his tail high and pluming.
Ivy Picot hadn’t signed it. She didn’t need to.
Gerrit’s stomach roiled, and he pressed his hand over it.
Schmeling jabbed his finger at the horse. “The Russian says he found it on a kitchen table while stealing food. I don’t believe him. This could tell us where he was hiding.”
And who had treated his gunshot wound.
With quivering fingers, Gerrit picked up the sketch. Ivy was generous with her artwork. If Schmeling showed it around, someone would eventually recognize her hand.
Gerrit moistened his lips. “He—the Russian—he isn’t talking?”
“Wasn’t. The camp commandant hanged him at dawn at the gate to Lager Schepke.”
A punch to Gerrit’s gut. Marchenko . . . was dead?
“They made an example of him.” Schmeling’s thin lips twisted into a smile. “Marched all the workers past his body this morning. They’ll march past again this evening.”
That punch jabbed deeper. Gerrit gasped from the pain. “He—they left him there? That violates every rule of human decency.”
Schmeling’s narrow nostrils flared. “He murdered a German. He violated those rules of decency far more.”
Gerrit’s head shook. He backed up, the drawing in hand.
Turned. Bolted out the door.
He’d be disciplined, but what did it matter?
It was too late for Marchenko to receive justice, but not too late to show him respect.
St. Lawrence’s Parish
Ivy pedaled along a lane on her way from St. Helier to Beaumont to see a patient. “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’” The verse hiccupped out of her mouth.
Only an hour before, as Reverend Le Marinel had read the Twenty-third Psalm, Thelma Galais had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, for the Lord was with her. Now Thelma would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
But Ivy had lost one of her few friends on the island, one of the few lights of goodness.
“‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?’” Thelma had asked Ivy, as the angel had asked the women at the empty tomb.
Ivy cycled past the stump of yet another tree chopped down for fuel. Always she’d seen God’s goodness in the world and its people, but both were easily corrupted.
Why did Ivy seek the goodness of the living God in the corruptible world and its corruptible people?
“‘He is not here, but is risen,’” she whispered. That was the goodness. The cross. The resurrection.
If every person turned to evil and all creation were destroyed, would God still be good?
He could be no other. The cross was the proof.
Ivy tipped her face to the clear blue sky. “Lord, help me see.”
She rounded a slight bend. A tree up ahead poked above the hedgerow. But something was wrong. Too much gray, lines that didn’t fit.
She passed the hedges lining the side road, and the sight cleared.
A man hung in the tree. Hung by the neck. His hands bound behind him.
Demyan Marchenko.
A cry birthed in her gut, convulsed her, spewed from her mouth. Guttural. Howling.
She didn’t need to take his pulse. The Germans—the brutes!—wouldn’t have left him unless certain he was dead.
“Ivy! Don’t look!” A male voice. A bicycle bore down on her.
A man in a brown Todt uniform—Gerrit van der Zee—scrambled off the bicycle, his long legs tangling in the frame. He kicked the bicycle aside, lurched toward her. “Don’t look, Ivy!”
“You!” The word quaked with fury, and she stumbled off her own bicycle and thrust a finger toward Demyan’s body. “You people did this.”
Gerrit took her by the shoulders and guided her back to the far side of the hedge.
She wanted to resist, but her feet felt numb, floppy.
“Please don’t look.” Behind the hedge, Gerrit turned her shoulders away from the body. “I came to cut him down, give him a decent burial. He was a good man.”
“I know.” She spat the words at him. “I knew him.”
Gerrit released her shoulders and removed his cap. Sweat darkened his hairline around his bright red cheeks. “You treated his gunshot wound.”
Ivy’s face stretched long. “How did you . . . ?” If the Germans knew she had treated Demyan, she would be arrested, Joan, the helpers, maybe even Charlie and Fern.
Gerrit swiped his arm across his forehead and pulled a piece of paper from his trouser pocket. “Marchenko was carrying this when they captured him yesterday.”
The horse she’d drawn to cheer him up, and she held it in trembling hands.
“I knew it was yours,” Gerrit said. “Marchenko told the Germans he stole it from a farmhouse while stealing food. He was protecting you, protecting those who sheltered him. If the Germans discover you’re the artist and question you, tell them you give drawings to many of your patients and can’t remember who received this one. Take it home and burn it.”
Ivy’s gaze rose from the horse to Gerrit’s eyes, darkened to teal with concern, his mouth set hard. He—he was protecting her too.
Gerrit tucked in his lips and tapped the paper. “Please be careful who you give your drawings to.”
A groaning cry ripped through her, and she crumpled up the drawing. “This—my drawing could get people arrested. Killed. Stupid, frivolous, a waste of paper.”
“No.” Gerrit clamped his hand around her fist. “It’s not a waste. Your art brings joy. It brings light. It brings—hope. Don’t ever stop.”
Ivy couldn’t tear her gaze from the passionate conviction in his eyes, couldn’t tear her hand from the warm strength of his grip, couldn’t tear her mind from the truth—the truth!—that Gerrit van der Zee was far more than the uniform.
He closed his eyes and stepped away. “You should leave. Quickly. Schmeling—he certainly knows my intentions. He may send men after me. Go that way.” He waved to the northeast, back the way she’d come.
Gerrit glanced over her shoulder toward Demyan, and his face buckled.
“What will you do?” she asked. “How will you bury him?”
“I don’t know.” He stretched his long fingers before him and stared at them. “I have a knife to cut him down. I’ll dig with my hands if I must. I can’t leave him like that.”
With an intake of breath, Ivy pulled herself taller and became Dr. Picot once again. “Cut him down and stay with him. I’ll find a telephone and ring for an ambulance to collect the body. The people of Jersey won’t stand for this. They’ll make sure he has a proper burial.”
“Thank you. He was my friend. He—he called me comrade.” His voice broke, and he glanced away, his cheeks red and agitated. “Go. Quickly.”
“Yes.” She turned, picked up her bicycle, and pedaled away. Why would a slave worker call a Todt man his comrade?
She saw—and yet didn’t see at all.