Chapter 36
chapter
St. Helier
To Ivy, silence had always meant peace, but not now.
Without a word, Ivy and Fern prepared their breakfasts at opposite ends of the kitchen. The gas supply had ceased on the fourth of September, so Ivy stirred oats she’d soaked in cold water the night before and added a handful of the blackberries she’d picked whilst on her rounds the other day.
On the kitchen table sat dinner for her and Charlie—a crockery dish of potatoes and vegetables she’d take to the Picots’ assigned bakery to cook all day. Since Fern always ate out for dinner now, she took no responsibility for the evening meal.
No sounds had yet arisen from Charlie’s room. After losing his job, he’d looked for work each day and taken odd jobs when he could find them. Recently he’d spent evenings with old school chums, which had cheered him.
Someone banged on the front door, and Ivy frowned. The surgery didn’t open for another hour and a half, and medical emergencies went to the casualty department at General Hospital.
She strode to the door, wiping her hands on her apron as she went, with Fern behind her.
“Open the door!” a man yelled.
Ivy’s blood crystallized, and her breath hitched. Germans? Had they learned she treated escapees?
A quick prayer, and she opened the door.
Five men in overcoats and trilby hats stood on the stoop. “We’re looking for Charles Picot.”
What had Charlie done? He hadn’t served as Gerrit’s courier for several months. Ivy struggled for composure. “Charlie? He hasn’t come down for breakfast yet.”
The leader, a man around forty, motioned for the other two men to enter the house. “Find him.”
“I beg your pardon.” Fern stepped in their way with a beautiful smile and an outstretched hand.
“My name is Fern Le Corre, and I work for the Feldkommandantur—rather the Platzkommandantur now. Charles is my brother. You are Hauptwachtmeister Karl-Heinz Wolfle of the Geheime Feldpolizei, yes? How may I help you?”
The man known as the “Wolf of the Gestapo”? Ivy’s breath snagged on her throat. Thank goodness Fern was using her charm to intervene.
“You may help by telling us where your brother is hiding.” Wolfle spoke fluent English with a Canadian accent.
Fern added a sweep of eyelashes to her smile. “I assure you, Herr Hauptwachtmeister, my brother has no need to hide.”
“Then you have no need to fear a search.” He brushed past her into the hall.
Ivy stumbled backward as the men shoved inside. One man flung open the door to Ivy’s office, another marched toward the back door, two men pounded up the stairs, and Wolfle slammed a leather satchel onto the receptionist’s desk. Papers fluttered from the desk to the floor.
“Do you recognize this?” Wolfle asked.
With the engraved nameplate on top of the satchel, proclamations of ignorance would be most unwise. But her voice bounced, silent, in the depths of her gut.
“It’s Charlie’s.” Fern fingered the nameplate. “Where did you find it?”
“On the beach at La Rocque where a group of cowards tried to desert to France last night.”
To desert? To escape? Charlie? Ivy’s hands clenched together.
A man shouted in German from the back of the house and rattled a doorknob.
“The door is locked.” Fern snapped her gaze to Ivy. “The supply room. Quickly, before he breaks the lock.”
She would never be able to replace the lock that protected medications and foodstuffs and her bicycle, and she ran down the hall, wrestling the key from her pocket. “Please! Please stop. Wait. I have the key.”
Fern called out a translation as Ivy ran.
Despite shaking hands, Ivy inserted the key in the lock. She opened the door for the field police. “See? No one is hiding here.”
The man shoved things around on the shelves, and bottles crashed to the floor.
“Please don’t,” Ivy said. “Please. We have shortages of medicines.”
Fern translated in a longer version, and Ivy used the break to catch her breath. When it mattered, she could count on Fern and their mutual love for Charlie.
“Come here, ladies,” Wolfle called from the receptionist’s desk. “I’m not finished questioning you.”
Without glancing at Ivy, Fern strolled to Wolfle wearing a sedate smile.
Ivy’s feet tangled with each other, and she fumbled for the wall, fumbled for breath. “What do you mean—Charlie tried to escape?”
“A party of youths deserted by boat.” Wolfle patted the satchel. “Our men shot one of them. He dropped this bag.”
Ivy clapped her hand over her mouth and gasped.
“Shot?” Fern flung out a splayed hand and braced herself against the wall.
“Last night the patrol found this bag but no other trace of the injured man, so they assumed his comrades had rescued him. But this morning, we found blood leading away from the beach.”
“Oh no.” Ivy’s voice came out muffled. “Charlie.”
“You’re a doctor.” Wolfle’s gaze carried both restraint and intimidation. “He came to you for treatment.”
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“Where did you hide him?”
“I didn’t.” Ivy’s head swung back and forth. “Oh no. Where is he?”
Thumps arose upstairs, and Ivy sent a fractured plea heavenward. What if Charlie had indeed come home last night? What if he was hiding in the house? No, if he was injured, he would have awakened her.
He was somewhere else. But where? How badly was he injured? Was he even alive?
Wolfle unbuckled the satchel and pulled out a pile of silk squares. “What are these?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, not even a lie. Although she knew they were Gerrit’s sketches, she didn’t know what he’d sketched.
Fern fingered the maps. “It’s silk. Where did Charlie get silk?”
“I can’t imagine.” The words pulsed moist heat into Ivy’s fingers. In truth, she had no idea how Gerrit obtained the silk.
Wolfle’s gaze sliced back and forth between sisters. “We believe it’s a parachute from an English spy.”
“A spy?” Fern jutted out her chin. “I assure you, no Picot has any doings with English spies.”
Ivy could only shake her head in confusion.
Upstairs, furniture thudded and scraped.
“We will find your brother.” Wolfle stuffed the silk into the satchel. “When we do . . .”
Fern teetered, leaned back against the wall, and pressed her fingers over her mouth. “I read the notice in the Evening Post the other day. Desertion to the enemies of the German forces shall be treated as espionage.”
“Correct.” Wolfle slid the bag off the desk, and the appointment book tumbled to the floor.
Ivy’s fingers dug into her cheek. If the Germans realized secret ink adorned that silk and they developed the maps, they’d discover both Charlie and Gerrit were truly guilty of espionage.
Footsteps descended the stairs, and two Germans marched down the hall, joined by their colleagues who had searched the ground floor, each holding armfuls of papers.
Ivy winced, but she’d never put any of her work for the ring down on paper. Surely Charlie hadn’t written about his exploits either.
Wolfle thrust a finger at Fern and Ivy. “Harboring spies will lead to severe punishment. If you hear anything about your brother, you must report it to us immediately.”
“Of course, Herr Hauptwachtmeister.” Fern hoisted her chin high. “I would never defy German orders.”
Ivy had already defied orders, and she’d do so again if it meant her brother’s life, but she nodded. “I understand, sir.”
The five men strode outside and slammed the front door.
“What did you do to Charlie?” Fern spun to Ivy. “What did you get him involved in?”
“Me?”
“Don’t play innocent.” Fern’s hands formed claws and shook in front of her. “You were lying to the Feldpolizei. I can always tell when you’re lying. This is your fault. You turned Charlie against me, turned him against the Germans, and now he’s breaking the law.”
Heat built in Ivy’s chest. With one sweep of her arm, she swiped away the blame.
“Charlie has a mind of his own, eyes of his own. He sees the Germans for who they are. He’s seen them beat their workers.
He’s seen his friends arrested for nothing more than listening to the BBC. Heaven forbid they hear the truth.”
“Your fault.” Fern’s mouth formed the words with precision, and her gaze seared. “Now he’s tried to desert to the enemy, and he’s hurt, bleeding. Where is he? Where would he go?”
Ivy closed her eyes to Fern’s accusations, to think. Where would he have gone? To the farm? St. Peter’s Parish was at least five miles from La Rocque, and Charlie would have passed through St. Helier on the way. He would have come home for care, for help hiding.
“Where is he?” Grief shredded Fern’s voice. “Where’s my little brother?”
“I don’t know.” Ivy pried wet eyelashes apart and met her sister’s gaze. “I don’t know, Fern.”
Fern’s chest heaved, and she brushed tears from her cheeks. “Thank goodness I have influence with the Germans. I’ll go to Helmut and smooth things over. I may not be able to save Charlie from prison, but I might be able to save his life.”
Fern stormed out of the house, leaving the front door wide open.
With halting steps, Ivy went to close the door.
In the street, a man in a coat and a trilby pushed away from the house across the way and followed Fern. Another man, similarly clad, read a newspaper outside the house next door.
Ivy shut the door. She leaned back against it and clutched the sides of her head. They were being watched. If she searched for Charlie, she’d be followed.
Her breath came hard, in erratic bursts. In recent weeks, many had escaped by boat—or tried to. When they did, the German field police searched homes of family members.
“Oh no. Aunt Opal.” If they searched the farm, they’d find Bernardus—and Gerrit. Gerrit had little work lately and spent Saturdays at the farm.
She had to warn them, and she spun to the doorknob. No, she’d lead the Germans straight to the farm.
The telephone. Two steps, and she slammed to a stop. The farmhouse didn’t have a telephone. She’d ring Joan, give her the code to move a patient straightaway.