Chapter 41
chapter
Fauvic
Inside the granite barn, a young lady served hot carrot tea to Gerrit, Bernardus, and Jack, a youth who would be escaping with them.
Gerrit studied the navigational charts on the barn floor as an elderly fisherman instructed them how to avoid the many rocks, reefs, and currents in the waters.
Jack and three of his friends had planned an escape for tonight and had secretly moved a twelve-foot dinghy from storage in St. Helier to Fauvic and had gathered supplies for the voyage.
But his friends had been arrested earlier in the week for stealing food, stranding Jack without companions and opening room for Gerrit, Charlie, and Bernardus.
By the door stood their contact, Bill Bertram, around fifty years old, bespectacled, with thick silver hair receding above the temples.
Charlie lay on a stretcher beside Gerrit, covered with blankets, his face red and sweaty, his eyes bleary. And too quiet. Between the gunshot wound and the infection, he was too weak to walk.
The carrot tea tossed in Gerrit’s stomach as he memorized the instructions.
He didn’t dare correct the men’s information on the coastal defenses.
For islanders to knowingly help uniformed members of Organisation Todt to escape would be a grave offense in German eyes.
It was best if these men assumed Gerrit and Bernardus were forced workers—and forced workers would be ignorant of military information.
“Do you understand?” the fisherman asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gerrit said with the others.
Bill tipped his head to the dinghy. “It’s ten fifteen. German patrols pass at ten o’clock and again at midnight. If you move quickly, you’ll have plenty of time before the moon rises.”
Gerrit warmed his hands on the cup. He alone didn’t wear an overcoat or hat. His greatcoat and cap bore OT insignia, and he refused to take clothing from his friends in Jersey when replacement was impossible.
In his satchel, he carried his last silk map, provisions, his canteen, pistol, shaving kit, and the few personal items that had survived the drenching when he’d jumped overboard in June. And not one item to remind him of Ivy. Not one item to point to her in case he was captured.
“Are you ready?” Bill asked the men.
“Yes, sir.” Gerrit swigged down the last of his tea.
The young lady who had served tea knelt beside Charlie and wiped his forehead. She gave Gerrit a worried look. “Will he be all right?”
Only the Lord knew the answer, and Gerrit gave her a small smile. “We’ll do our best to get him to France. Thank you for your help.”
“Wear this.” Jack removed a black knit cap from his thick swatch of black hair, and he handed it to Gerrit with a glare. “Your hair’s so bright, you’ll get us all shot.”
“Thank you.” Gerrit pulled it down over his hair and looped the strap of his duffel crosswise over his body.
“I want it back.”
Gerrit raised a bit of a smile. “As soon as we’re out of range of the German guns.”
“Godspeed.” Bill shook hands all around, and he waved in a group of men, ranging from youth to middle age.
Some of the men lifted the boat, and others carried a large wooden sled used to maneuver boats down the seawall. Gerrit lifted one end of Charlie’s stretcher and Jack the other.
With Bernardus following on his crutch, the company maneuvered the boat, sled, and stretcher out of the barn into the inky night.
About thirty meters to the east, they reached a concrete walkway along the shore. A seawall built of stone sloped four meters down to the beach at a steep angle. Light waves lapped at the sand.
Gerrit peered into the night. Grouville Bay made a gentle curve between La Rocque at the southeastern corner of Jersey and Gorey. At Gorey stood the medieval Mont Orgueil Castle with its modern German weaponry.
“Clear,” Bernardus said in a low voice.
Gerrit nodded. He saw no patrols.
With practiced efficiency, the helpers set the sled at a shallow angle from the top of the seawall down to the beach, spanning the narrow band of rocks rimming the shoreline. Then they guided the boat down the sled.
An ingenious method. With great care, Gerrit and Jack walked the stretcher down the sled and rested the stretcher inside the boat.
Gerrit stashed his satchel in the boat and tucked the blankets around Charlie. “Ready?”
Charlie nodded and shivered. “So cold.”
The sooner they got him to France, the better.
While Gerrit, Bernardus, and Jack removed shoes and socks, set them in the boat, and rolled their trousers above the knee, the helpers and their sled disappeared up the seawall.
It was time.
Jack took the bow of the boat, and Gerrit and Bernardus took the stern.
“One last look,” Bernardus said in a low voice.
Gerrit squinted around the bay and listened hard, but no motion or sounds caught his attention. “Clear.”
“Let’s go.” Jack splashed into the light surf and climbed into the bow. Gerrit and Bernardus pushed the boat knee-deep into the chilly water and boarded one at a time.
A small wave raised the boat, and Gerrit and Bernardus shoved off with the oars.
Once free, Gerrit passed his oar to Jack, and Jack and Bernardus—the strongest two of the men—set the oars in the rowlocks and rowed hard.
Gerrit would have his turn at the oars, but for now he’d man the tiller and serve as sentry.
He crouched in the stern by Charlie’s head and held the tiller firm.
In his breast pocket, he had a compass to use after the moon rose.
The Cotentin Peninsula lay fifteen miles to the east, and they had the tide in their favor. And a few more minutes of darkness.
His calves tingled as the seawater evaporated, and he shivered, but he needed to wait until his feet dried before donning socks and shoes.
To the north, the dark mound of Mont Orgueil distorted the line where sky and land and sea intersected. Gerrit had seen the defenses built on the ancient castle, the powerful rangefinder, the large guns, the searchlights.
If the alarm sounded, the little boat wouldn’t be safe.
The oars slapped the water, and the boat rose and fell on the slight waves. Overhead, bands of clouds smudged the stars, and a faint glow formed to the east as the moon neared the horizon.
A moan from Charlie, and Gerrit leaned close. “Quiet.”
Another moan, this time in affirmation.
Gerrit scanned the shore behind him. A figure ran along the beach.
“Get down.” Gerrit motioned to Bernardus and Jack.
The men tucked in the oars and ducked low.
“What do you see?” Bernardus whispered.
Gerrit peeked over the gunwale. “A man.”
The cresting moon spilled revealing light on the man.
The silhouette was wrong. Delicate, shapely. Wearing a skirt. A woman—a woman carrying a square little bag—a medical bag?
Ivy? The woman ran to water’s edge, waving hard. Had she come to say goodbye?
“It’s Ivy.”
“What’s she doing?” Irritation grated in Bernardus’s voice. “She shouldn’t be here.”
No, she shouldn’t. She wouldn’t. Ivy would never risk their safety and her own for a romantic gesture.
Gerrit saw beyond what he saw. “She wants to join us, to escape.”
“Too late,” Bernardus said. “She knows the contact. She can come another night.”
Ivy waved her arm in a wide arc, tiny and distant. She did indeed know the contact. So why would she come now?
Gerrit swallowed hard. “She’d come only if it were vital. If her life depended on it.”
“We’re not going back for a girl.” Jack glowered at Gerrit. “The moon’s rising, the tide’s going out.”
“Gerrit,” Bernardus said in a soft tone. “We can’t go back. Our lives depend on it. Charlie’s life.”
Far back on shore in the growing moonlight, the woman he loved waved frantically.
Gerrit’s hand opened and flexed. How could he convince the others?