face, and not knowing it, he was twisting my arm, wringing it, saying, “How can they be doing this again? We beat them and here they are again. How did we let them do this again?”
Finally, Elizabeth said, “I’ve seen enough. I need a drink.”
I keep a good supply of gin in my cupboard, so we came on home.
I will close now, but I will be able to see you soon and that gives me joy. We all want to come meet you—but a new fear has struck me. There could be twenty other passengers on the mail boat, and how will I know which one is you? That book photo is a blurry little thing, and I don’t want to go kissing the wrong woman. Could you wear a big red hat with a veil and carry lilies?
Your friend,
Isola
From An Animal Lover to Juliet
Wednesday evening
Dear Miss,
I too am a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—but I never wrote to you about my books, because I only read two—kiddies’ tales about dogs, loyal, brave, and true.
Isola says you are coming to maybe write about the Occupation, and I think you should know the truth of what our States did to animals! Our own government, mind, not the dirty Germans!
They would be ashamed to tell of it, but I am not. I don’t much care for people—never have, never will. I got my reasons. I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right and he’ll treat you right—he’ll keep you company, be your friend, never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against them.
You should know what some Guernsey folks did to their pets when they got scared the Germans was coming. Thousands of them quit the island—flew off to England, sailed away, and left their dogs and cats behind. Deserted them, left them to roam the streets, hungry and thirsty—the swine!
I took in as many dogs as I could gather up, but it wasn’t enough. Then the States stepped in to take care of the problem—and did worse, far worse. The States warned in the newspapers that, because of the war, there might not be enough food for humans, much less for animals. “You may keep one family pet,” they said, “but the States will have to put the rest to sleep. Feral cats and dogs, roaming the island, will be a danger to the children.”
And that is what they did. The States gathered them animals into trucks, and took them to St. Andrews Animal Shelter, and those nurses and doctors put them all to sleep. As fast as they could kill one truck load of pets, another truck load would arrive. I saw it all—the collecting, the unloading at the shelter, and the burying.
I saw one nurse come out of the shelter and stand in the fresh air, gulping it down. She looked sick enough to die herself. She had herself a cigarette and then she went back on in to help with the killing. It took two days to kill all the animals.
That’s all I want to say, but put it in your book.
An Animal Lover
From Sally Ann Frobisher to Juliet
15th May, 1946
Dear Miss Ashton,
Miss Pribby told me you would be coming to Guernsey to hear about the war. I hope we will meet then, but I am writing now because I like to write letters. I like to write anything, really.
I thought you’d like to know how I was personally humiliated during the war—in 1943, when I was twelve. I had scabies. There wasn’t enough soap on Guernsey to keep clean—not our clothes, our houses, or ourselves. Everyone had skin diseases of one sort or another—scales or pustules or lice. I myself had scabies on top of my head—under my hair—and they wouldn’t go away.
Finally, Dr. Ormond said I must go to Town Hospital and have my head shaved, and cut the tops of the scabs off to let the pus out. I hope you will never know the shame of a seeping scalp. I wanted to die.
That is where I met my friend Elizabeth McKenna. She helped the nurses on my floor. The nurses were always kind, but Miss McKenna was kind
I said, “This isn’t going to hurt, is it? Dr. Ormond said it wouldn’t hurt.” I tried not to cry.
“He lied,” Miss McKenna said, “it’s going to hurt like hell. Don’t tell your mother I said ‘hell.’ ”
I started to giggle at that, and she made the first slice before I had time to be afraid. It did hurt, but not like hell. We played a game while she cut the rest of the tops off—we shouted out the names of every woman who had ever suffered under the blade. “Mary, Queen of Scots—Snip-snap!” “Anne Boleyn—Whap!” “Marie Antoinette— Thunk!” And we were done.
It hurt, but it was fun too because Miss McKenna had turned it into a game.
She swabbed my bald head with Dettol and came in to visit me that evening—with a silk scarf of her own to wrap round my head as a turban. “There,” she said, and handed me a mirror. I looked in it—the scarf was lovely, but my nose looked too big for my face, just as it always did. I wondered if I’d ever be pretty, and asked Miss McKenna.
When I asked my mother the same question, she said she had no patience with such nonsense and beauty was only skin-deep. But not Miss McKenna. She looked at me, considering, and then she said, “In a little more time, Sally, you’re going to be a stunner. Keep looking in the mirror and you’ll see. It’s bones that count, and you’ve got them in spades. With that elegant nose of yours, you’ll be the new Nefertiti. You’d better practice looking imperious.”
Mrs. Maugery came to visit me in hospital and I asked her who Nefertiti was, and if she was dead. It sort of sounded like it. Mrs. Maugery said she was indeed dead in one way, but immortal in another way. Later on, she
