houses for their officers to live in, and they would never ignore such a residence as La Fort—it was too good to miss. And when they came I must be ready for them as Lord Tobias Penn-Piers. I must look like a Lord at Leisure and act at my ease. I was terrified.
“Nonsense,” said Elizabeth. “You have presence, Booker. You’re tall, dark, handsome, and all valets know how to look down their noses.”
She decided that she would quickly paint my portrait as a sixteenth-century Penn-Piers. So I posed as such in a velvet cloak and ruff, seated against a background of dark tapestries and dim shadows, fingering my dagger. I looked Noble, Aggrieved, and Treasonous.
It was a brilliant stroke, for, not two weeks later, a body of German officers (six in all) appeared in my library—without knocking. I received them there, sipping a Chateau Margaux ’93 and bearing an uncanny resemblance to the portrait of my “ancestor” hanging above me over the mantel.
They bowed to me and were all politeness, which did not prevent them from taking over the house and moving me into the gatekeeper’s cottage the very next day. Eben and Dawsey slipped over after curfew that night and helped me carry most of the wine down to the cottage, where we cleverly hid it behind the woodpile, down the well, up the chimney, under a haystack, and above the rafters. But even with all this toting of bottles, I still ran out of wine by early 1941. A sad day, but I had friends to help distract me—and then, then I found Seneca.
I came to love our book meetings—they helped to make the Occupation bearable. Some of their books sounded fine, but I stayed true to Seneca. I came to feel that he was talking to me—in his funny, biting way—but talking to me alone. His letters helped to keep me alive in what was to come later.
I still go to all our Society meetings. Everyone is sick of Seneca, and they are begging me to read someone else. But I’ll not do it. I also act in plays that one of our repertory companies puts on—impersonating Lord Tobias gave me a taste for acting, and besides that, I am tall, loud, and can be heard in the last row.
I am happy the war is over, and I am John Booker again.
Yours truly,
31st March, 1946
Mr. Sidney Stark
Monreagle Hotel
Broadmeadows Avenue, 79
Melbourne
Victoria
Australia
Dear Sidney and Piers,
No life’s blood—just sprained thumbs from copying out the enclosed letters from my new friends on Guernsey. I love their letters and could not bear the thought of sending the originals to the bottom of the earth where they would undoubtedly be eaten by wild dogs.
I knew the Germans occupied the Channel Islands, but I barely gave them a thought during the war. I have since scoured the
Quite apart from my interest
I know you’re going to love the letters, too—but would you be interested in more? To me, these people and their war-time experiences are fascinating and moving. Do you agree? Do you think there could be a book here? Don’t be polite—I want your opinion (both of your opinions) unvarnished. And you needn’t worry—I’ll continue to send you copies of the letters even if you don’t want me to write a book about Guernsey. I am (mostly) above petty vengeance.
Since I have sacrificed my thumbs for your amusement, you should send me one of Piers’s latest in return. So glad you are writing again, my dear.
My love to you both,
2nd April, 1946
Dear Miss Ashton,
Having fun is the biggest sin in Adelaide Addison’s bible (lack of humility following close on its heels), and I’m not surprised she wrote to you about Jerry-bags. Adelaide lives on her wrath.
There were few eligible men left in Guernsey and certainly no one exciting. Many of us were tired, scruffy, worried, ragged, shoeless, and dirty—we were defeated and looked it. We didn’t have the energy, time, or money left over for fun. Guernsey men had no glamour—and the German soldiers did. They were, according to a friend of mine, tall, blond, handsome, and tanned—like gods. They gave lavish parties, were jolly and zestful company, possessed cars, had money, and could dance all night long.
But some of the girls who dated soldiers gave the cigarettes to their fathers and the bread to their families. They would come home from parties with rolls, pates, fruit, meat patties, and jellies stuffed in their purses, and their families would have a full meal the next day.
I don’t think some Islanders ever credited the boredom of those years as a reason to befriend the enemy. Boredom is a powerful reason, and the prospect of fun is a powerful draw—especially when you are young.
There were many folks who would have no dealings with the Germans—if you said so much as good morning, you were abetting the enemy, according to their way of thinking. But circumstances were such that I could not abide by that with Captain Christian Hellman, a doctor in the Occupation forces and my good friend.
In late 1941 there wasn’t any salt on the Island, and none was coming to us from France. Root vegetables and soups are listless without salt, so the Germans got the idea of using seawater to supply it. They carried it up from the bay and poured it into a big tanker set in the middle of St. Peter Port. Everyone was to walk to town, fill up their buckets, and carry them home again. Then we were to boil the water away and use the sludge in the bottom of the pan as salt. That plan failed—there wasn’t enough wood to waste building up a fire hot enough to boil the pot of water dry.
So we decided to cook all our vegetables in the seawater itself. That worked well enough for flavor, but there were many older people who couldn’t make the walk into town or haul heavy buckets home. No one had much strength left over for such chores. I have a slight limp from a badly set leg, and though it kept me from army service, it has never been bad enough to bother me. I was very hale, and so I began to deliver water around to some cottages.
I traded an extra spade and some twine for Mme. LePell’s old baby pram, and Mr. Soames gave me two small oak wine casks, each with a spigot. I sawed off the barrel tops to make moveable lids and fitted them into my pram—so now I had transport. Several of the beaches weren’t mined, and it was an easy thing to climb down the rocks, fill a cask with seawater, and tote it back up.
The November wind is bleak, and one day my hands were near numb after I climbed up from the bay with the first barrel of water. I was standing by my pram, trying to limber up my fingers, when Christian drove by. He stopped his car, backed up, and asked if I wanted any help. I said no, but he got out of his car anyway and helped me lift the barrel into my pram. Then, without a word, he went down the cliff with me, to help with the second barrel.
