Island Madness (30 page)

“Bloody heil, Elspeth, how did you come by all this?”

Elspeth looked at the bank book as if she had never seen it before.

“Savings.”

“Savings! From what?”

“Conrad was very genereus.”

“I’ll say he was.” He looked back through the entries. She’d opened the account October 1940, four months after the Occupa-tion. The entries came in regular weekly instalments, ten, twenty, thirty pounds.

“You telling me all this came from a lieutenant?”

“Well, not all, obviously.”

“Well, who, then?”

Elspeth started to fidget. “Can’t say for sure.”

“Forgive me for suggesting this, Elspeth, but you haven’t been taking a leaf out of the French ladies’ books, have you? The sight of them trooping in the bank with all their hard-earned money didn’t set you thinking, ‘If they can do it, so can I’?”

She stood up, a flush of crimson racing down her neck.

“How dare you say that! How dare you!”

“Well, what else am I supposed to think? Here’s the lieutenant with pictures of you that would make a nawy blush, and here’s you with a bank balance that would be the envy of your bank manager.”

Monty Freeman. That was a point. He leafed through the book again. Two years, five months, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943. At the close of December 1942 the interest gained that year had been worked out, with Monty Freeman’s signature at the bottom. Monty Freeman knew of this, knew that Elspeth Poidevin was salting away more money in five months than he could earn in a year? Upright Monty Freeman? Then he remembered the swivel chair, and how Elspeth had reached down for the lever, as if she knew exactly how to use it, as if she’d sat in it many times before. Not in office hours, he’d be bound. When the bank was closed, then, and the other girls were on their way home. Elspeth Poidevin and Monty Freeman, together at last.

Calling for Tommy, he jumped the stairs and starled to run down the hill. The girls were standing outside on the corner, talking to one another. Monty Freeman was shoving his hat on as he hurried down the steps. A minute later and Ned was hugging the left-hand side of the Lower Pollet following Monty’s bobbing hat as he trotted past the chemist and the goldsmith, past R. J. Collins the purveyor of home-made cakes, past all those shops and shop owners to whom he maintained such an unforgiving rectitude, his hand pushing against wall and window, his coat flapping, blind to the ripples his unscheduled progress was causing.

Down near the roundabout Ned spun on his heel. Poor Monty had stopped up by the Savoy Hotel, out of breath. Ned waited a minute before turning again. Not that there was any danger of being discovered. Monty had crossed the road and was flagging a Pullman as it came up the Esplanade. He tipped his hat to the driver and settled down on the front bench.

Ned kept a good fifty yards back, walking on the same side as the bus, hanging over the railings or the sea wall whenever necessary. He didn’t need to run any more. The horse buses weren’t built for speed. Women passed him with shopping bags and children. Men whistled carrying tooi kits and empty lunch bags. A window cleaner cycled by, one hand on the handlebars, one hand holding his ladder. Then a doctor’s car. If he shut his eyes to the harbour, the seafront looked normal. Towards Spur Point the crowd began to thin out, so he crossed back to the shore side again and hung back while the old horse pulled its load round the bend and into the South Quay of St Sampson’s harbour. He could see the horse’s bones working under the dull skin, see the age and suffering of the beast in each weary plod. It was easier for Ned to hide himself here, for the harbour was awash with activity: swinging cranes, shouting longshoremen, guards, soldiers, ordinary civilians, all mixed together. They looked happy enough. They were work�ing, earning a decent wage, eating decent food. The bus pulled up. A woman clambered down, her pram handed down by two others who jumped down after it. A boy with a barrel hoop. His mother. Then, from the dark of the canvas, a pair of hands carrying a hat. Monty Freeman.

A minute later he had crossed into van Dielen’s yard. Ned ran round and pulling himself up looked over the fence. Monty was knocking on the little wooden door, but there was no one there; he tried the handle, but someone had fitted a new lock. He sat down and squeezed his head. There was a rumble of thunder. He looked up as the light rain returned. Monty hunched his shoulders and jammed his hat down. He was going to wait.

At the end the of the harbour stood a small sentry hut. Ned walked over and showing his warrant, asked if he could sit by the window and watch.

“
Kriminells
,” he said, exaggerating his consonants.

The guards were polite, dragging a chair to the greasy window, wiping the glass clean with an oily rag. The rain outside had settled into a steady drizzle. The wind from the sea had turned the day cold.

“
Kaffee?
”

Ned took the tin cup gratefully. The two guards trooped outside, leaving the door open. He could see their capes and their boots and the butt ends of their rifles. He breathed on the hot liquid and stared out. Back on watch, the guards resumed their conversation. He could understand some of it. There was a new girl over at the local brothel. French. Young. Very good. Something about a bottle. Much laughter. Someone had managed to drop one of the new field guns into the harbour. Smashed a boat in as well. Then a complaint. He couldn’t work that one out. Their boots rang against the cobbles as they passed it back and forth. For
zwei Woche
. Two weeks.
Jeden Tag
. Every day? Boots, uniform, the lot. He followed their gestures. He got it. Another inspection.

George Poidevin arrived two hours later. Ned nearly missed him. A line of trucks queuing up for the depots on the north side had obscured his view. As the last one moved off he caught a glimpse of van Dielen’s green lorry before the gates were shut again. Ned turned his collar up and ran through the puddles.

There was a light in the shed now, low and flickering, and though half the window was covered with brown paper he could see the two of them moving back and forth inside. Monty Freeman was waving his hat in the air. George was trying to calm him down. Ned’s arms grew tired. In about ten minutes the two of them came outside and walked over to the lorry. George clambered aboard and started throwing things out of the back.

“We’ll wait until nine,” he said. “It’ll be dead quiet by then.”

“Can’t we start earlier?” Monty sounded bitter.

“It’s a weekday, Mr Freeman. It wouldn’t be safe. Come on, help me put these out of the rain.”

Ned dropped to the ground. Waiting was not a game he was used to. In Southampton it was always a knock on the door or a quick twist of the elbow. He walked down the road to where the phone box stood. At least they still took the old currency. Ned called the station.

“Tommy? I’m at St Sampson’s. By the custom hut on the south side. I want you to bring me a bike. You can ride it over and walk back. Oh, and get me something to cover myself with. It’s chucking it down and I’m wearing my best suit.”

Tommy tried to be helpful. “A cape, you mean.”

“No, not a bloody cape. I’m trying to look inconspicuous. Something from lost property, something to cover my legs. And hurry.”

Tommy arrived twenty minutes later. He had a white bundie underneath his arm. A coat. There was black lettering on the back.

“Deckchair attendant!”

“It’s all I could find,” Tommy told him, helping him on with it. “People don’t seem to lose things like they used to.”

The lorry nosed out of the gate at around ten past. As it neared the hut the guard stepped out. George had all the papers ready; his driving licence, his petrol permit, identity card, the firm’s accreditation to the Todt. The guard waved him on. Ned eased out onto the road and started to pedal hard. The coat was tight around the shoulders and flapped uselessly about his legs. The beam on the lamp flickered on and off but there was the grey of the sea and the light of a sullen sky to help him. The cranes were silent now, the gunboats and barges dim silhouettes. On the rolls of barbed wire hung strands of dark seaweed, dull with oil. Back in St Peter Port George swung the lorry up Julian’s Hill and then turned sharp left, down the narrow alleyway that served as a rear access to the shops on Smith Street. The lorry crept along slowly, its tarpaulin sides brushing against the cobbled walls. At the end the alley broadened out into small courtyard. George wheeled the lorry round then backed it up against the back door to the bank. A jangle of keys later and the two men slipped in, Monty with a hurricane lamp in his hand. Ned counted to thirty, then followed down the narrow passageway that led to the bank. He could hear the echo of footsteps hurrying over the parquet floor. Inside the main area the smell of floor polish seemed even stronger than before. He stood in the doorway, trying to find his hearings. The counter was straight ahead of him. To his right rose the wooden partition which made up the back wall to Monty’s office. On his left stood the table where the girl with the ledger had worked, and behind, illuminated in fading flickering light, an open door with a whitewashed ceiling sloping down. He could feel the cool air rushing up from the cellars below. He took a deep breath. As he moved towards the door he heard the heavy tread of George Poidevin labouring back up. Ned skipped across and hid under the shell of the hinged counter. A grunt and George stepped into the hall.

“Mind the ink.” Monty’s voice was close behind. “Here, I’ll go first.”

They were carrying three of four boxes apiece, the stack higher than their heads. Monty moved forward gingerly.

“This’ll take all night,” George complained.

“What if it does. I’m ruined if they find this lot here.” He squealed. “Oh, Christ, I’ve done it myself now! Oh Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ! What am I to do?”

George balanced his boxes on the desk and laid down a carpet of paper.

“Walk on those,” he said, “otherwise your footsteps will be all over the place.”

Ned let them make six journeys. That way if there was any trouble they’d be more tired than he. Not that he could envisage Monty Freeman having a go at him. George was a different matter. He was a big man but quicker than he looked. On the seventh trip down Ned followed. As he made his descent he was struck by the low metal glitter that seemed to radiate from the walls, like a thousand polished boots, a curious royriad of glossy lights. He had never considered what might be found in a bank vault but he supposed it would be notes and coins and a stack of safe deposit boxes; never a grocery store. Stacked up against the wall were fairground pyramids of cans: sliced peaches, fruit cocktails, spiced pears; cans of peas and carrots and butter beans; tins of pilchards and sardines and round halves of salmon; corned beef, jellied ham, fish paste, evaporated milk, vegetable soup, and huge buggers of apricot jam. Sides of ham and bacon hung from hooks in the ceiling and bags of flour were stacked up on the floor. Ned stood and watched. George’s fat back was bent towards him as he dragged a couple of sacks across the stone flagging. Monty was stacking loose cans of cocoa into a half-opened box, methodical even in haste. Van Houten’s Cocoa. Ned could almost smell the bittersweet of it, hear the drum snap of the spoon handle as it broke into the paper seal. It would be easy for him to lift a couple and take them home. It would perk Mum’s spirit up no end, to hold a real cup of cocoa in her hand. He stepped out and stood under the solitary bare bulb.

“Need a hand, gentlemen?”

George took a swing at him. Ned had never enjoyed hitting a man before but he enjoyed it now, ducking from the wild blow and landing a fist in the dough of the fat man’s stomach. It was the right place to hit George, in the folds of his coarse corruption, and he made the right sort of noise, a thick wallowing noise like a blocked drain sucked free. A hot wave of fetid breath washed over Ned’s face as George feil against him. Ned pushed him upright and sent him sprawling back into the arms of Monty Freeman. The thin man staggered back under his weight, the two of them crashing against the sacks of flour.

“Don’t hit me,” Monty Freeman squealed, his arms floundering in clouds of white. “I’ll tell you everything.”

They dragged it out of them that night and most of the next day, Ned and the Major, with the Captain’s men working on the Kanoniers. “Never thought I’d feel sorry for a German,” Tommy told him, in the late morning, having coming back from where the soldiers were being held, “but seeing the state of them…They even asked me if I wanted to join in. Held one up for me.”

“And did you?” asked Ned, remembering poor Schade. Tommy was indignant.

“I got out of it, told them I was saving my energy for this lot back here.”

This was how it worked, how George and Monty and Elspeth spilt it out, Elspeth snuffling beside her father in Ned’s office, Monty Freeman babbling in the doctor’s room below, staring at the white line, thinking how easily he had lost his own balance and how, unlike the transitory drunk, it was an equilibrium he would never regain. They talked freely, recklessly, in the vain hope that such confessional cooperation would somehow weigh in their favour, that they might escape the strictures of a German prison. They were wrong in that, Ned knew, but he made no attempt to dispel their straw-grabbed illusions.

The set-up had all been Elspeth’s idea, George boasted, Elspeth and the Lieutenant’s. Between them they had arranged everything. George supplied the transport, and the means by which to distribute the goods around the island. Elspeth provided the one thing that would entice the Kanoniers into such a dangerous occupation. Girls. The Lieutenant had elected the boat crew and obtained the goods from the mainland. Between them they had the island sewn up.

Elspeth would meet the girls on Thursday evenings after the shops closed. They’d go down to her mum’s shop and have a kip for a couple of hours. There were three others apart from Elspeth, two girls from Boots and the caretaker’s daughter up from the big school. They’d wake around seven, have a wash and a good tea before changing out of their working clothes into something more suitable. George would piek them up in his van at about half eight and run them over to the point. Once out on the headland it was no more than a thirty-yard dash across the scrub to where the lid of the escape hatch stood open and, skirts flapping, they’d giggle down the iron ladder to where the straw and the soldiers waited, the three gunners Rupp, Bauer, and Laurer and their fun-loving Lieutenant.