‘A few of the more daring fighter pilots have been dropping newspapers down to us,’ Mrs Durand chimed in. ‘Mrs Hubert out in Torteval had a copy ofThe Timesland in her garden. On it was scrawled “Not to be removed from the Officers’ Mess”. I had a chuckle at that.’
Persey smiled, enchanted by the idea that reckless RAF pilots were risking getting shot from the sky simply to drop the news in. ‘Perhaps they’ve heard we’ve not got our radios anymore.’
‘Yes, I wondered about that,’ Mrs Durand said as she stood to clear the table. Persey and Lise started to help.
‘Speaking of the news,’ Doctor Durand said, reaching for his cigarettes. ‘You asked if there was anything you could do to help.’
Persey looked at him keenly. ‘Anything. Within reason,’ she added carefully.
‘If I wanted to know the news, a bit more regularly, would you be able to tell me what’s going on out there in the theatre of war?’
‘Of course.’
‘Would you tell anyone who asked?’
Persey stilled. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I wouldn’t know who to trust.’
The doctor looked thoughtful.
‘Why do you ask me that?’ Persey narrowed her eyes.
‘You aren’t the only one who kept a wireless back.’
‘I’d imagine not, no. I’d guess there’s a fair few and they can’t arrest us all.’
‘They can, actually. They will. If they find out.’
‘And then what?’ Lise chimed in.
‘I dread to think,’ Mrs Durand said. ‘It is a huge risk you’re taking.’
‘Well, it’s only because we had two,’ Persey said quieter now. ‘I’m only hiding a radio. It’s not such a great risk as hiding a person as you’re doing,’ she said.
The doctor smoked his cigarette thoughtfully and then said, ‘Fancy writing some of the news reports down?’
‘Why?’ Persey asked in horror.
‘To pass around a bit. I’ve a patient who told me he’s going to help distribute a clandestine news sheet. “Burn after reading” and all that. Now it looks as if radios really are disappearing for the duration. You wouldn’t have to do anything risky.’
‘Of course she would,’ Mrs Durand cut in, horror-struck. ‘You’re asking her to do something terribly dangerous. Her parents will be spinning in their graves if they’d just heard you ask that of their daughter.’
‘I’m not asking her to write the flaming newspaper,’ he justified. ‘Nor am I asking her to distribute it. Just write down what you listen to, pass it to me. It means others would know what you know,’ the doctor said, glancing from his wife to Persephone. ‘For a lot of people, the news represents the only beacon of hope they have. Not knowing where their sons are out in the world, but knowing how bad the German losses are slowly becoming, the wins the Allies are getting, whenever they are, would give hope where there is, currently, none.’
Persey looked at Lise for help, but Lise’s face was uncertain. Lise was hidden here. Had been stuck inside this house with onlythe small garden for a breath of fresh air for two long years and might be for so much longer than any of them had originally thought possible. Persey had asked Doctor Durand to hide her friend. He had agreed without question. What he was asking of her was the very least she could do.
Chapter 22
Persey wheeled her bicycle out from the side of the Durands’ shed. It was where she kept it when she visited, for fear of theft. No longer could she leave it lying around in plain sight. If the poor foreign workers didn’t steal it to aid their nocturnal travels round the island in search of food, then the Germans might take it. Even, she wondered, Guernsey’s own civilians, one whose bicycle tyres had worn too thin to repair and couldn’t be replaced, or whose own bicycles had already been stolen.
Persey felt so incredibly sorry for the foreign workers, who were slaves mostly, forced into the Channel Islands to help build an impregnable fortress; herded from nations Germany had conquered, stamped on and rounded up. Doctor Durand had revealed even Spaniards who had fled to France after the Spanish Civil War were now slave workers in Guernsey, alongside the Poles and Russians.
‘Persey,’ Doctor Durand called as she mounted. He glanced behind him into the kitchen and pulled the wooden door closed.
‘I have some news I need to share with you. I’ve told Lise. I hadn’t dared tell her thus far, but eventually … I had to. She made noises about wanting to leave the house for a few hours – just to get out, I suppose. She said she would be discreet but … well … It’s because of that really that I had no choice but to tell her what I knew.’
‘And that is?’ Persey asked with concern.
‘I didn’t like to say over dinner, but they’ve started deporting Jews from the island.’
