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By Root 632 0

horror of what was happening here hadn’t struck her. She hadn’t realized that the Germans might deport her to a labour camp just because she was born in England. If she had been Jewish, she’d have gone, if she made even the slightest anti-German remark. She hadn’t been prepared for the oppression that began the moment you woke, that surrounded you as you fell asleep. For months now her dreams had been filled with droning black aircraft, the sound of marching, the feeling that she was being watched. The irony was that this was, in the words of Mayor Sherwill ‘a model occupation’ — even though the situation had turned for the worse recently as the winter ate up the food and fuel supplies, not too many had been shot, the troops had been ordered to keep their hands off the local women, medicines had been imported from the Continent. Life continued as normal. What could it be like in Poland, or France?

Celia stood stiffly and scooped up her book. There was a large pine dresser alongside the bed. One of the drawers had a false back, and she kept Advice for Young Ladies behind there along with her diary and some other things. Both books contained information that would compromise her. A euphemistic way of describing what would happen if the Germans discovered them, but the only one she could bear thinking about this early in the morning. She eased into her underwear and tried to suppress her fears. Under German Law, ‘Local commanders of occupied territory may pass summary sentence on persons who are not subject to Military Law if the facts of the case are self-evident and if this procedure is adequate in view of the guilt of the offender’ —

in other words she could be shot here and now if a German officer felt that she ought to be.

Celia took her work clothes out of the wardrobe, her heart beating faster now. She pulled the plain blue dress over her head and struggled into it. That done, she stood still, breathing deeply. Finally, Celia felt ready to step out onto the landing, she locked her door, and went downstairs. On the way down, she pulled back the blackout screens and drew back the curtains.

As she entered the kitchen, two of the young Nazi boarders abruptly stopped their conversation. They were sitting at the kitchen table in their dressing-gowns sharing a cigarette, which they offered to her. She declined. There were tens of thousands of German troops like these infesting the island. By her reckoning there were as many Nazis on Guernsey as there were native islanders. They all had to stay somewhere. The Doras could almost be described as ‘lucky’.

They had not been turfed from their house without notice, they hadn’t had any furniture stolen. The small boardinghouse had currently got a dozen soldiers billeted there.

Twelve young privates, none older than nineteen, two to a room. They had, for what it was worth, behaved in the proper fashion. Ma Doras and her daughters Anne and Celia had not been badly treated. They were paid, albeit in useless German Occupation marks, the boardinghouse was still in one piece, and they hadn’t been abused. Celia knew that others had not been so lucky. She had heard about one girl killing herself after getting pregnant. That girl had hated the Germans. As Celia walked past them to the kettle, one of the Nazis made a comment about her body, but the other quickly shushed him.

‘I’m the one that speaks perfect German, remember?’

she said sternly. She was careful to sound a little stilted. Both leered at her. It was an impossible situation. Normally she’d tell a young lad like that exactly what she felt about him, but if she did that here they could imprison her or beat her up and no one would bat an eyelid. She had adopted a stern approach to them, making it clear she was unapproachable, never letting them see her in her night-clothes or into her bedroom, never talking to them or accepting the small gifts they continued to offer her. She was well aware that this air of untouchability made her all the more attractive to the young soldiers. It did seem to keep them on their best behaviour,