A Place of Hiding

’em: Jerrybags and spies. Collaborators, Frank. Putting people in front of the firing squad without the blink of a sodding eyelash. God rot their souls.”


After that, it was the V for Victory Campaign and all the places that the twenty second letter of the alphabet not so mysteriously appeared on the island—rendered in chalk, in paint, and in still-wet concrete—to torment the Nazis.

And finally it was G.I.F.T.— Guernsey Independent From Terror— Graham Ouseley’s personal contribution to a population in peril. His year in prison had its origins in this underground newsletter. Along with three other islanders, for twenty-nine months he’d managed to produce it before the Gestapo came knocking at the cottage door. “I was betrayed,” Graham told his son. “Like them short-wave receivers. So don’t you ever forget this, Frank: Put to the test, those whose blood runs yellow are afraid of getting cut. Always the same, that, when times are rough. People point fingers if there’s something to be gained for themselves. But we shall make them squirm for it in the end. Long time in coming, but they shall pay.”

Frank left his father still waxing on this subject, confiding it to the television as he settled into the first of his shows for the day. Frank told him that Mrs. Petit would be looking in on him within the hour and he explained to his father that he himself would be seeing to some pressing business in St. Peter Port. He didn’t mention the funeral because he still hadn’t mentioned Guy Brouard’s death.

Luckily, his father didn’t ask the nature of the business. A surge of dramatic music from the telly caught his attention, and within a moment he’d submitted himself to a storyline involving two women, one man, some sort of terrier, and someone’s scheming mother-in-law. Seeing this, Frank took his leave.

As there was no synagogue on the island to accommodate what was a negligible Jewish population, and despite the fact that Guy Brouard was not a member of any Christian religion, his funeral service was held in the Town Church, not far from the harbour in St. Peter Port. In keeping with the importance of the deceased and the affection in which he was held by his fellow Guernseymen, the church of St. Martin—in whose parish LeReposoir sat—was deemed too small to hold the number of expected mourners. Indeed, so dear had he become to the people of the island in his nearly ten years as a resident that no fewer than seven ministers of God took part in his funeral.

Frank made it just in time, which was nothing short of a miracle considering the parking situation in the town. But the police had allocated both of the car parks on Albert Pier for the funeral goers, and while Frank was able to find a spot only at the far north end of the pier, by trotting all the way back to the church he managed to get inside just in advance of the coffin and the family.