The German Nurse

Also by M. J. Hollows

Goodbye For Now

The German Nurse

M. J. HOLLOWS

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © M. J. Hollows

M. J. Hollows asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © November 2020 ISBN: 9780008386979

Version: 2020-10-16

Table of Contents

Cover

Also by M. J. Hollows

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1940

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Lifeboats

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

1941

Chapter 15

The Boys

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Defiance

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

1942

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

The Eastern Front

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

1943

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

HMS Limbourne

1944

Chapter 38

The Island

1945

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Historical Note

Acknowledgments

Extract

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

For Marian, my number-one fan, & for Geoff, the only level-ten G.

Prologue

12 February 1943

It had been a terrible mistake and Jack wouldn’t make it in time. His boots pounded on the dry earth as he sprinted up the path, thumping with each footfall. He hadn’t had time to collect his uniform, and his civilian clothes hung loosely on him, the ankles of his trousers flapping in the cool breeze.

The birds sung sweetly, completely at odds with Jack’s current state of despair. He couldn’t stop running. Even if his lungs gave up his feet would carry on.

There was a crack of a nearby door banging shut against its frame. The town felt almost abandoned in the evening twilight. Lamps lit the hedgerows and facades of houses, casting menacing shadows across the road. The people returning to their homes after a day’s work eyed him warily as he passed. Being caught out after curfew was dangerous.

He was too out of breath to say anything. They weren’t used to seeing someone running and they feared the worst. Even the local police weren’t immune to the curfew the Germans had implemented, not without a pass. He hoped that they were too busy tonight to notice.

He could feel the old Fletcher woman’s eyes on his back, staring out of her front room window. For once he didn’t care what she thought. She could report him if she wanted to – it wouldn’t make any difference now. He was sick of being watched at every turn, by the Germans, by his own colleagues, even by his neighbours.

As he turned a corner, he saw Beth coming the other way. The smile dropped from her lips as he carried on running. He could trust her even less than the others. Not now that she was in love with a German officer. She stopped and turned to watch him go, her blue eyes following him along the road.

The road lowered down, breaking the horizon and giving him a view of St Peter Port and the sea beyond. From this distance he could only make out faint blurs of boats in the harbour, some masts rising above the surrounding buildings like cigars resting on the deep blue sea.

He jumped across a wooden fence and into farmland. He felt a momentary pang of guilt at disturbing the crops, but they were thin and bare anyway, stripped by the occupying forces and sent to the continent. The furrowed ground was dry and hard, rougher on his feet than the road had been, and he almost slipped several times.

They thought they could resist the Germans. They were wrong. He should have listened to the others. Now the occupiers had whittled them down and taken everything from them. Almost.

The soft wilderness turned to town as he kept running. He was almost out of breath, but as he passed the houses on the outskirts of St Peter Port it gave him hope. A ‘V’ scrawled on a nearby wall gave him strength. They were still resisting.

The harbour was down and to his right, through the main streets of St Peter Port. Time was running out, but he wouldn’t give up now. Not while he still had breath in his body. Curtains shifted in houses as he ran past. The sky was darkening, and he was sure he would soon run into a German patrol. So far he had been lucky, but that luck would not last forever. He should never have left Johanna, not when she needed him most. They should have escaped long ago.

What more did he need when he had the beauty of the island, the love of Johanna and his family? Death had come to the island, stalking them in field grey uniform and jackboots. All the place held for him now was horror. How had it finally come to this?

He crossed the road and made his way down a gravel path between houses, stones skittering away as his boots dislodged them. There was a shortcut between the buildings. He no longer had any pretensions of reaching the police station in time. Instead he hoped to head them off at the harbour. He had to stop them, somehow. That was all he kept thinking as he ran. No matter what it took, he couldn’t let the Germans do what they were about to do, take the only thing he had left. Not like this.

The harbour opened up in front of him. The scene he remembered so well from that terrible day the Germans had invaded. It had changed much since then – fortified and bleak, fewer boats bobbed softly in their moorings. He hadn’t stopped running, the breath almost gone from his body, but he pushed himself on, legs burning with the effort. He skidded and changed direction, towards the harbour proper. His attention had been drawn by a pair of lanterns moving along one of the piers that jutted out into the sea. The hum of a motor rose up into the air.

He jumped over a fence and almost slipped on the landing. ‘Halt!’ a German voice shouted from behind him. One of the patrols had spotted him, but he didn’t look back. As he approached the end of the pier he could hear voices, a soft pleading intermingled with clipped and harsh German. He couldn’t make out the words as they boarded a waiting boat. He wanted to shout after them, tell them to stop, but his lungs burned and no sound would come. He realised for the first time how much his heart was thumping in his chest. Feet slipped on the wet pier, and he pitched forward with a clatter. His stomach hit the ground and he only just managed to shield his face with an outstretched arm. The breath was knocked from his lungs. He tried to raise himself up, but something felt wrong. He’d broken something. With a groan he leant on his elbow and looked up.

He was too late. He always knew he would be, but he couldn’t give up hope. Not until now, when he could hear the faint whirring of the boat’s engine as it pushed away from the harbour. Even if he jumped in the icy water to follow her, he would not make it in time. Plunging to his death would not bring her back.

The sound of boots rang out along the pier, growing closer by the second, as he stared into the darkness. All he could see was the faint light of a lantern illuminating the boat as it rose and fell in the water, moving away from the harbour. There were a few silhouettes on board, some wearing the distinctive steel helmet of the Wehrmacht. He could just about make out a shape in between them, scrabbling towards the back of the boat. Was it a woman? A hand reached out to the shore, then disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter 1

19 June 1940

Guernsey was beautiful in the summer: the rolling green fields, the vivid blue sea. It was what drew most people here, taking the boat from Weymouth, or a short flight across the Channel. It was a perfect spot for a holiday, but fewer people were visiting by the day, since the British Government had declared war on Germany. Far closer still was the coast of France, visible on the horizon to the south of the island.

The beauty was the only thing Jack could think about as he left the house he shared with his mother and grandparents. His mother’s voice still resonated in his ears, speaking those hard and damning words.

‘Don’t make the same mistakes I made. Not with that woman! Jack? Jack?!’

He caught the door before it slammed shut, then let it click softly against the wooden frame. He didn’t want to exacerbate things and draw the neighbours’ attention. Taking a deep breath, he tried to forget his mother’s words and stepped away from the house. The further away he was from there, the less it would play on his thoughts. It was a fine June day, bright blue sky and barely a cloud in sight, and his mother’s mood couldn’t change that. It would take something far worse, and even though war was brewing on the horizon, it hadn’t reached them yet. Who knew if it even would?

Their house was typical of the buildings on George Street at the edge of St Peter Port, built from a stone that gave it a mottled, irregular look, and roofed in grey slate tiles. Some of the houses in the terrace were plastered and painted white, but Jack’s grandparents had left theirs as natural as possible, less difficult to maintain and still impressive. They had once owned a farmhouse, as they never grew tired of telling him, but as his grandfather’s health had deteriorated they had moved closer to the town.

He had been a great man with a booming laugh, always telling stories and like a father to Jack, but now he was a gaunt man almost always confined to his bed. The row of houses lined the way down to the harbour, and Jack knew every occupant by name. He stood for a moment looking at the navy-blue-painted door and wondering if his mother would follow him after their argument.

He and his mother had argued a lot more recently, but he knew deep down that she was only concerned. She meant well, but sometimes she didn’t think before speaking. Like everyone, she was worried about what might happen to them. The ever-looming shadow of war seemed to grow closer every day. She couldn’t forget the last war, how it had affected them all, and it had affected her more than most.

He turned and picked up his bicycle from the wall; he was going to be late if he didn’t hurry. He wished he had time to go and see Johanna. Seeing her would cheer him up.

The sun beat down and he began to sweat. His clothes were close and hot, and it would be even worse when he put on his uniform at the police station. But it gave him a sense of pride to wear it, a sign that even in his short life he had already accomplished something many others could only dream of.

People were going about their business as usual in the morning, heading to work at the shops and eateries, fishermen coming back from overnight hauls, and he greeted them with a smile and a nod as he cycled past. They liked seeing their local policeman on the streets, looking after them, especially in these dark times when everyone was nervous and never far from fear. He was here for them. He was a public servant, no more, no less. He had dedicated his life to helping other people, and no matter what happened he would never forget that.

*

Jack entered the police station and the hot summer sun was immediately blocked out. There was always a musty, damp smell to the interior, as if it had been built on top of some sort of stream. It was muggy and even the collar of his linen shirt chafed at his neck.

‘Morning,’ William – the sergeant on the desk – called, looking up from some paperwork. ‘You’ve heard then? They’re in the briefing room.’

‘Heard what?’ Jack leant on the other side of the desk, waiting for the sergeant to explain. Normally the pair of them only exchanged pleasantries, but there was a look in William’s eyes that Jack couldn’t quite describe, like he was staring right through him.

‘The chief’s called everyone in,’ he said a moment later. ‘Something big’s happening. I thought you’d got the telephone call. You’d better hurry.’

Jack nodded and headed through the main doors and into their changing room. He tried to spend as little time in the station as possible, preferring the wide-open grasslands of the island. He asked for patrol shifts that took him on the long walks that many of his colleagues would rather avoid.

Jack had heard nothing of the meeting that William had mentioned and it pulled at his imagination, as he folded his clothes into a cupboard. It could be anything, but his mind immediately thought the worst. Some hoped the war would stall far away in France like the last one, but many still worried. They wondered what to do, some leaving the island already and others stockpiling food and supplies. Even the soldiers had no idea. He thought of them as he pulled his uniform on. Their fear must be worse than the Islanders, not knowing when they would be called to fight.

The newspapers had reported on the happenings in mainland Europe, and every time Jack thought of it he could feel a tightening in his chest. No matter how often he told himself to be calm, that everything would be all right in the end, he couldn’t ignore that indefinable feeling of dread.

Fully uniformed, Jack pushed open the door of the briefing room. He was immediately hit with the smell of cigarette smoke and body odour. The room was dark, with no natural light, only the faint glow of the kerosene lamps. The building only had electric lighting upstairs.

The room was full, seeming to contain the entirety of Guernsey’s police force, all thirty-three men.

‘Glad you could join us, Constable Godwin,’ a deep voice said. The chief officer didn’t even bother to look at Jack as he leant against the wall at the back. The chief’s voice was thick and he cleared it, passing the phlegm into a white cotton handkerchief that he kept in his breast pocket. ‘Well,’ he continued. ‘Now that everyone is here we can begin.’ He picked up a few pieces of paper from his desk and shuffled them, apparently looking for something in particular. He fumbled with his glasses. ‘The next few days are going to be incredibly difficult for us,’ he said, fixing each of them with a look before moving on. ‘The news we’ve all been anticipating has finally arrived. The envoy returned from the mainland this morning.’

There was a slight shift in the room as the local policemen objected to the description of England as the mainland. Jack often made the same mistake, treating Guernsey as an extension of England when most of the locals thought of themselves as their own country. The chief didn’t seem to notice as he continued.

‘The Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, has ordered the withdrawal of all military forces on the island,’ he said, looking them all in the eye one after the other again, letting the implication of his words settle in. ‘The British Government have decided that the islands are not worth the resources needed to defend them.’

There was a gasp from the assembled policemen. They glanced at each other, looking for reassurance. ‘Does it really say that, sir?’ someone asked amongst the mutterings.

‘Not explicitly, but that’s not the point. We’ve often been on our own. I don’t see this as any different. We all have our jobs to do. We’ve also been asked to assist in whatever way necessary, to expedite their withdrawal from the island. There is expected to be a panic when the Islanders find out the army is leaving, and many will want to travel to the mainland. The states want this to be organised as efficiently as possible, and the press is already preparing to circulate the details in today’s papers.’

He raised a copy of the Star. ‘EVACUATION,’ it read. ‘ALL CHILDREN TO BE SENT TO MAINLAND TOMORROW. WHOLE BAILIWICK TO BE DEMILITARISED.’ By comparison the Guernsey Evening Press had a more measured account of how the evacuation was going to be conducted. There was a sigh from someone to Jack’s right. ‘They’re abandoning us and we’ve gotta help them do it? Fantastic.’

‘Less of that, Sergeant.’ The chief officer fixed Sergeant Honfleur with a pointed stare over the top of his glasses. ‘We’ve all had to follow orders we didn’t agree with before; this is no different.’

Jack only knew some of the soldiers by name, Henry and the others, and they were part of the local militia that had now been disbanded. Some of them had gone with the army to enlist in England and he couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that they were leaving them behind. The Islanders had known the war would come for them sometime, but the forces that were stationed here were supposed to be for their protection.

‘What now, sir?’ the sergeant asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against a desk. The atmosphere was tense and the policemen shifted in their seats. William played with his watch, and David squashed a cigarette in an ashtray as he lit another.

‘Now, with luck, the lack of armed forces here will mean that even if the Germans get this far, they’ll leave us alone.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right, sir.’

‘Well, we all have our normal work to do and you all have a decision to make. The islands are not defensible. We don’t know whether the Germans will come, but it’s a possibility.’

‘How do we know, sir? What will they want with us? If the islands are indefensible, it’d be the same for them.’

‘Maybe they’re after your potato patch, sir.’ That was PC David Roussel, a grin stretched across his face. They all laughed, lowering the tension in the room, but it was cut short by a glare from the chief.

‘The states have appealed to the government to mount an evacuation.’

There was another murmur around the room, and Jack looked across at David who shrugged in response. The chief cleared his throat again. ‘They’ve agreed,’ he said. ‘But those wanting to leave have to be ready immediately. I’ve just received a telegram. The boats for the children are coming tomorrow. Any child who needs evacuating to England has to be ready to leave by tomorrow morning. The first boats will arrive at two-thirty in the morning. Children of school age and under can register to be taken to a reception centre on the mainland.’

‘What about their parents, sir?’

There were parents in the room, and they sat up straighter than before. He shuffled through the notices again, then finding the one he wanted he pushed the glasses up on his nose and took a closer look. ‘Anyone wishing to be evacuated will have to register with the authorities and wait to see if there is enough room on the boats. There is no guarantee that everyone will be evacuated, except for the children.

‘Those men wishing to join the armed forces on arrival in England may also register.’

He dropped the papers to his desk and looked at them over the rim of his glasses.

‘Now, as honourable a decision it may be to go and join up in England, let us not forget the people whom we serve here. If you all go, what am I to do then? Even if the Germans don’t come there will be anarchy on the island. Please consider that before making your decision. I expect every man to do his duty and continue in service of the island. If you leave, there will be no job to return to.’

There was a general hubbub as the policemen talked amongst themselves. The islands had been conquered a long time ago when the English had taken them from the French. It didn’t mean that it would happen again. Jack couldn’t imagine it. The islands were peaceful. If they didn’t fight the Germans then maybe they could just get on with their lives in peace. Jack wouldn’t leave anyway. He needed to be here. His mother had no one else, except his grandparents, and he had to look after them as well. They all relied on him. Then there was Johanna.

The chief cleared his throat. ‘Dismissed,’ he said. ‘Get to work.’

The chief came over to Jack as the others were leaving and pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. Through them his eyes were large and beady. They reminded Jack of an insect, and he fought a smile that threatened to turn the corner of his lips. Smirking at his superior officer wasn’t a good way to start the day, no more than arguing with his mother.

‘I remember your thoughts on war, but surely you aren’t against helping these chaps get on their boats, are you?’

Jack didn’t say anything. A few misplaced comments from Jack in the past and the man had assumed so much. He had learnt since then that it was easier to let him talk. The chief liked the sound of his own voice. ‘We all have to do things we don’t like in the line of duty. I have a special request of you, Jack.’

‘Yes, sir?’ he asked, already dreading what it might be.

‘I want you ready first thing in the morning. On your way in, check on the evacuation of the children; make sure they have everything they need and that no one is causing trouble.’

‘Yes, sir.’ It wasn’t the duty he had been expecting, but it could have been a lot worse.

‘Good. Then I want you to be the first one down at the harbour. You and your colleagues will erect barricades to ensure that only those who are registered can board. We have to be careful – I have a bad feeling about this.’

It was true, things were only going to get worse as the tension on the island rose and people panicked. The chief nodded over his glasses and left Jack to his thoughts. He would need a good night’s sleep, but he still had a whole day of work ahead. He sighed and went to find the sergeant to enquire about his duties.

*

After the briefing it had been a quiet day, which seemed to drag on into eternity as Jack patrolled the island, keeping an eye out for any trouble and helping with menial tasks when he had nothing else to occupy him. Many had been busy making preparations for the evacuation as word had spread quickly. Finally, later that evening, he returned home, ready for a good night’s sleep. His legs ached and his feet were sore from standing all day, something that he thought he would never get used to. He didn’t know why the boats had to come so early, but then he never really understood the methods of government. Leaving the island defenceless didn’t seem right, but he had to believe they knew what they were doing, otherwise he might as well just throw his uniform away. He had worked so hard to get that uniform in the first place; he wasn’t going to give it up now.