Page 68 of Tides of Resistance
The tide splashed against the boat, loud in the still night, as Lizzie waited for Alain to manoeuvre the vessel next to the rocky shore and drop the anchor.
He helped her disembark onto the flat rocks where she used to sit with Archie, Juliet and Evie gazing out to sea, enjoying picnics prepared by their grandmother on idyllic summer days. The high tide never covered this section of the rocks, and the nostalgia was almost too much to bear as her feet touched Jersey for the first time since their lives changed forever and war broke out.
‘See you here in the morning. Take care and Godspeed,’ Alain whispered.
Lizzie had removed her fishing overalls and wore the dress she kept on underneath, and her coat, containing her only possessions in the secret pockets. It was just gone 10 p.m. when she stepped onto the path she had climbed so often as a shortcut to Seagrove and that she knew like the back of her hand.
Now she scrambled up the ancient path, groping for the familiar handholds lit only by the faint light of the hanging moon. Trees and granite outcroppings gave her something to grip onto as she pulled herself up the steep cliff towards the grounds of her childhood home. At one point, she closed her eyes and visualised the route, guided by memory and touch. Only locals knew of this private route, and now it was overgrown in parts from lack of use. She pushed past the vegetation, and the hard gorse scratched her hands.
At the summit, which led directly into the grounds of Seagrove and bypassed the main entrance to the house which was accessed by a country lane, she paused to catch her breath on the small stone bench. She wondered if her grandparentshad sat there recently, and her hopes and fears clashed as she realised the moment of truth was upon her.
Would she find them at the Gardener’s Cottage like Uncle Charles hoped, or had they been moved off the grounds to prepare for the massive construction project?
Lizzie rose from the bench, her heart thudding as she crept through the grounds of Seagrove under cover of darkness.
She was about to find out.
CHAPTER 39
Seagrove, Jersey, Channel Islands
As Lizzie continued along the garden path, Seagrove’s rear silhouette appeared before her with its tall chimneys and Victorian bulk.
She gazed at her family heritage, filled with gratitude that she had got onto the island without being caught. Throughout the journey, she kept thinking her luck was about to run out, but she had made it.
The gables and dormers jutted out of the roof,and she longed to run to the back door and let herself into the house, but dark fabric flapped against the pale stone that glimmered in the moonlight, forbidding her from entering.
Lizzie knew the main house had been requisitioned but hearing it and seeing it with her own eyes were completely different things. She gulped back the rising dread in her throat. The bastards had stolen their house and draped their flags of death all over it. A white-hot anger flooded over her, and she stumbled off the path and into the orchard, where she claspedher hands to her sides and leant against an apple tree, gasping for breath.
She must calm down before looking for her grandparents. Trembling in the shelter of the trees, with the familiar scent of the ripening fruits in the air, her rage gradually subsided.
If her grandparents were still living on the estate, she must cross the gardens at the back of the house without being spotted so she could reach the old Gardener’s Cottage.
Blackout curtains covered the back windows of the main house, and the moon cast only a faint glow to light her way, but she couldn’t risk using her torch. She didn’t know how many guards there were and where they might be positioned, so she had to be ready to duck out of sight at any sign of movement.
Sea mist glistened on the slate roof and dampened the night air as she set out in the shadows around the perimeter of the gardens towards the cottage.
Her feet inched forward, careful not to make a rustle to alert a sentry to her presence. The sound of the waves bashing on the granite, and the old house groaning and sighing beneath the battering of the wind made Lizzie feel at home, but her heart drummed, and her senses were on higher alert with every step.
The sound of boots rang out over the elements, and she shrank back against the wall that surrounded the estate. Lizzie shivered as she clutched her coat to her body and waited.
The footsteps approached, and she lurked in the shadows of the beautiful grounds she used to play in as a child. Now she was hiding from the enemy in her own home, and rage threatened to engulf her again as the rhythmic steps drew closer.
The guttural territorial ‘kronk-kronk’ of a raven made her jump. Ravens were native cliff-dwellers in Jersey, and she remembered their haunting sounds. An answering call echoed on the wind, and as always when a raven appeared, Lizziefelt Jack’s soothing presence wrap around her like a protective mantle.
The footsteps halted on the path, and a soldier turned around slowly and faced her, his gun glinting in the moonlight.
The raven called out again, loud and shrill, as if alerting her to danger, and she watched the soldier, the pulse pounding in her neck as she swallowed her breath.
It seemed like an age that she stood there, her back pressed against the cold wall, the melodic song of the raven and the angry tides crashing on the rocks below, filling her ears.
The soldier moved, and she saw the glow of a cigarette and the smell of smoke drifting on the air as he resumed his slow walk, boots clicking on the hard path.
Lizzie gasped for air when he was a good distance away, and her legs felt weak. After some time, she continued her tentative journey towards the cottage she had visited so often in her youth, when the kind gardener’s wife would treat her to a delicious home-baked Jersey Wonder. The memory of the buttery taste of the deep-fried twisted doughnut, dusted with caster sugar, teased her tastebuds and made her stomach groan and her mouth water as she realised that with all the excitement she hadn’t eaten a bite since morning.
As she continued along the perimeter, listening and watching for any sound or movement, the shape of the single-storey stone cottage slid into view, its chimney etched against the dark sky. The windows were sheathed in blackout blinds, and only a faint light filtered around the recesses.
The light gave her hope. The gardener and his wife had left for England before Lizzie, so she knew it wouldn’t be them inside. The danger was that the cottage had also been requisitioned and her grandparents weren’t living there, after all. It was a possibility, but her knowledge of how the Germans operated led her to believe the chances were that any troopswould be stationed at the main house. From what she’d seen so far, there wasn’t a large military presence that warranted an overspill to the smaller buildings.
