Chapter 70

February 1945

The joy of receiving the Red Cross boxes lasted a while, but still their basic dietary needs weren't being met. They read a message in the Evening Post from the Bailiff telling them that if help didn't reach the island soon the bread ration would run out by the tenth of the month. That had been an especially dismal day as far as Peggy was concerned.

‘If only we had a garden,' she said to Tony one evening, as they took a walk together, wanting to spend time with each other despite the cold. ‘Or even lived out of town where we could go foraging.'

‘I think you'll find everything there is to find has been picked. It doesn't help that the Germans are also starving, and don't forget they didn't have the benefit of receiving Red Cross parcels.' Tony groaned. ‘If they had let the dockers unload the Vega in Guernsey we wouldn't now be waiting for the next parcels to arrive here. They really want us to suffer in any way possible, don't they?'

She agreed. ‘It makes you wonder what makes some people act this cruelly.' She thought of the news her mother had heard a few days before. ‘Maybe they're frightened.'

‘How so?'

‘Mum heard that a lot of the Jerries are suffering from malnutrition, and others have dysentery or TB. They're in a bad way, Tony.'

He kissed her cheek. ‘I don't like to think of anyone suffering, Peggy, but have they bothered about us in all this time?'

She thought of Captain Engel and her relief when he had stopped calling on her the year before, although she had caught him watching her from the front window at number 2 on many an occasion and it unnerved her.

‘Helen did tell us how Leutnant Müller saved food for her at the beginning of the war, which she fed to her aunt, don't forget. They're not all bad.'

Tony mumbled something she couldn't make out, then added, ‘I suspect it was because he had ulterior motives.'

Peggy wasn't sure she agreed. She suspected he was just lonely. She decided to change the subject. ‘How's your mother?' She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

‘She's back home now, which has cheered her up. She says she feels safer with Dad and me and he's happy to have her back with us.' He smiled. ‘It's an enormous relief to know she's there.'

‘I'm so pleased for all of you.' Peggy thought how distressed she would be if her mother had been taken to hospital or a home and realised how lucky she was not to have been separated from her family at any time.

Long may it last,she thought, crossing her fingers.