The Great Russel - waters between Channel Island of Herm (to the west) and Sark (to the east) - Thomas Carter shivered in the small, half-enclosed wheelhouse of Dick Giddons' fishing boat, though the air off the water here was perhaps not so cool to him in the stolen wool uniform as might be. His feet ached and complained from within the pair of not-large-enough boots he had torn from the feet of the young man's corpse. They stank with fish, as did this entire boat. Stink, and yet he would have eaten the day's catch raw (bones and entrails, too) had there been any left about. He was hungry to the point the canvas sacking the woman had been in nearly looked appetizing. He had not been truly fed since he had launched his Spitfire away from its English runway in August.
He would have to eat soon or he would lose focus, lose energy, as the adrenaline rush of the escape began to fade away. And focus and energy were not things he could afford, in these crucial first hours, to sacrifice.
He could see an island from where they were: Sark. A commando buddy of his just a year ago had come here as part of the classified 'Operation Basalt', in a small (ten men) British raid of the island. From his buddy's loose-lipped drinking stories he recalled that there were caves aplenty, used in the past by pirates, and that the water his small vessel now labored to cross held a treacherous current, and tidal variations among some of the most extreme in the world. Though he could not see them, the waters beneath the hull hid a number of dangerous, sunken rocks.
With forty-some miles of coastline (though the island itself was a mere three miles long, and only half as wide) such caves would be a blessing for anyone on the run, and a curse to their pursuers.
It would suit him (and his tactical mind) best to abandon the boat to the sea at this point, let it be dashed about, splintered or foundered, obscuring where on the island they actually landed. Yet the same violent waters that would do such to the craft would hamper his and the Gypsy's ability (not to mention the bound woman's) to swim safely to shore. Assuming the Gypsy could swim. Assuming, unfed, that he himself would have the strength to swim such a distance.
So there was nothing to do but to land.
He felt something to his back, the sensation of a presence, and noted the Gypsy boy Djak, standing as though to inform him of something. He turned, and the boy extended something to him in waxed paper. The corpse's uneaten lunch: a thick cut of cold, once-boiled beef, a generous marbling of fat running through it, between bread.
Carter stopped short of thanking the boy, sticking instead with the simple, "Chroroshow." 'Good'. Surely they could both agree on that. As the ranking officer he tore off two-thirds of the hearty sandwich, leaving one-third for the smaller, less important boy.
He could not hardly remember a time he had spoken so much Russian. During his service in the Winter War he had found he preferred people to think him an ignorant American, just another paid mercenary of the Finnish government who understood it not at all. Such a ruse had proven quite helpful on numerous occasions, and when he was taken prisoner by the enemy, certainly then he could not have spoken it without revealing to his Soviet captors that they had not only a valuable prisoner on their hands, but also an migr of their dismantled (assassinated, persecuted, reviled) former aristocracy.
Russky-yizik. His own mother had refused to speak it once the day came that it was clear his father would not ever be joining them in America, that he would not be able to find passage out. It even got to the point that if letters arrived from overseas (which they did, though seldom and erratically) from family or friends written in Russian, she would instruct his babushka to read them aloud, not even agreeing to pollute her eyes with the sight of the familiar gracefully embellished Cyrillic script.
Her country had abandoned her, rejected her. Robbed her, even; of the man she loved, the father of her child, her provider and protector in the world. If it did not want her, then she would have no traffic with it. Out went the books, out went the ikons. Everything thrown out that Babushka could not save or hide within her own rooms. A purge of their New Jersey neighborhood brick house, just as the Reds had purged the country of the Whites, the Komonoffs, and other nobility, all upper class like them.
So he had become 'Thomas Carter', no longer Aliosha in the familiar, Prince Alexsei Igorovich Komonoff in the formal.
He bit down into the dead man's sandwich, his mouth taking in far more than it needed to (there was no rush in this task, after all). He chewed it fiercely and swallowed, one hand still at the helm.
As the food (long overdue) hit his famished belly, he had a moment where he thought he might faint, might blackout altogether.
For an instant he had a flash: he was eleven, on the water. His mother was relaxing on a deck chair aboard the Imperial yacht Standart as they cruised about the Gulf of Finland on a long, meandering holiday in which the nobility, at their eternal leisure, took pleasure. He was playing with Joy, the spaniel, as the Tsarevich was too ill to come out-of-doors.
He had long wanted a dog of his own. Playing with the good-natured Joy, imagining her to be his, he was happy, unconcerned (and uninformed) about anything else in the world. He had no acquaintance (as he did now, quite intimately) with the darkness of true anger, with rage, or consuming fury. His world was still enveloped, cushioned in peace, in gentility, in a serene bliss where having the chance to play with another boy's dog would be the most outstanding feature of his day.
Carter shook his head sharply to clear it of such pointless nostalgia, memories that carried only galling bitterness with them. He knew he had been at war too long. Knew that the emotions he had been so ignorant of that day long ago were now eating him alive, had some time past taken over large parts of him. But this moment's introspection brought on by the boiled beef was not something he could indulge. Not when further torture, further imprisonment, was possibly just around the corner. Not when he, himself, was all he had to depend upon in the world entire. He had to stay within himself, his mind the only protected place left to him in this war.
He was matroishka. A carved wooden nesting doll, each doll within it holding another doll, a similar, yet distinct entity: Pilot, Member of British Eagle Squadron, veteran mercenary soldier, POW of the Winter War, Resident of New Jersey, American citizen, Russian migr, former Russian noble, grandson, son... His captors might pull apart a few of the poppets. Might shrink the size of the matroishka in doing so, but he would never let them get too far in. He could not. He would never.
Certainly he might slip up from time to time, as when he spoke Russian to the Gypsy, lack of food and water and rest taking its toll on his usual dependably implacable silence. But he had too many layers to who he was to be easily laid bare. Each additional layer like a shell of armor, another flak jacket. His life too much a conundrum even to himself for anyone to riddle it out without his willing (or coerced) participation.
Unpack them all, getting ever closer to the core, to what was most-essentially him, and discover the last, smallest doll (smaller than a thimble, the size of a single pumpkin seed), but exquisitely carved and ornately decorated: Zara. Whatever there was left of him in this world, of that eleven-year-old boy (that person even he, the hardened 38-year-old soldier, could still recognize as human) it must now rest inside her.
It began, in that moment where he recalled a simpler time, recalled what it felt like to trust, to hope, it began to dawn on him that this escape was perhaps not, after all, a Nazi plot, a ploy or mind-game. Or that if it had begun as such he might have just beaten it.
But his adult mind, so recently buffeted by pain, by torment and interrogation, told him to hold off on any such firm conclusions. He was not alone here: two others from the camp, both tainted by the German presence there, traveled with him. The woman, well-bound, gagged. Only recently again conscious. The Gypsy prisoner? He would have to keep his eye on the Gypsy prisoner. Like Anya Grigorovna there was no telling what the Germans might have to hold over the boy, to incite him to doing their bidding. There was a possibility the kid was not to be trusted.
He cast a look back behind him, to the boy, who had sliced the woman 'Marion' out of the sacking with the fisherman's knife. Carter would have encouraged the boy to take the corpse's clothing to wear-it was in better condition and warmer, no doubt, than the boy prisoner's near-to-shredding garments. The oilskin coat, at least, even with the bullet hole, would prove a boon. But he seemed to recall that Romany did not like contact with the dead, so he held his tongue on the matter.
The cliffs of Sark were visible everywhere, they held the promise of caves, and concealment. But their 300-foot height (the land mass of Sark resting on them as though atop a double-layer cake) meant finding a place where they might be scaled to reach the inhabitable part of the island-or finding a cave or tunnel that had its terminus, and a human-sized opening, well-above its sea level entrance. And he had no experience with caving.
He brought the boat close along the shoreline, and instructed the boy Djak to assist him in sighting a good-sized, well-concealing cave before abandoning the boat and its resident corpse back to the sea.
Sark - Farm of Blind La Salle - Allen Dale did not have to get very far onto Stephen La Salle's property before he was met at the outer gate by Mitch Bonchurch, anxious, as no doubt all the gang were, for news. Allen continued on on his bicycle, down the well-rutted dirt track to La Salle's farmhouse, letting Bonchurch jog alongside to keep up. The other man looked of a farm laborer, at least in his attire and general muddiness, if not his bearing-which had never yet lost all of its nattering, affected Britishness.
Though Mitch and Oxley were known to have been quite close friends before the war, Allen marveled (in comparison to Bonchurch) that Robin had managed in their time here to shed much of his London upper-class-ness when needed, enough to fool anyone into thinking he was as local as the dirt under his feet. His crack French certainly didn't hurt in such moments. Apparently his family had spent their holidays on the continent from the time he was quite a young child, and the language and dialects were second nature to him. In '41 the Jerries had deported anyone not island-born to camps in Germany, so being able to convince any patrols or curious soldiers one might encounter that one was most definitely local (beyond the assurance of one's excellently forged papers) was a skill (among the gang) much in demand.
As far as Mitch went, it was best when he managed to keep quiet on such occasions, though his French was good. Only, far too formal for a farmhand (or whatever tradesman they were playing at being at the time). Best when he managed to keep quiet. But silence? Not Bonchurch's strong suit.
"What news have you, Allen? What of the flier? And Lady Marion? Robin is most keen to know about Marion. Do you have news of her? Did they get away? Can I carry good news to him? He is out in the field, yet, mending a pasture wall, Stephen says. If you can imagine that; Robin at mending a wall." Smiling, Mitch chuckled at the notion, in between grabbing breaths as he still jogged alongside Allen's bike.
But as Allen had not known Oxley before the war, the idea of the other man mending a wall, or doing any number of tasks that Bonchurch seemed to think surprisingly beneath their ranking officer, seemed...perfectly natural.
"Let me get to the house, Mitch, get a warm summat to drink in me. Feel like I been biking for days to get out here. I've got news, to be sure. Some good, some less so."
Using his pay for driving the Kommandant, Allen had taken rooms at the island's Dixcart Hotel, which also (conveniently) billeted German soldiers. Which allowed him to make a little money on the side (albeit German Reich marks) and do a little spying. He was greatly liked by the men there, even when they lost to him, and he worked hard to keep it so (being liked, and winning).
Bonchurch was hurt by the brush-off, Allen declining to spill any of the news to him first before the others could hear it. But Allen had never liked to tell bad news more than once (and not at all, if he could help it), and he knew sharing such with everyone together would take on more the feel of an official debrief, than smaller interpersonal heart-to-hearts.
Bonchurch ran ahead to the house to alert the others of his arrival and, Allen hoped (if it was not already), to put the kettle on.
"Ever a driver back home, were you, Allen?" Royston asked him from where he sat at table, all the gang but Robin now assembled in Stephen's kitchen, their work of the day finished, wherever their assignments might have taken them.
"Nah," Allen scoffed at the notion, enjoying, as usual, being the center of attention. "No interest in it, really, not as a career path. No need to drive in London, public transport being the wonder wot it is."
"When you've yet got enough coin after a night out to spend it on such," John interjected sardonically, good-naturedly ribbing his friend, well-knowing Allen's feast-or-famine lifestyle hustling cons on the street, or, in better times, at nice clubs.
"My father had a driver..." began Bonchurch, and the men in one voice groaned loudly enough to drown him out, disinterested in yet another story of privilege and twee serving staffs.
"Always wanted a car of my own. Was saving up for one when I enlisted," offered Wills, his voice wistful for the automobile he had so often dreamed about but never managed to acquire. "Dunno where that money's gone to now."
"I daresay the Kommandant's car," Stephen asked from his place at the stove, where he was seeing to the kettle, "was stolen from one of the Alderney families that had abandoned it to evacuate?"
"Dunno," said Allen in reply. "It is a nice one, though. But somewhat less nice, I'd have to say, when you're the one responsible for polishing every little, blessed wheel spoke, shining the headlamps a hundred times a day after driving on those dirt-packed roads..."
The barnyard door to the kitchen scraped open and Robin entered the house, prompting Mitch to interrupt Allen just as he was settling in to detail the numerous auto-chores being the Kommandant's driver entailed. "Robin had a smashing Buick roadster back in London."
Because Bonchurch chose in this instance to speak about Oxley, the gang's commanding officer, well-loved by all, no one bothered to silence him. Any information about Robin's life pre-war was always of interest to his men.
Everyone in the room turned their heads to the new arrival.
Robin nodded, setting his work gloves down on the press, sliding his shoulders out of his coat, and giving a small smile of agreement at Mitch's assertion. Then he began to remove his boots and other outerwear, sitting at the bench positioned for such along the far kitchen wall before moving to the basin to wash.
Mitch continued, delighted to have found such a rapt audience. "It was a silver two-door. But it wasn't silver like all-over chrome, where it would be reflective, it was silver-y, like brushed platinum, like Mercury, with a buttercream-is that what they called it?" He consulted the now-drying-his-washed-forearms Robin.
"Yes," Robin's tone was bemused at Mitch's loving recollection of his car. "I believe it was called buttercream."
"With a buttercream leather upholstery. And it could really go. Couldn't it, Robin?"
Oxley smiled, though in a muted way, as though Bonchurch had a better recall of this past than did he. Really, it should have been the most normal of moments in all the world, seven men sitting around, much like one would at one's club, discussing motor cars in painstaking detail.
"Yes, Mitch, it could really go. And, indeed, long ago it has gone." He smoothly switched topic, the gang's faces still each in his own reverie about what such a plush and remarkable automobile might have meant to them. But Robin had no care for reminiscing or for autos when he had passed such a worrisome day. He had interest in what only one man in the room had to say. "Allen, what news?"
And it was all to business.
"There were a prison break today at the Treeton Camp, where Lieutenant Gisbonnhoffer is stationed."
The men all grunted their approval. Royston hooted.
"Everything was chaos after that. The man wot got out (a flier, I am told) was a particular prize of the Kommandant's. A base for searching has been set up at the Harbormaster's office. They are not sure if he is still on the island or has fled to the sea. The Kommandant thinks the sea."
"And Gisbonnhoffer?" Robin asked.
"A wreck. This flier snatched his girl at gunpoint."
Robin was ready for Allen to drop the pretense of his 'I knew nothing about this before it happened' spiel, for all that the men seemed to be enjoying the put-on show. "You saw Marion?"
"Passed her on her way in, while driving for Vaiser. He didn't notice. I only got a flash of her. But I have been more than well informed all the day long at how fine she looked, by more than one chatty Jerry. Nearly burnt their eyes out, I reckon, 'been so long since some of them have seen a girl, wot's not a prisoner." His thoughts flashed on Anya. He shook her from his mind's-eye. "By the time I got the Kommandant down to the harbor and docks your boat," he threw a look over his shoulder to Stephen, "was no longer there. Nor Dick, neither."
Mitch verbally shouldered his way into Allen's recounting. "And what of the bad news, then?" he interjected, in his way wanting to show the others that he knew of something, of some part of Allen's tale, that they did not. "What could there be of that if you saw Marion, and they have gotten away?"
Allen let himself take a drink before the announcement. "During the getaway, Carter blew out the brains of a German officer."
"Surely," John offered, quietly from his corner of the table, "I cannot see any one of us caring much about that." His brows drew together with the possible concern that Dale had taken on some prick of conscience or compassion where his employers were concerned.
"Here, here, John," Allen agreed, heartily. "But it has been announced that there will be reprisals for the killing. Twenty-five islanders to be killed for the loss of the one officer."
"Twenty-five?" Stephen's voice was a bald whisper, its timbre shaken.
Wills' mind attempted to put faces, identities, to the newly condemned. "Will they take them from the camps' population?"
"No, from Guernsey," Allen shared what he knew. "To stand as a warning against anyone there helping the flier."
Marion, thought Robin, his mind immediately to the two most important people to him on that island. Edward.
"And how shall they decide on who?" Royston asked. "Is there to be a lottery? A firing squad for those already jailed in St. Peter Port?"
"It is over already," Allen informed them, bleakly. "Though the Kommandant would have like to have been there to oversee it, so he said, he felt swiftness the best policy. They were taken from St. Peter Port, among the day's shoppers there. There was to be no consideration given to age or gender. Simply, twenty-five to be gathered."
"It was a market day," said Stephen, pointlessly.
"Their bodies are not to be released to their families for burial until the flier is found, or his dead body surrendered."
In a vicious undertone John let go with a string of foul Scottish curses.
But Allen could not stop, he had to go on, to get it all out. "A new condition of the Occupation has come from this, as well. It will be made public tomorrow: for every soldier lost or killed by Resistance, ten islanders will die, randomly, as today. For every Jerry officer, twenty-five."
The room fell silent, for what was there left that could be said?
Criminy, thought Allen Dale, but he wanted something to eat, something warm and tasty in his mouth, something made with farm-fresh ingredients that the Dixcart did not always have abundantly on hand. Thoughts about the day, his utter lack of effectiveness in the wake of such doings to be banished, if only for a moment, in a task of self-fulfillment. If only for a moment to be free of the filthy feeling that came from knowing that he had discovered the Kommandant's chilling plans perhaps, perhaps in time to alert someone, but knowing that he was utterly impotent (cut off by the sea, an island away from the gang) in doing so. Utterly without a way to notify anyone.
Useless, except as the bearer of bad tidings. He knew now why kings sometimes killed such messengers. Perhaps sometimes, perhaps, such messengers offered their own swords for the doing.
Alderney Harbor and docks - Harbormaster's office - Lieutenant Geis Gisbonnhoffer took a moment, even in the chaos of this day of fruitless searching and constant reminders by anyone about him of his (perceived) incompetence, to attempt to scratch out a reply to the birthday cable received from his wife and children.
It was immensely hard for him to imagine them this day (had been difficult for him to conjure them for some time), their life among the mountains and trees of the Schwarzwald, a world in which a vista such as he was able to view simply by raising his head and gazing out the large windows of the Harbormaster's office held no reality outside of books, of photographs that rarely did such a place justice.
He was a man little-traveled, even within the Fatherland, before the war. Those first days here among the islands were like...an illusion he could not believe would last, as ephemeral, as marvelous (he thought) as a rainbow.
He had originally been stationed on Guernsey, and within the first two weeks there he went about finding himself a proper billet, not happy with boarding among the other soldiers and officers.
Because he had been working with the local legislature, known as 'the States' as the surrender was negotiated, he was able to persuade the civil head of Guernsey and presiding officer of the States, titled as the Bailiff, to assist him in his search. Although generally addressed by all as 'Bailiff', Geis had soon found himself on congenial enough footing to speak with him, this influential man, the top ranking public official of the entire bailiwick of the islands (save Jersey), on a first-name basis. "Jodderick," he recalled telling the man, whom he always had thought in peacetime he could have counted as a friend, "I am in need of better lodging. Superior lodging. Tomorrow we shall go out in my car and you will help me in this."
Jodderick had consented immediately, his manner and level of interest, as always, congenial.
But to Geis' dismay, the locations and situations the bailiff directed the driver to were for the most part substandard, or already holding more men than would be comfortable. And he had no desire to live so.
When he asked what game was afoot, Jodderick declared that all such housing on the island was accounted for, and no properties existed that were not already taken or let.
"Very well," Geis had cast a cold stare at what he thought of as his would-be friend, "then we shall start again, seeing houses that are already taken." He would not consent to such belittling treatment, even by a Head of State. He was the victor here, the superior, the one in charge.
He could see in Jodderick's eyes that the man balked at the idea of putting any islanders (any of his public) out of their homes.
Geis spoke and attempted to strike a chord of amiability, but failed, as his words came out tinged with threat. "What say we begin with the nicest estate not already well-occupied by Der Fuehrer's army?"
Jodderick shared a glance with the driver, and did not even have to give directions to the address of the Barnsdale estate.
Long before the main house came into full view, Geis knew he would take it (literally, he had no intention of giving the rightful owners anything for it), knew he would feel nothing at turning out its current residents, though the size of the house would easily hold two-if not three-families.
"Who lives here?" he asked, having, during the ensuing drive, fallen away from friendly tones and any further acts of courtesy toward Jodderick.
"It is a summer home, really, though Sir Edward, in his illness, has remained some many months, now."
"Sir Edward? A British noble, here?" This was unexpected. A British lord, weeks after the evacuations and surrender, still living in the open.
"Edward, Lord Nighten. A distinguished guest of the island, really. Retired now from British Parliament." Jodderick showed a brief surge of pride in the telling of such an auspicious guest on one of his islands.
"Nighten. I have read his monograph." Geis smirked. "This should prove quite interesting..."
They drove up the circular approach to the house and toward the portico entrance, the car's Nazi flags standing out in the wind from where they were perched above each headlamp.
As Geis stepped from the interior of the car, his long leg unfolding out the open door, it was as if a light had been turned on in a previously dull (damp, even) room.
Lady Marion Nighten was astride her horse, Gypsum, spotlessly accoutered to ride as though a dressage competition were about to take place out in the park. Her hair, though tucked under the helmet, was whisping out about her ears, and proved to be as black as the smart little riding crop in her left hand. At the sight of him, of his car, of his uniform, her voice was condescending, yet somehow just a breath away from disrespectful. "We were not expecting visitors."
"I do apologize for the short notice, Lady Marion," the Bailiff attempted to intercede with politesse. "Herr Gisbonnhoffer was most eager to...walk your formal gardens. You know how admired they are, how well-thought-of by the entire island."
And though he had no interest in flora of any kind until that very moment, Geis heartily agreed. He should like nothing more, wish for nothing more, than to take a turn about such gardens.
He had not commandeered Barnsdale that day. Not as he had intended to. He allowed Marion and her father to stay, to carry on as they had been doing. Did not even take Sir Edward's rooms for himself (though the older Lord's chambers were far-nicer and roomier than any others in the house). But the house and all its contents, all its staff, were, for all practical purposes, his.
And yet he had never once imagined a world, post-war, where he would live there with Greta and the children. In fact, their very existence had come to seem like shadows to him. So when it became unmistakably evident that if he wanted Marion, he would get her (willingly, that is) only by marriage, it did not seem such a great travesty to pursue such a ruse. And he did want her willing. Wanted her to enjoy him as much as he enjoyed (would enjoy. Would repeatedly enjoy) her.
No one on the islands knew the specific details of his private life, and he was not one for confidences regarding such. The state (or existence) of his marriage, his wife and children in Germany, would stay unknown, unless someone might inadvertabtly run across it in among the random statistics in his personnel file.
He had thought publicizing the engagement might loosen Lady Marion's resolve, but he had been called back to Alderney so quickly, the matter had not been able to be properly approached.
And now here he was, Marion, the thing he desired so intensely, possibly lost to him, captive of the flier. The Kommandant having discovered his plans for her, discovered how far he was willing to go to get what he wanted-what should, by rights, be his.
The Kommandant's feelings on the matter he could not quite understand. Vaiser would be the first to confess he had four wives in Germany: three exes and one current, and yet the existence of none of them had any bearing on how he conducted himself here on the islands. The taking of local lovers (mutually consensual or not) was the order of the day for the entire occupying German army.
What would it matter that Geis wished to let Marion think she had married him, in order to ensure her loyalty and consent? Surely the ceremony would mean nothing to him. He had thrown off any religious oppression of his mind a decade past.
Gisbonnhoffer stood and walked the paper and pen to Diefortner, at the smaller credenza, the Underlieutenant on loan for the rest of the search operation from Vaiser. "Write a response to this," Gisbonnhoffer ordered the adjutant. "I expect it to be appropriately heart-felt."
"Sir," Diefortner nodded his head and accepted the proscribed task. As he worked, he brought up the coming storm. "Do you think the weather will seriously hamper our efforts to recover the prisoner?"
"AND Lady Marion..."
"And Lady Marion?"
"The storm matters not. We must leave within the half-hour and be out most of the night. We shall begin with those islands most-easily reached from here: Les Casquets, Ortac, Renonquet, Burhou."
"But are they not all uninhabited?"
"They all were yesterday."
"Assuming we are not successful...tomorrow?"
"Re-fuel and take on what supplies we might need, and then to Sark."
"Sark?"
"There are some among the dock crew that believe they saw a Sarkese fisherman near the harbor earlier today. Perhaps he was fishing, perhaps something more."
"Then why not start there now?"
"The weather, the probability that Thomas Carter would have initially stayed nearby, hoping to make for the French mainland."
Diefortner returned his eyes to the cablegram he had been told to write.
Gisbonnhoffer went on. "What authorities there are have been notified on Sark of the escape."
The Underlieutenant observed, "You seem to hold little affection for that island."
Gisbonnhoffer moved to the large map affixed to one wall, pointing out the island that looked like a diamond, weeping from its southern-most point a single tear. "Big Sark," he indicated the diamond. "Little Sark," the tear. "Sark's population, around 500 souls, communicates in an unintelligible patios (when they want to) among themselves, called Serquiaise. It is as good as the strongest code, as it is barely comprehensible to most French speakers. Its cliffs are riddled with unmapped caves, the entire island depends on but a single road going down to sea level. There are silver mines abandoned since the 1840s, here, which will prove treacherous to search, and time-consuming. The tides and currents around the island are extremely dangerous to vessels. There is no infrastructure to speak of; road are unpaved and cars are all-but imaginary. Intra-island and inter-island communication is archaic where it exists. Its geography is unaccommodating, particularly to those unfamiliar with it. Its people are necessary to the farming enterprise that helps feed our occupying forces, therefore the use of force is dubious at best. And threat of imprisonment? There is a two-cell prison in which to hold the uncooperative. Two. In short, Sark is a two-square mile nightmare. I would sooner wish to look for them in quicksand."
Sark - sea-level cave - Djak watched the flier. She did not understand everything he said in Russian. Most of it, yes, but her grasp of the language was incomplete, and she knew that most of his speeches to her were couched (as they had to be) as though to a small child, or commands given to a pet dog. 'Go, Get, Do, Stop'. Not that he said very much.
They had found a cave, and abandoned the boat to the sea. She did not always know why he was making the choices he did, but he knew how to make decisions, how to take action. Her culture valued such behavior in a man, in a leader, and something within her responded to it.
She thought they ought to try and find some drinkable water. But she didn't know how to go about it.
The woman they had with them, her hands bound behind her back, her mouth gagged, seemed also to be trying to say something to the flier, who was sitting for the moment in what seemed to be a deep contemplation, as though in an act of deciding what to do next.
The frantic grunting of the hostage must have finally rattled him. He came to Djak and demanded the fisherman's knife. She looked at him, wanting to question what plans he had for it, but thought better of upsetting him, her best chance at surviving this escape. She gave him the knife. He walked over to the woman, whose eyes grew round and skittish at the blade he now carried.
"Do you know, do you, 'Marion'? Something they do in the camps to their women prisoners, men like your beloved? What people like your loyal islanders do, once liberated, to the women who collaborate with the enemy? Funnily, the action is quite similar." He raised the knife.
Djak felt herself freeze. She could not understand the words he spoke. They did not sound like Russian.
In three fell swoops he grabbed a roll of hair from each side of the woman's head, and then at the back, and sliced through it, severing the locks from her head with the fisherman's knife.
For a moment, the set of tortoise shell combs she wore held in place, and the rolls did not immediately fall, but the weight of the hair and the combs, and the length of the hair no longer able to accommodate the tucking, won out, and all the dark weight of her hair fell away from her head into black will-o'-the-wisps on the rock ledge about her.
Djak watched the action to its end from where she stood. She was glad he had not killed her, the woman. But seeing the other woman's eyes, her reaction at what had been done to her, reminded Djak of the day the Germans had shorn her head, upon her arrival at her first labor camp. They had done a more thorough job than the flier, left on her nothing but a stubble. The flier had left this woman with a total of two, possibly three, good handfuls of hair combined, but at erratic lengths; three, three-and-a-half inches at the longest. The reminder of that moment for Djak, of that dehumanizing action, still brought the remembered sting of tears to her eyes, even after all she had lost, all she had seen since.
"I am going to find water," the flier told her in Russian, as he exited the cave.
Good, she thought to herself, agreeing with his decision of what to do next, unconsciously bringing the palm of her right hand up to feel her own pelt-length hair.
She noticed the woman had stopped trying to speak.
...TBC...