Channel Island of Jersey - Cabaret Freesia - It had been a private party, much as it was of any night, of any hour, anymore. German officers only. Certain select German officers only, when OberAdmiral Jan Prinzer was ashore. As the highest-ranking German official sporadically en residence where the Channel Islands were concerned, anything growing, living, breathing or built on the Islands was automatically at his command. And so it was that on his favorite island, his favorite cabaret also housed his favorite girls, his favorite china, stewed his favorite hasenpfeffer, and served his favorite officers and favorite wines.
Small lamps discreetly lit individual tables, and much effort had gone in the past years into making the space appear to have more in common with fashionable Berlin than the rather more pedestrian St. Helier, in which it was located. Pre-war nightlife here had been of a more provincial kind; cafes open late, bare hanging bulbs to light the sidewalks and tables surrounding them, dancing near the water...other, more rural, less sophisticated, pleasures. Of course, now, all gone, with the enforced curfew. It was said some Islanders had taken to going to bed as early as five.
It had been no small matter to receive an invitation to Cabaret Freesia. With unresolved disorder at the Treeton Camp, Alderney's Island Kommandant Vaiser would not have kept faith with the summons of anyone but the OberAdmiral. If only those left in charge, particularly Gisbonnhoffer with the help of Diefortner, could manage things for a few hours until his return, he could seize the opportunity and ensure such a party might prove the further making of him.
Clever, thought Kommandant Vaiser to himself, that driver of mine, to suggest bringing a sack of Alderney hares with me for the kitchens. He had not been aware Prinzer's taste for rabbit was so well-known among the ranks that even one as unremarkable as his Islander driver might have caught on. More like something Underlieutenant Diefortner might come up with, really.
Well, the gift of the meat had been more than well-received, and had further greased the already coveted invitation he had won over the other Island Kommandants. After all, did he not sit now at Prinzer's own table, the rest of which was populated entirely by women? It was nice. It was warm. It was...supple...here among them, not smelly and starved like the free Islander women he encountered of the Guernsey bailiwick.
It would seem during this Occupation if you wanted a woman (one that wouldn't gag you at the sight of her leprous appearance) the onus was on you to supply her with the things she would need as far as grooming. Silk stockings brought from mainland France, certainly. Scent, naturally. Cosmetics, jewelry when you could confiscate it (his position was very advantageous for this). Yet even basic soap and detergent had to be added to the list. And potatoes, some beef every once and again, chocolates and pastry if you wanted her to keep her curves so that you might have something to hang onto of a night other than bones, than the pervasive pallid flesh that had begun to infest the islands in this nearly-fourth year of the Occupation.
Prinzer smiled companionably across from him and bid one of the women to offer Vaiser a smoke. Four zigaretten instantly appeared in front of the Kommandant's face, each held within perfectly manicured and polished nails with fingertips showing not a trace of distasteful callus.
The show was to begin shortly. Things were already being brought out to set the modest cabaret stage, to which they had the best seats.
"You will enjoy this," Prinzer told him, confidently.
Vaiser did not quibble. He was enjoying himself quite well just as he was. But he meant to take the foreshadowing comment of his superior as an order. Yes. He would enjoy this. Whatever it was.
The top bill proved to belong to a man called 'Joss Tyr', his face heavily made-up in sequins and paint, Harlequinesque, giving him an eerie but eye-catching appeal, and an unexpected sparkle under the dark lights of the cabaret.
Before the performance fully hit its stride, Prinzer leaned across the table, rhetorically asking, "he is good, no?"
Vaiser offered the expected effusive compliments, as it was obvious the entertainer was a favorite of the OberAdmiral. "What's his story, then? Not an Islander, doesn't seem."
"No," Prinzer confirmed, shifting a girl on his lap so that he might switch to the seat next to Vaiser. "'Joss Tyr' is only his stage name. He is Werner von Himmel. He was overseeing some Todt workers on the beaches, the placement of mines. Very tiresome duty for an officer, when one idiot worker mis-stepped. The worker? Little more than grit in sand. Von Himmel? He moves too well to hardly show it, but he lost any good fingers on his hands. He was facially scarred and can no longer fire a gun." He tch'ed. "Worthless to the Reich. He recuperated from his injuries here, and asked leave to stay on, which I granted. His act used to consist of illusions, but the wooden prosthetics he wears now under his gloves prevent true sleight-of-hand. Instead, he claims the explosion has gifted him with second sight." Prinzer chuckled. It was unclear whether he believed this assertion. "He is my fool, and performs at my whim. I shall have him read you."
Before Vaiser could protest (not that one protested against an OberAdmiral), but not before he could find himself stricken with some degree of worry-what if the gift were truth? There were plenteous things related to his position, and plenty not, that he certainly did not need to have aired publicly. Instead, he exclaimed, "Charming!" and worked hard to look as though he meant it.
Joss Tyr approached Prinzer's table at the OberAdmiral's subtle beckon. Without asking, he went directly to Vaiser, holding the Kommandant's studied, steady gaze in his own glassy, exaggerated stage expression. The sequins catching the light and throwing it back made it hard to maintain looking at him.
"Number one," Tyr said, dramatically, for all to see, raising his thumb to count on. "By week's end, you will become a father!"
The audience hooted and howled. Several officers shouted their congratulations. Vaiser strained against his own eyes, which wanted to roll at the ridiculous announcement.
"Two," said Tyr, his tone as loud and punctuated as a signal bell being rung in a tower, "The compatriot of your enemy is your enemy. The mate of your enemy is your enemy. And yet," he smirked, continuing on with a jokey tone. "Your enemy has neither."
Vaiser harrumphed to himself. "Then I am singularly lucky," he mumbled under his breath, still smiling at the performance.
"Three," and the audience re-quieted. "The Watchman will rise." Joss Tyr paused for effect. "And. The Watchman will rise." His face stretched into a clown-like grin of insensible delight.
Vaiser felt, more than saw, Prinzer react to this foretelling. They had only just put the Nightwatch to rest. Put her down like a rabid dog; hunted and shot. Were he in charge here, this cabaret act, this fool, would be headed for Jersey's prison. Clearly the man knew something-or, just as bad, hoped for something. Former German officer or no. Vaiser had seen crippling injuries turn men against the Fatherland before.
Prinzer's fool crowed at the silent-as-a-gasp reaction to his tertiary soothsaying. "And, fourth," he spoke, "and finally, listen well." He shook his head, the sequin reflections twinkling on his face like coins catching the sun in the bottom of a fountain. "I don't like to repeat myself." He spoke slowly. Cassandra could have rendered it no better. "At midnight, on the day the counter-blowing wind does no good, the sun's fire will consume the messenger."
Something in his doom-saying voice rubbed the Kommandant once-and-finally the wrong way. "Piffle," Vaiser scoffed, irritated, looking for the first time to those about him, their expressions. "This man has had too many schnapps."
He felt the unwelcome stiff awkwardness of the man's carved wooden grip on his arm.
"Later, recall," the fool was saying, "I don't like to repeat myself."
And in a hail of applause and shouts of congratulation by Prinzer and his closest officers, an acrid column of smoke appeared, and 'Joss Tyr', this Werner von Himmel that was, was in evidence no more.
Channel Island of Sark - Farm of Blind La Salle - "John, what d'ye reckon?" Richard Royston asked his mate in the farmhouse kitchen, "we've no proper sapper, but with your time in the mines, if we got me some good boom, might we build ourselves a snug little nest among the shafts and the unstruck silver on Little Sark?"
Iain Johnson held his mug at table level, surrounding it with both his large hands, like Royston hoping to use the weak coffee's warmth to unchill his hands from where he'd been digging just beyond the yard. "We'd do better first to find someone who knows something of their layout. Before we set Dale to scrounge you some good boom."
"Go on, now," Royston replied, his voice, as usual, never restrained.
John looked to the door to the hallway and the rest of the house, some part of which held Stephen and Robin. His eyes slanted toward the front parlor, which still held Dick, laid out, a funeral to occur in the late afternoon of the day, before evening chores. He doubted Robin had wandered in there.
He and Royston had not seen their commanding officer since morning, when Mitch had left with Lady Marion. John did not doubt Oxley was trying to resolve the ugly wrestling match within himself from where Lady Marion had somehow manipulated him into agreeing to let Mitch escort her to, and hand her over, at the German Garrison. Which John and Royston had both heartily agreed between themselves was a much better idea. Only, Johnson had no idea how she had pulled it off. Robin had not appeared to them again to offer any clue. Doubtless, he was in a dark mood of high gloom.
Their work of the morning had been a grim one: digging Dick's grave. They had been nearly done when they had agreed to return indoors to a warm drink and trying to regain feeling in their fingers. That had been some twenty minutes ago, as Royston had quickly embarked on the discussion of planning for a new hideout, delaying their return to the growing hole and pile of dirt.
Behind Royston the barnyard door creaked open to reveal Robin, not at all inside. His face, arms, and legs showed the exact nature of his absence. He had been at finishing the digging for them, his spade left out-of-doors.
"You idiot wallydraigle!" John jumped up from where he sat, drawing Oxley to a bench alongside the table, as always when he was irritated, his Scots showing.
"Now, John," Oxley mildly protested, "you know an Oxford man cannot understand you when you start to carry on like some painted-blue Celt."
"Robin," John began to scold him, one of his strong arms seeing to it that Robin sat in place. "Sir," his 'r' rolled with the emphasis on the term of respect, "I have told you, as your medic, you canna overextend yourself, or these muscles, if you wish this cut to heal."
Royston had moved to keep a watch at the window, as John beginning his medical ministrations would make it hard for them to scatter were anyone unexpected to appear. "Grave-diggin's hard on the back."
"Yes," agreed Robin, hissing as Johnson found the stitched spot in question, where an unexpected night spent in a barn stall, and over-working an injured muscle spading out a grave had inflamed the wound. He breathed a little heavily at John's probing inspection, but managed to get out, "Marion has little praise for your stitching, you know."
At the window, Royston's eyebrows raised at the notion that Lady Marion had had the chance to examine Oxley's bare back.
"Aye? Well, she'll have to find elsewhere on ye to look, for perfection," Johnson declared, "as I canna take them out yet, though I had hoped to. This inflammation is but next-door to infection. Did ye not know ye were allergic to hay?"
"Oh, Lor'," Robin moaned, priorly clueless as to any allergies. "Don't tell Marion. She'll have naught to do with a man who won't frequent a barn!"
Royston crossed his arms. "And how's the son of a lord to know he's got hay allergy?" Royston asked, curiously. "Not like he's out mowing the fields, is it?"
John looked a grim reply at Royston's turned back. At least Oxley was speaking about Marion without losing his cool, even if he was, perhaps, not on speaking terms with her at present.
"Here comes Wills, and the others," Royston announced.
The noises of the three returned from Ruffords could be heard as they traversed the nearby barnyard.
"What?" John cried, "And did you just now see them? Nice, that, for a sentry."
"Naw," Royston scoffed. "'Tis only Wills. Seemed pointless to interrupt yer physic just to mention Wills had come back."
John scoffed back. "Remind me of that next time you don't wish to interrupt our tea on account of some Jerries hiding in the rain barrel."
Royston made a dismissive noise out of the side of his mouth, but it was not an angry one, nor was Johnson's barb meant to greatly sting, and certainly not to provoke.
Johnson went back to work cleaning, as best he could, the area surrounding Robin's stitches, using what supplies he could find in his precious medic's bag.
So they all were; Royston at the window, Robin shirtless, laid belly-down upon the cleared trestle table at John's request, and John bent over his commanding officer's back, at work, when Wills, Carter and the Gypsy boy Djak entered La Salle's kitchen.
"I had not thought to see you three," Robin's lifted himself up on his elbows, his gaze lingered longer on the flier, "back quite so soon."
Wills gave a grim smile in reply. "Ruffords will not have the boy," he indicated Djak.
"And why not?" John asked, his head nearly colliding with the hanging kerosene lamp as he straightened himself.
"So the airman could not have stayed behind?" Robin found he liked it better if he did not use the man's name.
"Well," Wills reminded him, "without Car-" he saw the look, and like Mitch before him made allowances, "him, we cannot be understood by, nor understand, the boy."
"Thought yer orders were to work on that, make him like yer liver, or summat." Royston teased, his smirk showing only in its reflection on the glass.
Wills' speech got quicker as he rose to the defense of himself, though the comments had been made in jest. "Yes, well, Abby won't have him. He takes things what aren't his."
Robin and John looked at the young boy, slight frowns of concern creasing their brows at this new development.
"Such as?" John asked.
"Cutlery; a table knife," Wills began the list, his face a bit red at the length of it. "A small ball of twine, four marbles belonging to Abby's boys...and a silk headscarf."
"Bless me," John cut in, referencing the boy's verging-on threadbare clothing. "Wherever did he put it all?"
From where he stood beside Djak, Carter began to speak. "I should've-"
Robin's eyes slid sharply over to him, and at their eye-contact, he cut himself off.
Wills continued, though he hated to do it. "And he has lice."
Defeated exhales could be heard throughout the room.
"Will we never be rid of it?" Robin asked the question on all their minds.
"I will see to the necessary remedy," came the voice of Stephen La Salle from the hall as he came into his kitchen. "After you all, to a man, have washed down with it (and I will as well), he may stay here. Mr. Carter," he seemed the only one not loathe to say the name in Robin's presence. "Tell the boy he is to hide here on my tenement. Tell him also that we live communally here, what is mine is his. He may take or rearrange whatever to his liking."
Robin protested. "Stephen, we cannot expect you to take on Wills and...the flier," his voice lowered to that of gritted tooth, "as long as he may be with us, as well. Three is too many to easily hide day-in and day-out, or explain away."
"True. Three is a houseful," Stephen agreed. "But I find I would rather be crowded than lonely. And challenged rather than sidelined."
Robin did not immediately respond. His first thought was that it was far too much to have Stephen take in the very man that had killed Dick. His second was that, though skin color meant nothing to a blind man, hiding the Gypsy in plain sight would birth its own set of obstacles to overcome.
"Allen, coming in," Royston reported from his window post.
"Oh," answered John, pretending at snotty, "and thank you, Mr. Royston, for interrupting us with that, as Wills' and the boy's," deliberately he added, "and Carter's fate hangs in the balance."
"Ought he not be well away, off to Alderney and his driving?" asked Wills, looking to the kitchen clock with concern.
"Something is not right," declared Robin, raising himself nimbly off his belly and leaving the make-shift exam table. He grabbed his shirt, the shirt Marion had grasped in her fists as she slept in his arms only some hours ago, pulling it savagely over his head, and stomped out to the barnyard to meet Dale before he had come all the way to the house.
...TBC...