ALDERNEY - Treeton Camp - Naturally it would be his lot that in the Kommandant's absence from the island, Underlieutenant Diefortner would be tasked to his camp, to his side. Nipping at his heels all the day long.
"Well, you haven't found a secretarial replacement," Diefortner had reminded him when he had introduced himself that morning. "I shall set about sorting your papers."
But of course such a man had not been able to sort only papers.
"Did you miss the Nightwatch?" Diefortner had asked, doubtless knowing full well that due to unsteady seas Gisbonnhoffer had not arrived back to Alderney until well after the broadcast had ended.
Gisbonnhoffer grunted.
"Too bad," the Underlieutenant had faked commiseration, withholding sharing what had taken place in order to spite his superior, and pay him back for Gisbonnhoffer's foul temper toward him.
"Bad luck, that," he had continued on, glossing over the Nightwatch news, knowing he had left Gisbonnhoffer on tenterhooks, "the Guernsey archives torched halfway beyond saving. Crimp in your master plan, that has proven."
Gisbonnhoffer rolled one irritated eye over toward where the Kommandant's adjutant sat, certainly not thrilled presently at being reminded of his highly risky plan to smoke out Marion's wedding certificate under the guise of looking for information on the Nightwatch.
"But the less said about that, the better," Diefortner bent his head back to his work.
"The less said the better all 'round." Gisbonnhoffer both agreed and admonished him, reassuring himself that there was no way even the ambitious Diefortner could have known what he had truly been up to. No way, surely, he could even have suspected a ruse of any kind at play. After all, it was better than common knowledge that SS Lieutenant Geis Gisbonnhoffer lived for two things: advancement in the ranks, and capturing the islands' infamous illegal broadcaster, the Nightwatch (yet another key to advancement in the ranks). It was only lately that he had let his passion for Marion Nighten cloud his focus. Gisbonnhoffer gave an uncomfortable wince at the thought of Marion, of her name.
"Speaking of civic records," the other man withdrew a paper from within the messy pile in front of him. "I see here the initial legal paperwork has arrived for you to complete to file for your divorce back home. Shall I assist by getting started in the filling of it out?"
"NO," and the word rang out as though Gisbonnhoffer's office were located inside a large, reverberating church bell, rather than in a hurriedly-assembled wooden building. "That will no longer be...necessary," he replied, those words sour as over-fermented kraut upon his lips, in his mind.
GUERNSEY - Heindl Cottage - The dismaying thought came to Mitch again: the idiot Navigation Officer, unable to locate himself upon the globe. In France...somewhere.
But of an evening the stars never looked right to him, never looked at home. The terrain...not quite foreign enough. What an ignorant booby. So poorly suited to his present situation that he had actually attempted to get the information from the girl, from Eva.
She had looked at him in that way she had, in the way where he felt he could read every sorrow of her young life there within her eyes (those eyes so often jolly, those sorrows deeply submerged), and told him that he was in France. And that she could say no more, lest she see her own family suffer for it.
"Please do not run, Monsieur Miller," she had begged him. "Do not try for the distant coast, nor for the town. Do not jeopardize us. You do care for us some, do you not, Sir?"
"Mitch," he had prompted her. "Please," he had said, hating to hear such a sweet, kind and giving girl address him so formally; she, who had brought him out of his peril, out of his pain and the empty loneliness of torture. Pulled him single-handedly back from the brink of darkness. Surely they two ought to be on far less-formal terms.
He attempted to sink what he could of himself into the rather cramped washtub that served the Heindl family entire for baths. After all, all those weeks she had - even within the cottage alone (the rare privacy granted so that he might have a head-to-toe wash) he blushed red as beet from scalp to sole - she had seen to even his most basic need. Such as washing. Well, hopefully not Eva. Not Eva tasked with the washing of a grown man's body, no matter how infirm he might have been.
Yes, perhaps the task had fallen to mad Hilda. Mitch's nose wrinkled, but some of the blush receded. Not ideal, naturally, to think of his physical self at the mercy of the loony mother of the house, but preferable, yes, preferable to tender Eva.
Sweet, generous Eva.
Oh Lord, Robin, he thought. How shall I ever run? How could I live with myself, with possibly causing Eva hurt - or the girls? The baby - or Daniel, not yet a man? Or even, heaven help me, mad batty Hilda?
And I know not where I am, he spoke as if to his dear, lost friend and commanding officer. And I do not know where to go to change that.
Oh, help me, Robin. Help me.
BRITAIN - Rural Scotland -Madame La Salle hugged little Stephen's hand to her as she exited the kirk's Sunday morning service. The farmer and his wife tended to stay behind and fellowship for a time with friends, and frequently the minister, but she had always found a freedom in the moments following a good sermon and rousing singing service that made her want to be outside, to be alone. Continuing on in the communion that she had shared, silently, within the church's walls.
She set out on the path toward the farm, imagining that they were likely to have chops again for the midday meal. As it was late autumn, the farmer and his wife had recently slaughtered a hog, and besides their own enjoyment of it were pleased to see that pork was fast becoming one of little Stephen's favorite foods.
Louise had not gone far, as she could travel no faster than little Stephen's short legs would carry him, when she turned in response to the sound of someone walking double-time to catch up with her.
"Louise," the man behind her on the road called, seeing that she had turned back.
"Yes," she called. "What is it?" always aware that her voice held none of the rough, brusqueness as did those of the locals. Nor was she built like them; sturdy, peasant-strong. Hardy, she had heard them called.
But the French in her blood would always come through. If not in her speech, then in her tastes. She knew that even the clothes she chose to make for herself - chose to wear - were not much like those of the Scottish women around her.
Her frame was slender, and her height negligible. She had once overheard the farmer's wife referring to her as delicate. Saying that she was surprised how much such a 'delicate little thing' managed to accomplish in the course of a day of farming.
The notion of herself as somehow less substantial than those she found herself living among did not generally sit well with Louise. But she could not deny feeling that 'otherness' - without having to have it pointed out to her.
The man had caught up with her. Seeing it was the village blacksmith, and guessing at his intentions, she again set to walking.
"Good day, Louise."
She did not care for his casual use of her first name. On she walked. "Good day."
"I always like to see ye about," he told her, a smile upon his face, keeping pace with her.
Unable to echo his meant-to-flatter remark, she offered no reply.
"I was thinkin'..."
And she knew it was too late to stop him.
"That you might, that is, that we might go walkin' out this evening - or next, if you'd prefer."
"Go walkin' out?" she repeated back to him. "You forget yourself, Luke Cooper. I am a married woman, as you well know. As the whole village well knows. A married woman, and what's more, with a child. Sacre! I'll go walking with no man - Scot or Briton - until I've my own husband by my side."
"But Louise," Cooper attempted to plead with her, "the war. The Occupation. How long's it been since you've seen your man - even, since you've heard from him? Since he's wrote to you?"
She took a deep breath and let her eyes close and settle for a moment. "Luke Cooper," she told him, "you are a good man. I know that. It is commonly known, and said - that you are a fine man. And run a fair business. That you'll cheat no one, even those others believe deserve cheating. I have not seen Reverend La Salle," she deliberately made use of Stephen's title, "since June of '40. Nor have I received word from him since that day."
"Three and a half years!" the smithy exclaimed.
"'For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth.'," she quoted the letter of St. Paul to the Romans to him. "Three and a half years. But a short time in God's eyes," she told him, "and it was in the presence of Him that my husband and I made our vow."
1940 June - GUERNSEY -"Dick, can you dock us? Is there space on a day such as this?" Stephen asked his hired man of the crowded surroundings of St. Peter Port's piers.
"We will manage," Dick assured him from where he piloted the La Salle fishing boat.
Louise La Salle had found it impossible to settle and sit down on the voyage from Creux Harbor that morning. Stephen had wanted to take her to the Dixcart Hotel for breakfast, as a sort of special 'going away' treat, but she had not been able to bring herself to go.
"No," she had told him, "it is my own kitchen I shall want tomorrow, my own things, in their own, dear places. Let us eat at home, my love. My sweet, sweet homme."
She looked to her husband now, also standing in the fishing boat. Knowing they were headed to Guernsey, a trip they seldom, if ever, made (Dick traveling there for them with whatever might occasionally be leftover to sell at the market day there), had brought out their best clothes, and Stephen was outfitted as fine as he might have been any Sunday he were set to give a sermon.
His reddish hair took in the sunlight, and his height was undimmed by the infirmity that had stolen his vision. He was a singularly handsome man, she thought.
She had dressed as sensibly as possible. Crossing the channel in open boats - the only option for evacuation at this point - was nothing to take lightly. Over her best winter dress (yes, even in June) she would have with her in her single piece of luggage the ability to pull on Stephen's best fisherman's sweater of Sarkese wool, its recognizable Jersey knit already like a callback to home for her, though she had not yet left.
People were everywhere, arriving at the port in boats, thronging the gangplanks and jetties as far as the eye could see. To call it an organized chaos would have been far too kind.
Nearby where they were able to find room to tie off, they could hear a man in charge calling out the names that had been submitted and assigned to his boat. "Heindl!" he shouted into the din after consulting his clipboard. "Five passages granted! Heindl family!"
He received no reply from among the crowd, and turned to the man beside him. "No shows," he shook his head. "And down here for four children - and a nursing mother to boot. What can they be thinking? Changing their minds at a time like this?"
The man next to him shrugged, "not every islander's at peace with shipping their brood off to strangers, Germans headed this way or no. P'r'aps we'd do just as well to see after the children, among their own kind."
Louise turned to Stephen, knowing the bustle of the wharf was likely playing havoc with his perception, over-stimulating his already heightened senses.
"I do not wish to go," she told him, for what was not the first time. "We will be okay, surely. The Lord will care for us, Stephen, as He always has." She reached her hand toward his own. "Here, as well as He might anywhere. If there is any Jew within me, after all, I must have lost it - washed it off as a child. It can do us no harm."
"No," he shook his head. "We must not falter now," Stephen told her, taking his hand and settling it on her going-into-town set hair. "Two months apart is a long time, but it is nothing compared to the rumors we have heard of what might happen if you were to stay." He gave a slow smile. "Do let me take care of you in this way - as you have for so many years put my welfare first, and taken care of me."
She let herself follow her hand toward him, let herself sink into him, in a way they never would have acted out among people, save that it was the day it was. The day of goodbye, of farewell, and of uncertain futures.
"And I see a blessing for you, Madame La Salle," he told her, and though his eyes were cloudy in their blindness, she knew they bore a twinkle. "You can be a blessing in the crossing. Able to help comfort the children. A good work. And a blessing to you."
Louise had a great affection for children, of all ages. In his attempt to embolden and cheer her, Stephen did not reference (nor did he need to) their own frequent failures when it came to babies, came to enlarging their family beyond merely the two of them.
They had reached that moment - that moment that she had known would come if they agreed to pursue her evacuating. The moment in which they could say nothing more of any significance to the other that had not already been said, been proven and tested through action and through trials in the years of their marriage. Both felt it, both sensed it as though with a single, shared perception.
"Dick," called Stephen, Louise still tight to his strong chest, "lead us on to where we must part with Madame La Salle."
At Stephen's request, young Giddons leaned over and lifted the small traveling bag Louise had packed to take with her.
As they disembarked the boat, in one of Stephen's hands was the oversized walking staff he used to help find and clear his way when he had to move about in unfamiliar places. In the other, his grip on her firm, Louise.
Dick Giddons stood, feeling La Salle's strong hand clutched upon his shoulder, ensuring they did not become parted in the crowd. The small vessel - certainly not deserving of the title of 'ship' - holding Madame La Salle was pulling out, away from port. It was stuffed to the point of near-capsizing with children of every shape and size. Besides the pilot, she was the only other adult assigned to it; adults allowed to evacuate either mothers to the very, very young, or those with Jewish heritage.
Some children cried, others looked back as their home grew smaller and smaller, their faces stoic. Madame held two boys, barely toddlers, too confused to cry, to grasp what was happening.
"How looks she to you, Dick?" La Salle asked him, a man who rarely asked for others to recount to him what their eyes beheld.
"She looks like a mother," Dick heard himself say, not having meant to speak that off-the-cuff thought aloud.
"And what told she you before you handed her down the gangway?"
"That God will look after us each," the boy's mouth twitched into a half-grin, "and that she expected to next see me grown fat on your rich cooking."
Stephen smiled. "And did she kiss you goodbye?"
"Yessir, that she did. On my cheek," the boy spoke with a small amount of wonder in his tone. Madame La Salle had never acted so before.
Stephen's hand reached up and felt for Dick's rarely-needing-shaved cheek, finding the spot that his fingers told him held his wife's last salute - her last physical connection to the islands - -until she was able to return.
"God save the King, our Duke," Stephen said aloud, his face to the water. "God shelter our Sark. God save us all."
USA - outside Lexington, Kentucky -"Ma-ma!" nineteen year-old Josie Otto ran pell-mell down the staircase of the Otto family home shouting. She had only just changed out of a stable-mucked pair of dungarees into a more suitable 'going out' skirt and blouse, bobby socks rather than nylons inside her shoes. Upstairs in her room she had forgotten to take the needle off the Tommy Dorsey/Frank Sinatra record she had been playing.
"Baby Girl," her mother's voice, always able to be heard clearly without respect to the volume she pitched it at, came to her from the front parlor.
Josie continued on her dash to that location.
"You have forgotten again," her mama continued from behind where she was studying the recent horse sales as printed in the Lexington Leader. "Your daddy's daddy paid good money to have a house built. So that we have no need to live in the barn." She bent the corner of the paper down to look her youngest child in the eye, "nor to act as though we do."
"Well, Mama," Josie tried to make up with her mother without technically having to apologize, "it ain't like anyone's home but us chickens."
Mama grunted, and set the paper, folded, into her lap, watching as her youngest child sneaked a sip of sweet tea that had just been brought in by Azalea, the maid. "And just where are you, Chicken, off to?" An indulgent but you-won't-get-anything-over-on-me smile bloomed on her lips.
"Thought I'd told you. Bessie Queenland's had a letter from Fred. When I saw her last week I asked if I might come over and copy it down - since we know you won't be visiting the Queenland's anytime soon." At this gibe, Josie's smile echoed something of her mother's.
"Have mercy! Y'all did not say that to Bessie Queenland!"
Josie half-giggled and nearly coughed from the bite of Derby pie she had jammed into her mouth before she could be denied it. "Naw, Mama. I mentioned you not one bitduring the entire conversation."
"Thank Heavens for small graces!" Mama took a swallow of relief from her tall glass of sweet tea.
"I don't see why you should dislike them so," Josie said, "after all. They're a nice family. They love to talk horses."
"And they stole the Templar Cup from us two years running. With horses brought here from...Australia," her mother gave the country name five or more syllables. "What sort of pedigree is that?"
"Well," Josie stood to knock crumbs off her blouse from where they had settled, "they were Australian themselves only a few years ago. But you haven't had to worry about them bringing horses from their farms in Australia for years now, what with the war blocking that kind of shipping and travel. How long before you make up with them?"
Mama looked at her daughter, as though sizing her up. "Well, give an old woman another year - or two - and we'll see."
"You're not a bit old," Josie protested. "And you went to Jeff's funeral."
"Yes. But he wasn't a Queenland. Only bound to marry one," Mama gave a half-wink at her own prevaricating. "And that was an act of gentility, Baby Girl. Of decency. It had nothing at all to do with competition."
When Josie arrived behind the wheel of the borrowed family car at the Queenland property, she sighted the three-star banner hanging in the window to designate that the family had sent three sons to the war. The black wreath adorning the front door next to the stars in the window glass served as a reminder of Jeff's death, and of his fiance, Bessie, still being in mourning for his loss.
"Had you heard in Fred's last letter?" Bessie asked when they had sat down, and Josie had taken out pen and paper to transcribe her brother's letter to Jeff's bereaved fiancee. "He signed here as 'Lieutenant Colonel Fred Otto'."
Josie whistled out loud and long. "He sure can get himself promoted." She had her head to her work as she added, "he told me once if you want to be a five-star general all you have to do in this war is manage to stay alive, and the promotions will fall from heaven like rain." Josie felt the last of her words fall flat, and realized how crass they must sound to a girl recently having lost her fella to the war. She was glad her face was to the paper and her blush could not be seen.
"It was such a nice letter that he wrote," Bessie tried to cover for Josie's unintentional blunder. "All about Jeff, and the kind of man he was. Do you think - "
"Do I think what?" Josie turned back around to Bessie and set her elbow over the back of the wooden desk chair.
"Do you think Fred would mind if I...wrote him back? I've been writing Jeff letters for so long it will seem strange to simply...stop. And there are so many things in my mind that seem like they need to be...written down. And maybe sent away from me. Does that sound strange?"
"Dunno," Josie answered with a shrug, nearing the letter's end and now seeing Fred's new title in his signature for herself. "Kinda sounds like a lonely soldier's dream: mail from home."
USA - Hoboken, New Jersey - Olive Carter sat in her living room, joined by her mother-in-law and her granddaughter. Zara played upon the large braided rug in front of the radio where the music program was playing, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It was evening, and they often spent their free time thus when it became too chilly to sit on the porch and watch the happenings in the neighborhood.
Olive examined Tamara out of the corner of her eye - a trick she had learned from her former life at Court. It was the rare person who could catch her out at doing it.
There had been a visitor today, when she had been the only one home. When Tamara had stepped out to have her shoes re-soled, and taken the child with her on the errand.
McLellan, the one-legged Western-Union man who had not been seen in long, long weeks, had appeared on the step of number 832, ringing the bell and delivering a telegram.
She had not invited him in. Shared no true pleasantries with him. It was the telegram that she had been expecting. The one that would tell her that Thomas was dead.
But instead it had told her that his status had been changed from 'missing in action' to 'prisoner of war'.
But she was not such a fool to think this was the first such telegram. Which meant that Tamara had been keeping secrets from her. How very like the old days. When one must be constantly vigilant if one wished to discover what others knew.
That was okay, she thought. In her day she had been more than proficient at palace-level intrigue. If Tamara would not tell her that her son - her son - was listed missing, then she would not set Tamara's heart to even the slightest whisper of rest by sharing with her that his status was verified as Prisoner of War. Living Prisoner of War.
Let the old biddy choke on her grasping, attempt-at-domineering-everyone ways. Olive was used to betrayal. Betrayed by the man she loved, who had not followed her to this country, as he had said he would. Betrayed - left - by her son, whose appetite for war had ever proven greater than his aptitude for love. Betrayed by her adopted country, this America, to whom she had sworn allegiance. This country of the United States now allied with her enemy, Stalin's Russia.
It all made her wonder if perhaps Germany was not so terribly bad in the end. After all, Alix had been a German. And before it all fell in, Alix had been easily a third of her world. A full third of the sphere that contained the things she loved.
Olive let her eye only momentarily slip away from Tamara, who had now fallen asleep in her chair, to where Zara laid out her three dollies on the braided rug like patients in a hospital, children ready to be tucked into bed.
"Just give me something, to remember you by," the radio sang, "when you are far away from me."
ENGLAND - Lionheart Rooming House -"The Queen informs me that you expect to be shipping out imm-imm-imm-imminently," stammered Ron Legg's tea-time guest. "Although, perhaps we are not meant to know - or speak of such things - so m-m-much."
"As I shared with Her Majesty, Sir, knowing that I am going is yet a far cry from knowing where I am to be sent. And even I know not when."
"And your boy, Mark? You have settled m-m-matters satisfactorily where he is concerned?"
Legg cast a glance away from his Sovereign toward the small secretary that served as the only desk space in his humble accommodations. Only that week he had received news in the post from his solicitor that the Earl of Huntingdon had indeed returned the papers appointing him guardian (in the event of death) to Legg's young orphaned nephew.
"It is good of you to inquire, Sir," he answered the King, gesturing to him with the unassuming, single plate of store-bought biscuits to offer him another. "I have full satisfaction on that count, I am happy to report."
"Exc-c-c-ellent," his guest announced. "But to the matter at hand. I was sent 'round, chiefly to see that before you shipped, you received this," he withdrew a long, folded sketchpad-sized paper from within his regally tailored suit coat. "Margaret is insistent that you have it."
Legg opened the tri-folded paper and could not, even in the presence of royalty, hold in a near-honking laugh. "That's me, then, is it, Sir? But she has me sitting her pony, surely. I never dwarfed a horse that much in the Private Guard."
"It is how she remembers you, she s-s-s-said," the King replied, a touch of whimsy in his own face at the ill-rendered proportion of Legg in comparison to his puny mount.
The King rose, signaling the end of the time he had managed to allot for this unusual outside-of-the-palace meeting. He extended his hand to Legg, who accepted it with his usual gusto for all things.
"B-b-b-be well," the man now known as George VI wished the man who had become a trusted ally.
"For King, and Country," Legg nodded. "For the Queen. And the Princesses."
"And the People," the King added, with gentle emphasis.
"And the People," Legg agreed.
LONDON - HQ British Secret Intelligence Service -Roger Stoker began his fourth attempt at writing the request to his nameless superior (known to him only by a series of designated numbers) asking that Clem Nighten be informed of the Nightwatch's report that Sir Edward, Lord Nighten, Clem's father, had died.
Naturally, one could not divulge to Clem (assuming his security clearance level did not encompass such knowledge) the nature of the information, and how it had been obtained. But surely, the Service at least owed it to the man to let him know that what was considered to be a reliable source had reported the elder statesman's death.
After all, beyond the personal reasons of mourning and dealing with such a loss, there were practical issues to face; the fact that Clem would then succeed his father to the hereditary title of Lord Nighten, as well as inherit the balance of his father's considerable wealth and estate.
Stoker could think of no good reason to keep the news from his brother-in-law, and in this fourth attempt at expressing himself on the topic he did not hesitate in saying so.
The news had come to him on that particular reel of tape. The tape that had been the night, of course, that had kept him on pins and needles for a good two weeks - before the next batch of tapes could be cleared and delivered to him for review. The night of the...he didn't know what to call it. The malfunction. The slip-up. The the-Queen's-knickers'-what's-gone-wrong? night. When, for thirty-two minutes past the broadcast's dependable sign-off, an instant of the same song replayed in what certainly seemed an unintentional loop.
It embarrassed him to admit it (not that he had anyone to admit it to), but he had had trouble sleeping well until those next tapes arrived, reassuring him the Nightwatch went on.
You've become too caught up with this, old boy, he told himself. Too much bloody time on your hands waiting for Pellinore to be greenlit and shoved out of perpetual turn-around. You worry about a girl an Occupation away that you will never meet - even if Pellinore is a go - thinking of her as a friend, a touchstone - a compatriot.
If Evelyn knew he spent his days in this cramped office space playing tapes of a girl broadcasting news and (usually Nazi-verboten) songs she would think him mad. Or unfaithful. But it wasn't like that.
He wasn't in love with the girl, with her voice. It was only that she was important. The only person on the Channel Islands able to speak to him. Able to communicate with the outside world. And she mattered. The loss of her - of the work she was doing would...he did not like to think of it.
He looked down again, to the notebook upon which he was writing, nearly to the point of the closing.
Perhaps he ought to try and find his shared secretary. She had a level of security clearance, after all. See if she might dictate his thoughts and work with him to formulate a better letter of request. Less emotional, perhaps. Less...frustrated.
He looked to the door (it did not take long to glance across such a narrow distance), then back to his desk. Oh, he would be here forever. Alone. Waiting. Vigilant and at the ready. A bloody Chinaman's terra cotta warrior.
But vigilance cannot be maintained indefinitely. Years hence they would find him, he did not doubt - like aging wine in a country house's grand cellar; dusty with age, embraced by cobwebs, stoppered and immobile on a rack.
And still waiting. Waiting.
- END PART ONE -
...TBC immediately in Part Two...of "Don't Give Out with Those Lips of Yours"
Part One Cast and Locations List
Our Cast
Robert "Robin" Oxley, Viscount Huntingdon...Robin of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon, aka the outlaw Robin Hood
The Lady Marion Nighten...Lady Marian of Knighton
Lieutenant, Herr Geis Gisbonnhoffer...Sir Guy of Gisborne
Alderney Island Kommandant Vaiser...Vaisey, Sheriff of Nottingham
Sir Edward Nighten, former Parliamentarian...Sir Edward of Knighton, former Sheriff of Nottingham
The rest of the "Saintly Six" -
Mitch Bonchurch (born Mitch Miller), Navigation Officer...Much
William "Wills" Reddy, Communications Officer...Will Scarlet
Allen Dale, Reconnaissance and Acquisitions, alias Dale Allen, the Kommandant's driver...Allan-A-Dale
Richard Royston, Explosives...Royston "Roy" White
Iain "John" Johnson, Medic...Little John Little
Flight Commander Thomas Carter, aka Alexsei "Aliosha" Igorovich, Prince Komonoff...Carter, a knight Templar serving in the King's private guard from S2 "Get Carter!" and S2 "We Are Robin Hood". (His dead brother's name was Thomas).
Underlieutenant Diefortner...De Fourtnoy of S1 "Who Shot the Sheriff?" who briefly served as the Sheriff's Master-At-Arms
Gypsy Boy Djak...D'Jaq/Saffiya, Saracen slave/captive who joined Robin Hood's gang in S1 "Turk Flu"
Anya Grigorovna...Annie, kitchen wench and (heaven help her) mother of Gisborne's son, Seth, of S1 "Parent Hood"
Dick Giddons...Benedict Giddons, the Locksley flour thief who broke under torture and named Will and Luke Scarlet as his co-conspirators in S1 "Will You Tolerate This?"
Stephen "Blind" La Salle...Stephen, the widowed blind architect and (seemingly hermit) teacher of S2 "Booby and the Beast". Meant to stand as a re-rendering of both that BBC series character and the Hood myth's Friar Tuck (not the series' Tuck).
Eva Heindl...Eve of Bonchurch, of S1 "A Thing or Two About Loyalty"
Tom Thatcher...Tom-A-Dale, on-the-make brother of Allan-A-Dale, hanged erroneously for Robin Hood's man in S1 "Brothers in Arms". He claimed to be a roof thatcher.
(Current U.S. 5th Army Lieutenant Colonel) Fred Otto...the Booby; Count Friedrich Bertrand Otto von Wittelsbach, of the German duchy of Bavaria, of S2 "Booby and the Beast"
Lord Merton...Walter, Lord of Merton, noble conspirator and supporter of King Richard during Edward's plan to overthrow the Sheriff in S1 "A Clue: No". Prior to that, a regular attendee of the Council of Nobles
Clem Nighten...Sir Clem of Knighton, an OC, Marian's older brother, as invented for my S2 finale (and going forward) Band-aid brand fanfic, "Death Would Be Simpler to Deal With"
Jodderick, Bailiff of Guernsey...Joderic, bailiff of Nottingham in S1 "Who Shot the Sheriff?" [yes, Guernsey's highest civilian official even, to this day, wears the title, 'bailiff']
Roger Stoker, Intelligence officer previously assigned to the British 8th Army...Roger of Stoke, knight loyal to King Richard, sent with an important letter by Robin, doomed at the word of Allan-A-Dale in S2 "The Angel of Death"
OberAdmiral Jan Prinzer, highest ranking officer of the German Occupation force trying to overthrow King George's (Britain & the Crown's) control of the Channel Islands...Prince John, high-ranking member of the monarchy trying to overthrow King Richard's control of England, throughout the series
Mr. Thornton...Thornton of Locksley, faithful servant and (presumed) life-long friend of Robin Hood first introduced in S1 "Will You Tolerate This?"
Matthew, attache to the Bailiff...Matthew of Nettlestone, casualty of S1's "Who Shot the Sheriff?"
Mrs. Abby Rufford...Abbess of Rufford, fake member of the clergy working to thwart the Sheriff and rob Nottingham (and England) of its taxes in S1 "The Tax Man Cometh".
Laurence McLellan...Laurence McLellan, one-legged, doomed courier of a letter from the King, and the Sultan's best pigeon, Lardner, in S2 "Lardner's Ring". A man trying to deliver his message to the right house, but intercepted by the wrong person being at home there. It is over his dead body Robin so memorably proposes.
Louise La Salle...Alice Little, first seen in S1 "Sheriff Got Your Tongue?", who loves fish and takes in sewing, and has a son who does not know his father, about whom his father does not know.
Joss Tyr/Operation Todt Officer Count Werner von Himmel...The Fool of S2 "Lardner's Ring", fond of soothsaying and (at least when it is in his best interest) outlaws.
Elerinne Vaiser...Eleri, of the necklace, who wishes to be married, and asks 'Lord' Gisborne first, before coming to her senses and having Robin perform the ceremony in S1 "Brothers In Arms".
Specialist Joseph...Joseph of S2 "The Angel of Death", with a knack for hurting people (and a desire to eliminate 'undesirables' from the world, starting with Nottingham).
ReichKaptain Lamburg...Lambert, of the black powder ledger, a man who discovers too late where his loyalties lie (and where his supposed friend's, Gisborne's, lie as well) in S1 "A Thing or Two About Loyalty".
Hilda Heindl...Matilda the midwife of S2 "Ducking and Diving"
Daniel Heindl...Daniel, hostage outlaw wannabe in the Sheriff's black diamond exchange of S2 "Child Hood".
Ginny Glasson...Lady Glasson, to whose relative safety Annie and Seth were sent at the end of S1 "Parent Hood".
Naval Commander Ron Legg...LeGrande [invert the name, 'Legg, Ron'] knight loyal to King Richard, dying in His service, a member of the King's Private Guard, who knows Robin and Much in S2 "Treasure of the Nation".
Mark Legg...Mark, blonde outlaw wannabe of S2 "Child Hood".
Lucky George...Lucky George, buyer of your peasant valuables and treasures so you can pay your taxes in S1 "Brothers In Arms".
Oberseer Jarl Derheim...The Earl of Durham, unseen buyer of brides from the Church in S1 "Brothers In Arms".
Constable Dunne of Guernsey...Treeton miner Dunne, Rowan's father in S1 "Turk Flu" who pays for his inciting the miners to strike with his life.
Our Locations
The Channel Island of Guernsey, and in particular the Barnsdale estate...Knighton, Village and Hall (named so after Barnsdale Forest)
The Channel Island of Sark...Sherwood Forest
The Channel Island of Alderney...Nottingham
Kirk Leaves, the Earl of Huntingdon's English country home...Locksley Village & Manor (named so for the series' oft-acknowledged safety of Kirklees Abbey)
Treeton Camp, Channel Island of Alderney...Treeton Village and Mines, where D'Jaq was brought as slave labor in S1 "Turk Flu"
The Bertrand-Otto Stables and Farm of Nicholasville, Kentucky, USA, just outside of the acknowledged horse capital of the world, Lexington...the German Duchy of Bavaria (named so for the Booby, 'Count Friedrich Bertrand Otto...'), but also meant (along with America) to stand in for the Holy Land/the Crusades, as this is where Marion goes to find glory (on the American Equestrian Circuit) and to prove herself (as series Robin - and yes, even Robin here - went for a soldier/knight)
Farm of Blind La Salle, Channel Island of Sark...Outlaws' Camp
Ripley Convent School...Ripley Convent, home of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in S2 "Get Carter!", where Marian tries (with Allan's helpful attacking of its Mother Superior) to convince Guy she is staying in the wake of Edward's death.
Lincoln Greene, the Nighten family English country estate...Lincoln Green, in the legends, usually the specific color dye and weave of the concealing green cloth worn by Sherwood outlaws.
Grey Goose Gentlemen's Club of London, the Earl of Huntingdon's club...no, not THAT kind of club, named for the legend Robin Hood's usual 'grey goose shaft' - his arrows fletched with goose feathers.
The Tripp Club of London, Robin Oxley's club...for The Trip to Jerusalem Inn, referenced as merely 'the Trip' in all seasons of the series, an actual place in actual Nottingham, now called, 'Ye Olde' Trip to Jerusalem Inn. Named after its claim to being the last stop for Crusaders before leaving town for Richard's holy war. [Have you been there? Betcha Glorious Clio has...]
Other series place names have been substituted for inconsequential characters here and there, for example, the butlers Mr. Clun (Barnsdale), Ettlestone (Nighten Mayfair house) and Wadlowe (Kirk Leaves), Mrs. Trent of the NYC British Consulate (never seen, only referenced), Dr. Battley, the only physician on Sark (Battley Street in Nottingham being where the duplicitous Dr. Pitts is said by Thornton to now live in S1 "The Return of the King"), and Roger Stoker's mother-in-law Baroness Woodvale (a member of the Council of Nobles).
Other series words also appear in various forms...The Fool of S2 "Lardner's Ring" becomes 'Joss Tyr'/(Jester), Marion proves preternaturally adept with a horse (as does series Robin with the bow), 'Saracen's Beau'/A (re-curved) Saracen Bow. The horse's sire and dam are 'Swallow Den'/(Saladin) and 'Cordelia Anne'/(Coeur-de-Lion).
Therefore, as series Robin gets his 'bow' (the superior expression of his particular talent) from the Crusades, so does this Marion get her 'Beau' from the same two 'adversaries', if you will.
Here, Gisborne gives up his family, as he does his illegitimate son by Annie (S1 Parent Hood), Seth, in the series' Sherwood.
Any character not mentioned specifically here in the cast list is fully OC.
A word about Operation Pellinore...of course this was not a 'real' British Commando raid of the Islands (the others mentioned all did occur, and in fact, even more were planned - but abandoned, including a large one meant to wrest them out of German control entirely). Nineteen-forty-three was a busy year for British Commandos on the islands. Operation Huckabuck occurred February 27-28th of that year, with Hardtack 7 putting in at Sark's Pt. Terrible in December.
Pellinore is an Arthurian knight (his story varies slightly by which legend you might choose to privilege), but more importantly he is a king who has misplaced his kingdom; lost it and can no longer find his way back to it. As Robin has lost (through his faked death) his to-be-inherited earldom, and is stranded, unable to return to England (his kingdom) along with the rest of Unit 1192, and as King George and the British Empire have lost the Channel Islands (their kingdom) to the Germans.
[*This 'Pellinore' has no relation to Lord of the Rings' Battle of Pellenor Fields (as that novel had not yet been published at the time)].
*Please see the author's ending note on Story 1, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", regarding historical and geographical content, and use of any unintentional anachronisms in this fictional work.
Oh, and thank you. For reading to the end. ;)