Page 72 of Tides of Resistance
The gun nuzzled in her coat, shielding her flesh from the hard metal, and the soldier pushed her to open the next door, forcing her to stumble into her own drawing room. This was her favourite family room, and to see it stripped of all character and converted into a Nazi den filled her with a deep despair.
There was her window seat overlooking the bay, where she spent so many happy hours reading and whiling away the time when she was an innocent young woman before the war. In those days, she had not imagined she would ever kill a man, and her biggest concerns were when the tide would be in so she could swim, or when she might cycle into St. Helier and visit her father at his office in town. The yearning for those golden years ripped through her like the edge of a sword piercing her tender heart.
The soldier didn’t attempt more than a few words of English, and instead ordered her to raise her hands. ‘Hände hoch!’Hisrifle was now pointed directly at her chest. He was a young man, and she sensed he was as nervous as her, and she wondered if he’d ever arrested a woman alone like this before.
Even as her heart banged furiously and her rib cage hurt, she looked him directly in the eye without flinching. The bastards wouldn’t break her. She could survive almost anything, but he mustn’t find the mini camera, or the carefully curated intelligence would be lost even if, by some miracle, she made it out alive.
The camera was concealed in the lining of her coat, in the hidden compartment sewn into the fabric so it was camouflaged by the pocket and almost impossible to detect.
He indicated for her to empty her pockets, and Lizzie fished out the contents whilst he stood at a distance, still pointing the rifle and gripping it with both hands. His determination to defend himself against a woman would be laughable in normal circumstances. As it was, she had the skills to slit his throat with her knife or crush it with her bare hands, so it was a wiser move on his part than he probably knew.
Before leaving France, she had removed all French pocket litter and replaced it with an embroidered purse of Jersey coins Aunt Giselle had given to her. Besides that, all she had in her outer pockets were a few hair clips.
Just as she was figuring out how to extract her knife without him noticing, he signalled for her to remove her coat. ‘Slow!’ he snarled.
The knife was now out of reach, in the lining of her precious coat. If he searched the coat himself, he might find it, but perhaps he was too inexperienced. Then he ordered her to take off her shoes, and she stood on the old burgundy carpet, her bare feet facing his in their dusty German boots. Her stockings had not survived the journey, and her grandmother had none to give her when she changed clothes.
Another soldier entered and asked who she was, jerking his head in her direction. After a quick fire exchange, Lizzie heard her captor tell the new arrival to check her clothes. The soldier strode across the room in his grey-green uniform, his rifle slung across his shoulder, and began examining her coat. He patted it down and then shook it, but nothing revealed itself. Lizzie watched, holding her breath, her whole body aflame with defiance. For a second, she thought she had got away with it, but then the soldier’s fingers poked roughly at one of the coat sleeves.
The sound of ripping material confirmed her fear, and her small knife fell onto the burgundy carpet and settled at the soldier’s feet.
‘Was ist das?’He stooped to retrieve the knife and turned to the other soldier. ‘We have an enemy in our midst!’
Their expressions were triumphant, and Lizzie realised she was a big prize for two young soldiers who spent their days patrolling the grounds of an empty house. There was likely not much to report in the usual order of events. They spoke rapidly, and Lizzie caught smatterings of the conversation before the new arrival darted out of the room clutching her knife in his hand.
‘Sit,’ ordered her captor, pointing his gun first at the chair and then back at her chest.
Lizzie sank onto one of her own wooden chairs, consumed by relief that they hadn’t found her camera. The coat now lay discarded over the back of another chair, and the body search was over.
The soldier’s eyes gleamed, and she saw he was now more excited than scared. Their discovery of her knife seemed to have confirmed she was a spy or at least a worthy catch and not just some curious island girl wandering about in a military area. She guessed the other soldier had rushed to report the securitybreach to their chain of command, and as her eyes roved the room, she braced herself for the interrogation that would surely come. To preserve her composure, her mind automatically shut down further thoughts about what might follow if she didn’t escape before the commanding officer, or even the Gestapo, arrived.
Lizzie waited, running through potential ways she could catch the soldier off guard and overpower him. She couldn’t escape the island if she missed her pickup at 9 a.m., so she would have to go into hiding even if she made it out of the house. It seemed improbable she could pull it off after they discovered the downed soldier. Her spirits sank further as she desperately tried to come up with a way to break free, but the possibilities weren’t workable.
The other soldier returned and tied her wrists behind the chair with thin rope and bound another rope around her waist, so she was stuck. Her original captor finally lowered his rifle, stretched his arms and moved towards the big window and lit a cigarette, looking out over the bay.
Watching him smoke in her special place, as if he owned the house, infuriated her. And now she was bound too tight to break free. It would take hours to untie the rope, even if she were left alone, which was doubtful.
The other soldier picked up the telephone on her mother’s antique desk in the corner. Lizzie battled with the tears that threatened to fill her eyes as images of her mother writing her correspondence whirled through her mind. Whatever they did to her physically, she suspected it couldn’t be worse than the mental torture she was experiencing as a prisoner of the Nazis in her own home.
Lizzie listened as the soldier identified himself and reported the situation. ‘We have a suspected spy with a knife in our custody at Seagrove.’
The soldier added she had no identity papers and asked what they should do.
Lizzie was grateful she had practiced her German with Jack and could decipher a lot more than in the early days.
The call ended.
‘Well?’ the smoker in the window asked, offering the other a cigarette.
‘The Major is at sea on an inspection. They are contacting him now and expect him to arrive shortly to handle her interrogation.’
Lizzie’s captor kept guard, and as the minutes crawled by, she wondered who was coming to interrogate her. Terrible stories about Gestapo torture methods filled her thoughts. The rope cut into the tender flesh of her wrists, her hands trembled, and she couldn’t stop herself imagining the worst.
The soldier paced about, making her even more nervous until after what seemed like an age, there were voices and loud footsteps outside the door. She braced herself as the sounds grew nearer and took solace in knowing that if she had no other choice, she could take her cyanide tabletbefore they executed her.
Then the door flew open, and Lizzie’s heart somersaulted in her chest as the much-heralded Major marched into the room. He stopped in the doorway as though he had witnessed an apparition.
‘You!’ was all he said, the blood draining from his face.
