The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer Page A

were few eligible men left in Guernsey and certainly no one exciting. Many of us were tired, scruffy, worried, ragged, shoeless and dirty—we were defeated and looked it. We didn’t have the energy, time or money for fun. Guernsey men had no glamour—and the German soldiers did. They were, according to a friend of mine, tall, blond, handsome and tanned—like gods. They gave lavish parties, were jolly and zestful company, had cars and money and could dance all night long.
    But some of the girls who went out with soldiers gave the cigarettes to their fathers and the bread to their families. They would come home from parties with rolls, pâté, fruit, meat pies and jellies stuffed into their bags, and their families would have a full meal the next day. I don’t think some Islanders ever credited the boredom of those years. Boredom is a powerful reason to befriend the enemy, and the prospect of fun is a powerful draw—especially when you are young. There were many people who would have no dealings withthe Germans—if you said so much as good morning you were abetting the enemy, according to their way of thinking. But circumstances were such that I could not abide by that with Captain Christian Hellman, a doctor in the Occupation forces and my good friend.
    In late 1941 there wasn’t any salt on the Island, and none was coming to us from France. Root vegetables and soups are listless without salt, so the Germans got the idea of using seawater to supply it. They carried it up from the bay and poured it into a big tanker set in the middle of St Peter Port. Everyone was to walk to town, fill up their buckets, and carry them home again. Then we were to boil the water away and use the sludge in the bottom of the pan as salt. That plan failed—there wasn’t enough wood to waste building up a fire hot enough to boil the pot of water dry. So we decided to cook all our vegetables in the seawater itself.
    That worked well enough for flavour, but there were many older people who couldn’t manage the walk into town or haul heavy buckets home. No one had much strength left for such chores. I have a slight limp from a badly set leg, and though it kept me from army service, it has never been bad enough to bother me. I was very hale, and so I began to deliver water to some cottages. I exchanged a spare spade and some twine for Madame LePell’s old pram, and Mr Soames gave me two small oak wine casks, each with a spigot. I sawed off the barrel tops to make moveable lids and fitted them into my pram—so now I had transport. Several of the beaches weren’t mined, and it was easy to climb down the rocks, fill a cask with seawater, and carry it back up.
    The November wind is bleak, and one day my hands were numb after I climbed up from the bay with the first barrel of water. I was standing by my pram, trying to limber up myfingers, when Christian drove by. He stopped his car, backed up and asked if I wanted any help. I said no, but he got out of his car anyway and helped me lift the barrel into my pram. Then, without a word, he went down the cliff with me, to help with the second barrel.
    I hadn’t noticed that he had a stiff shoulder and arm, but between those, my limp, and the loose scree, we slipped coming back up and fell against the hillside, losing our grip on the barrel. It tumbled down, splintered against the rocks and soaked us. God knows why it struck us both as funny, but it did. We sagged against the cliffside, unable to stop laughing. That was when Elia’s essays slipped out of my pocket, and Christian picked the book up, sopping wet. ‘Ah, Charles Lamb,’ he said, and handed it to me. ‘He was not a man to mind a little damp.’ My surprise must have shown, because he added, ‘I read him often at home. I envy you your portable library.’
    We climbed back up to his car. He wanted to know if I could find another barrel. I said I could and explained my