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

months. Then I got a postcard from the Red Cross, saying Eli was well, but not where he was situated—we never knew what towns our children were in, though we prayed not in a big city. An even longer time passed before I could send him a card in return, but I was of two minds about that. I dreaded telling him that his mother and the baby had died. I hated to think of my boy reading those cold words on the back of a postcard. But I had to do it. And then a second time, after I got word about his father.
    Eli did not come back until the war was over—and they did send all the children home at once. That was a day! More wonderful even than when the British soldiers came to liberateGuernsey. Eli, he was the first boy down the gangway—he’d grown long legs in five years—and I don’t think I could have stopped hugging him, if Isola hadn’t pushed me a bit so she could hug him herself.
    I bless God that he was boarded with a farming family in Yorkshire. They were very good to him. Eli gave me a letter they had written to me—it was full of all the things I had missed. They told of his schooling, how he helped on the farm, how he tried to be steadfast when he got my postcards.
    He fishes with me and helps me tend my cow and garden, but carving wood is what he likes best—Dawsey and I are teaching him how to do it. He fashioned a fine snake from a bit of broken fence last week, though it’s my guess that the bit of broken fence was really a rafter from Dawsey’s barn. Dawsey just smiled when I asked him about it, but spare wood is hard to find on the island now, as we had to cut down most of the trees—banisters and furniture, too—for firewood when there was no more coal or paraffin left. Eli and I are planting trees on my land now, but it is going to take a long time for them to grow—and we do all miss the leaves and shade.
    I will tell you now about our roast pig. The Germans were fussy over farm animals. Pigs and cows were kept strict count of. Guernsey was to feed the German troops stationed here and in France. We ourselves could have what was left, if there was any.
    How the Germans did fuss about book-keeping. They kept track of every gallon we milked, weighed the cream, recorded every sack of flour. They left the chickens alone for a while. But when feed and scraps became so scarce they ordered us to kill off the older chickens, so the good layers could have enough feed to keep on laying eggs.
    We fishermen had to give them the largest share of our catch. They would meet our boats in the harbour to portion out their share. Early in the Occupation, a good many Islanders escaped to England in fishing boats—some drowned, but some made it. So the Germans made a new rule, any person who had a family member in England would not be allowed in a fishing boat—they were afraid we’d try to escape. Since Eli was somewhere in England, I had to lend out my boat. I went to work in one of Mr Privot’s greenhouses, and after a time, I got so I could tend the plants well. But goodness, how I did miss my boat and the sea.
    The Germans were especially fretful about meat because they didn’t want any to go to the Black Market instead of feeding their own soldiers. If your sow had a litter, the German Agricultural Officer would come to your farm, count the piglets, give you a birth certificate for each one, and mark his record book. If a pig died a natural death, you told the AO and out he’d come again, look at the dead body, and give you a death certificate.
    They would make surprise visits to your farm, and your number of living pigs had better tally with their number of living pigs. One pig less and you were fined, one time more and you could be arrested and sent to jail in St Peter Port. If too many pigs went missing, the Germans thought you were selling on the Black Market, and you were sent to a labour camp in Germany. With the Germans you never knew which