Against the Tide

by John Hanley

  After helping the police with their enquiries, Boadicea was returned in pieces on the back of a trailer. Fred hoped the rude note he’d left in her frame had been found.

  The remainder of July and all of August have been miserable for me. I’ve taken part in competitions and won a few. Alan and I won the annual-life saving cup, which we privately rechristened the Kohler Trophy.

  We beat Guernsey at everything, as usual, but I found no joy in any of it – even the water polo match. The “donkey” marking me gave me more than enough reason to introduce him to my elbow but I resisted the urge and spent most of the game underwater, examining the harbour floor.

  I’ve no interest in food and, despite my mother’s best efforts, have lost weight. Miko and I travelled together on the St Julian to Southampton so that I could take part in the SCASA one hundred yard championships. These were due to be held at the outdoor pool at St Leonards-on-sea in Sussex. We didn’t get further than the customs shed as he was taken aside and refused entry to the UK.

  Fred would have been proud of my action to demonstrate my solidarity when I accused the immigration official of racism and told him to shove his bloody country up his arse. We were held overnight in the police station and escorted to the boat the following morning. Miko is still working at the hotel, patiently waiting for a permit to enter England.

  In the middle of August, Mr Grumbridge arrived, unexpectedly, at the house with my examination results. He spoke in private with my father. After he left, my father sat me down and asked me if I really wanted to study at university.

  I didn’t really want to do anything but, against all my expectations, he persuaded me to give it a try. His unspoken concern was that, with war looming, I might emulate his folly of twenty-five years before and join the army. For him, anything was preferable to that – even Shakespeare.

  Almost indifferently, I agreed and Grumpy made the arrangements, including a generous bursary. Next month I will follow my uncle and Ned Lawrence and begin as an undergraduate at Oxford, Hitler permitting.

  The summer is limping away now, the world has lost its colour and I’m sitting on a beach surrounded by the flotsam of my life, feeling far too sorry for myself.

  I spend much of my sleepless nights thinking about Caroline and then worrying about Rachel. They have somehow transferred their insecurities to me and I feel rejected by both. In three weeks, I’ll be nineteen years old but feel more ancient than these rocks.

  I haven’t seen either of them since that miserable evening in the town hall. Caroline returned to Switzerland with her mother the following day. Her father is probably still keeping Christine busy.

  Rather naively, Saul had hoped his father wouldn’t hear about our role in the affair. However, on his return from South Africa, he was interviewed about his son’s behaviour at the Palace Hotel, in particular his rant about diamonds.

  Following a robust exchange of views, it was decided that Saul should start work immediately in London, where he could focus his skills on the legitimate diamond trade. He and his father took Jacob’s Star to a mooring on the Thames. Before they left, Saul had told me that rumours were circulating in the diamond community that a large quantity of industrials had disappeared from the Congo, along with a Belgian merchant called Sleeman.

  Since he left, I’ve had several cards from him. I’ve only received one from Rachel but nothing from Caroline.

  I’ve just been to see Mr and Mrs Vibert. I felt I should after Rachel’s postcard. It had been as terse as a telegram. “I’m okay. Will write. Take care. Love Rachel.”

  It had been posted in St Lo the day after war was declared, five weeks after she had left for France to find her real parents. Mrs Vibert was surprised to see me but didn’t invite me in. Her husband wasn’t home.

  I’ve come here for a swim instead. I’ll try again later. I don’t know why but I feel I must.

  I look at the pool again. It is deserted now, closed up for the winter, perhaps forever. Brewster has resigned and rejoined the navy and will probably be commanding a desk somewhere in Portsmouth.

  Nelson and several of the other lads have joined up and are scattered over England. Alan wants to join the army but he is too young. He’ll have to wait a while before he can fire a rifle in anger again.

  I feel as though someone has stolen my future and I don’t know where to begin to look. I’m now a stranger in my own land. I look towards the Dicq Rock where Victor Hugo spent months of his life staring towards France, waiting for his own exile to end.

  The tide is well over the pool. There is only a gentle swell. The air is cool but the water is at its warmest. I reach into my canvas bag and extract my costume and towel. I change slowly, feeling my skin pimple over in the evening air. I pick my way over the pebbles and shuffle down the beach.

  This will be my last swim. The waves are muddy and seaweed swirls around me as I wade in until I reach my waist.

  I look to my left – the pink granite of the Dicq Rock glows in the setting sun. I hold my breath and plunge in, let the water envelope me in its cool caress. I feel refreshed, cleansed.

  I kick my feet, my body rises and I’m striking out for the Dicq. There’s sufficient movement in the water to force my shoulders to roll. I can feel the whole weight of the Atlantic through those waves. I rise and fall with the motion until I can stretch and touch the warm granite. I tread water and think of Rachel.

  A seagull looks despairingly at me then dives for a fish. I turn and look towards the pool, the Blue Terrace. I can hear the band, see the swirling dancers, but all is in shadow now. I push off from the rock and pull steadily towards the empty terraces. A mere 250 yards.

  I increase my pace until I am rushing towards Caroline. My hand touches the concrete wall and I push back, floating while I recover my breath and my energy. The wall is cool, cold even. The warmth of the day long since gone – like Caroline.

  I turn back. The bottom half of the Dicq Rock is in shadow but Rachel’s face and hair are burnished by the dying sun. I push off the wall and pull towards the Rock, towards Rachel.

  Am I doomed to swim forever between these two?

  Halfway across I stop, tread water and look towards the beach. A small wave slops over my head and I swallow a mouthful of salt water. It’s enough. “Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.”

  Grumpy’s right. This is not the time for serious relationships.

  I look left, back towards Caroline once more, and nod goodbye. I do the same to Rachel then turn, with the tide, and sprint for the beach.

  Author’s note

  Did that really happen?

  Many readers have asked me, either in person or via email, about the truth behind some of the events in the story. I’ve also been approached by a few who were there at the time. Fortunately, their recollection of major events matches my account!

  However, this is a work of fiction grounded in historical fact so a short explanation of my approach to writing is appropriate.

  My first task was to immerse myself in the period details and I spent considerable time perusing contemporary newspapers and accounts of life in Jersey during the summer of 1939 so that I could tell the story from the perspective of Jack Renouf. Though he is twenty six years older than me, I did share many of his experiences while growing up on the island. All the details about the swimming club and its pool at Havre-des-Pas are accurate. Pool life had changed little in the years between 1939 and 1960 when I swam in the same lanes and water polo pitch. Many of Jack’s contemporaries were still there but managing and training rather than competing. Of course the 1939 group are entirely fictional.

  My own need as a writer is to feel secure in the landscape I am creating. To achieve this I had to know the following on a daily or sometimes hourly basis:

  • The weather – especially rainfall, mist and winds as these have a major effect on bike riding and boating.

  • Times and heights of tides and sea temperature — essential on an island which double
s in size at low tide and has a profound effect on events at the tidal swimming pool.

  • Times of sunrise and sunset — particularly important for the closing chapters where visibility is a key factor.

  • Local events such as cinema programmes, theatrical and musical events and dances — island life can revolve around these.

  • Transport — especially shipping and aircraft arrivals and departures, bus timetables and routes and road closures.

  Prices of commodities especially those effecting farming at the time. The Jersey Archive contains all correspondence for the Jersey Swimming Club from its inception in 1865. The daily records for the swimming pool at Havre-des-Pas which include number of tickets, ice-creams and soft drinks sold as well as reports on swimming, diving and water polo events are also available there. Along with micro-fiche copies of both the Morning News and the Jersey Evening Post, which are stored in the Jersey Public Library, I was able to build up a pretty comprehensive picture for each of the days covered in Against The Tide. For example, this gave me the confidence to be able to trace Jack’s journey from home to school, to the swimming club and back taking into account any diversions posted if a road was closed! However, this is an action adventure so very little of this is underpinning detail is revealed in the text.

  All public buildings are described as they would have appeared in 1939 and most are still standing though the swimming pool at Havre-des-Pas was abandoned for several years and only recently refurbished.

  The exception is the Palace Hotel which did exist as described and provided the only fresh water swimming pool in the island. It was relatively close to Jack’s school, Victoria College, and students were allowed to use its facilities for swimming and life-saving lessons. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by a series of explosions and subsequent fire on 7th March 1945. The circumstances are still shrouded by a degree of mystery but it was in use as a base by the German occupying forces at the time. In a later novel in the series, Jack will be able to provide his own account of this episode!

  HMS Jersey did visit the island on the dates mentioned and her crew took part in a range of activities during their stay. Though the swimming and water polo match is fictional, such an event would not have been unusual as the club entertained visiting teams, including the Royal Navy, nearly every weekend during the summer months.

  Though the diamond caper is fictional it is based in reality as the Germans were desperate for industrial diamonds and would pay the outrageous prices quoted to acquire them. These were indeed smuggled from the Belgian Congo though not through the route used in the story. The Diamond Trading Company was registered in a lawyer’s office in Jersey which, even then, had a reputation for secretive financial transactions.

  T.E.Lawrence did spend some time in Jersey as a child staying in Bramerton House not far from the swimming club. His chance encounter with ‘Uncle’ Fred is fictional but is based on my own experience of nearly drowning in similar circumstances not very far away. Fred’s later involvement with him is also fictional though the account of the accident which caused Lawrence’s death is accurate and the driver of the “black” car was never found despite a nationwide search. The attempt by Henry Williamson to set up a meeting between Lawrence and Hitler was also real. On 13th May 1935, minutes before the accident, Lawrence had ridden to the Post Office in Bovington to send Williamson a telegram inviting him to lunch the following day to discuss his plans.

  Uncle Fred’s bike, Boadicea, (originally T.E.Lawrence’s George VII; reg GW 2275), was a Brough Superior SS100, the purchase of which was partly funded by George Bernard Shaw, and suffered only minor damage during the accident. It was claimed by Lawrence’s brother and is currently on display in the Imperial War Museum in London.

  The political landscape of the 1930s is well known but the extent of sympathy for fascism across Europe as a counter to the perceived threat of socialism is only now being more fully explored. There is little doubt that those who comprised the ‘establishment’ were more worried about the upheaval caused by communism and seduced by the apparent order promised by the firm leadership of Hitler and Mussolini. Anti-establishment figures like ‘Uncle’ Fred were treated with great suspicion and records have revealed that, even in a backwater like Jersey, such people had their mail steamed open and telephones tapped by the authorities.

  In recreating this social, sporting and political milieu, I sometimes found it difficult to control Jack and his close friends who often surprised me with their actions. That may sound rather odd but setting ‘real’ characters loose, as I discovered during nearly forty years of teaching drama, can produce some surprising results.

  If you enjoyed Against The Tide, then please read the sequel, The Last Boat, which continues the story when Jack has to face even greater challenges. It’s set in June 1940 and he’s nearly a year older but not much wiser, still befuddled by Rachel and Caroline and thrown in to a deep end which is far more dangerous than the diving pit at Havre-des-Pas.

  More information on that and background details for both books can be found on my website www.johnfhanley.co.uk

  The Sequel to Against the Tide

  The Last Boat

  John Hanley

  June 17th 1940

  The Last Boat begins with a close-up account of the greatest maritime disaster in British history which Churchill had suppressed for 100 years. The files are still sealed and the truth will not be revealed until the year 2040. This is not an investigation into this tragic event but the beginning of a journey for a group of young people who have gone to help but find themselves trapped and fleeing the Nazi blitzkrieg as it rampages through France. At the same time that the Luftwaffe is strafing the survivors of their bombing another shipment, so important that it could have changed the outcome of the war, is trying to escape from France.

  The tragedy was the sinking of HMT Lancastria on 17th June 1940.

  The shipment was world’s entire supply of D2O or ‘ heavy water’ without which research into splitting the atom would have been impossible.

  Prising apart the floorboards of history, The Last Boat links these two events as Jack Renouf and his friends try to escape the Germans and help this cargo to safety. But safety is an illusion and the story culminates in the bombing of Jersey eleven days later and leaves Jack in desperate need of another Last Boat to escape.

  The narrative voice is Jack Renouf’s, whom readers might have met in Against The Tide. He is a year older but only a little wiser. Through the immediacy of his first person perspective you are compelled to witness events which cannot leave you unmoved. ‘ Muscular authenticity’ was the verdict of one reviewer while others have described Jack’s account as ‘intense, exciting, absorbing and frightening’

  Pre-publication review extracts.

  ‘This is a gripping example of historical fiction which taught me a great deal. The loss of life in this tragedy was on a scale that is really hard to come to terms with.’

  ‘I enjoyed this very much. All the little details sprinkled throughout the story showed that you knew your stuff. The other thing that really impressed me was the way you seem to have captured the feel of the time….very impressive. I see a ‘Master and Commander’ type of series emerging.’

  ‘This is intense, exciting, and frightening, the action scenes well depicted. The momentum and style held me into the story. You’ve managed a panoramic scene while furthering the character plot. I was absorbed.’

  ‘The action scene is excellent and superbly juxtaposed with the men lying around as their clothes dry. The horrors of war and black humour superbly combined. Good sense of camaraderie mingled with personal conflicts, amidst an even greater conflict.’

  ‘The pace is good, the variety of incidents all illustrate excellently the odd ways that people behave when under pressure and faced with the unknown - when their pretences are stripped away - is excellent. The writing is fluent, engaging and convincing.’

  ‘This piece is very powerful. You catch t
he sense of disaster, the danger, the horror of the sinking of the Lancastria, the fear that the smaller boat won’t be able to get away. The technical material is convincing and the detailed descriptions of how the spreading oil and debris and fumes are endangering your characters are very well done.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Jersey in 1946, John Hanley trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before teaching in London, Jersey and Cornwall. After a master's degree at Bath University, he returned to Jersey as deputy head of his old school. His first novel, Against The Tide, was published in 2012 and he now lives with his wife and family in Cornwall.

  In a BBC radio interview he explained why he wrote Against The Tide and The Last Boat.

  'I grew up in Jersey surrounded by the artefacts of the German Occupation. My mother lived through it and every adult I knew had a story to tell. Through extreme good fortune my mother avoided the fate of several islanders when the Germans bombed and strafed the harbour on Friday 28th June 1940.

  During the summer evenings she always walked with her mother and a married couple from across the road to the harbour after their tea. That evening she had a stomach ache and only the married couple went. The husband was killed and, as the four of them usually kept together, it is more than possible that my mother and grandmother might not have survived.

  Because of this I’ve always had a strong affinity with that period and an urge to relive it through the eyes of a young man who would have been my mother’s age at the time. I wanted to experience what it must have been like to cope with all that was thrown at the hapless islanders after the British government abandoned them to the less than tender mercies of the Germans.

  I’d already written The Last Boat before Against The Tide was published and have planned a series which follows the main characters through the war years. Following the success of the first novel, it’s now time to launch the second and throw myself into 1941 for the third which I have provisionally entitled Room 39 '