Against the Tide (51 page)

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 doubles 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 7
^th
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 13
^th
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 the 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.