Dancing With the Enemy

€1,99

The breathing had been going on for some time but Rex hadn’t noticed. Suddenly it got to him and his head snapped round, two yellow eyes glared in the light of the torch. The Alsatian stood watching him, looking huge in the moonlight that came shining through the skylight above. The dog was puzzled, not sure what to do. This human was dressed in black, like most of its masters, and was casually helping itself to the tins. The Alsatian put its head on one side trying to make up its mind whether to growl or whether to wag its tail.

Rex knew exactly what to do, he must walk confidently up to the dog and pat it on its head. But Rex had always been wary of dogs. He exploded back off up the aisle like a sprinter leaving his blocks and of course the dog went after him, moving twice as fast. The dog nearly had him but Rex hurled himself around the end of the aisle and the dogs paws skittered on the wooden flooring, then it regained its balance and was right after him again. Rex made a despairing leap for the wall bars and the dog made a despairing leap for Rex. Both just made it. The dog’s terrible jaws closed on Rex’s trailing forearm like a vice. He gasped and wrapped his other arm and both legs around the bars to stop himself being pulled off again.

‘Aaah!!!’ Rex tried to scream quietly. The dog was nearly off the floor, its whole weight on Rex who clung on even more desperately, if the dog got him onto the floor he was finished. The only thing going for him was that the dog couldn’t bark, its mouth was too full of Rex.

‘Aaah!’ Rex groaned again. The dog’s teeth were going right through his battle-dress top and into his arm. The dog couldn’t do much either so it contented itself with clenching its jaws every few seconds, drawing gasps of pain from Rex each time it did so: ‘Ah! Ah! Ah! Aaah!’

Then Sue was there, hanging on the wall bars right beside him. Rex couldn’t speak, he could hardly see her through a mask of pain. He was totally fixated on hanging on to the bars. Sue tried kicking at the dog but all it did was growl at her. She gave up, wondering what to do. Then she shivered, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Sue took a deep breath and dropped to the floor right behind the dog and that did it! The dog whirled at her, but Sue had just enough time and she scrambled frantically up the bars, snatching her legs out of the reach of the horrible teeth, just in time.

‘Rex … Rex! Climb!’ she hissed, dangling a foot just out of the dog’s reach to keep it there. And somehow through the pain Rex heard and started to inch upwards. Now the dog started to bark, low baying howls, but so loud in that silent gym. The noise spurred Rex on and up and then at last Sue was helping him ease out of the skylight onto the roof.

‘Quiet!’ she rapped. ‘Keep still. The guard’s come to see what’s wrong with the damn dog.’ Rex bit his lip. Sue hung her head back through the skylight. Below the guard was grumbling at the dog. He hadn’t put the lights on, at first Sue was surprised but then she realised it was because he was afraid of the RAF. The guard was having a good look round by torchlight, but torchlight was quite good enough to show up the blood Rex had left on the wall bars. Sue waited, hardly breathing.

The guard stamped around then at last he said something savage to the dog and Sue heard the door bang behind him.

‘Okay Rex, he’s gone,’ she said, gently helping him to sit upright. ‘Is it just your arm?’

‘Just,’ groaned Rex. Very carefully he was easing his sleeve upwards, gasping as it pulled away from the wound. Blood was everywhere, the dog’s teeth had made a real mess of him.

‘Hm, there’s no spurting,’ said Sue. ‘It missed your artery … you’re lucky.’

‘Yeah, I feel lucky,’ he groaned. ‘Now tell this lucky chap how he’s supposed to climb down a blasted rope.’

 

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Description

I came across a true story about the Channel Islands during World War Two and couldn’t get it out of my mind. Dancing in the Dark is the result of that obsession when the only opposition to the occupation by the German Army came from the children!

 

This novel is set in Jersey, during World War Two, when The Channel Islands were occupied by Germany. It is very much based on fact: all the buildings, streets, munitions and army terms are accurate, and all the incidents that take place in the novel are taken from incidents that actually happened during the war. After the first year of occupation the only resistance to the Germans came from the children of the island, indeed at one time the schools had to close because virtually all the teenagers were locked up in the local prison…this is the basis for the story.

There are four main characters in the story, Rex, Sue, David and Marianne. The first three are old friends, David and Sue are twins and Rex is their leader and Sue has a crush on Rex. Sue is very outspoken while David is a quiet follower of the others. Rex is the driving force, he leads the children of Jersey and is very brave, enjoying dangerous confrontations with the Germans. Marianne is the good girl of the school and very much a loner, she always obeys the teachers and the Germans and Rex finds himself having to act as her protector from the other children when they begin to view her as a traitor.

One night Rex finds out that Marianne is hiding a family of Jews in the hills and brings in the other two to help her. To their astonishment, the girl who spends her nights working in her father’s hotel: Dancing With The Enemy, is her own one-woman resistance group, receiving orders from Britain. Sue is wildly jealous of Marianne’s growing relationship with Rex but is forced to subdue it when they join forces. Rex’s group, who, up till then, had merely crept around painting Victory Vs everywhere, now find themselves involved in a much more dangerous business: smuggling fugitives, disarming mines and spying.

The novel is full of action and emotion, but the story is about the realities of war: the sacrifices that have to be made. But it is not a sad book, it is full of the humour that dangerous situations bring and the accelerated relationships that take place in time of war.

 

 

 

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