In the shadow of the rock let me rest,
In the shadow of the rock let me rest;
When I feel the tempest's shock thrill my breast,
In the shadow of the rock let me rest.
In the shadow of the rock let me rest;
When I feel the tempest's shock thrill my breast,
In the shadow of the rock let me rest.
A short story, set in Jersey, loosely based on the hymn of lament, "In the Shadow of the Rock", and taking the view of a German soldier just after Liberation day. After the Liberation of Jersey on 9 May 1945, several hundred German troops remained temporarily to clear mines, barbed wire, and unexploded ordnance. This matches Ernst’s situation perfectly. The work was slow, dangerous, and exhausting; many soldiers were injured or killed during clearance operations.
In the Shadow of the Rock
The wind came off St Ouen’s Bay like a sigh from the sea, carrying salt and the faint scent of kelp. Ernst Müller trudged along the dunes, his boots heavy with sand, his uniform faded to the colour of dust. The war was over, though the word “peace” still felt foreign on his tongue. He had not fired a shot in months, yet the echo of gunfire lived inside him, a rhythm he could not silence. And each day, barbed wire and mines left after the Occupation were to be cleared, a dangerous task for him and his fellow compatriots, day by day, slow and wearisome.
He was a soldier of the defeated army, left behind when the surrender came. The end of war spoke of home. But home, for Ernst, was a ruin. Berlin had burned. His wife’s last letter spoke of nights spent in cellars, of bread made from potato peelings, of the children coughing in the smoke. He had read it until the paper tore.
Now he wandered Jersey’s western coast, a stranger among the granite and gorse. Hunger gnawed at him, but worse was the weariness, the kind that seeped into the bones. He had once been a teacher, gentle with chalk and words. War had made him something else, something he never wished to be.
At the edge of the bay stood a rocky outcrop at L’Etacq. There was one great rock, glistening from the tide. He remembered an English hymn he once heard in the little chapel of Bethesda, “In the shadow of the Rock let me rest.” The words came back like a prayer, and he sank down beside it, the stone cool beneath his hand. The sky was bruised with cloud, and the sea murmured its endless lament.
He closed his eyes. The storm within him, the guilt, the loss, the faces of the slave workers, those ragged men he could not save, all pressed against his chest. The Frenchman executed at St Ouen's Manor. Yet here, sheltered by the island’s quiet, he felt calmer. The wind softened. The gulls wheeled above, crying not in anger but in life. He thought of his family, of rebuilding, of teaching again, if such things were still possible.
A farmer passed along the path, an old man with a cart of seaweed. He paused, studying Ernst’s uniform, then nodded without fear or reproach. “You’ll find water at the cottage,” he said simply, and moved on. The kindness struck deeper than any wound. Ernst rose, following the cart’s slow trail inland, toward the promise of shade and rest.
By evening, he sat beneath the rocks on the coast, a cup of water in his hands. The sun broke through the clouds, gilding the granite in gold. He watched it sink behind cliffs, and for the first time in years, he did not flinch at the sound of the wind.
He whispered the hymn again, not as a soldier, but as a man seeking peace: “In the shadow of the Rock let me rest.”
In the Shadow of the Rock
The wind came off St Ouen’s Bay like a sigh from the sea, carrying salt and the faint scent of kelp. Ernst Müller trudged along the dunes, his boots heavy with sand, his uniform faded to the colour of dust. The war was over, though the word “peace” still felt foreign on his tongue. He had not fired a shot in months, yet the echo of gunfire lived inside him, a rhythm he could not silence. And each day, barbed wire and mines left after the Occupation were to be cleared, a dangerous task for him and his fellow compatriots, day by day, slow and wearisome.
He was a soldier of the defeated army, left behind when the surrender came. The end of war spoke of home. But home, for Ernst, was a ruin. Berlin had burned. His wife’s last letter spoke of nights spent in cellars, of bread made from potato peelings, of the children coughing in the smoke. He had read it until the paper tore.
Now he wandered Jersey’s western coast, a stranger among the granite and gorse. Hunger gnawed at him, but worse was the weariness, the kind that seeped into the bones. He had once been a teacher, gentle with chalk and words. War had made him something else, something he never wished to be.
At the edge of the bay stood a rocky outcrop at L’Etacq. There was one great rock, glistening from the tide. He remembered an English hymn he once heard in the little chapel of Bethesda, “In the shadow of the Rock let me rest.” The words came back like a prayer, and he sank down beside it, the stone cool beneath his hand. The sky was bruised with cloud, and the sea murmured its endless lament.
He closed his eyes. The storm within him, the guilt, the loss, the faces of the slave workers, those ragged men he could not save, all pressed against his chest. The Frenchman executed at St Ouen's Manor. Yet here, sheltered by the island’s quiet, he felt calmer. The wind softened. The gulls wheeled above, crying not in anger but in life. He thought of his family, of rebuilding, of teaching again, if such things were still possible.
A farmer passed along the path, an old man with a cart of seaweed. He paused, studying Ernst’s uniform, then nodded without fear or reproach. “You’ll find water at the cottage,” he said simply, and moved on. The kindness struck deeper than any wound. Ernst rose, following the cart’s slow trail inland, toward the promise of shade and rest.
By evening, he sat beneath the rocks on the coast, a cup of water in his hands. The sun broke through the clouds, gilding the granite in gold. He watched it sink behind cliffs, and for the first time in years, he did not flinch at the sound of the wind.
He whispered the hymn again, not as a soldier, but as a man seeking peace: “In the shadow of the Rock let me rest.”
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