But he didn't need a lot of light to find what he was looking for among the papers in the filing cabinet. He knew where the single document was, and his personal hell comprised the fact that he also knew what the document said. He drew it forth. A crisp manila folder held it like a layer of smooth skin. Its skeleton, however, was a tattered envelope with crumpled corners, long missing its little metal clasp. During the final days of the war, the occupying forces on the island had suffered from a degree of hubris that was most surprising, considering the defeats piling upon the German military everywhere else. On Guernsey, they had even refused to surrender at first, so determined were they to disbelieve that their plan for European domination and eugenic perfection would come to nothing. When Major-General Heine finally climbed aboard HMS Bulldog to negotiate the terms of his surrender of the island, it was a full day after victory had been declared and was being celebrated in the rest of Europe.
