Enemy at the Door

It's June 1940 and the people of Guernsey are preparing for the arrival of the German forces. For some it's too much and they prepare to flee with deadly consequences. Others stay and prepare to fight their own battle at home.

The Germans focus on the 'subversive' publications at the library, confiscating books they deem inappropriate. A scuffle leads to a SS officer becoming injured and Mrs Brown, the librarian, being placed under arrest. Her values and stiff upper lip lead her into deeper trouble.

It is Autumn, 1940. A dance is arranged by the Germans, a propaganda exercise by the SS commander. The plan miscarries and a young soldier is put on trial for his life.

A British landing on occupied Guernsey earlier in the year, starts to go awry almost from the start. The events lead with ruthless logic to violent tragedy.

Reconnaissance for an amphibious landing of British forces has been carried out. The assault takes place with unanticipated results. Clive Martel organises a rear-guard action and seeks refuge with friends who have flown.

Winter 1940, during the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands. The Kommandant orders a crackdown on civil disobedience. A young boy unwittingly aids the Germans.

Winter 1940. To counteract cold and hunger, the islanders plan to present an Ivor Novello comedy. But echoes of a death in Latvia seven years ago disturb the plans.

For a small Guernsey boy, dangerously ill, a new German drug is a matter of life and death. Dr Martel comes into possession of some of the missing tablets and falls under suspicion. The wily ex-Hamburg policeman Kluge and a local detective sergeant seek to use the situation to their own purpose and succeed.

After her father dies Betty takes a job at Nazi headquarters. A romance soon blossoms with one of the soldiers, Erich, and she inevitably becomes pregnant. When Erich is posted to Dresden, Betty fears she will never hear from him again.

A German General comes to the island on a mission of deadly secrecy. The stealth of his visit is matched by another who arrives at dead of night.

Edward Bree and his mother become pawns in a German scheme to re-site a gun emplacement. Meanwhile, Dr Martel finds himself the unwitting accessory to crime when he offers some advice.

A new adjutant arrives in Guernsey for battle training with his regiment. Hauptmann Manfred von Bulow is a Prussian aristocrat who knew Hauptsturm-Fuhrer Reinicke of the Waffen SS in Paris. But when he knows about Reinicke's past results in a death and a duel.

A British destroyer has been sunk by a new, fast German torpedo boat. Clare Martel and Peter Porteous are determined to send a picture of the German warship and a plan of its moorings back to London, a scheme which produces unanticipated and grave results.