Henrietta's War (11 page)

I looked at him and shook my head slightly, and his jaw dropped. ‘Good Lord!' he muttered, and got up and plunged into the sea and swam a long way out, to cover his confusion.

Charles has just started his twenty-fifth series of V.A.D. lectures. All the sensible and efficient people in this place passed their V.A.D. exams ages ago, and a good many of them are already in Naval and Military Hospitals, wondering wistfully, as they clean the taps, why they bothered to learn so much about the Circulation of the Blood. This time Charles's class is composed of the leftovers, so to speak, and so you will not be surprised, dear Robert, when I tell you that I am one of them.

Not that I should ever be able to leave my home and become a V.A.D., and I feel strongly that in the case of Invasion I would be far more use running round after Charles with Something Hot in a Casserole than getting under the nurses' feet at the Cottage Hospital; but for very shame I felt I must go and swell the numbers. Besides, I rather wanted to see for myself what it is that Charles does at his lectures which makes so many ladies stop me in the street next morning and tell me that he is a Darling.

I needn't have worried about swelling the numbers, because the room, when I arrived, was packed. The class reminded me of the Middle Vth at school, which was always composed of oddities, and the girls who were too stupid to get into the Upper School. There were a lot of Visitors there as well, and a few hardened V.A.D. veterans who had passed their exams so often they thought they might as well pass them again.

I was surprised to see Mrs Savernack there, for she has always despised nursing. I went and sat next to her and she whispered to me that she was still trying to get into the Home Guard, but in the meantime she thought she might as well take the V.A.D. course. Mrs Whinebite was there, too, sitting in the front row and jangling with beads.

Charles lectured in a slow and hesitating manner, and I found it hard to believe that he had done it twenty-four times before, until I realized it was his way of getting facts into people's heads.

So many people rushed to administer First Aid...

When we got to the Digestive System Charles displayed a fairly nauseating chart and Mrs Savernack fainted dead away.

So many people rushed to administer First Aid I thought I should be killed in the crush.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

September 4, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Hoping this doesn't find you as it leaves me at present –
viz
., in prison. Well, as a matter of fact, not actually in prison, but definitely under the shadow of the Arm of the Law.

It all came of Showing a Light, a mysterious Will-o'-the-Wisp radiance which apparently shone like a searchlight straight in at the police station windows, so that the policemen who were off duty couldn't get a wink of sleep, and those who were on duty had to spend hours scouring the neighbourhood in order to locate it. But when our Nicest Policeman finally tracked it down to our house and came racing up the garden-path in full cry, it disappeared.

‘You were showing a light,' he said sternly to Charles, who went down to the door in his pyjamas.

‘Where?' said Charles.

‘There,' said the policeman, pointing at my bedroom window.

‘I don't see one,' said Charles.

‘It's been put out now,' said the policeman in a disappointed voice.

The next night, just as I was doing my hair, there was another peal at the front-door bell.

‘You
are
showing a light!' said the policeman, as pleased as Punch.

‘Where?' said Charles.

‘There,' said the policeman; but it had gone.

In the end it turned out to be the light over my dressing-table, reflecting in the glass every time I did my hair. The policeman was kind but stern about it. ‘This will have to be reported, you know,' he said.

‘They're getting very strict about these black-out offences,' said Mrs Savernack with relish when I told her about it. ‘You'll probably have to go to Jug.'

‘Darling Mother,' said Bill, who was on leave at the time, ‘I will send you a doughnut, and inside will be a little file with which you will be able to saw through the bars of your cell.'

‘She'd never manage it, Bill,' said the Linnet seriously. ‘I shall send her some cheese crumbs so that she can make friends with a mouse.'

‘The worst of going to prison,' said Lady B, ‘is that you always have trouble with your passport afterwards.'

‘We shall
all
be at the gates to meet you when you come out, dear,' said Mrs Simpkins, squeezing my hand.

I said I didn't mind anything as long as I was allowed to have my hot-water bottle with me, but this remark was greeted with derisive laughter.

A lot of people rang me up on the day of the trial and wished me luck. I dressed myself carefully in neat, quiet clothes, and wore clean wash-leather gloves. Charles and Bill and the Linnet said they had never seen such a respectable, law-abiding citizen. When we got to the Court they stood at the back, looking fierce and protective, and I sat myself down among the criminals.

The criminal next to me was a rather nice baby of ten weeks with red hair. I asked its mother what it had done to break the Law, and she said it was an Angel. Then it got hiccoughs, and was turned over on to its front, and was sick on my skirt. We were busy cleaning ourselves up when the magistrates came in and everybody stood up. I looked anxiously to see what sort of an Ogre was in the Chair and found it was the Admiral, who refused to smile at me.

The criminal next to me...

When you have always regarded the police as your Friends and Protectors it is a little disconcerting suddenly to find that they have become Accusing Angels. Our Nicest Policeman said his piece beautifully and was altogether fair and just, if a trifle monotonous in tone. I think that saying that a light
emanated
from my window ought to get him promotion, if nothing else does. None of the others had thought of it. But I was rather glad, as I stood there, that I had nothing bad on my conscience.

‘My lord,' I said in a quavering voice, and the Admiral looked at me as he did once at a Drama Club show when I gave him the wrong cue.

The magistrates, except for the Admiral, who remained stern, listened with compassion and sympathy to the story of the light over my dressing-table. ‘One must do one's hair, mustn't one?' said a lady magistrate, and we exchanged womanly smiles. I was fined two pounds.

‘You look very gay,' said the Conductor, whom we met outside our house. ‘What have you been doing?'

‘Mum's been up in front of the Beak,' said the Linnet.

‘She had a Chink in her bedroom,' said Bill.

‘Well, that's better than a Jap,' said the Conductor, who is inclined to be a little coarse sometimes.

We are still wondering why it took the police eleven months to notice that light.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

September 18, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Charles said that I wouldn't allow him to enjoy the air raids in peace, and that my plaintive bleat of ‘Don't-you-think-we-ought-to-go-downstairs?' was worse than the sirens. So now we have moved our beds down into the drawing-room. We took their heads and tails off them, and with nice folk-weave covers to match the ceiling they looked so attractive we wondered why we hadn't thought of divans before. Flushed with success, we sawed off their legs, and the Conductor, whose jokes have been getting worse lately, made up a new riddle, ‘Why are Charles and Henrietta like their beds? Because they are low and inviting.'

So now Charles sleeps peacefully all through the night, except when patients call him out, and in the morning I tell him all about the siren and the thumps, bumps, and thuds which have kept me awake.

Personally, I am one of those who like to talk during an air raid, and make cups of tea as soon as the All Clear is sounded; and though I miss these simple pleasures there is a lot to be said for the bed-sit life which we have adopted, and Charles assures me that if the house begins falling down, a grand piano is just as good to sit under as the scullery table.

A grand piano is just as good to sit under

Did I tell you, Robert, that Mrs Savernack has started a corps of Women Mounties, and goes about all day in jodhpurs and an armlet. Their duties are to ride about on horseback and show people the way, like the Women Riders on Dartmoor, only, unlike them, Mrs Savernack's Women Mounties are not acknowledged by the War Office; neither (though nobody likes to tell Mrs Savernack this) are their services in the least necessary in this part of the world.

Unfortunately, nobody here has a horse of her own except Mrs Savernack and Faith, and Faith is already an Air Raid Warden. However, now when the siren goes she rides down to the A.R.P. headquarters instead of walking, thereby combining the two jobs.

I met Mr Savernack this morning looking very worn. He says Mrs Savernack gallops about all night and only comes home when day is breaking.

Colonel Simpkins's granddaughter, Penny, who has been evacuated here from Kent, has got hold of a donkey and become Mrs Savernack's constant companion during the day. Mrs Simpkins had to put her foot down about night-riding. Mrs Savernack says she never used to have any use for girls, but Penny is different. They make a curious pair riding about together, obviously delighting in each other's company.

‘Hullo,' said the Conductor jovially, when he met them this morning; ‘looking for a windmill?'

‘A
windmill
?' said Penny, who likes riding better than reading.

‘Don't take any notice of him,' said Mrs Savernack, ‘he's mad.'

The Conductor sighed. Sometimes, I am afraid, he finds us a little discouraging.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

September 25, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Since the Germans began concentrating on London they seem to have forgotten this part of the world, and we feel almost ashamed of our peaceful nights. I won't say
quiet
and peaceful, because the soldiery spends most of the hours of darkness rushing madly up and down the streets on motorbikes. Lying warm and comfortable in our beds, that makes us feel more ashamed than ever; but Charles says there is no need to worry, as we shall probably all get our turn in time.