Henrietta's War (12 page)

The Linnet is on night duty at her hospital now. I asked her if she was afraid in the raids, and she said there wasn't time. The first thing she has to do when the warning goes is to chase down the corridor and persuade a shell-shocked patient to return to bed. Then she collects an armful of babies out of the maternity ward and lays them, cheeping and chirping, under the draining-board in a pantry, and after that she has to put tin basins over the patients' heads. (And if that isn't a brilliant hospital idea, Robert, I'd like to know what is.) By that time she is ready to lend a hand, in some lowly capacity, in the operating-theatre.

Faith, who must be in the mode even when it's bombs, went to London when the trouble started and came back next day looking very wan. She had thought air-raid shelters would be all song and story and
bonhomie
but found that no one even wanted to talk. They all flung themselves down on their Lie-Lows with set expressions on their faces, determined to Sleep for Victory.

Remembering the children cheered her up a bit; especially the little boy who announced, ‘I like the screaming ones best,' while one was actually coming down directly overhead.

But then everybody seems to be getting terribly tough. Bill writes us the most bloodthirsty letters from the north-east coast. He used to be such a gentle boy, it is hard to believe that his letters aren't a sort of joke; but if they aren't, then he is only longing for one thing, and that is for Hitler to start invading England.

And he isn't the only one, either. It was Lady B's birthday yesterday. She won't allow anybody to buy her presents in wartime, so in the evening I took her up a bunch of roses, and found her surrounded by golden telegrams.

‘Are you having a happy birthday?' I said.

‘Lovely, thank you, dear,' said Lady B. ‘Would you like to read my telegrams?'

I read them, and Lady B gave me a lightning word-portrait of each of the givers whom I didn't know already.

‘That's Teddy Barchester. I can't think why he signed it “Edward”, but they say he's grown very pompous lately. We used to know him in Rome. A very peculiar man. He used to play the violin and dance at the same time. He was very much in love with me when I was a girl.'

‘Why didn't you marry him?'

‘My dear! A man who danced while he played the violin! Besides,' added Lady B simply, ‘he had a wife'; and added after a pause, ‘she died under rather peculiar circumstances.

' ‘What circumstances? ' I said, for this sounded as though it might be the beginning of one of Lady B's most enthralling stories; but she wouldn't say.

‘I'll tell you when Teddy's dead,' she said. ‘It wouldn't be fair now.'

‘And who is Queenie?'

‘She used to be the housemaid at my old home when I was a girl. I lent her a frock once to go to a party in, and she hooked her young man at it. She's very rich now.'

‘What a lot of faithful friends you have!'

‘Yes. I'm a very lucky old woman,' said Lady B sadly.

I peered closely at her. Something had disturbed that lovely serenity which we all love so well. ‘You aren't feeling ill, are you?' I said anxiously.

‘Don't be silly, Henrietta.'

‘You're not ' I hesitated, hardly daring to ask this question, for Lady B is one of those rare people who maintain that old age is not a calamity – ‘you're not feeling
old
by any chance?'

‘Why should I feel old?' said Lady B. ‘I'm only seventy-five.'

‘Or frightened?'

She gave me a look of contempt, and didn't trouble to answer.

‘Then what is it?'

‘Well, it's like this...'

‘Well, it's like this,' said Lady B, getting rather pink. ‘I know it's very silly of me, Henrietta, but I did hope, I did
hope
,' she added passionately, ‘that Hitler would try and invade us on my birthday.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

October 2, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
I had a letter from Dorothy Molesworth this morning. (You once played in a tennis tournament with her, do you remember?) She is working for the W.V.S. among the homeless in the East End and asks for clothes, and boots and shoes, and towels, and babies' nappies to be sent as quickly as possible.

I've been rushing round all the morning begging. I am not good at begging as a rule, but this righteous cause made me eloquent. Everybody was wonderfully generous, and I had difficulty in preventing Lady B from packing her entire wardrobe and sending it off in parcels.

In the afternoon Mrs Savernack most gallantly offered to go round collecting while I packed the things up. Of course, she went on horseback, and by the time she had tied one enormous bundle on to her back, and was balancing another on the saddle in front of her, Gertrude (which is the unbelievable name of the patient bay mare which carries her) lost patience and bucked Mrs Savernack off. Fortunately she fell head first into one of the bundles, and was none the worse.

Our biggest excitement this week, however, was provided by the Simpkinses. On Wednesday night Colonel Simpkins woke up and heard a commotion going on in his chicken-run. Convinced that it was nothing less than a descending parachutist, he rushed out in his pyjamas and found an enormous badger which had got into the hen-house through the nesting-box and was busy trying to dig its way out through the wooden floor.

There have been a lot of hen casualties here lately, and Colonel Simpkins says he was almost as excited as he would have been if he had found Hitler in the hen-house. He sat down on the lid of the nesting-box and yelled for Mrs Simpkins.

The chicken-run is a long way from the house, and Colonel Simpkins had to yell for a long time before Mrs Simpkins heard him. In the meantime the Admiral, who lives on the other side of the field, and who was just beginning to undress after duty with the Home Guard, opened the window and shouted, ‘What's the matter?'

‘I've got him!' yelled Colonel Simpkins.

‘The deuce you have!' yelled the Admiral, who also thought it was a parachutist, and he seized his rifle and rushed for the stairs. Unfortunately, he slipped on the polished floor of the landing and fell heavily to the ground, where he lay stunned.

By this time Mrs Simpkins had woken up and poked her head out of the window. ‘What is it, Alexander?' she cried.

‘It's all right, my dear,' shouted the Colonel, who knows how frightened she is of walking down their drive in the dark. ‘You go back to bed.'

So Mrs Simpkins went back to bed, and Colonel Simpkins went on sitting on the lid of the nesting-box while the badger scroutled madly inside and the Admiral lay unconscious at the top of the stairs.

Colonel Simpkins waited patiently for a time, but the badger became so violent he was afraid it might tear up the floor and escape, so he began yelling again.

‘What
is
the matter, Alexander?' said Mrs Simpkins, leaning out of the window for the second time.

‘Come down here!' yelled the Colonel.

‘Oh, dear!' said poor little Mrs Simpkins. But she put on a coat and some goloshes over her bedroom slippers and crept down the drive in the dark, thereby performing an unrecorded act of heroism.

In the meantime Mrs Admiral had been roused by the Colonel's yells, and running out of her bedroom found the Admiral lying unconscious on the floor. She is a woman of iron self-control, so she merely put her head in at the maid's bedroom door and said, ‘Florrie, the Invasion has begun,' and then rang up Charles and the police.

Found the Admiral lying unconscious on the floor

I haven't space here to untangle the rest of the night's events, but eventually everyone, except the badger, was safely back in bed.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

October 9, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
I visited our Cathedral City the other day with the intention of seeing the Linnet, but she never got my message, so I waited in vain outside the wool shop. Not that I minded waiting. A visit to the Cathedral City is such a nice change these days that just to watch people hurrying by with strained shopping expressions on their faces is a thrill even when you do it for three-quarters of an hour, first on one leg and then on the other.

I had just decided to go away, when a car stopped on the other side of the road and Hilary Dane poked her well-groomed head out of the window.

‘What are you doing in our city so bright and early, Henrietta?' she said.

‘What are you, Hilary, if it comes to that?' I said.

‘Oh, I'm just off to my job,' said Hilary, in the fussy, important war-workers' manner which I envy so much.

‘What is your job, Hilary?' I said, with all the reverence which was expected of me.

Hilary leant a little further out of the window. ‘Blood,' she said in a low voice.

‘Blood?' I cried. ‘Whose blood?'

‘Practically everybody's,' said Hilary. ‘Pops Filligan and I are in it together.'

‘In it?' I said faintly.

‘At the hospital,' said Hilary, starting the engine. ‘Come and look us up. We're slack just now. Nobody ever sees you nowadays, Henrietta.' And then she drove away.

I always get through my shopping quicker when the Linnet isn't with me, and at noon I found myself with a half-hour to spare, so I decided I would take Hilary at her word.

Hospitals always alarm and confuse me, and in spite of all sorts of notices and pointing arrows I managed to lose my way, and opened several wrong doors before I arrived at the right one.

‘Come in,' said two stern voices in answer to my timid knock, and I opened the door.

‘Yes?' said Pops, without looking up from the typewriter she was working with two fingers.

‘Excuse me, but is this the Blood Bath?' I said.

‘Yes?' said Pops, without looking up

‘Henrietta!' they said, and got down from their type-writers to welcome me.