Henrietta's War (2 page)

The Linnet who looks handsome in her nurse's uniform has gone to her hospital. She writes cheerfully and says she is enjoying it so far, but oh, her poor feet!

Bill assures us that he will shortly be a real soldier.

I heard from Betsy last week. Her world has come tumbling about her ears if anybody's has, but she writes with her usual spirit to say that she is now living in the depths of the country, listening to her arteries hardening. She says she wears brogues and talks with a burr, and sometimes she wears burrs and talks with a brogue, just to make a change.

Dear Robert, our thoughts are often with you, and if I write of everyday things, it is only because I know that they are what you would rather hear about.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

November 15, 1939

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Our lovely sunny autumn days have gone, and now we have cold rain and a tearing, roaring wind. Well, let's face it: winter is in front of us now and it will be as cold and wet, dark and cheerless as it always has been.

But this winter we country people will have to try not to grumble about the weather as much as we usually do, if only for the sakes of what the papers call the Town-dwellers in our Midst. They, poor dears, are
not
used to turning a corner and being blown flat on to their faces by a S. W. gale, or running round with towels to mop up the rain and they are going to take it hard. I am sure they will need all the sympathy and encouragement we Yokels can give them.

Already it is quite pathetic to witness their dismay at the prospect of a long winter spent in Darkest Devon. ‘What do you
do
in a place like this?' they wail, as they struggle back in their neat court shoes to the small furnished houses (every mod con) which they have rented for the duration of the war.

And this is where we bite back the stinging reply that there is a good lending library in the middle of the street and an equally good wool shop next door, and say tenderly that we have a Bridge Club as well as a Badminton Club, that the Dramatic Society and the Women's Institute Choir would both welcome them if they were interested in that sort of thing, and that the cinema is now open every day, instead of only three times a week, and would they care to drop in on Sunday morning after church for some sherry and meet some people?

They generally sample most of the entertainments we offer them, and I am sure they get a lot of fun out of them. You can almost
see
them at the choir practices composing funny letters to their husbands about the quaint lives we lead down here. But I am told that after an afternoon among our Tigers at the Bridge Club they grope their way home with dazed expressions on their faces.

Some of them fling themselves into the life of the place in the most astonishing manner. At the end of a fortnight they know more of what is going on than Charles and I do, and one or two of them have told us some really remarkable things about the lives of our fishermen. Charles says he is afraid the fishermen aren't always absolutely truthful.

Among our Tigers

We have had great A.R.P.
2
activity in this part of the world lately. Of course it rained but in spite of that a good time was had by all, especially the fire-engine. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the ‘casualties', who lay about in the gutters uncomplainingly until they were picked up. Charles, returning late in the evening, nearly ran over a figure lying at the side of the road.

‘Hullo,' he said, ‘what's the matter with you?' And a cheerful voice replied out of the darkness, ‘I've got all my bones broken.'

Muriel is now a captain in the A.T.S.
3
I do envy her. There's not much glamour on the home home-front. Ours not the saucy peaked cap of our untrammelled sisters. Ours rather to see that the curtains are properly drawn, and do our little bit of digging in the garden. Ours to brave the Sewing Party and painstakingly make a many-tailed bandage, and ours to fetch the groceries home in a big basket. Soon we shall have the big thrill of ration cards to add to these other excitements. And all in a Reception Area, too!

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

November 29, 1939

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Last week I took my courage in both hands and went to the Sister Susie Sewing Bee. I have been meaning to go for a long time, but have never been able to summon the courage.

When I got to the door panic seized me, and I nearly fled, but then I remembered all that you Brave Boys are doing at the Front, and I took a big breath and turned the handle.

Who are these like nuns appearing? About fifty beautiful women, all in snowy white, are seated at three long tables, all, as they say, plying their needles. Can that be my old friend Faith, needle poised in air and a demure expression on her face? Surely, surely the Madonna at the sewing-machine cannot possibly be Mrs Savernack, the Terror of the Bridge Club? What is there about a white veil tied neatly round the head that can effect this transformation? Should women conceal their hair? Is it a Betrayal rather than a Crowning Glory?

These thoughts surge madly through my head as I stand at the door with my mouth open. The nuns look up and then bend to their work again. I am a novice, and must be made to feel it.

Meekly I approach the High Table, murmuring, ‘I've come to sew, and I've brought my own thimble and cotton.' I hope that this miracle of forethought will commend me to authority, but the Mother Superior is unmoved.

‘Have you brought your white coat and veil?' she says.

‘I'm afraid I haven't.'

‘You'll have to go out and buy them,' she says kindly. ‘You can get some quite inexpensively at Dobson's.'

Ears red with shame, I creep out and buy a white coat and veil inexpensively at Dobson's. Then there is the horror of getting in all over again, but this time I pause to put on my armour. The looking-glass in the Ladies' Cloaks is small and spotty, but even so I can see that I am the only woman in the world who is not improved by a white veil tied round the head, and it is with almost as much trepidation as before that I make my second entrance.

But this time all is changed. I have taken my vows, and the nuns smile a welcome. Several wave, and one kisses her hand.

Greatly encouraged, I approach the High Table once more, and am given a piece of flannel to make into a hot-water-bottle cover. Now nobody enjoys a bit of herring-boning more than I, and the flannel is of a heavenly blue, so I am quite delighted with my task. But why the veil? Why the white coat? Am I dirtier than the feet of the B.E.F.?

‘Fancy you being able to sew!' says one of the nuns, making room for me beside her at the table.

‘Yes, and I can read and write as well,' I say. This is the sort of joke that Charles says he wishes I wouldn't make.

My neighbour is engaged upon a complicated piece of work, and is executing it with proficiency. ‘What are you making?' I ask with respect, deeply conscious of my novice's task.

Sheep and Goats

‘A helpless-case night-shirt,' she says briskly.

I look round. The nuns are bending over their work, and the low buzz of demure chatter fills the room. Helpless-case night-shirts, swabs, and many-tailed bandages. Young bodies maimed and broken, and dark hours of pain and despair watching for morning to lighten the windows . . . It doesn't do to think too much these days, even at a Bee.

But agonizing doesn't sew a seam, and salt tears on hospital supplies would be far from aseptic. I look at the wise and busy nuns and thread my needle. This simple action is watched intently by my neighbours.

I know several things about Sewing Bees now, Robert, which I never knew before, and one is that all sewers are divided into Sheep and Goats. The Goats are the ones whose thread comes off pink at the tip when licked!

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

December 6, 1939

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
The Authorities are getting very dashing. Can I
really
put B.E.F. on your letters now? It all seems very reckless and risky and I only hope the Censor is not Losing Grip.

You say I never mention my children these days. Well, there's a reason for that. Nobody in the world enjoys talking about her children more than I do. I have hardly been able to listen to stories about Julia not having enough blankets in her billet, so anxious have I been to tell about the Linnet's alarm clock going off at 5.30 every morning.

And then about a fortnight ago, like a blinding light the thought came to me that if we didn't take care, this Mother-talk would soon become one of the major horrors of the home home-front and worse than the Black-out Blues.

It was after seeing two of our neighbours both reading letters from their sons aloud to each other at the same time in the middle of the High Street that I got my change of heart. Mr Perry's lead became inextricably mixed with their dogs', and while I was disentangling them I couldn't help hearing most of the letters, which were all about the heavy rain in France and would their mothers please not knit them anything at present.