Henrietta's War (5 page)

Mr Perry came and sniffed delicately at my ear, and I stopped singing for one moment to say, ‘Go home, Perry, darling,' and opened one corner of my eye to see him saunter off in a nonchalant manner. Then I began singing again.

How long I sat there I do not know, but it seemed hours, and I was beginning to get very hoarse when I felt a light tap on my shoulder and opened my eyes to see Colonel Simpkins bending down and peering at me with a red, anxious face.

‘My dear lady!' he said. ‘Are you ill?'

Without stopping singing, I pointed at the sea. The mine was now only a few feet from the rocks.

‘Good God!' said Colonel Simpkins, and then he began methodically emptying his pockets. First he took out a gold half-hunter watch, then his money, a note-case, his ration-books and his identity-card and laid them in my lap. Then he removed his Special Constable's badge and put it with the other things.

‘What are you going to do?' I cried, but his reply was inaudible.

‘I can't hear what you're saying!' I yelled.

‘Then take your fingers out of your ears,' he shouted irritably, and began walking down the beach.

‘Oh, don't do that, Colonel Simpkins!' I shrieked. ‘Oh, please, please! Think of Mrs Simpkins!'

‘You get down the other side of that bank and cut along,' he said kindly, and walked on.

‘Oh, what a tiresome old man you are!' I cried, capering about on the bank with my fingers in my ears. How could I cut along and leave him to be blown to smithereens? And yet, on the other hand, how, oh, how could I find the courage to follow him?

Suddenly a large wave lifted the mine in the air and swept it towards the rocks. I uttered a loud scream and took a flying leap down the other side of the bank. The next thing I remember was Colonel Simpkins forcibly removing my fingers from my ears and telling me that it wasn't a mine, but a barrel.

‘I rather suspected it from the first,' he said.

‘Then why did you remove all your valuables?' I said crossly, helping him to pick them up, for they were scattered all over the path.

By the way, Robert,
is
there a Special Medal for Special Constables?

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

‘ Think of Mrs Simdkins'

March 6, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
We have had a jumble sale to collect money for the Sewing Bee, which has sewn with such industry that it has run short of flannel. The sale was conducted with terrifying efficiency by Mrs Savernack, and enough money was raised to buy flannel for at least a million hot-water-bottle covers, not to mention shirts and pyjamas. Lady B says that had she known jumble possibilities, she'd have had one for herself years ago.

And immediately looked like a fashion-plate

We had a White Elephant Stall, too, and it did a roaring trade in Indian brass bowls, brass trays, and little brass figures of animals which people, who now have to do their own housework, have got tired of cleaning. Some of our drawing-rooms now have a sad, depleted look, but better six Polish shirts than one Benares tray, as Mrs Simpkins said bravely when she saw her favourite piece borne away by the charwoman.

Faith took a fancy to a jumble hat and insisted upon buying it. Mrs Savernack made her pay five shillings for it, though it was marked at sixpence, which I thought rather unfair, but Faith said it was cheap at the price. Lying there with the jumble it looked an awful hat, but Faith gave it a tweak and a pinch and put it on her head, and immediately looked like a fashion-plate. And some people think her stupid!

On Sunday, when I was out for a walk, a sudden gleam of sunshine on the sea made me sit down on the leeward side of the shelter to enjoy it.

In there already was a master from the preparatory school which has evacuated itself upon us, and some boys in red caps. He was reading to them out of the Sunday paper about the boarding of the
Altmark
, and if it had been a Boy's Book of Adventure it couldn't have been more exciting. When he got to the part where the sailors said, ‘Are there any British down there?' and the prisoners shouted, ‘Yes!' and the sailors said, ‘The Navy is here,' the little boys cheered shrilly. I wanted to cheer too, but I knew it would have embarrassed them if I had. Ladies mustn't cheer, so I didn't. Then the questions began.

‘They jumped down on the
Altmark's
deck, didn't they, Sir?'

‘Yes, Peter.'

‘With cutlasses, Sir?'

‘Probably.'

‘Oh, Sir! In their teeth, Sir?'

‘They might have.'

‘Coo!'

‘I'm going into the Navy,' said one little boy truculently.

‘You'll have to work harder at your arithmetic, Colin, or you won't pass the exam,' said the master, rather brutally.

‘You wanted to go into the Navy yourself, didn't you, Sir?' said Colin, pulling the master off his high horse with one fiendish tug.

‘Yes. I got ploughed for my eyesight.'

‘Didn't those chaps have
anything
to eat but black bread and tea, Sir?'

‘Nothing.'

‘And no milk or sugar in the tea, Sir?'

‘No.'

‘The Germans are dirty swine, aren't they, Sir?'

‘Well – '

‘So are the Norwegians, aren't they, Sir? Because they knew all the time our chaps were on board, didn't they, Sir?'

‘Well –' ‘

‘They
are
dirty swine, aren't they, Sir?'

The master looked round the shelter like a hunted stag, and I got up and walked away. I thought he might find it easier to answer these questions if I wasn't there.

My dear Robert, had you ever thought what problems this beastly war must cause to teachers of History who love both their country and the Truth?

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

March 13, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
This has been Marmalade Week. Every housewife in the place has been going about with a wild look in her eye and sticky fingers, and as you walked down the street a delicious smell of boiling oranges came wafting from kitchen windows.

This year, thanks to our Adolf, it is a rough-and-ready sort of brew, and my heart goes out to dear old Mrs Simpkins, whose marmalade, cut up by hand and with two pounds of sugar to every pint of pulp, used to be her pride and joy.

Faith, who must be in the mode or die, became Marmalade-Conscious for the first time in her life. Up till now, except for eating it at breakfast every morning, she has left the whole thing in the hands of her capable cook, but this year sugar became a burning question that it was impossible to ignore. She was further inspired by a picture in a sales catalogue of a particularly fetching sort of smock entitled ‘When my Lady goes a-Cooking', and sent for one in powder-blue.

‘I am making the marmalade myself this year,' she said nonchalantly one afternoon at the Sewing Bee.

Every woman in the room laid down her needle and said, ‘How much?'

‘Oh, about eighty pounds,' said Faith airily, without looking up from the rather bad herring-boning she was doing on a bed-jacket.

There was silence while people counted up the members of Faith's household and did a short sum in their heads.

‘Where are you going to get the extra sugar from?' said Mrs Savernack, who always does sums quicker than anybody else.

‘Aha!' said Faith roguishly.

There was a lot of ugly muttering in corners after this, and several people said that Admiral Marsdon, our Food Controller, who is one of Faith's most ardent admirers, ought to be reported to the police.

‘Where
did
you get the sugar, Faith?' said Lady B as we walked home afterwards, but Faith only laughed and asked us to what she was pleased to call a Marmalade Rout on the following Thursday.

Admiral Marsdon, who hands round the bag in church, is one of those people on whose integrity one would stake one's very life; but when Lady B and I saw him walking up the drive in front of us on the day of the Marmalade Rout, we both had twinges of doubt.

‘Wonderful little woman, isn't she?' he whispered to me in the hall.

‘Wonderful!' I said bitterly, thinking of my meagre row of jars, and Charles, to whom marmalade is dearer than life itself.

In the kitchen we found Faith, looking quite lovely in her powder-blue smock, and the Conductor, looking fatuous. On the table was a pile of oranges which nearly reached to the ceiling, and a perfectly inadequate supply of sugar.

‘Where's the rest of the sugar?' said Lady B.

‘Aha!' said Faith.

‘I wish you wouldn't keep saying “Aha”!' I said crossly.

‘She's got some special method,' whispered the Admiral, his face alight with admiration. ‘I'm here really in an official capacity – as Food Controller, you know.'

Lady B and I exchanged guilty looks. To think we had so cruelly misjudged one who hands the Bag.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,' said Faith, and the Admiral and the Conductor clapped, ‘I will now disclose my methods, and I really can't think why none of you thought of it before. There it is!'

With a sweeping gesture she pointed to two rows of little bottles on the dresser. Lady B picked one up and peered at it closely. Then she handed it to me in silence . . . It was saccharine.

Stirred steadily in waltz-time

Faith was a little disappointed when we told her that her method wouldn't work, but took it in good part, and the Marmalade Rout, which ended in making thirty pounds instead of eighty, became quite a hilarious party, with cocktails at the end. We all put on aprons and helped. The Conductor turned out to be quite a Marmalade King in his way, and stirred steadily in waltz-time to the Jewel Song from
Faust
.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

P.S. Lady B's granddaughter Hilary is home on leave. She has become a Cook-Sergeant-Major in the V.A.D.s, and Lady B is entranced.