The Love-Charm of Bombs (71 page)

‘phobia of being buried’: ibid.

‘government decrees had stipulated’:
see London Met, Ambulance Box 6.

‘My God, what a world’:
RM to Rosamond Lehmann, 10 September 1939 (RL KC).

‘a great stroke of luck’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 26 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘any exercise or instruction’: memo, 21 September 1940 (London Met, Ambulance Box 52).

‘I like my ambulance colleagues’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘Sub-station 345V’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’,
Surviving: The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green
(London: Harvill, 1993).

‘an eccentric, fire-fighting’:
Rosamond Lehmann, ‘An Absolute Gift’,
Times Literary Supplement
, 6 August 1954.

‘Quite well but sleep’:
HY to Rosamond Lehmann, 11 September 1940 (RL KC).

‘to work myself silly’:
HY to Mary Strickland, 10 March 1939, in Jeremy Treglown,
Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green
(London: Faber, 2000),
p. 125.

‘the seven-thousandth fireman’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘not likely to fall down’: ibid.

‘a course that no one failed’: ibid.

‘likely enough to die’:
HG,
Pack My Bag
(London: Vintage, 2000), p. 153.

‘what seems to be the alternative’:
HY to Evelyn Waugh, 14 October 1939 (Waugh Archive, HRC).

‘the AFS was a suicide squad’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘All that was real to him’:
HG,
Caught
(London: Harvill Press, 2001), p. 25.

‘three years after one war’:
HG,
Pack My Bag
,
p. 1.

‘We who must die soon’:
ibid.,
p. 92.

‘Old ladies gave’: HG,
Caught
,
p. 47.

‘His life in the Fire Brigade’: Evelyn Waugh, diary, 26 November 1939,
The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh
, ed. Michael Davie (London: Phoenix, 2009).

‘Fire fighting is a waiting’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘For forty-eight hours’: HG,
Caught
,
p. 21.

‘We come here ready for’: ibid.,
p. 93.

‘the Fire Service, now that’: HY
,
draft typescript of
Caught
(HY archive).

‘a group of progressive novelists’:
Evelyn Waugh,
Officers and Gentlemen
(London: Chapman & Hall, 1955), ch. 1.

‘it was a particular tradition’:
see William Sansom,
The Blitz: Westminster at War
(London: Faber, 2010),
p. 121.

‘However frightened, they are’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘We’re absolute heroes now’:
HG,
Caught
, p. 176.

‘judge of my delight’:
HG, ‘A Fire, a Flood and the Price of Meat’ (
Surviving
).

‘Who are you going out with tonight’:
see
Trapped: The Story of Henry Green
(BBC documentary, 1992).

‘the writer, our kind’:
HY to Rosamond Lehmann, in Lehmann, ‘An Absolute Gift’.

‘well-read, articulate’:
James Lees-Milne,
Fourteen Friends
(London: John Murray, 1996),
p. 123.

‘The men, I loved them’:
HY, interview with the
Star
, 15 June 1929.

‘how little money meant’:
see HG,
Pack My Bag
, p. 154.

‘Yorke was as happy’:
see Anthony Powell,
Messengers of Day
(London: Heinemann, 1978),
p. 25.

‘The behaviour of my AFS unit’: HY to Mary Strickland, 10 July 1940, in Treglown,
Romancing
,
p. 125.

‘putting the light out’:
HG,
Caught
, pp. 45, 145.

‘In his dirt, his tiredness’:
HG,
ibid.
,
pp.
49, 46, 161.

‘semi-military discipline’:
see Sansom,
The Blitz
,
p. 121.

‘Shortly after 11 p.m.’:
see Westminster, CD25.

‘Everywhere the searchlights clustered’:
Evelyn Waugh,
Officers and Gentlemen
,
ch. 1.

‘Yorke sat forward in his seat’:
see HG, ‘A Rescue’ (
Surviving
).

‘Three more HEs’:
see Westminster, CE38.

‘A 1940 air-raid manual’:
‘Air Raid Precautions Training Manual’ (Westminster, CD149.1).

‘Yorke always had difficulty’:
see HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

‘This gripped by the throat’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘had come upon a place’:
HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

‘a roaring red gold’:
HG,
Caught
,
pp. 178, 181.

‘Yelling and receiving instructions’:
see HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

3:
1 a.m.: Rescue

‘gradually brought under control’:
see Nat Arch, AIR 16/432.

‘cars crashed all night’:
RM,
Life Among the English
(London: Collins, 1942),
p. 47.

‘To propel a car’:
RM,
Personal Pleasures
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1935),
‘Driving a Car’.

‘the other cars’: ibid.,
‘Fastest on Earth’.

‘if he dies’:
Jean Macaulay, interview in Constance Babington Smith,
Rose Macaulay: A Biography
(London: Collins, 1972),
p. 151.

‘I knew about’:
RM,
ToT
,
ch. 25.

‘he had given me his love’: ibid.

‘an acute irritation’:
John Strachey,
Post D, Some Experiences of an Air Raid Warden
(London: Gollancz, 1941),
p. 78.

‘Dust liquefies’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’,
Time and Tide
, 5 October 1940.

‘very nice and matey’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 27 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘Sorry Miss’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘fifteen bomber planes returned’:
see Nat Arch, AIR 16/432.

‘This adds to his comfort’:
memo, 22 November 1939 (London Met, Ambulance Box 38).

‘tended to vomit’:
Jean Macaulay in Babington Smith,
Rose Macaulay
,
p. 78.

‘an infinitely incapable’:
RM,
Told by an Idiot
(London: Collins, 1965),
part 4, second period, ch. 2.

‘thinking it led on’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
(London: Capuchin Classics, 2010),
chs 3i, 9v.

‘A Watford-based volunteer’:
see Angela Raby,
The Forgotten Service: Auxiliary Ambulance Station 39
(London: After the Battle, 1999).

‘eight ambulance drivers’:
see London Met, Ambulance Box 73.

‘It is all in the night’s’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 27 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘It’s like this every night’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘not to be too vivid’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘mortified elephant’:
RM to Daniel George, 30 August 1939 (RM TC).

‘I am improving’: RM to Jean Macaulay, 25 June 1940 (RM TC).

‘it will be hateful’:
RM to Rosamond Lehmann, 10 September 1939 (RL KC).

‘fell dumb in the’:
RM, ‘The Garden’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘rich earth’:
Rupert Brooke, ‘The Soldier’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘who walked about’:
RM, ‘Coming to London’, John Lehmann (ed.),
Coming to London
(London: Phoenix House Ltd, 1957).

‘the death at the war’:
RM to Katharine Tynan, 25 December 1915, in Sarah LeFanu,
Rose Macaulay
(London: Virago, 2003),
p. 112.

‘As I can’t be fighting’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
,
ch. 16vi.

‘on the side of the angels’:
Victor Gollancz,
Reminiscences of Affection
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1968),
p. 82.

‘I hate party politics’: RM in ibid.

‘a lot of wrongs’: RM,
Dangerous Ages
(London: Collins, 1921),
ch. 7v.

‘Our civilisation’:
RM,
An Open Letter
(London: The Peace Pledge Union, 1937).

‘Oh it’s you that have’:
RM, ‘Many Sisters to Many Brothers’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘things happening across’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
,
ch. 2v.

‘Oh, what does one mean’:
RM,
And No Man’s Wit
(London: Collins, 1940),
pp. 315–16.

‘If Nazism
really’: RM to Jean Macaulay, 14 September 1939 (RM TC).

‘an appalling indictment’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, undated, 1939 (RM TC).

‘very well again’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 3 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘blind, maniac, primitive’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘only in the ambulance services’:
see RM, unfinished and untitled article, 1940 (RM TC).

‘I think this is a good thing’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 28 August 1939 (RM TC).

‘I rather wish’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 11 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘There is so little time’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

4:
6 a.m.: All Clear

‘481 fires’:
see London Met, FB/WAR/3/10.

‘glaring deficiencies’:
Dorothea Fox to Ellen Wilkinson, 23 November 1940 (Nat Arch, HO207/995).

‘since those days’:
HS,
DaB
,
p. 127.

‘because of the daily example’:
HS, ‘Psychologie des Exils’, 1975,
Kleine Schritte: Berichte und Geschichten
(München: Heinrich Ellermann, 1976).

‘almost sure to collapse’:
‘Your Home as an Air Raid Shelter’ (Westminster, CD174).

‘Foreign faces about’:
EB, preface to
The Demon Lover and Other Stories
,
The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen
, ed. Hermione Lee (London: Vintage, 1999).

‘the socialist torchlit march’:
see HS,
DaB
,
p. 56.

‘a climate of the most’: ibid.,
p. 41.

‘definitely the man for me’: HS, diary, 1934 (in
DaB
,
p. 74).

‘a man like a tree’:
HS,
DaB
,
p. 80.

‘queuing at the fishmonger’s’:
see HS,
Return to Vienna,
trans. Christine Shuttleworth (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 2011), 30
January.

‘dreary and wretched’:
HS, ibid.