the children. Dinah explained that Bracken would be in the House that afternoon, and would report home as soon as Chamberlain had spoken.
“You surely don’t think the P.M. can wangle again !”said Irene crossly, and hung up.
While they sat round the table in Dinah’s dining room having a second breakfast, heavy-eyed and rather silent, but fully dressed now and tidy, Mona rang up to say that Michael had gone to join his ship without even time for more than a telephoned good bye, and Dinah asked her to lunch.
“I suppose the Navy is gathering at Scapa Flow,” she said, returning to her chair. “Last time it was submarines we worried about. This time it will be planes carrying bombs.”
“I can remember,” said Virginia eerily, “a day when they drew the flat outline of a battleship on the ground at the Hendon air show, and a plane going about forty-five miles an hour flew over and hit it with a plaster-of-paris bomb from a thousand feet up, and we all clapped and thought how clever it was.”
“Yes, well—” Dinah agreed vaguely. “I suppose now we had better start putting things together here. Ian says we shall be blacked out soon, no matter what happens. There’s a grim little Home Office pamphlet about A.R.P. in my desk—not that I don’t know it by heart, but we might as well run through it again—”
Unemotional and efficient, they checked the pamphlet’s requirements . There was no last-minute scurry, for Bracken had already had a comfortable refuge room built in a reinforced corner of the basement, equipped with electrical outlets, and furnished with bunks and bedding, heavy tables and easy chairs, storage for drinking water, even a rug. Then Dinah had assembled in it some useful extras such as candles, First Aid kit,electric kettle and small spirit-stove, spare radio on a battery, books, tinned food, and bottled drinks.
It was time now, Dinah decided, to hang the dark draperies which were ready to go inside the fitted blackout blinds at the windows on all floors of the house. “I will not live like a mole,” she had said when they were ordered some months ago. “We must be able to have all the light we want inside.”
Virginia was leafing through the pamphlet for the hundredth time.
“What a swot these incendiary bombs are going to be,” she grumbled. “Have you got all the bits and pieces to cope with them?”
“In the cupboard in the passage.”
“‘Two buckets, one full of sand, the other with about four inches of sand in it, and a shovel with a pole or broomstick lashed to it to lengthen the handle’,” Virginia read out ponderously . “You throw the sand from the full bucket on to the bomb to smother it, and then— ‘with the shovel lift it into the other bucket! ’” they chanted in unison.
“It’s not possible, of course,” said Dinah cheerfully. “But here are the buckets and the sand and the shovel! Not to mention a stirrup pump as well.”
“But I thought you weren’t supposed to put water on them.”
“Oh, Virginia, how do we know ? And if we’ve all gone down to the shelter who’s going to be mucking about with buckets and sand? Sylvia says it’s exactly like a first night without a prop rehearsal!”
Mab drifted about in Virginia’s wake, being as useful as she could, feeling an uncomfortable detachment. These preparations were for other people’s safety, after she had gone back to Farthingale . Children would be no use in London, she knew, but nevertheless it was a guilty knowledge that one was oneself exempt from the immediate emergency only by one’s lack of years. That is, if they got away in time, before it began.
She was humiliated to find that she wanted to go now, at once, that she dreaded being caught in the general evacuation undertow , and that she was—yes, afraid to stay in London. To discover that one was a coward, Mab thought, handing up curtain rings to Bracken’s manservant on a stepladder in the drawing room, was really the
“You surely don’t think the P.M. can wangle again !”said Irene crossly, and hung up.
While they sat round the table in Dinah’s dining room having a second breakfast, heavy-eyed and rather silent, but fully dressed now and tidy, Mona rang up to say that Michael had gone to join his ship without even time for more than a telephoned good bye, and Dinah asked her to lunch.
“I suppose the Navy is gathering at Scapa Flow,” she said, returning to her chair. “Last time it was submarines we worried about. This time it will be planes carrying bombs.”
“I can remember,” said Virginia eerily, “a day when they drew the flat outline of a battleship on the ground at the Hendon air show, and a plane going about forty-five miles an hour flew over and hit it with a plaster-of-paris bomb from a thousand feet up, and we all clapped and thought how clever it was.”
“Yes, well—” Dinah agreed vaguely. “I suppose now we had better start putting things together here. Ian says we shall be blacked out soon, no matter what happens. There’s a grim little Home Office pamphlet about A.R.P. in my desk—not that I don’t know it by heart, but we might as well run through it again—”
Unemotional and efficient, they checked the pamphlet’s requirements . There was no last-minute scurry, for Bracken had already had a comfortable refuge room built in a reinforced corner of the basement, equipped with electrical outlets, and furnished with bunks and bedding, heavy tables and easy chairs, storage for drinking water, even a rug. Then Dinah had assembled in it some useful extras such as candles, First Aid kit,electric kettle and small spirit-stove, spare radio on a battery, books, tinned food, and bottled drinks.
It was time now, Dinah decided, to hang the dark draperies which were ready to go inside the fitted blackout blinds at the windows on all floors of the house. “I will not live like a mole,” she had said when they were ordered some months ago. “We must be able to have all the light we want inside.”
Virginia was leafing through the pamphlet for the hundredth time.
“What a swot these incendiary bombs are going to be,” she grumbled. “Have you got all the bits and pieces to cope with them?”
“In the cupboard in the passage.”
“‘Two buckets, one full of sand, the other with about four inches of sand in it, and a shovel with a pole or broomstick lashed to it to lengthen the handle’,” Virginia read out ponderously . “You throw the sand from the full bucket on to the bomb to smother it, and then— ‘with the shovel lift it into the other bucket! ’” they chanted in unison.
“It’s not possible, of course,” said Dinah cheerfully. “But here are the buckets and the sand and the shovel! Not to mention a stirrup pump as well.”
“But I thought you weren’t supposed to put water on them.”
“Oh, Virginia, how do we know ? And if we’ve all gone down to the shelter who’s going to be mucking about with buckets and sand? Sylvia says it’s exactly like a first night without a prop rehearsal!”
Mab drifted about in Virginia’s wake, being as useful as she could, feeling an uncomfortable detachment. These preparations were for other people’s safety, after she had gone back to Farthingale . Children would be no use in London, she knew, but nevertheless it was a guilty knowledge that one was oneself exempt from the immediate emergency only by one’s lack of years. That is, if they got away in time, before it began.
She was humiliated to find that she wanted to go now, at once, that she dreaded being caught in the general evacuation undertow , and that she was—yes, afraid to stay in London. To discover that one was a coward, Mab thought, handing up curtain rings to Bracken’s manservant on a stepladder in the drawing room, was really the
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