last straw. To know this sick churning in one’s insides, to long to start packing a bag, to watch the clock, to prevent oneself by main force from asking when they were goingto start— But Bracken didn’t intend to let them run any risk….
Her hands were cold and clammy, and she took great care not to touch Gregson’s fingers as she handed things up the ladder, lest he notice and suspect that she was afraid. Gregson had been in the last war—all through it, twice wounded and gassed. Gregson knew he could stand fire. Gregson was brave….
Sylvia looked in at the drawing room door with her hat on.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Would you like to come round to Cromwell Road with me and see about the animal A.R.P.? I’ve been talking to some nice woman on the telephone, and she says I can put my name down to be an Animal Guard. I thought it was worth looking into—”
Mab accepted with relief. It was always comforting to be with Sylvia.
As they walked through the streets on that Thursday morning they felt the tempo of London quickening all round them. Men were at work reducing the traffic signals at the corners to thin coloured crosses. Men were painting white lines along the kerbs and traffic islands. Museums were loading their treasures into vans which would take them to prepared hideaways in the country. Police notices in unemotional black and white had gone up on walls and windows about masking your house lights and screening your motor lamps. And—this brought a sinking sensation when they realized it—live ammunition was being stacked round the A.A. guns in the parks.
And yet London was strangely calm, they felt, watching the unhurried, methodical workmen. Not just resigned. Not hopeful that it was all just another false alarm, either. But steady. Not the desperate composure of will power, like last September. Now there was a deep, unreasoning, illogical serenity. The British had put their foot down. And only by the periodic, inevitable secret wave of nausea in each individual midriff, resolutely downed unmentioned , did their nerves betray them.
Sylvia bought the noon edition of the Standard and they read it in the bus. The American Ambassador was advising Americans to leave England at once, and there was a rush for bookings on the s.s. Washington sailing at midnight.
“I’m glad that doesn’t mean me,” said Sylvia. “They’ll pack in like sardines, the way it was last year before Munich.”
“But you are an American,” Mab said almost with envy. “And so is Jeff.”
“Foreign correspondents are a kind of maverick,” Sylvia remarked with a certain pride. “They’re hired to break all the rules. To break their silly necks too, if necessary. It says here that volunteers are still needed to take charge of children in the evacuation—which may be ordered at any time now. That’s the sort of thing I ought to be doing, you know—instead of fretting about mere dogs and cats.”
“The children will get along,” said Mab unsympathetically.
“That’s the way I feel,” Sylvia agreed gratefully. “They’ve been organizing to deal with the children for months, I tell myself. Well, anyway—we’ll see what’s going on about the pets before I give up on it.”
When the House convened that afternoon at Westminster, Bracken was in the Press Gallery, noting tension but not gloom. The Prime Minister in a quiet, rueful speech admitted that there was imminent danger of war, but reiterated the pledge to Poland. Winston Churchill was not in his accustomed place, which indicated that he had not yet returned from his holiday in France. They would have Churchill back in the Government, everybody said, if Anything Happened. The House, having met and issued its warning and its reassurances, adjourned till the following Tuesday the twenty-ninth.
Mab and Sylvia returned at tea-time to Upper Brook Street, full of information about the animal A.R.P., which was indeed glad of another volunteer, and
Her hands were cold and clammy, and she took great care not to touch Gregson’s fingers as she handed things up the ladder, lest he notice and suspect that she was afraid. Gregson had been in the last war—all through it, twice wounded and gassed. Gregson knew he could stand fire. Gregson was brave….
Sylvia looked in at the drawing room door with her hat on.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Would you like to come round to Cromwell Road with me and see about the animal A.R.P.? I’ve been talking to some nice woman on the telephone, and she says I can put my name down to be an Animal Guard. I thought it was worth looking into—”
Mab accepted with relief. It was always comforting to be with Sylvia.
As they walked through the streets on that Thursday morning they felt the tempo of London quickening all round them. Men were at work reducing the traffic signals at the corners to thin coloured crosses. Men were painting white lines along the kerbs and traffic islands. Museums were loading their treasures into vans which would take them to prepared hideaways in the country. Police notices in unemotional black and white had gone up on walls and windows about masking your house lights and screening your motor lamps. And—this brought a sinking sensation when they realized it—live ammunition was being stacked round the A.A. guns in the parks.
And yet London was strangely calm, they felt, watching the unhurried, methodical workmen. Not just resigned. Not hopeful that it was all just another false alarm, either. But steady. Not the desperate composure of will power, like last September. Now there was a deep, unreasoning, illogical serenity. The British had put their foot down. And only by the periodic, inevitable secret wave of nausea in each individual midriff, resolutely downed unmentioned , did their nerves betray them.
Sylvia bought the noon edition of the Standard and they read it in the bus. The American Ambassador was advising Americans to leave England at once, and there was a rush for bookings on the s.s. Washington sailing at midnight.
“I’m glad that doesn’t mean me,” said Sylvia. “They’ll pack in like sardines, the way it was last year before Munich.”
“But you are an American,” Mab said almost with envy. “And so is Jeff.”
“Foreign correspondents are a kind of maverick,” Sylvia remarked with a certain pride. “They’re hired to break all the rules. To break their silly necks too, if necessary. It says here that volunteers are still needed to take charge of children in the evacuation—which may be ordered at any time now. That’s the sort of thing I ought to be doing, you know—instead of fretting about mere dogs and cats.”
“The children will get along,” said Mab unsympathetically.
“That’s the way I feel,” Sylvia agreed gratefully. “They’ve been organizing to deal with the children for months, I tell myself. Well, anyway—we’ll see what’s going on about the pets before I give up on it.”
When the House convened that afternoon at Westminster, Bracken was in the Press Gallery, noting tension but not gloom. The Prime Minister in a quiet, rueful speech admitted that there was imminent danger of war, but reiterated the pledge to Poland. Winston Churchill was not in his accustomed place, which indicated that he had not yet returned from his holiday in France. They would have Churchill back in the Government, everybody said, if Anything Happened. The House, having met and issued its warning and its reassurances, adjourned till the following Tuesday the twenty-ninth.
Mab and Sylvia returned at tea-time to Upper Brook Street, full of information about the animal A.R.P., which was indeed glad of another volunteer, and
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