Mrs Miles's Diary

by S. V. Partington

  The thought of our prisoners in Singapore and the lack of any news is more and more intolerable. Poor Henry, whose son is there, I hear strides about the countryside for hours to try and forget it.

  Friday, 27 February

  To Guildford. Shopping was difficult. Waited for twenty minutes in a grocer’s for some loose mustard. Also waited a long time for four meat patties (fourpence-halfpenny each) at Lyons. A large indignant woman pushed me back.

  Everybody looks worn and anxious. But the sun has actually come out and cheered us a little today.

  We hear that spring has come to Libya and now soldiers tread through fields of asphodel.

  Tuesday, 3 March

  There is to be an official enquiry as to what stocks of coffee remain in England. I see rationing coming. I have two tins from America, in my sadly depleted store cupboard.

  At the Ministry of Information films today in the village hall, there was a clever film of Hitler and his soldiers doing the Lambeth Walk. Adolf would be furious if he had heard the peals of laughter that greeted his frantic appearance. England has never been impressed by the Führer: his ways do not suit us.

  Bad news about brave Java.178 The Japanese Navy is ruling the waves.

  Thursday, 5 March

  I forgot to copy this poem by Mildred, sent me some time ago.

  To the Pianist

  Don’t play ‘Auf Wiedersehn’

  Not while the rain is dropping from the eaves,

  Nor while I think of ghosts . . .

  Recall again

  Vienna of the dropping golden leaves.

  And don’t play ‘Balalaika’

  Not again

  While down the Nevski Prospect pour the troops,

  Not in the dazzling colours that I knew

  But drab and sombre as the Volga’s hue.

  Play something light and cold,

  Something quite new;

  I must forget

  These cities drowned in pain.

  Stop ‘Madeleine’,

  That’s France and Quatorze.

  God! How one grows old.

  Rangoon will go next, then Java. Then India? Then certainly, I fear, Australia. What agonising times! Appalling hours dragging on, with the news ever worsening . . .

  Saturday, 7 March

  Barbara writes of her office work in a Ministry. She says: ‘I am rather horrified to note the awe in which the women hold the men. My co-mate, married to an Eton master, talks about being afraid of forgetting her pass, and “getting into a row” as if she were a schoolchild.’

  To my great joy I have discovered a woman who will come and work for me when Olive goes. Thank God, I say, most sincerely.

  Heard from Cousin Jo this morning. Their younger boy, a fine, gallant, upstanding fellow, went into the army, and wrote confidently just before Christmas. Now no news, and the poor father is stunned, and works all day long so as not to think.

  Robin reads out an odd article in the Daily Mail, which surely should know better, saying that the American fleet is sailing towards Java, poor, falling Java! If only it was true!

  Sunday, 8 March

  What an amazing feature of this war is the way the Germans transplant whole populations. Now it is announced that they think they will move a Polish town, called Katowice, entirely, because there are rich seams of coal under it.179

  One Maria Goralezcka has been shot in Poland, for hitting a Labour Exchange official in the face. How I sympathise with dark-eyed, world-fatigued Maria! God rest her.

  Surely this dark tide of misfortune must turn soon?

  Tuesday, 10 March

  Went to the village kitchen to help. Met Freda on the way, who said: ‘There is no food in the village. I can’t get Jack any fish, or any meat. Women alone are all right. It’s the men . . .’

  True.

  Later. Horrified to listen to Mr Eden’s speech on the Japanese treatment of our people in Hong Kong. Words fail me utterly. Felt desperate, and suggested to Robin that we should both give up our home at once, and get war work. We must win! Robin dissented. To bed, thoroughly wretched, and took a sleeping draught, to help me to forget it all.

  Thursday, 12 March

  The wireless has just announced that private motor cars must go off the road. Alas!

  The Japanese armada which went to Java consisted of more than 200 warships and sixty troop carriers, and the Allied fleet that tackled it was less than a third in size.

  How long will this continue? At the present moment there seems no real opposition.

  Friday, 13 March

  Went to sleep last night thinking of what the loss of the car will mean to us. Of course there’s not the slightest feeling that we should be allowed to keep it. I like to think of our happy trips – it brought me to the gates of many friends. To a gate by a walnut tree in a Berkshire village, to a loved gate in the New Forest, to a green gate and quiet home in Highcliffe where there was always a warm welcome and a prospect of happy talks. This war is certainly forbidding meetings and discouraging all travels.

  Saturday, 14 March

  May S. came, looking terribly exhausted, full of talk about the BBC. She knows the governor of the prison which houses Hess.180 Mrs Pakenham amused May and me by telling us this true story: ‘Hess is here,’ announced the housemaid, bringing Mrs P. her morning tea in a Scottish country house last year. ‘Mrs Bailey asked me to tell you.’ ‘Oh,’ said Mrs P., quite baffled. ‘Well, please tell Mrs Bailey from me that Hitler is standing just outside my window!’ ‘Yes, m’am,’ and the girl went off, convinced that this was so.

  Tuesday, 17 March

  Today The Times says that Greek officials predict that half the entire Greek population of 7,000,000 will be dead before the war ends.

  Barbara is worried about her garden. She thinks it more important to cultivate that, possibly, than to work at a Ministry.181

  Wednesday, 18 March

  Olive left today, much to my sorrow.

  The other Olive has been here, telling me about life in a factory. ‘It’s the money I must have. It’s very monotonous; I would rather do housework. But my husband, who has left the Dorchester and is in the army, only gets seven-and-six a week to spend, and I get twenty-five shillings army allowance, so we can’t pay our house instalment, unless I make about three pounds, which I do. Ever so nice the forewoman is, and you can talk if you like. The afternoon’s the worst, about three o’clock, so tiring, and you go on till six doing the same thing over and over. I’d like to change my machine, but if you get good at your work, they won’t move you!’

  Australia is said to be at zero hour, awaiting an invasion. If only we could get some success!

  From the Bundles for Britain League182 last week came 12,000 garments. A hundred Afghans, 280 pairs of shoes. From New Zealand, 9,900 garments. From the Kinsman’s Club of Canada, 40,000 pounds of milk powder. We are not (though it almost seems as if we are) alone.

  Thursday, 19 March

  Mr Bracken says we are about to hear more bad news. It must be Burma that we are to lose.

  The Americans are having a great welcome in Australia; ‘the men swing through the streets to billets and camps with a splended, careless swagger,’ and towns declared an unofficial holiday.

  Leaving this country for the Malaya front last year, a soldier called Ayres said to his wife, ‘If anything happens to me, don’t take up the struggle alone. Follow me every mile of the way. We love each other too much to be parted. Bring the baby with you.’ The poor wife, hearing her husband had died of wounds at Singapore, drowned the baby and tried to drown herself, but was rescued. The judge told her this: ‘You are the victim of the lusts of the warlords of the world.’ She was recommended to mercy, poor soul.

  Friday, 20 March

  From May Sinclair’s letter:

  ‘I got into a railway carriage (after leaving you) with three soldiers. Two cursing Churchill, and saying they wouldn’t trust him farther than they could see him, etc. Making the most astou
nding statements about our politicians selling us to Germany. First they said Ramsay MacDonald made his pile and then cleared out, then Baldwin made a fortune by selling steel to Germany, and then he resigned when things got too hot for him. I couldn’t contain myself when they started on poor old Chamberlain, and enquired in an icily polite voice, “Would you tell me where you got these astounding facts? Because I suppose you are quite sure you are speaking the truth?” They stopped and looked amazed, then went off into that good old speech that we know by heart: “In Russia, it’s different, there they don’t do this and that.” The end of the story was (so typically British) they both recounted with relish all the battles they had fought in – one had 27 years’ service – and so pleased was he with Comrade May Sinclair that he insisted upon carrying my suitcase off the station. As we parted, I said in a very school-mistressy way, “Now remember what I’ve told you about Russia – I’ve been there – and about making wild and wicked statements about public people,” and he said, “Very good, m’am.” No other country could possibly understand us!’

  Saturday, 21 March

  Ten p.m. The Home Guard have been ordered to stand to. We were drinking coffee with Captain and Mrs Pakenham below when an excited fifteen-year-old appeared to summon Robin. He has gone down the street in uniform – unarmed.

  We went over to the Rawlinsons, our last car expedition till the end of the war. Also, I suppose, I drank my last cocktail of the war, in the Wentworth Club, with our kind host and hostess.

  Thursday, 26 March

  The news is bad. The Japanese have landed on the Andaman Islands. (I can’t help remembering the Andamans in Conan Doyle’s wonderful story, The Sign of Four.)

  Should Russia conclude a separate peace, what then? They cannot last for ever. Alexander Werth, the war correspondent, told May Sinclair that the Russians were very short of food. No doubt they think us fools over our neglect at Singapore. A storm seems to be blowing up over this matter of Singapore. Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, MP, who seems to be true hardheaded son of the Manse, asked in Parliament if it was true that immediately before our surrender, some British reinforcements were landed, and almost at once marched into a prison camp.

  As I write, the news is pouring into the room. MacArthur is pledging American blood to the cause. The Japanese are surely at their peak of power, they are pressing us hard in Burma, and so on. It is difficult to convey the war atmosphere of today. We know that the Japanese are triumphant, rushing here and there. There is silence from our men and women in Hong Kong, and silence about our dear ones in Singapore, and the Germans are pressing the Russians with new vehement efforts. Libya is watchful: but quiet. I have so much extra housework that the day goes more quickly, I’m glad to say.

  Sunday, 29 March

  To church this morning, for the Day of Prayer service. It was a long, extremely intense service, far too long to follow: one’s emotion was running dry during the first half-hour. Why does not some vicar or rector perceive that people are feeling the strain of this war, and a brief service would much better serve their needs.

  Monday, 30 March

  The papers are full of news of our great commando attack at St Nazaire.

  ‘The story of their amazing exploits is one of the most stirring that this country has had during the whole course of the war. They went ashore in the early hours of the morning and systematically wrecked harbour installations, lock gates, and power houses. They were met by strong opposition, but this they overcame with the utmost determination.’183

  Wednesday, 1 April

  To the Women’s Institute. Mrs T. spoke of her idea of getting up a communal kitchen for grown-ups. In the discussion that followed there was no enthusiasm at all, and the village women were unconcerned. The relief of having a British Restaurant184 near at hand, when cookless, was not even mentioned, but great stress was laid by a couple of speakers on the saving in gas and electricity.

  Wednesday, 8 April

  To tea with the Rogers. Miss Margery Perham, of the Nuffield Foundation, was there.185 She spoke of the visit of the Russians to our factories, and said they were horrified to find that women workers in them were not paid the same as men.

  Friday, 10 April

  News very bad. The Japs are masters of Batavia. We have lost two valuable cruisers. Hermes, an aircraft carrier, has been sunk.186

  Monday, 13 April

  From Lady Adams’ Californian letter this morning, about the outbreak of war in America:

  ‘The nation was dumb with surprise, and I was dumb with surprise too, because the nation was dumb with surprise. Didn’t they know what was going to happen? You see the USA had always watched dreadful things happening to the people next door, and they just could not believe that Pearl Harbour had crashed about them. I was lunching in Pasadena the day of Pearl Harbour, and an acquaintance said to me, “Are you anxious?” “I have been anxious night and day,” I said, “for two years and three months,” and she seemed surprised.’

  Tuesday, 14 April

  I shook hands with Tony Dodds today, on survivors’ leave. He looks much older. His ship, a fine destroyer, was sunk. ‘She went down in three minutes,’ said Tony. There appears to have been a ship full of ammunition near the destroyer in Valetta harbour. Most of the crew of Tony’s ship had gone ashore when German bombers appeared. Eleven were killed on board by the Germans. ‘There were so many planes,’ Tony said rather sadly. ‘And you watched it?’ ‘Oh, I went to try and pick some of them out.’187

  Monday, 20 April

  The raid by daylight over Augsburg seems to have been very wonderful. The Prime Minister has sent the following message to Air Marshal A. T. Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command:

  ‘We must plainly regard the attack of the Lancasters on the U-boat engine factory at Augsburg as an outstanding achievement of the Royal Air Force. Undeterred by heavy losses at the outset, the bombers pierced in broad daylight into the heart of Germany and struck a vital point with deadly precision.’

  I wrote to Mrs Winston Churchill today to ask her to beg her husband to say one sentence to women in Britain in his next speech. One sentence to brace the anxious wives and mothers, the tired workers. Oh, I hope it will be answered, and I shall watch for it, but I don’t think it likely. Winston must be behind such a very thick wall of business.

  To Guildford. The windows of the bakers’ shops looked stripped and bare. A few doubtful looking little rissoles at Lyons.

  Tuesday, 21 April

  Lord Haw-Haw has just broadcast and says the British fleet has retired from the Pacific and gone to Durban, thus presenting the Japanese with Ceylon and India.

  The familiar voice rasped away and I left it to go to the kitchen and wash up.

  Muriel and Sibyl both write of sharp raids on Southampton and the New Forest.

  Thursday, 23 April

  I have just cut out a charming picture of Princess Elizabeth, one day to be Queen of England, shaking hands with one of the officers of her regiment – the Grenadier Guards. His head is bowed in shyness and she is smiling up at him. The Colonel looks on, half smiling, half anxious. All this, her first public ceremony, will remain with her, even after years of public life.

  The Americans’ sugar ration has gone from one pound a head a week to half a pound, so no more sugar will cross the Atlantic for us. Nor tea.

  Later: I have been remembering our happy visits to beautiful Rouen. And here in the paper, I see this:

  ‘Rouen, where 80 more hostages are due to be executed on Friday or Saturday for the attack on a troop train, is in mourning. All women are in black, and all men have black armbands or a piece of crepe in their buttonhole. When the first 30 hostages were executed last Saturday, the Dean of the Cathedral held a solemn requiem mass, which was attended by thousands of people. The night before, a crepe-decorated wreath was placed by unknown hands at the gates of the courtyard of La Nouvelle Prison, where the executions were to take place at dawn.’

  Saturday, 25 April

  T
he papers are full of hints as to an Allied offensive. I wonder. Our air raids are becoming even more intensive.

  Monday, 27 April

  A great day – the opening of the grown-ups’ communal kitchen. The ugly, dusty faded village hall looked so much better, as, having paid out ninepence each to the First Lady of the village at the door, we advanced to the table.

  The Three Graces, who so kindly have undertaken this, looked rather anxious, as they directed us to bring up our plates and take our forks and spoons. There was corned beef, lettuce, nicely mashed potato, and a divine pudding with dates and sauce. We much enjoyed our meal. The Graces looked so pretty, Molly of the very blue eyes, kind upstanding Helen whose face speaks generosity, and Dorothy, so picturesque, with her curls and gaily striped overall. A whole posse of Forrest Stores employees came in at once, about ten of them. I feel this kitchen (the first in Surrey) will presently be crowded.

  In the evening Miss Davey, formerly the Principal of a Physical Training College for girls in Kensington, came to see us. She described the terrible adventures she had trying to evacuate her thirty pupils when war came. The government commandeered her premises almost immediately. She was down in her little Cornish cottage and despairingly tried to evacuate there. She stuffed girls into various farmhouses – distances were great, staff disgruntled, there was no proper hockey field, etc. Finally she secured premises at Bournemouth. And after two pleasant terms came the Blitz, the cry of the parents, ‘Why choose the coast?’ And the enterprise is broken up. Her money was all in it. Now it is vanished, and she finds she is just too old to get a job (I think she is forty-five). It is a sad case. I hope she will turn to the domestic side. I expect she could get into a hotel.

  Tuesday, 28 April

  We bomb Rostock and they bomb Bath – lovely grey old Bath! The churches and domes are smashed in Malta, and every single building of the Knights of St John is destroyed. This system of tit for tat between us and them terrifies me. Is the whole world to become a mass of rubble?