Mrs Miles's Diary

by S. V. Partington

  (2) I am pleased when I see a pile of scones in the tea shops (they both tend to close constantly).

  (3) I receive a tiny bit of bacon for boiling with enthusiasm at the grocer’s. It is a battle to get it, and one takes what one is given.

  (4) Many more ladies with shopping baskets.

  (5) Dull, dismal blackout curtains at every window and no new paint – every house almost shabby.

  But the antique shop shows old ivory chessmen and champagne glasses, and even a lovely green and fawn dessert service in its brave windows.

  In the greengrocer’s there are cauliflowers tenpence each, pears 1/– a pound and tomatoes 1/– a pound.

  Friday, 16 October

  Again impressed by the difficulty in going away from home. Accomplished a million chores before breakfast of porridge and coffee. Robin woke up to the fact that I was going away, and asked when I would be back.

  I am writing as dusk falls gently over Mayo’s garden. The high screaming note of a bomber may be heard (possibly a Liberator), but the machine is wrapped in cloud. The brightening moon is looking in through the panes.

  May is putting the pony to bed, and Sibyl is exercising the red setters; enormous Barney with the noble head, large Nonie.

  Saturday, 17 October

  As I write (2.45) there is an alert, and great activity in the air. Walking among the bright-berried holly in the Forest today, we saw a lovely white-winged Liberator storming along the grey sky.

  Sunday, 18 October

  I have just been across the heath to post a card to Robin. Autumn’s intense stillness was in the air, only broken by the hum of many bombers above the trees.

  Yesterday the big armament works at Le Creuzot was attacked, the greatest daylight raid of the war. Lancaster crews went over and bombed for twenty minutes, very successfully: only one machine was lost.

  We walked again and in the afternoon strode across the bracken and grassy slopes to look at the new aerodrome at Bransgore.215

  May assured me that many nice houses – ‘as nice as mine’ – had been pulled down to make room for it. ‘And the carefully kept gardens all trodden down.’

  It looked enormous.

  The C—s came to tea. This Colonel and his frail, bright, active little lady are doing without baths four days a week. This is a great, true sacrifice. They laugh gently about it.

  The large Colonel is not so certain as he used to be that the war will soon be over.

  A peaceful Sunday evening, Sibyl cooking a good supper, great wafts of country silence muffling the house, which like Noah’s Ark stands in its lawn among apple trees. In daylight, beyond the hedge, riders go by, but not so many as in peacetime.

  Monday, 19 October

  May drives me in the trap across the flaming golden Forest to Picket Post. First I say goodbye to her friendly stable tenant, Mr Mossop.

  Mr M. is gloomy. He has two proud, lovely cart horses in May’s stable, Tom and Prince, and has a contract to load timber.

  He can’t get a single man to help him. No labour. And he can’t heave the great logs himself. So he is at a standstill.

  He tells me the New Forest trees will be entirely cut down very soon, if the war goes on. And he says the war is only just beginning.

  He lends me the New Statesman; brings it up specially. Returning it, I say mildly that it’s rather red in politics. Mossop says it is only pink. I wish him well.

  We drive past the large new saw-mills. In the distance I can see two Italian prisoners, one each end of a long saw, working away at a tree trunk. Nearer us some Forestry maidens are marking lengths on bits of wood, and measuring with great confidence.

  Sunday, 25 October

  A lovely autumn day, crisp and cold. Thinking of the great offensive in Egypt. Will the war change Basil and the rest very much? It can’t leave them the same.

  Monday, 26 October

  A day raid over Godalming this morning. John H., bomber pilot, was at our communal lunch. He was over Le Creuzot in a Lancaster the other day. He nearly got blown up as they flew low over a power station and there was such a tremendous explosion that the plane was knocked edgeways and he had difficulty in getting it back.

  Wednesday, 28 October

  Rosamond told me one of her three precious hens, for which she has just paid one guinea each, has been stolen at night. She can see the manly footsteps up to the hen house. A shame.

  There has never been such scrounging as there is today in Britain.

  Thursday, 29 October

  Robin has gone into Guildford, desperately resolved to buy a really good pair of shoes, come what may.

  Grace says that she simply couldn’t get her airman son to talk of his experiences this time. He was awfully tired, went to bed early on his leave, and slept till ten-thirty.

  Old Mrs K. to tea. She says her son, a West End physician, finds patients strained by the war and difficult to treat. ‘People are beginning to lose their grip, and to let their friends go without an effort. Bills are not paid by very many. The doctor can wait.’

  Monday, 2 November

  Mrs Lutyens came to tea. She has been working at factories for the Ministry of Information, observing conditions for women’s labour. She reports that the girls are working much too long. The lavatories in one works she was at were full of girls sleeping on the floor. She says the health of these women will be much worse than the returning troops.

  Tuesday, 3 November

  It is 6.05. The light is on, the fire is burning brightly. The wireless is speaking of an advance in Egypt. The news is good. What is Basil doing? I picture him in a little tent giving blood transfusions far from the battlefield.

  ‘It is an extraordinary sight,’ says the BBC observer. ‘Shells by the thousand are going over to the enemy – the Eighth Army in its might.’

  7.15 p.m. A bell rang: I answered it and was handed a wire for Robin. ‘I fear it is bad news,’ said the man who brought it.

  It said: ‘Regret to report that Capt. B. E. Miles RAMC is wounded and is placed on the seriously ill list. Oct 28th. Letter follows shortly.’

  Wednesday, 4 November

  I feel I must try in the middle of this anxiety to go on writing this. But I don’t know if I shall be able to do it.

  Captain Basil Miles, taken during his service in North Africa.

  Photograph courtesy of Mary Wetherell

  Thursday, 5 November

  We hear that Basil sustained a gunshot wound in the chest. He is at No. 19 General Hospital and if so desired, we may write.

  It is an un-understanding piece of work. ‘If so desired’, indeed! Also, we are told that all gunshot wounds are classed as ‘serious’.

  We went down through the rain to the post office together and sent him a cable for 7/3216 sending our love and hopes. If only he is alive to get it!

  We are chasing the enemy in a great rout. Thus: ‘The Axis forces in the Western Desert, after twelve days and nights of ceaseless attacks by our land and air forces, are now in full retreat.’217

  ‘This, Mrs Miles,’ says Mr Brook, our tenant, kneeling over an old oil stove and tinkering at it, ‘This is the turning of the tide.’

  Saturday, 7 November

  Very glorious news. American troops have landed at Algiers, Oran, Saafi, Casablanca. And Montgomery is pressing on. Truly this is the turning point.

  I did not see any flags hanging out, on gazing at the roof-tops of Shere out of my window. We have had such a trouncing we can hardly believe in success.

  Later: To Mrs Rayne’s to tea at Pond Farm. I read an account of how her brave son perished when the Clan Campbell was torpedoed off Malta.

  Wilfred was busy helping to launch the boats till the very end; he was in charge of the troops and did his full duty. ‘We were like lovers,’ said his mother sadly, as we came back over the autumn bracken. ‘We liked all the same things. His idea was to settle down on the farm: what is the use of it all now?’

  Miss Perham is going by and by to A
byssinia, on a hush-hush job.

  Later: A policeman called to bring us a War Office wire to say Basil was dangerously ill. October 29th. Very much shocked. Robin took a determined optimistic view, basing it on the cheery wire Basil himself sent, on which is the date October 30th. I do intensely desire not to give way to tears: but to keep quiet.

  Wednesday, 11 November

  No news.

  Thursday, 12 November

  At 5.30 this afternoon Joy rang up from the BBC to say that Otto had sent on a cable from Basil to say – November 4th – ‘Health improving. Please don’t worry.’

  It was like passing from night into day. I cannot write much about this.

  Friday, 13 November

  Very much exhausted. The news goes on being excellent. Resumed work at the kitchen.

  Sunday, 15 November

  This journal is extremely desultory these days, as one is thinking half the time of Basil, and much is left out.

  Robin was against the ringing of the bells for the Victory of Egypt, but I tried to convince him that it was lovely. And they rang out, sweet and clear, at 10.30. I went to church, and we sang ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ and ‘Praise, My Soul’ with great gentleness and timidity. There was no swagger or arrogance: it was evident that everybody was conscious of how long a way we had to travel before real victory comes.

  Monday, 16 November

  Philip Jordan, the war correspondent, is in Rangoon. He says it is a terrible doomed city. ‘Such is Rangoon today: streets of great and unnatural peace and full of unnatural horror: a lily festering in sunlight. The abiding memory will always be of great bravery against great odds.’

  Violets are sixpence a flower now, but there was sunshine today and our brave irises are coming up in the garden.

  Rosamond came to tea, with a tiny basket containing a tiny bottle half full of milk. Luckily I had not to accept it. Her milkman gives her a much smaller milk ration than we get.

  Robin is sitting making a fresh set of tickets for the communal kitchen. Bits of cardboard elegantly marked with figures are all round him on the old hearthrug.

  A week ago the telegram about Basil being on the danger list arrived, and froze our hearts. We are hanging on to the hope of a letter with better news from the authorities this week.

  Tuesday, 17 November

  Still no more about Basil.

  May Sinclair writes: ‘My niece Didi, a Wren officer, is now at Gibraltar. Popsy says her daughter’s tropical kit is charming. White pique dresses, with naval buttons very well cut. Didi is loving Gib., and every week the Wren officers have to dine at Government House. What a charming scene it must be!’

  ‘Petronelle says the American troops have such good manners. After their Halloween party at Oxford, to which were invited American and British troops, the American CO wrote the very next day on behalf of his men to thank them, saying that his men had decided that the Wrens were the most beautiful and charming girls they had met in England.

  ‘Our British Intelligence Corps also wrote a week afterwards to say thank you, but the Air Force did not see fit to do so.’

  A great victory has taken place in the Solomons, the Americans smashing the Japs.218

  Wednesday, 18 November

  Greatly delighted by the news that Major Mavor cables from Cairo, that Basil’s improvement is satisfactory. I can hardly force myself to believe it.

  We keep on thinking about the great Battle of Egypt – for ever specially important to us because Basil was there. I quote this from today’s paper:

  ‘It is possible now to get a fairly clear picture of the Allied Commander’s tactics. It looks simple on paper. An enormous number of guns pelted the enemy and his guns; the Air Force blasted more of the enemy’s guns and his supply lines; the infantry went in and cleared up what was left.’

  Thursday, 19 November

  It is beginning to dawn on us that the War Office does not mean to send us anything more about Basil but tranquilly leaves him as ‘dangerously ill. Oct. 29th.’

  I am writing a letter of one sentence to The Times suggesting that mothers should be employed at Casualty offices.

  Dr Johnson said the great point of keeping a journal was to describe one’s state of mind. Here goes, then:

  I am restless, and not entirely happy about Basil. I want so much to know where he is, to have a line from him. This shadow makes me stupid and vague.

  Friday, 20 November

  The War Office writes that they cannot tell me where No. 19 General Hospital is, but it is not either at Cairo or Alexandria (I had said in my letter that we had friends at both places).

  Saturday, 21 November

  Robin is very cross about the news that men of the Observer Corps over fifty are to be retired. All through the morning, he came to and fro saying, ‘I only wish I could write a play, and show how absurd it is.’

  So ends another painful week. We hope to have more news by next Saturday of Basil in his Egyptian dwelling.

  Sunday, 22 November

  Here is the story of a drastic punishment:

  ‘An Aldershot court martial has sentenced Driver Peter Singleton, aged 28, of the Royal Army Service Corps, to two years imprisonment with hard labour for spreading reports calculated to create unnecessary despondency, and for absence without leave.

  ‘Witnesses at the trial stated that Singleton visited a Service canteen at Darlington on October 6, and said in the hearing of two voluntary women helpers, “The British will never drive Rommel out of Egypt, as our equipment is inferior. There is no British general to compare with Rommel.”

  ‘Singleton told the court he had been drinking, and did not remember having any conversation.’

  We are listening spellbound to a German singing, on the wireless, a heavenly song.

  Tuesday, 24 November

  In the evening I read W. J. Brown’s I Meet America. I skipped most of the tiresome politics, but extracted some honey.

  Coming home, after incredible delays by sea, Brown was rather nervous, but he says he argued this way:

  (1) The Convoy will either be attacked or it won’t.

  (2) If it isn’t, there’s no need to worry.

  (3) If it is, it will either sink or it won’t.

  (4) If it doesn’t, there’s no need to worry.

  (5) If it does, we shall either be picked up or we shan’t.

  (6) If we are, there’s no need to worry.

  (7) If we’re not, well, after a few hours in this arctic cold, we shall go to sleep, and all worry about this life will be over anyway.

  Wednesday, 25 November

  Electrified with joy to get an airgraph from Basil this morning written Nov. 7 from his hospital, which he says is in the Canal Zone. He rather thinks that he will be sent to South Africa to convalesce.

  The Russians are doing marvellously.219

  Friday, 27 November

  News continues to be excellent. Am wondering if Basil is up yet.

  Saturday, 28 November

  May Sinclair arrived just when I was feeling like death, with a most horrible cold. I thought my dearest old friend looked very tired indeed, but Robin saw no difference. She can now leave her desk at Bush House about 7 to 7.30 p.m.

  She has been talking to one Sandberg of Orange Radio who is at present broadcasting in the Dutch section. He is a nice little man, she says.

  Sandberg is Head of the Socialist Party in Holland (but has always directed it from Paris). He told May that Holland was riddled by Fifth Columnists.220

  His own father was an important man and a keen Nazi, before the Huns arrived. Then the father had been given a good job, and naturally enough all the Dutch Nazis have been well looked after by the Germans.

  He pulled out a letter and showed it to May. ‘This has just come,’ he cried, ‘from my father. In it he begs me to bury our differences. “I have a tolerance for your creed and you should have a tolerance for mine.”

  ‘But that is impossible, and I am unable to answer t
his letter,’ he concluded.

  Wednesday, 2 December

  Nine women gathered together in my library to hear Mrs Lutyens speak on ‘Women in Industry’. Three of the five married ladies had lost sons in the war.

  Naomi Lutyens,221 slim and fair in blue, sat on a tiny chair in front of a big log fire, and gave us some of her experiences in factories in the north.

  All is by no means well with the women in industry.

  Factories vary very much. Some are airy and modern and convenient. Many are old and gloomy and inconvenient.

  Night shifts should last more than a fortnight at a time. Like hospital nurses, the women should be allowed time to settle in to night work. She told us she felt terrible about four o’clock in the morning, and a girl next to her machine turned to her at that ghastly hour and said, ‘Eh, luv, I feel like ten men, and all of them dead.’

  A twelve-hour day is being worked by women in many factories up and down the land.

  In spite of the representations of the British Medical Association.

  In spite of the findings of tried psychologists, who tell us that people work better with reasonable hours.

  We all, I think, felt shocked and sorry.

  ‘And the workers,’ she continued, ‘have no faith in the future. They just don’t believe they will get work after the war or that anything will be done about it.’

  Later: the Beveridge Plan222 is today published with the unintentionally misleading title, ‘Two pounds a week for all.’ It is to be nothing of the sort. One pound to the man, one to the wife. After many years!

  Mussolini has just reproached Churchill (‘drunk with tobacco and alcohol’) for calling him, in ‘an ungentlemanlike way’, a hyena.

  Musso then proceeded to say that Roosevelt was a hyena!

  Friday, 4 December

  Nothing more from Basil. Mr Struben cables from Pretoria that he cannot locate No. 19 General Hospital.

  Field Marshal Mannerheim223 today informed the International Red Cross that 20,000 Russian prisoners of war have died of starvation in Finland.