Mrs Miles's Diary

by S. V. Partington

  What a world! How can we sleep, laugh, dream, go out and eat? Twenty thousand men feeling worse and worse.

  Saturday, 5 December

  About seven o’clock the phone rang. A girl said that she had an important wire for Major Miles and wished to give it to him personally, ‘For it’s important, you see.’

  I said faintly, ‘Is it bad news?’ and she replied, ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Robin came to the phone and the wire was about Basil. He has been taken off the dangerously ill list, and put onto the seriously ill list.

  So the iron silence has been broken, thank God. I had hoped for even better news. I had been feeling very sad and rather frightened before it came, about the possible consequences and length of the war. We went to bed comforted and thankful.

  Sunday, 6 December

  Fine weather. Robin contending with difficult and elusive Home Guard. He looks very fair and Saxon in colouring in his little forage cap and khaki battle-dress (which he thinks most clumsily designed).

  Monday, 7 December

  Discouraged rather by a letter from the Matron of Basil’s hospital who writes on 11 November, a grave and guarded letter. It seems he has bouts of pain over the hepatic region, and fluid is drawn off his chest when necessary. Poor Basil. Thank God we have the War Office wire about 30 November.

  Both at the little village post office and in the large post office in Guildford today, women were eagerly buying letter-cards just issued for writing to the troops. I got one and wrote it to Basil, wrote an airgraph to the Matron, and also framed a cable to Mrs Dell on Nantucket Island about Basil.

  Mother sent a really glorious gift of suet and Mrs Rapson is going to make me a Christmas pudding, and I have given her a little tot of rum to put in it.

  Again, the sense that it’s to be a very long war comes over me; we seem to be hung up in Tunis, awaiting reinforcements. Peter Andrews must be there – may he be kept safe!

  Sir William Beveridge has been making a speech in Oxford, and says this very significant thing: ‘I simply will not believe it is impossible to abolish mass unemployment, but I do not know how it is to be done, and I do not know whether anybody else knows.’

  Thursday, 10 December

  The 1942 Red Cross Jewel Sale at Christie’s included a diamond brooch given by Viscountess Swinton which realised £680. From the Canadian Red Cross last week we got among other gifts 44 quilts and 3,012 lbs of jam.

  The papers make sad reading. Young Belgian children are sick, listless and dying through hunger.

  It was quite dark when I got up, and threw back the household curtains and turned on the light. I was rebuked for this at the kitchen by one of the Russians,224 and must tidy the flat henceforth in the dark, and I shall miss watching the dawn.

  Had a letter-card from Basil this morning dated 12 November, explaining that his wound had taken a turn for the worse, that the fluid on his chest was infected, and that it would be many months before he was well. Would I be patient?

  However, I think the operation, two days after he wrote must have relieved his condition very much, and I hang on to the fact that the very latest news is that he is off the danger list as of 30 November.

  Saturday, 12 December

  A very glorious day of happiness. About seven o’clock this evening came a wire from the War Office. Basil, to put it briefly, is off the seriously ill list as of 6 December.

  My heart is too full to comment on this.

  Then a greetings wire awaited us when we came in from tea at the Theobalds, to say Eudo was a prisoner of war at Singapore. Thank God! After all his mother’s desperate fears! Also in the wire came the news that John has a son; Michael Andrews has arrived safely.

  Shall slumber soundly tonight.

  Monday, 14 December

  Rommel has not given battle, it seems; that is tonight’s news.

  Audrey says on the telephone that her sister’s three sons are flying (all the family), and though the mother ‘quakes when they are away, when they are home they laugh about it all, and I feel there is no danger’.

  ‘Very gallant, these boys,’ was their aunt’s comment. ‘They know perfectly well what the risks are.’

  Later: Rommel seems to be hurrying away from us. Good.

  Thursday, 17 December

  Perfectly glorious news this evening at six o’clock. Our Eighth Army has cut the Afrika Korps in two. Germans are not being told the truth.225

  I wish Basil could have shared in all this victorious advance. I daresay the Scots Greys are fully in it.

  Yesterday the Huns machine-gunned the Girls’ High School in Guildford, but the pupils were not in the classrooms. They also machine-gunned a train at Bramley; two were killed, and twenty were taken to hospital. And one house was demolished on Bramley Common. ‘All their pictures and belongings are lying on the grass this morning.’

  Splendid news came by post today. The Matron of 19 General Hospital wrote that Basil was getting up for a little time every day now.

  Friday, 18 December

  I go to Weymouth Mews to lunch in May Sinclair’s beautiful, brightly-gleaming little flat. All is lightness, light rugs, light walls, cream painted chairs with elegant flowers, light round dinner table.

  John talks a little about his work at the Ministry of Supply. He is liaison officer for the BBC to that Ministry. He is arranging for ten broadcast programmes suitable for broadcasts in America about our British war effort. He has £50 to spend on each. He says they will be recorded on gramophone discs and sent over to the States. It is not easy to get the right scripts.

  Wednesday, 23 December

  Robin has begun War in the Sun by J. L. Hodson. Here are some extracts:

  A major on a sinking ship said to a sergeant, ‘Can you swim?’ He said ‘Yes’. The major went on, ‘I can’t. My wife’s going to be peeved,’ and he waded into the sea and went straight down.

  A South African soldier has written home: ‘Dear Mother, they say there are 200 miles of desert. About 100 miles of it blew past me today, and we expect the other 100 miles of it tomorrow.’

  In a destroyer on the way to Tobruk, an air raid was developing. Just then a neighbouring destroyer winked a message, and they were all agog to know what it was. Had she spotted a submarine or something? The signaller read out the message: ‘“Salt-caked smoke stacks” – is it Kipling or Masefield?’226

  Later: an amazing sight. We heard the buzz and hum and thunder of passing planes, so rushed out. It was about two o’clock, and the sun shone brightly in a pale blue December sky. High, high up there was a flock of planes – Flying Fortresses leaving behind them a skein of white cloud looping round the sky. In another direction came a second lot, tiny in the height of the blue dome. There seemed to be an enormous number of them. One could not help being thrilled to think that human beings so master the elements.

  What must it feel like to soar so far away from earth?

  Christmas Day

  Out in the dark to go to Early Service holding Robin’s torch and stumbling on the stony lane under a dark sky. Very dark also in church, and the candles not lit; many forms could be seen outlined in the dusk and a few torches were shining over hymn books. Mr Isherwood improvised beautifully: ‘While Shepherds Watch’ while we flocked up to the altar, and the light came at last flickering through the glass.

  Came back and heard that Darlan had been assassinated.227

  Dinner at Towerhill Manor. A turkey, red and silver table decorations, crackers, a pudding on fire and licked for a long time by a blue flame and brandy butter. Our host observed Lord Woolton’s request, and made a little grave speech of thanks for the Merchant Service, ere we sat down.228

  Joy looked very pretty and fragile in a pale blue frock, and the three men wore dinner jackets, including Otto, the brave, once-interned Austrian authority on Byzantine Art.

  Sunday, 27 December

  Otto at tea said he decidedly preferred to live in England rather than any other land, even Amer
ica, if he could not be in his native Austria, ‘because you are so quiet and restful and one feels so safe in England, and nobody beguiles you into conversation in a train as they always do in Austria, where they talk all the way and tell you their excitable life-stories.’

  Wednesday, 30 December

  Gentle Sara says in her letter: ‘I gave thanks on Xmas morning for the murder of Darlan.’

  Thursday, 31 December

  So the year dies! Basil seems to be going on well, but has lost two stones and is very weak. But alive! How thankful we are can’t be expressed.

  The Russian news is fine. Robin and I feel soberly hopeful. We think peace may come in 1944.

  1943

  Monday, 4 January

  The local paper is full of accounts of village and town parties. In spite of war, in spite of great difficulty in obtaining Xmas trees, toys, decorations, cakes of any kind; it all goes to show that England remains stubbornly England.

  Am listening to some German jazz, beautifully played. No news from Basil. I wrote and thanked his specialist today for his care of him.

  Very cold. Robin wears three vests and three pairs of socks, and Mr Brook wears a terra-cotta smoking cap such as I used to embroider for J. M. Barrie as a little girl of twelve or so.229

  Most interesting today to read the description of those in the News Year’s Honours List. For example, taken at random from the long columns of awards we have:

  T. D. Dunn, quarry foreman

  C. Edgecombe, electrical fitter

  A. V. Evans, chief butcher

  E. Chadwick, boatswain

  A. S. Cromarty, skilled workman

  Miss E. Cox, greaser

  J. Craig, lamp trimmer and AB Merchant Navy

  Wednesday, 6 January

  Our feelings are mixed. Sometimes at this stage of the conflict (though I have heard twice the joyous news of the Russian advance pealing through the house today), one is overwhelmed by the thought of all the suffering to come, when armies are locked together in Europe, and also overshadowed by the terrible feeling that peace may not come in one’s lifetime. I’m sixty-one, you see, and Robin sixty-five next month.

  Friday, 8 January

  Basil has seen his Field Medical Card. As he is a doctor, they allowed it.

  He says, directly after he was wounded, he suffered from shock. He had no pulse. He was put on the front of a tank and rushed to the Regimental Aid Post of the Rifle Brigade where transfusion took place. He had four pints of blood given to him. I fancy this saved his life. All the arrangements for evacuation to base hospital, were, he says, excellent. (This is good to hear.)

  From Sibyl’s letter on the Italian prisoners down at New Milton at mass. ‘They sang marvellously on Sunday, so harmoniously. At the end they all trooped up to kneel at the crib in a side chapel which was lit up. From where I sat it would have made a perfect picture: forty or fifty of them in brown, kneeling. They all have very well-oiled black hair, and are nearly all very handsome, fine-looking men, and the lighting showed up their colouring. They seem most cheery, and the woods resound with axes and hammers and song.

  From Muriel’s letter of Eudo, being with the other prisoners in Jap hands, short of food: ‘Oh, how much better to have died fighting! Diptheria and dysentery rage. I expect they have bad water to drink.’

  Later: An agitated talk with Rosamond over the events of yesterday: the arrival of over 100 Canadian soldiers to billet in our Village Hall, while the Women’s Institute party was going on. Instead of abandoning the party instantly, the WI actually sent out to ask if they might keep the hall as arranged till 7.30. No. But instead of welcoming in the soldiers who had come overseas to fight for us, the women apparently lingered on and had their tea and the soldiers who were shoved into the school (some sat on the icy surface of the playground) did not get in till 5.30.

  I should have thought the members would have loved to be hostesses. As it was, they did leave some of the cakes for the men. Robin visited the troops today and they were cooking stew merrily.

  Did my accounts, and found them very unhealthy. Expenses are quite heavy, and dividends shrink.

  Sunday, 10 January

  To church. Astonished to hear the name of Basil Miles, seriously wounded, prayed for. Thanked the Rector coming out. The more prayer the better.

  Thursday, 14 January

  Grace rang in the afternoon, and asked me if I had a copy of The Times of yesterday, in which there was a memoir of her cousin, one Fison, RAF, who had just been killed.

  She said she had gone to his funeral yesterday at Seaford. She was very sad. He apparently was a very fine man of forty-seven who leaves a widow and two little girls.

  Friday, 15 January

  Went to Guildford. A caretaker on the bus with me was distressed that the village school has no black-out, and the soldiers who are sleeping there must not, consequently, even light a fire, though they bring their own coal.

  In the evening Robin fetched in one of these Canadians, whom he met wandering in the square. A nice fair-haired modest young miner, from a place called Donkin, Nova Scotia. His regiment is The Cape Breton Highlanders; his father was a Fergusson, his mother is a MacDonald: both lived on the isle of Lewis, and he is hoping to get enough leave to go and see their island.

  He appreciated a warm bath and a drink (cider) and a smoke. I offered to write to his mother and tell her he was well and bright (certainly he was enjoying soldiering).

  He accepted eagerly, and put down her address, printing it very slowly, so today I’ve written to Mrs Minnie Fergusson, Cape Breton Island.

  Later, by the fire, the phone rang, and I was much upset to hear a cable: ‘Second operation yesterday, tenth January, too early to say how successful.’ Had a disturbed night. We had imagined Basil quite out of the woods.

  Sunday, 17 January

  About 8.40 there came a noise of guns. Some planes tore past our windows at a great speed. Remembering we had bombed Berlin the night before, I said to Robin, ‘Where are they off to tonight?’ But it soon became clear that it was the Hun, as bombs began to explode. We went down, and Robin went out into the bright, moonlit garden: shrapnel was falling.

  The planes, it appeared, came back about five o’clock, but we did not wake.

  Our Eighth Army has advanced again. Bravo, Montgomery!

  Monday, 18 January

  We hear the terrific news that the siege of Leningrad230 is raised.

  Tuesday, 19 January

  A kind cable in from Harry saying he had heard that Basil’s convalescence would not take place for some time. I felt very nervous listening at the phone, and at first believed it was from Basil himself.

  The BBC is just telling us that the cheese ration is to be reduced to four ounces.

  Ethel Rayne had been to London yesterday, and heard that the Sunday raid was mostly at Peckham (where a big store was cut in half) and Tooting. On the raid to Berlin, the air crews sang coming home. The girls of the Ack-Ack gun crew sang, also, as they took part in the defence of London during the raid.

  South London suffered substantial bomb damage. This wrecked bus in a crater where the road once ran is in Balham.

  Photograph © IWM HU36188

  Thursday, 21 January

  Our sub-tenant below is incensed because Mr Isherwood has called to inform him that in case of invasion, his flat will be requisitioned by the Home Guard, so that he must make arrangements to take his wife (a stout, helpless invalid) elsewhere.

  I ring up Mr Isherwood later, and ask if I shall inform Madge the tenant in Aberdeen.

  He says airily I must please myself and it is no good for Mr Brook to be angry with him, ‘as I didn’t start the war’.

  Nothing more from Basil. Very trying.

  There is a rumour flying round the village much concerned with the children killed at a school near London – the latest casualty figures are: killed forty-five, injured and detained in hospital fifty; fifteen children still feared buried in the wreckage.
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br />   Mr Reginald Armour, Managing Director of Walt Disney films in Hollywood, has arrived at the Savoy Hotel, London, to investigate the Gremlin.

  Mr Armour has only got hold of a few facts as yet: ‘Gremlins are about six inches high, they wear red and green and can ride on aeroplane wings even in the roughest weather.’ Of course the plot of a film which will make many people’s fortunes will be the impish Gremlins playing naughty tricks at first, but rallying round when the RAF is in trouble.231

  Friday, 22 January

  No news from Basil or Harry. Mrs Hall tells me that the school bombed just lately was at Catford. The papers are full of pictures of helpers digging feverishly away. It must have been dreadful.232

  Saturday, 23 January

  Still no news of Basil or Harry. I am always so sad when I examine the envelopes thrown in at the front door.

  Later: At lunch-time today with the sunshine streaming in at the open window the glad news has come at last – Tripoli has fallen!

  Monday, 25 January

  Shocked to hear that dear John Andrews has crashed and been killed in his Halifax.

  ‘Bad news, sir,’ said Mr Ponsford again at the door with the yellow envelope. Luckily for me Robin received it, as I was on the phone.

  I can’t begin to write of John, tall, clear-eyed, broad-shouldered, devoted to country life, connoisseur of butterflies. He was flying, curiously enough, in the New Forest, near Picket Post, the school he hoped after the war to take over.

  Thank God he saw his baby. The poor young mother, and his own poor devoted mother. I was sad all day.

  Tuesday, 26 January

  Have heard nothing of the funeral arrangements for John. I suppose I ought to go down. I dread it very much.

  Nothing from Basil.

  Nothing from Harry.

  Stayed in, and let Robin go to the canteen lunch, as I wanted to be near the phone. It did not ring.