Octavia's War

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘It’s the same age as I am,’ Octavia told her old friend.

  ‘A good omen, perhaps,’ he said, producing a key from his pocket. ‘Shall we go in?’

  There was something about the eccentricity of the place that appealed to Octavia’s sense of adventure. She propped her bicycle against the nearest chimney and Mr Chivers opened the door and they went in, he standing courteously aside to let her enter first.

  A grand tiled hall, as she expected, with a grand oak staircase, expensively easy tread, nicely rounded newel posts, the Venetian window at the turn. A space designed to impress the visitor. Leading out of it a series of sizeable rooms, all of them big enough to withstand a class and to house the subject libraries they needed. The drawing room was splendid, capacious enough to serve as a school hall cum dining room cum study area. What a relief that would be for her beleaguered fifths and sixths.

  ‘How big is the kitchen?’ she asked, and followed as he led the way. Very big indeed with a separate scullery where the washing-up would be done and lots of storage space for all the china and cutlery they would need. ‘We could have our school dinners here and get back to eating at house tables,’ she said. ‘The present arrangement isn’t satisfactory at all. The seniors have been asking what can be done about it for weeks.’

  Mr Chivers was beaming, his bland face lit by the pleasure of having found such a suitable place. ‘And you still haven’t seen upstairs,’ he said.

  They inspected the house from the capacious cellars to the third floor attics, which were long and narrow with windows in the eaves or, rather oddly, at floor level, but might serve as dormitories with a little rearrangement. There were a lot of girls who weren’t happy in their billets and changes took time to arrange. I must give it thought, Octavia decided, as Mr Chivers unlocked the french windows in the drawing room. Then she walked out into the garden.

  It was as big as a city park and had been laid out in a similar way, with wide herbaceous borders and a long avenue of yew trees which ran across the lawn from the house to a kitchen garden, where there was a tangle of raspberry canes and a neglected strawberry patch. Round the side of the house, there was actually a tennis court. Octavia stood in the pale sunlight and rubbed her hands with the satisfaction of it all. She could see her girls in this house already, eating their dinner in that fine big room, strolling between the yew trees arm in arm the way they did, playing tennis in the summer and netball in the winter.

  ‘I gather you approve,’ Mr Chivers said.

  ‘I do indeed,’ Octavia told him. ‘This place could make all the difference.’

  Mr Chivers beamed like sunshine. ‘There is more to come, dear lady,’ he said. ‘This is just the half of what I have to show you. If you care to leave your bicycle here I will take you to the second half in my car. It isn’t far.’

  The second half was another house and it was almost as big as the first one. It was called Barricane House and looked like something out of a Gothic novel, its three high bays covered in ivy from the ground to the gables and a general air of unloved gloominess about it that was rather off-putting. But the rooms were an excellent size. There were eleven of them on the two floors and nine of them were quite big enough for classrooms, the bathroom could be converted into a row of toilets and washbasins, the kitchen would make a cookery room, and the drawing room had the right light for an art room. In fact it didn’t take much imagination to see that if it was cleaned, painted and furnished, this house would make a very good Lower School and give the juniors a base where they could meet one another every day.

  ‘Yes,’ Octavia said, ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed it but you’ve provided us with almost exactly what we needed. With these two buildings and the occasional use of the science labs in the Woking school and the swimming pool in the town during the summer, we shall do very well.’

  This time his beam was melon-shaped. ‘I am glad to be of service,’ he said.

  That afternoon Octavia held an impromptu staff meeting at Ridgeway to tell her colleagues the good news and show them the plans of the two houses. They were delighted to hear that they were going to have adequate space for their teaching at last and they all asked the same question. ‘When will they be ready?’

  ‘As soon as Mr Chivers can get the conversions done,’ Octavia told them. ‘Possibly a few weeks, possibly a month or so. But we will certainly be in occupation by September.’

  Mavis Brown was looking uncertain, as she so often did these days, her wide forehead wrinkled and her blue eyes troubled. ‘The war could be over by then,’ she said. ‘I mean, if Hitler gets what he wants he’ll stop, surely. I mean, he’s always said he doesn’t want to fight us.’

  ‘Saying’s one thing,’ Morag told her, ‘doing’s quite another. We can’t second guess what that man will do. I don’t think anybody can.’

  ‘I can’t see why he wants Denmark,’ Phillida Bertram said. ‘I mean it’s not as if they’ve got anything special.’

  ‘It’s a stepping stone to Norway and the port of Norvik where they ship the Swedish iron ore.’ Octavia told her. ‘That’s what he wants. Iron for his guns.’

  ‘And after that, if I’m any judge, he’ll want Belgium and Holland,’ Elizabeth Fennimore said, ‘and then France and all her wine and wheat. He’s building an empire, Mavis, and he’ll fight anyone who gets in the way.’

  Time to intervene, Octavia thought. Mavis was looking terrified and there was nothing to be served by frightening the girl out of her wits. ‘However,’ she said, ‘for the moment our task is to plan how we’re going to make the best use of our two new buildings. We must draw up a timetable and work out which would be the best site for our individual subject rooms. It’s going to take a lot of work, especially for you, Joan. You’ll be teaching on four different sites.’

  Joan Marshall grinned, like the stalwart she was. Nothing ever seemed to throw her. ‘Well, thanks a lot,’ she said.

  ‘I could help you if you’d like,’ Mavis offered. ‘I mean I could take some swimming lessons and netball. If you’d like. If Miss Smith… If I haven’t got any History or Geography lessons then, of course.’

  ‘We will bear that in mind,’ Octavia said, ‘won’t we, Joan?’

  * * *

  During the next four days the staff set about planning the new timetable, while the news from Europe grew more and more worrying. The Danes capitulated to the German army after a mere twenty-four hours, which was a shock to everybody, and the very next day Hitler gave the order to invade Norway. The landing took place at Norvik, before dawn and in a snowstorm, and despite the difficulties, two thousand troops all specially trained in mountain warfare were got ashore. The next day, British warships sailed into the fjord and attacked the German fleet and three days later, while the Germans were still recovering, British troops landed in Norvik and the German troops took to the hills. To the watchers in Great Britain, the second German war was now inescapably under way.

  ‘At least it’s not happening here,’ Emmeline said, when she and Janet and Octavia sat down to dinner that night. ‘That’s not much consolation to the Norwegians I know, but they do seem to be holding their own.’

  ‘Have you heard from Edie?’ Octavia asked, helping herself to vegetables.

  ‘She rang this morning, not that it did any good. She’s so pig-headed, Tavy. I told her she ought to come back here where it’s safe. But no. She wouldn’t hear of it. She says she’s going to stay where she is, if you ever heard of anything so silly. She says they’re better off in their own home.’

  ‘Which from her point of view is probably true at the moment,’ Octavia said. ‘She hated sharing a kitchen, you know. That was the problem.’

  ‘And what will she do if they start bombing?’ Emmeline said. ‘She’ll have to be evacuated all over again and she’ll have to share another kitchen then. There’s no sense in her.’

  * * *

  In fact there was more sense in Edith Ames than her mother suspected. She and her r
emaining next-door neighbours had been discussing the best thing to do if the bombing started and she’d made up her mind that she would move all the junk out of the cupboard under Mrs Holdsworthy’s stairs and make a shelter there. It would be a bit of a squeeze but it would be better than nothing. The air-aid warden had been round and taken a look at it and he thought it was the best thing. Mrs Holdsworthy said she was going to use the underground at South Wimbledon.

  ‘Safest place,’ she told Edie. ‘Right underground. I mean, stands to reason. My Geoff says if they start their bombing I got ter go straight down the station and see what’s what.’

  They were surprising themselves by how matter-of-fact they were being, especially as they had no idea what was going to happen next, or when it would happen. Things were moving quickly now that Hitler had started his attacks. They hardly had time to take in one invasion before there was another one. But at least the Norwegians hadn’t thrown in the towel like the Danes. They seemed to be putting up quite a fight.

  ‘And that’s something,’ Ethel said. ‘Though, course, they got our lads there with ’em an’ that’s bound to make a difference.’

  Edie knew all about that. She’d been watching the papers anxiously in case Arthur got sent there and was very glad when she had a letter from him saying he was still ‘kicking his heels’ in France. You stay there, my lad, she thought, as she put the letter back into its envelope. I don’t want you getting yourself killed.

  All through that April while the builders worked on Octavia’s two school houses and Emmeline fretted over her grandchildren, and Edith kept a careful eye on the news, the struggle in Norway continued. There were days when Octavia found herself sympathising with Mavis Brown and wondering why they were spending all that money and effort on converting these two houses when the Germans might invade. But it was being done notwithstanding and it was being done speedily.

  ‘With luck,’ she told her staff at the end of April, ‘we shall be moving into Downview at the beginning of May.’

  ‘Do we have a date?’ Morag asked.

  ‘According to Mr Chivers, Friday the 10th of May,’ Octavia told them. ‘It’s a sensible choice. It will give us the weekend to settle in and then we can start teaching there on Monday. We’ll let the juniors have a day off and ask the seniors to help us, as I’m sure they will. We can transfer the subject libraries from Woking school on Saturday, as that’s one of our days. I’ll order a couple of vans and if the weather holds we can have a picnic in the garden. It should be quite a red-letter day.’

  Although she didn’t know it then, it wasn’t just a red-letter day for the school but an historic one too. It was the day Hitler poured his storm troopers into Holland and Belgium. Not that any of them knew it while they were transferring their books and taking possession of their spotless classrooms. It was a perfect summer’s day and such a joy to be in a building that was theirs and theirs alone, that they simply gave themselves over to the pleasures of occupation. They had a picnic lunch out on the lawn, and afterwards the girls returned to the classrooms with the teachers they were helping and set up the desks and chairs. Then, because it was still light, they were allowed to explore the building.

  Lizzie and Poppy were thrilled with it, especially when they found that there were dormitories in the attics.

  ‘Who’s going to stay here?’ Poppy wondered.

  ‘Me for a start,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to a boarding school only Pa wouldn’t have it. Oh I say! Look in here, Poppy. They’ve got a little window seat. I tell you what, I’d love to live in this room. We could sit in the seat and play cards or read or anything we liked. It would be our own world. Let’s ask, shall we?’

  ‘Who?’ Polly asked

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Lizzie admitted, sitting in the window. ‘We’ll find out on Monday.’

  But by Monday the world had changed and when Smithie took her first crowded assembly in their freshly painted hall, her mood was sombre.

  ‘The next few weeks will be difficult for all of us,’ she said, ‘and particularly for those who have fathers or other relatives in any of the armed services. We must help one another in any way we can. Miss Brown will put maps of Belgium and Holland and Norway on the wall in this hall and we will keep you all up to date on everything that is happening. If there is anything that is worrying you, speak to your house officer or your form mistress, or to me. Don’t worry on alone.

  ‘Now, we will say special prayers for the civilians and servicemen who are caught up in this new invasion. Then we will sing ‘Lord behold us with your blessing’ because whatever is happening in Europe, we are making a new beginning in this house and that is what we sing when we are making a new beginning.’

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it, Lizzie?’ Poppy said, as they filed out of the hall.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Lizzie admitted. ‘Not to worry though. I’ll phone Pa and see what he says.’

  It was the most disappointing call she’d ever made. For a start he wouldn’t tell her anything about the war, although she asked him three times, and then he said he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get down to see her on Sunday and that upset her, because he hadn’t come the previous Sunday either.

  ‘Sorry about that, little one,’ he said, ‘but there’s a lot of work to do. We’ll come down and see you as soon as we can. I promise.’

  ‘This war is getting in the way of my life,’ Lizzie complained to her friend. ‘If my own father won’t tell me what’s going on I despair!’

  ‘At least you can phone him up and talk to him,’ Poppy said. ‘Which is more than I can. My dad’s in France somewhere and he only ever writes to Mum. You should count yourself lucky.’

  Lizzie was chastened. Having a father in France was no joke. Hadn’t they been saying prayers for the people in France and Holland and Belgium that very morning? ‘I’m sorry about that, Poppy,’ she said. ‘I was being selfish. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just I want to know.’

  ‘You can always read the newspapers,’ Poppy said.

  ‘They don’t tell you the half of it,’ Lizzie sighed. ‘You can read everything they’ve got to say in ten minutes.’ Which was true enough, for newspapers were restricted to four pages now so as to economise with newsprint and, as they usually put in a few pictures, it didn’t leave much room for text. ‘I’m sick of trying to glean things.’

  ‘What else can we do?’ Poppy asked.

  ‘If we lived at Downview,’ Lizzie said, ‘we could get a wireless and listen to that.’

  But for the moment picking up snippets was the only method of gathering information that they had and the snippets were decidedly unsatisfactory. The first one Lizzie found made her really cross.

  ‘Look at that,’ she said to Poppy, pointing at the offending article. ‘The Germans say they’ve invaded Holland and Belgium to protect their neutrality. Did you ever hear such wicked nonsense? They’re such liars! I’ll send my army into your country and make you all do as I say and then you’ll all be neutral. Neutral, my Aunt Fanny! They won’t dare to speak. That’s what’ll happen. Especially if they’re Jewish, and there are lots of Jews in Amsterdam. Pa told me.’

  The news next day was better. There had been a twenty-four-hour debate in the House of Commons and at the end of it, Mr Chamberlain had lost the vote and resigned. ‘Good job too!’ Lizzie said. Now Mr Churchill was going to take over.

  ‘Will he be better?’ Poppy asked. ‘I mean, will he know what to do?’ Politics was really baffling sometimes.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Lizzie said. ‘At least he’s a fighter. He fought in the Great War. Pa told me. And he’s been on and on for ages about rearming.’

  That first week in Downview was like something out of a previous life. It was so good to be there with all their friends around them, eating dinner in house groups again, talking to their first-formers, having lessons in their own classrooms and studying in a hall, instead of trying to write essays in their cramped bedroom or wandering round t
he town looking for somewhere quiet where they could read in peace. That in itself was a daily pleasure. And yet the papers were full of battles and surrenders and retreats.

  By the weekend they were reporting that the Dutch had asked for an armistice and that Queen Wilhelmina had left The Hague and taken ship to London with her family and the Dutch gold reserves. And nine days later the Belgian army surrendered and the German army invaded France.

  The maps in their new school hall were informative but very alarming, with arrows marking the points at which the Germans had invaded and charting the speed of their advance. Every day brought changes and every change was for the worse. As her father still wasn’t telling her anything, Lizzie made it her business to check the maps every morning, concentrating hard, her face anxious, with Poppy standing quietly beside her looking equally worried. From the way the arrows were extending, it looked as though the British Expeditionary Force were retreating towards the English Channel and the Germans were encircling them.

  ‘It looks awful, Lizzie,’ Poppy said. ‘I mean, it’s worse than it was yesterday. Why aren’t they heading for a port? I mean, that’s where they should be going and then we could send troop ships and get them home. If they end up on a beach somewhere, they’ll all be captured, won’t they?’

  ‘The nearest ports are Calais and Ostend,’ Lizzie told her. ‘If we lose them, they will be on the beaches.’

  ‘And what will happen to them then?’

  ‘God knows!’ Lizzie said.

  Chapter Nine

  Those last days of May were acutely painful to Octavia Smith. It was an agony to think that the British army was being defeated, worse to know that they were going to be caught in the noose the Germans were so obviously pulling tighter and tighter around them, worst of all to have to face the fact that most of them were going to be captured. She was full of passionate energy, which was how she always reacted in a crisis, wanting to do something to change things or at least to make them better, and knowing only too well that it was beyond her power to do anything at all. She missed the good sense of her father and the comfort of her own house; she ached for all her pupils who had fathers in France; she grieved for poor Edie who hadn’t heard a word from Arthur since the fighting began and was now so tense with anxiety that she squabbled with poor Emmeline every time she phoned; and she was torn to anguish by the beauty of the apple blossom.