The Love-Charm of Bombs (71 page)

‘phobia of being buried’: ibid.

‘government decrees had stipulated’:
see London Met, Ambulance Box 6.

‘My God, what a world’:
RM to Rosamond Lehmann, 10 September 1939 (RL KC).

‘a great stroke of luck’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 26 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘any exercise or instruction’: memo, 21 September 1940 (London Met, Ambulance Box 52).

‘I like my ambulance colleagues’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘Sub-station 345V’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’,
Surviving: The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green
(London: Harvill, 1993).

‘an eccentric, fire-fighting’:
Rosamond Lehmann, ‘An Absolute Gift’,
Times Literary Supplement
, 6 August 1954.

‘Quite well but sleep’:
HY to Rosamond Lehmann, 11 September 1940 (RL KC).

‘to work myself silly’:
HY to Mary Strickland, 10 March 1939, in Jeremy Treglown,
Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green
(London: Faber, 2000),
p. 125.

‘the seven-thousandth fireman’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘not likely to fall down’: ibid.

‘a course that no one failed’: ibid.

‘likely enough to die’:
HG,
Pack My Bag
(London: Vintage, 2000), p. 153.

‘what seems to be the alternative’:
HY to Evelyn Waugh, 14 October 1939 (Waugh Archive, HRC).

‘the AFS was a suicide squad’:
see HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘All that was real to him’:
HG,
Caught
(London: Harvill Press, 2001), p. 25.

‘three years after one war’:
HG,
Pack My Bag
,
p. 1.

‘We who must die soon’:
ibid.,
p. 92.

‘Old ladies gave’: HG,
Caught
,
p. 47.

‘His life in the Fire Brigade’: Evelyn Waugh, diary, 26 November 1939,
The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh
, ed. Michael Davie (London: Phoenix, 2009).

‘Fire fighting is a waiting’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘For forty-eight hours’: HG,
Caught
,
p. 21.

‘We come here ready for’: ibid.,
p. 93.

‘the Fire Service, now that’: HY
,
draft typescript of
Caught
(HY archive).

‘a group of progressive novelists’:
Evelyn Waugh,
Officers and Gentlemen
(London: Chapman & Hall, 1955), ch. 1.

‘it was a particular tradition’:
see William Sansom,
The Blitz: Westminster at War
(London: Faber, 2010),
p. 121.

‘However frightened, they are’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘We’re absolute heroes now’:
HG,
Caught
, p. 176.

‘judge of my delight’:
HG, ‘A Fire, a Flood and the Price of Meat’ (
Surviving
).

‘Who are you going out with tonight’:
see
Trapped: The Story of Henry Green
(BBC documentary, 1992).

‘the writer, our kind’:
HY to Rosamond Lehmann, in Lehmann, ‘An Absolute Gift’.

‘well-read, articulate’:
James Lees-Milne,
Fourteen Friends
(London: John Murray, 1996),
p. 123.

‘The men, I loved them’:
HY, interview with the
Star
, 15 June 1929.

‘how little money meant’:
see HG,
Pack My Bag
, p. 154.

‘Yorke was as happy’:
see Anthony Powell,
Messengers of Day
(London: Heinemann, 1978),
p. 25.

‘The behaviour of my AFS unit’: HY to Mary Strickland, 10 July 1940, in Treglown,
Romancing
,
p. 125.

‘putting the light out’:
HG,
Caught
, pp. 45, 145.

‘In his dirt, his tiredness’:
HG,
ibid.
,
pp.
49, 46, 161.

‘semi-military discipline’:
see Sansom,
The Blitz
,
p. 121.

‘Shortly after 11 p.m.’:
see Westminster, CD25.

‘Everywhere the searchlights clustered’:
Evelyn Waugh,
Officers and Gentlemen
,
ch. 1.

‘Yorke sat forward in his seat’:
see HG, ‘A Rescue’ (
Surviving
).

‘Three more HEs’:
see Westminster, CE38.

‘A 1940 air-raid manual’:
‘Air Raid Precautions Training Manual’ (Westminster, CD149.1).

‘Yorke always had difficulty’:
see HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

‘This gripped by the throat’:
HG, ‘Before the Great Fire’ (
Surviving
).

‘had come upon a place’:
HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

‘a roaring red gold’:
HG,
Caught
,
pp. 178, 181.

‘Yelling and receiving instructions’:
see HG, ‘Mr Jonas’ (
Surviving
).

 

3:
1 a.m.: Rescue

‘gradually brought under control’:
see Nat Arch, AIR 16/432.

‘cars crashed all night’:
RM,
Life Among the English
(London: Collins, 1942),
p. 47.

‘To propel a car’:
RM,
Personal Pleasures
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1935),
‘Driving a Car’.

‘the other cars’: ibid.,
‘Fastest on Earth’.

‘if he dies’:
Jean Macaulay, interview in Constance Babington Smith,
Rose Macaulay: A Biography
(London: Collins, 1972),
p. 151.

‘I knew about’:
RM,
ToT
,
ch. 25.

‘he had given me his love’: ibid.

‘an acute irritation’:
John Strachey,
Post D, Some Experiences of an Air Raid Warden
(London: Gollancz, 1941),
p. 78.

‘Dust liquefies’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’,
Time and Tide
, 5 October 1940.

‘very nice and matey’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 27 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘Sorry Miss’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘fifteen bomber planes returned’:
see Nat Arch, AIR 16/432.

‘This adds to his comfort’:
memo, 22 November 1939 (London Met, Ambulance Box 38).

‘tended to vomit’:
Jean Macaulay in Babington Smith,
Rose Macaulay
,
p. 78.

‘an infinitely incapable’:
RM,
Told by an Idiot
(London: Collins, 1965),
part 4, second period, ch. 2.

‘thinking it led on’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
(London: Capuchin Classics, 2010),
chs 3i, 9v.

‘A Watford-based volunteer’:
see Angela Raby,
The Forgotten Service: Auxiliary Ambulance Station 39
(London: After the Battle, 1999).

‘eight ambulance drivers’:
see London Met, Ambulance Box 73.

‘It is all in the night’s’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 27 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘It’s like this every night’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘not to be too vivid’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘mortified elephant’:
RM to Daniel George, 30 August 1939 (RM TC).

‘I am improving’: RM to Jean Macaulay, 25 June 1940 (RM TC).

‘it will be hateful’:
RM to Rosamond Lehmann, 10 September 1939 (RL KC).

‘fell dumb in the’:
RM, ‘The Garden’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘rich earth’:
Rupert Brooke, ‘The Soldier’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘who walked about’:
RM, ‘Coming to London’, John Lehmann (ed.),
Coming to London
(London: Phoenix House Ltd, 1957).

‘the death at the war’:
RM to Katharine Tynan, 25 December 1915, in Sarah LeFanu,
Rose Macaulay
(London: Virago, 2003),
p. 112.

‘As I can’t be fighting’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
,
ch. 16vi.

‘on the side of the angels’:
Victor Gollancz,
Reminiscences of Affection
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1968),
p. 82.

‘I hate party politics’: RM in ibid.

‘a lot of wrongs’: RM,
Dangerous Ages
(London: Collins, 1921),
ch. 7v.

‘Our civilisation’:
RM,
An Open Letter
(London: The Peace Pledge Union, 1937).

‘Oh it’s you that have’:
RM, ‘Many Sisters to Many Brothers’,
Poems of Today
, 1915.

‘things happening across’:
RM,
Non-Combatants and Others
,
ch. 2v.

‘Oh, what does one mean’:
RM,
And No Man’s Wit
(London: Collins, 1940),
pp. 315–16.

‘If Nazism
really’: RM to Jean Macaulay, 14 September 1939 (RM TC).

‘an appalling indictment’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, undated, 1939 (RM TC).

‘very well again’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 3 October 1940 (RM TC).

‘blind, maniac, primitive’:
RM, ‘Notes on the Way’.

‘only in the ambulance services’:
see RM, unfinished and untitled article, 1940 (RM TC).

‘I think this is a good thing’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 28 August 1939 (RM TC).

‘I rather wish’:
RM to Jean Macaulay, 11 September 1940 (RM TC).

‘There is so little time’:
RM to Virginia Woolf, 10 October 1940 (RM TC).

 

4:
6 a.m.: All Clear

‘481 fires’:
see London Met, FB/WAR/3/10.

‘glaring deficiencies’:
Dorothea Fox to Ellen Wilkinson, 23 November 1940 (Nat Arch, HO207/995).

‘since those days’:
HS,
DaB
,
p. 127.

‘because of the daily example’:
HS, ‘Psychologie des Exils’, 1975,
Kleine Schritte: Berichte und Geschichten
(München: Heinrich Ellermann, 1976).

‘almost sure to collapse’:
‘Your Home as an Air Raid Shelter’ (Westminster, CD174).

‘Foreign faces about’:
EB, preface to
The Demon Lover and Other Stories
,
The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen
, ed. Hermione Lee (London: Vintage, 1999).

‘the socialist torchlit march’:
see HS,
DaB
,
p. 56.

‘a climate of the most’: ibid.,
p. 41.

‘definitely the man for me’: HS, diary, 1934 (in
DaB
,
p. 74).

‘a man like a tree’:
HS,
DaB
,
p. 80.

‘queuing at the fishmonger’s’:
see HS,
Return to Vienna,
trans. Christine Shuttleworth (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 2011), 30
January.

‘dreary and wretched’:
HS, ibid.

Other books

A Town of Empty Rooms by Karen E. Bender
Exit Stage Left by Graham Ison
En el camino by Jack Kerouac
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Fixing Ashley by Melissa Gardener
Murder and Mayhem by D P Lyle