Authors: Elswyth Thane
Evadne was training to be an air-raid warden, and had not come to tell Jeff goodbye because of an ARP meeting about gas-masks at the parochial school which was the depot for that district. When she came in a few minutes after Sylvia and Stephen had put the kettle on for tea, she was carrying a small cardboard box which she set down on the living-room table as though it might go off, and said, “Well, there it is. I’ve got to go back tonight and help assemble some more of them. We shall be giving them out soon, I think.”
Stephen opened the box, handling it delicately, and lifted out
the sinister little black rubber object with its snout and its eyepiece and its dangling straps.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” he remarked, allowing it to dangle from one finger.
“I’ll practice fitting it on you,” said Evadne. “That’s why I brought it. There are three sizes. This one happened to be right for me. Let’s see—”
Stephen dodged as she took it from him with purpose.
“Can’t I have tea first?” he pleaded.
“Hold still now, it won’t hurt a bit,” Evadne said professionally, and closed in on him. “Get your chin well into it—that’s right—now spread the straps—wait, while I tighten it—there, is that comfortable?—take a deep breath—” She laid hold of the snout and wobbled it gently, ran a knowing finger along the edge in front of his ear. “You want the next size, this one isn’t tight enough. Doesn’t it smell funny? Can you breathe? Some people start to suffocate right away. We’re going to have some trouble with them, I expect.”
Stephen said something hollowly inside the thing, and pointed to the mantelpiece mirror which he happened to be facing, and Evadne said, “What?” and slipped it off him, forwards, mussing his hair.
“I said that strangely enough I still look better without it,” he repeated. “Come on, Sylvia, it’s really something.”
Sylvia stood up and Evadne placed a straight chair and asked her to sit in it as that was the way they had to do it at the depot. Sylvia sat docilely as bidden, her hands rather stiff in her lap like at the dentist, and the thing, held between Evadne’s hands, approached her face, with its smell.
“We’re supposed to wipe them out between fittings, but this is all in the family,” said Evadne comfortably. “Put your chin out—that’s it—sorry, it’s awfully hard on the hair—I’m loosening the straps—there—can you breathe?”
Sylvia shook her head vigorously.
“Take a deep breath.”
“I
can’t!
”
said Sylvia, muffled, and snatched off the mask.
“There, you see?” said Evadne patiently to Stephen, and
began to untangle the buckle, which had caught in Sylvia’s hair. “Some people just can’t. Even among the wardens. I don’t know what we’ll do about children, either.”
“I’ll try again,” said Sylvia, with a certain doggedness, holding out her hands as the buckle came free. “Let me do it myself.”
“Take it in your right hand—use the left for the straps,” Evadne told her kindly. “That’s better.
Breathe.
Now wait, while I see—” Again she felt the edges and wobbled the snout, and held a square of paper against the nozzle. “Breathe
in.
”
The paper clung to the suction. “That’s your size, same as me. Take it off now, we’ll have tea.”
“Do
you
mind it?” Sylvia gasped, emerging.
“Everybody minds, it’s just a question of degree. We all wore them at the depot this afternoon to get used to it,” Evadne explained. “You do get used to it a bit, I think. It bothers with glasses—you can’t wear them inside it, and some people can’t see a thing without them, which is a problem.” She went off to the kitchen, where the kettle was now boiling, and made the tea and brought it in on a tray with a fresh cake and the cups. She was naturally a housekeeper and it was already plain that Stephen was going to be very comfortable. “I meant to make toast with anchovy paste if I’d got home first,” she said, but without the old note of apology. “Do you want to wait for it now?”
Stephen, who was wearing the mask again in front of the mirror, which gave him a look of ghoulish interest, turned to Sylvia, who shook her head, and Stephen then shook his violently from side to side, the black snout swinging.
“Well, you can’t drink through it,” said Evadne in her nanny voice. “Take it off now and relax.” She sat down to pour their tea. “If you want to come round to the school and fetch me on your way home tonight I’ll probably still be there.”
“Doing what?” asked Stephen, smoothing his hair at the mirror.
“Assembling more of those things. It’s quite simple to do, but we need thousands, and some of us are going to keep on at it
till late. We think it will give people a certain sense of security to be able to take them away with them after the fitting.”
“Will it?” said Stephen, sitting down, and “Has it really come to that?” Sylvia asked, looking rather appalled.
“I suppose we can tell better in a day or two more,” Evadne said sensibly. “I don’t think they mean to do anything drastic like black-outs till next week.” She glanced at the large sash windows with their chintz drapes. “We’ll have to get some black stuff to go inside those, I suppose. So many people just can’t afford it, it does seem hard.”
“Shall you have to wear a uniform for your wardening?” Sylvia asked, reaching gratefully for her tea.
“I expect so, eventually. We’ve got arm-bands now, and our tin hats will be along any day.”
“But—will you have to be right out in it?”
“Well, yes, if it starts coming down—we have to patrol, and take charge of incidents if there are any. An incident is when a bomb actually lands in your district and blows things to bits. There are men assigned to each post, for the heavy work, but ours are all rather elderly, I’m much the strongest of the lot.”
Sylvia and Stephen exchanged glances over their teacups, each of them marvelling, not for the first time, at how Evadne, once so nervy and uncertain of herself, was now the most collected of them all—perhaps because she had found something definite to do and was doing it.
“I think I’d better get in on this,” said Stephen. “Will they put me down for a tin hat and an arm-band too, or do I have to take out naturalization papers first?”
“I don’t think they’ll put anything in your way,” Evadne said with a serious smile. “At least, we can ask them tonight. You could take some daytime duty, if you like.”
“What about me?” Sylvia asked.
“You ought to learn first-aid,” said Evadne. “Everybody ought to know that now. It might make all the difference.”
“All right,” said Sylvia meekly, trying not to remember that she always got sick at the sight of blood.
“Hunt up your warden, they’ll be glad to see you,” Evadne promised.
“Yes,” said Sylvia unhappily. “Maybe Dinah will go with me. She was a VAD the last time.”
“It all comes back to them, Mummy says,” Evadne told her, cutting the cake.
That night at the end of the performance Stephen lost no time about getting out of the theatre and took a taxi straight to the school where Evadne was working. Half a dozen tired people, both men and women, were still there, smoking, sitting about on the edges of the furniture, looking rather green under the inadequate, unshaded light. Stephen’s first impression was that they had finished work for the day but were apparently unable to pull themselves together enough to go home.
Evadne jumped up and came towards him, saying, “Have you heard? The Prime Minister is flying to Berchtesgaden in the morning. It was on the late news bulletin.”
“Is that good?” he asked doubtfully, looking from one to the other.
“Oh,
yes
,”
said a tweedy woman with spectacles. “He must know
something
or he wouldn’t go.”
“Fat lot of good it did when Schuschnigg went,” remarked a drooping young man on the corner of the table which ran down the centre of the room. “They marched into Vienna a few days later.”
“Well, they can’t march in here,” said the tweedy woman, who then proved from Evadne’s conscientious introductions to be a Miss Piggott.
“I’ve put your name down for daytime duty,” Evadne told Stephen with visible pride. “We can come in tomorrow and arrange. Let’s all go home now, can’t we, we’re absolutely dead and everything will have to wait till he gets back.”
“I’d be happier if he’d taken a regiment with him,” said the dour young man, who was Miss Piggott’s nephew, though his name was Tilton.
“They wouldn’t
dare
let
anything happen to him!” cried
Miss Piggott, and began closing things and putting out lights. “Let’s all get some sleep while we can, then,
if
we can.”
In a weary, companionable silence they locked up and separated with brief good nights to go their several ways. On the short walk back to the flat Evadne hung on Stephen’s arm and he saw that in spite of
Mr. Chamberlain’s effort her spirits were sagging.
“I wonder what would happen,” he suggested, “if we suddenly gathered up all the planes we have and loaded them to the gunwales with high explosive and simply bombed hell out of Berlin without waiting.”
“He’s got a deep shelter under the Chancellery,” she said slowly, “and he’d be in it, never fear. And we might kill Johnny and Camilla instead.”
“Yes, they’re in a bad spot,” he agreed. “They can’t be interned or interfered with as long as America is neutral, but American citizenship isn’t going to be much good in an air raid.”
“Is Sylvia worried about Jeff for the same reason?”
“I’m afraid so. She doesn’t say much. They’ll plaster Prague with bombs, of course, as soon as anything starts. What can I do to be useful? I should have taken up flying years ago. I meant to.”
“Why isn’t it just as useful to dig English people out of bomb damage here as to go and help bomb Berlin?” she asked. “That sounds pacifist, but I don’t mean it that way. Honestly, Stephen, if they start plastering London you can have a man-size job right here.”
“No doubt,” he agreed, and sighed. “Well, we’ll see what turns up.”
“I was thinking—it will be a few days wait now, till Chamberlain comes back—couldn’t we have this Sunday at Farthingale?”
“Drive down after the show on Saturday? Let’s,” said Stephen, as they reached their own front door.
But Chamberlain returned on Friday, much too soon for comfort, and there was a cautious reticence in Government circles—no real reason given for so brief a conference—something about a plebiscite (unlucky word) and a readjustment….
Jeff’s first broadcast from Prague said that the city was fantastically calm, cold-bloodedly determined to go down fighting rather than submit to Hitler’s threats. But there were no demonstrations. Refugees from the Sudeten area were arriving with their belongings in pitiful bundles, dependent on the Red Cross for food and lodging.
On Saturday Poland and Hungary, both with minority populations arbitrarily included within the Czech boundaries manufactured at Versailles, were demanding to have their own back too. Prague declared a state of emergency, which usually precedes by only a few days an outright state of war, and had eight hundred thousand men under arms. There were all-day Cabinet meetings in London and the French ministers had been summoned from Paris for Sunday. Silent crowds stood in Downing Street watching and waiting, it was hard to say for what. Gas-mask distribution had begun in France….
Evadne, looking rather white, said she might be wanted at the depot by Sunday, and they gave up going to the country.
Sunday was dreary and tense. Mussohni made a speech at Trieste, and said that Italy’s place in the coming conflict was chosen, but did not say where it would be. Russia and the United States were obstinately silent….
The week dripped away, a day at a time—rioting in the Sudeten land—increasing resentment in Czechoslovakia towards her wavering allies—knowing optimism in Berlin—a growing sense of humiliation and uncertainty in England—the delayed, futile meeting at Godesberg, where Chamberlain’s concessions were met by another ultimatum demanding full capitulation by October 1. But Austria had capitulated and they took over Vienna, anyway….
Jeff’s voice came in each night from Prague, steady,
unemotional, but grave. General Syrovy was the Czech hero now—they would fight—they would turn out a government which surrendered and establish a military dictatorship—people who spoke English in the streets were unpopular—Americans had been advised to leave Prague, but were buying gas-masks and staying on….
When Chamberlain returned from Godesberg on Saturday, with six days to go before October 1 and war, Evadne said, “Let’s go to Farthingale tonight. We may not get another chance for a while.”
Bracken, of course, could not leave London, could not even find time to sleep, and Dinah would not leave Bracken, but they urged the others to go. Stephen’s Rolls made nothing of the midnight drive, but the three of them, with Evadne in the middle, her head drooping towards Stephen’s shoulder, said very little on the way. Everybody went straight to bed and met at breakfast looking as though they had not slept. Even Mab was showing strain, and as they walked home from the village church she kept close to Sylvia’s side.
In Jeff’s last ’phone call he had said, “Look after Mab, if you get a chance. She’ll be sent to Farthingale, no doubt, but she’ll worry. Don’t let her worry, Sylvie. About me, I mean.” And how, Sylvia was wondering now, enclosing Mab’s hand in her own firm clasp, did he suppose she was going to do that when she did nothing but worry about him herself? She saw to it that they fell a little behind the others, and when they came to the path that led off through the woods on the far side of the stream, where Jeff and Mab had walked that day before the wedding, they turned aside into it by mutual consent. For a while they spoke of Jeff’s book, which had recently arrived from the American publishers, complete with dedication as promised. Then Mab said, as though she could contain the question no longer, “Will they have gas-masks in Prague?”
“Yes, dear. They have to buy them there, but there are plenty to be had.”
“Has Jeff got one?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure he has.”
They walked on slowly for a moment, then Mab stood still, transfixed by determination.