The FitzOsbornes at War (35 page)

‘Which means we have to plod alongside those big lumbering beasts, keeping in strict formation, with Luftwaffe fighters swooping down on us from above and those bloody flak guns firing up from the ground. I wouldn’t mind if our bombs were wiping out Nazi ships or aerodromes or something, but the targets always seem so pitiful. A railway yard or some pathetic little workshop – when we’re sending over hundreds of planes and losing so many men.’ He shook his head. ‘But ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die.’

What’s truly scary is not just that they might
die
; it’s that if a plane gets hit, the pilot has to bail out over Nazi-occupied territory. That’s what had the Colonel so agitated last week, when he came round to see me.

‘What was Toby
thinking
?’ he exclaimed, flapping a magazine at me. Cecil Beaton had visited Toby’s aerodrome to take photographs of some dashing young pilots, and of course, Toby featured prominently. ‘I
told
Toby, right at the start!’ went on the Colonel, thoroughly exasperated. ‘If he
must
go into combat, use a pseudonym, like all the Poles and Czechs do! What if he gets shot down over France? He isn’t some ordinary British pilot. Just imagine how the Nazis will react if they discover they have the King of Montmaray in their grasp!’

But Toby waved our concerns aside. ‘
Naturally
that Beaton fellow wanted me in all the photographs,’ he said airily. ‘I’m the best-looking man on the base. It’s not as though my
name
appears in any of the captions.’

Not in
those
photographs, perhaps, but it’s written in bold capital letters on that huge ‘Leaders of the Allied Nations Whose Headquarters Are In Britain’ poster. Photographs of General de Gaulle of France, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Doctor Beneš of Czechoslovakia, General Sikorski of Poland, all arranged in a ‘V for Victory’ shape – and right at the top, King Tobias of Montmaray, in RAF uniform. Toby isn’t worried about
that
, either. He isn’t worried about
anything
. Last year, he seemed grimly resigned to his own death. Now, having made it this far, having been promoted to Squadron Leader (because all his previous Squadron Leaders have been
killed
), he seems to believe he must be invincible. I’m not sure which state of mind I find more disquieting.

I should also note that the Colonel brought the news that Penelope Stanley-Ross had a healthy baby girl last week. Let’s hope the poor little thing turns out to be pretty – that might provide some small consolation to her mother. I wanted to ask the Colonel how Rupert was – I haven’t seen or heard from him since the funeral – but felt awkward about it. Besides, it was one of the Colonel’s lightning visits. I expect he’s keeping very busy liaising with the Russians, who are now desperately trying to keep the Nazi forces out of Leningrad . . .

21st December, 1941

V
ERONICA AND
I
STILL HAVEN’T
decided if we’re going to Milford for Christmas. Neither Toby nor Simon has any leave, Veronica thinks she might be called in to work on Boxing Day, and I’ve come to loathe that long train journey south. The carriages are so often packed with soldiers (who spend the whole trip whistling at girls and making the most
indecent
comments), and then there’s waiting about for hours at Salisbury for the bus, and those final horrible miles, jolting about in the pony cart in the freezing sleet . . . It makes one tired just thinking about it. Tired and glum.

I suppose it’s good news that the United States has finally entered the war on our side, but oh, all those hundreds of poor American sailors killed at Pearl Harbor! The Colonel happened to be dining at Chequers with the Prime Minister that night, and told us that when the news came over the wireless, Mr Churchill jumped up in great excitement, crying out that we were ‘saved’, that this was ‘a blessing’ for the British Empire. I do hope Mr Churchill managed to calm down a bit before he spoke to President Roosevelt on the telephone, because I can’t imagine the Americans feel the same way.

How
could
the Japanese be so cruel as to attack like that, without any warning or any declaration of war? No wonder Hitler loves them. He’s even declared them ‘honorary Aryans’. They may not be tall and blond and blue-eyed, but they’re certainly just as skilled at terrorising their neighbours as the regular Aryans are. One would think having control of large chunks of China would be enough for them, but no, they also want Burma and Malaya and Hong Kong and Singapore and the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, and they’ve already sunk
two
British warships. Veronica, Simon and I held an emergency Council of War (Toby was flying operations at the time, but he agreed with our decision afterwards) about whether we should declare war on Japan. Of course, we can’t provide any practical aid to the troops, and I doubt Japan has even heard of Montmaray. But Britain has been kind enough to grant us asylum, and Japan
is
officially part of the Axis with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, so we felt we ought to join all of Britain’s other allies and declare war, too.

The first consequence of the war spreading to the Far East has been the shops running low on rice and tea. (Of course, I’ve now developed an absolute craving for rice pudding.) I also had to queue up for three-quarters of an hour yesterday to buy our fortnight’s ration of sugar. It was a good thing I had
Barchester Towers
with me. (How would Mrs Proudie react to rationing, I wonder? She’d probably have married Lord Woolton and seized control of the Ministry of Food by now.) On my way home, I saw another queue and automatically joined it, not even thinking to ask what it was
for
until I’d been standing there ten minutes. But luckily, the shop had just received a carton of tinned meat from America and as I had enough points, I bought some Spam. We’d tried it at Julia’s the night before – studded with cloves and baked with a glaze of plum jam – and it was quite nice, as long as one didn’t try to think of it as actual
meat
.

At Julia’s, we somehow fell to talking about what we missed most from before the war.

‘Silk stockings,’ Daphne said, then corrected herself and said no, it was being able to buy new clothes whenever one wanted. ‘I can’t stand having to
think
about every single little purchase! I was about to buy some handkerchiefs the other day, and then I remembered I need another sturdy pair of shoes for work and I ought to save up my coupons for that. And yet, all my handkerchiefs are oily rags and completely useless and oh, the
agony
of indecision!’

‘What makes
my
heart sink is when Mrs Timms tells me the Hoover’s blown up or something like that,’ said Julia. ‘Because I know it’ll be impossible to get spare parts for it or buy a new one. Also, I remember when I was looking for a teddy bear for Penelope’s baby – absolutely
nothing
in the toy shops. Think of all the poor children, growing up with no toys!’

Veronica said she missed proper newspapers. What with limited supplies of paper, and censorship, and most of the newspaper reporters having been called up, even
The Times
is down to only eight pages.

‘Oh, yes,’ sighed Julia. ‘And the weather reports, I miss those. I can never decide what to wear each morning.’

Weather forecasting – or even mentioning the weather of the past week – is strictly forbidden, in case the Germans use the information to plan air raids.

‘Which is
so
ridiculous,’ Veronica pointed out. ‘All the Nazis have to do is stand at Calais and look across the Channel if they want to know about the weather in England.’

‘What
I
miss,’ I said wistfully, ‘is orange juice. I used to drink a big glass of it every morning at Milford, before the war. But the price of fruit is ruinous nowadays, if one can
find
any in the shops. It’s a wonder we aren’t all riddled with scurvy.’

‘Yes, I desperately miss lemons,’ said Daphne. ‘Gin and tonics just aren’t the same any more. And I miss lemon icing on cakes.’

‘Stop it,’ said Julia. ‘No talking about food, especially after I’ve just given you such a pathetic dinner. How did we get onto this subject, anyway? Who started it?’

‘You did, I think,’ said Daphne. ‘But better to have a good honest whinge every now and again, than to go all Mrs Miniver-ish, exclaiming over the lovely smell of sandbags, and how sweet the barrage balloons look, and how utterly thrilling the blackout is. Easy for
her
to gush about how wonderful the war is, when she buggered off to America long before the Blitz started.’

‘Well, the poor Americans know a bit about bombing now,’ I said.

‘Hawaii,’ mused Julia. ‘I didn’t even
realise
the Americans owned part of it, did you? And
I
thought the only islands in that part of the Pacific were the Sandwich Islands.’

‘Hawaii
is
the Sandwich Islands,’ said Veronica. ‘They’re the same thing.’

‘Mmm,
white
bread,’ said Daphne, ‘with
real
butter and –’

‘What?’ said Veronica.

‘Sandwiches,’ said Daphne. ‘I desperately miss smoked salmon sandwiches.’

‘Will you please stop talking about food!’ said Julia.

So we talked about Daphne’s latest boyfriend, who’s one of those Americans being sent out here to tell us how to win the war. He couldn’t believe the daughter of an earl worked six days a week as an aircraft welder. ‘A qualified
semi-skilled mechanic,’ Daphne corrected him, with some pride. She told him how all single women here under the age of thirty are conscripted into the army if they aren’t already doing war work, and he was absolutely horrified and said back home, they’d never even
contemplate
asking that of their ‘womenfolk’. Isn’t that funny, when America seems so modern and progressive? But then, I suppose they haven’t been fighting off invaders for the past two years.

28th April, 1942

V
ERY EXCITED LETTER FROM
H
ENRY,
who was meant to go back to school last Monday after the Easter holidays, but broke her thumb while trying to fix the henhouse door. Her excitement was not merely due to having an extra week off school, but also to an incident in Milford on Friday. She was walking to the village shop with a list Barnes had given her, when an army lorry pulled up outside the inn to ask directions. (I suppose it’s quite confusing for them, navigating with no road signs and having to make constant detours around bomb craters and broken bridges, but it does make one wonder how they’d manage in a war zone.) While the captain was talking to the innkeeper, a few of the soldiers climbed out of the lorry to stretch their legs, and Henry caught sight of a familiar face. She dropped her basket, shrieked out his name and rushed over to fling her arms around him.