Week after week went by. People made jokes about how there was the Boer War, and then the Great War, and then the Great Bore War. They said Hitler’s secret weapon was boredom. Sophia hoped it was. She had long cherished a conviction that Hitler’s secret weapon was an aerial torpedo addressed to Lady Sophia Garfield, 98 Granby Gate, S.W., and she very much preferred boredom.
Sophia had two friends in the Cabinet. They were called Fred and Ned, and as a matter of fact while Fred was in the Cabinet, Ned had not yet quite reached that sixth form of politicians and was only in the Government, but Sophia could not distinguish between little details like that, and to her they were ‘My friends in the Cabinet’. She often dined with the two of them and found these evenings very enjoyable because, although they both had young and pretty wives, it seems that the wives of Cabinet Ministers race, so to speak, under different rules from ordinary women, and never expect to see their husbands except in bed if they share one. So Sophia had Fred and Ned to herself on these occasions. As she liked both male and female company, but did not much like it mixed, this arrangement suited her nicely.
They took her to dine at the Carlton, and talked a great deal about the political prospects of their various acquaintances, and it was talk which Sophia was very much accustomed to, because it had begun years ago, when she was a young married woman taking Fred and Ned out to tea at the Cockpit; only then it had been a question of Pop and coloured waistcoats, and the Headmaster in those days had delivered his harangues in Chapel instead of on the floor of the House. She told them all about her Post, and Ned wrote things down in a notebook, and promised that A.R.P. should be reconstructed on the exact lines suggested by Sophia. She knew from experience how much that meant. Then Fred asked her if Luke was in the Tower yet, and this annoyed her because, while it was one thing to say to Rudolph in the privacy of Kew Gardens that Luke was an awful old Fascist, it was quite another to have Fred, that ardent upholder of Munich, being facetious about him; so she turned on poor Fred with great vigour, and gave him a brisk résumé of the achievements of the National Government. She very nearly made him cry, and was just coming nicely into her stride over the National Liberals, of whom Fred was one, when Ned came loyally to his rescue saying ‘Ah, but you haven’t heard of Fred’s wonderful scheme, all his own idea, for fixing Dr Goebbels.’ And he proceeded to outline the scheme.
It appeared that Fred’s idea, his own unaided brainwave, was to invite Sir Ivor King, the King of Song, to conduct a world-wide campaign of songful propaganda.
‘Harness his personality, as it were,’ Fred explained, warming to his subject, ‘to our cause. He’s the only chap who could bring it off, and it would be wicked not to use him – why, he is one of our great natural advantages, you might say, like – well, coal, or being an island. They’ve got nobody to touch him over there. Now my idea is that he should give out a special news bulletin every day, strongly flavoured with propaganda, of course, followed by a programme of song. See the point? People will switch on to hear him sing (the first time for two years, you know), and then they won’t be able to help getting an earful of propaganda. We’ll have him singing with the troops, singing with the air force, singing with the navy, jolly, popular stuff which the listeners all over the world can join in. You know how people like roaring out songs when they know the words. Besides, the man in the street has a great respect for old Ivor, great.’
According to Fred, he and the man in the street were as one, which was strange, considering that, except for the High Street, Windsor and The Turl, he had hardly ever been in a street.
‘When you say listeners all over the world can join in, you mean English listeners?’ said Sophia. She wanted to get the thing straight.
‘By no means,’ said Fred, eagerly, ‘because, you see, the strength of this scheme is that it will be world-wide. I confess that, to begin with, I forgot that it’s not everybody who can speak English. Then of course I remembered that there are Chinks and Japs and Fuzzy Wuzzies and Ice Creamers and Dagoes, and so on. Ah! but we can overcome that difficulty. Is there any reason why he shouldn’t learn to make those extraordinary sounds which they think of as music? Of course not. No. The old chappie is full of brains and enterprise – take on anything we ask him to, you bet.’ And Fred began to give what he thought an excellent imitation of un-English music, nasal sounds of a painful quality. A county family who were dining at the next table told each other that this could not be the Minister for Propaganda, after all. Ned beat two forks together as an accompaniment, and they assured each other that neither was that the Member (so promising, such a career before him) for East Wessex.
‘The old King is coming to my office tomorrow. I am seeing him myself,’ Fred continued, when this horrid cacophony came to an end.
‘He will be wearing his curly, butter-coloured wig,’ said Sophia.
‘We must see that he has a
