‘Better keep her on for a time, now she is here.’
‘Oh yes, I know. We must really.’
They ate on in a polite and not very comfortable silence.
Luke said presently, ‘Sophia, I hope you don’t object to Florence staying on here.’
‘Of course not.’
‘She is very poor, you know. I don’t know what would become of her unless we could help her.’
Sophia’s eyebrows went up. She thought that the Brotherhood must really be improving Luke’s character. Hitherto he had despised, disliked and mistrusted people for no better reason than that they were poor.
‘Well then, of course we must help her,’ she said warmly. ‘I wonder – perhaps she would think it awful cheek if I offered to give her my silver-fox coat. I never wear it now, and I know they are not fashionable, but it is extremely warm.’
‘That is very good of you, my dear Sophia, and I am sure if you were guided to share it with her she would be only too happy to accept.’
Sophia stifled the temptation to say that she would arrange for it to come clean at Sketchley’s first.
‘I’m very glad Florence is here to keep you company when I’m at the Post,’ she said; ‘actually she has joined the Post too now, did you know, but our shifts only overlap by about an hour. It’s really very good of her; she is going to do a twelve-hour night shift, simply horrible I should think.’
‘Florence is, of course, one of the people who believed, as I did, that Herr Hitler and Our Premier between them could make a very wonderful thing of world relationships. Like me, she is bitterly disillusioned by Herr Hitler’s treacherous (yes, it is the only word) treacherous behaviour to Our Premier. But like me, she feels that this cruel war is not the proper solution, it can only cause a deterioration in world affairs and will settle nothing. People who think as we do are ploughing a lone furrow just now, you know, Sophia.’
‘What I can’t see is why you think that the behaviour of the Germans has been any worse, or different, during the past few months from what it always is. Anybody who can read print knows what they are like, cruel and treacherous, they have always been the same since the days of the Roman Empire. I can’t see why we have to wait for Government Blue Books and White Papers to tell us all this – oh well,’ she said, ‘what’s the good of talking about it now? I really do feel awfully sorry for you, Luke, as you have so many friends over there and thought everything was going to be rosy.’
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ said Luke, earnestly, ‘I consider that Herr Hitler has treated Our Premier most outrageously. At the same time, I feel that if the British people had gone all out for moral rearmament and real appeasement, things need never have reached this pass.’
‘The British people indeed, that’s a good one, I must say. However, it’s now quite obvious to any thinking man that our lot in life is to fight the Huns about once in every twenty years. I’m beginning to consider having a baby; we shall need all we can muster to cope with the 1942 class in 1960, who, if there is anything in heredity, will be the most awful brutes.’
Luke, who belonged to the ‘We have no quarrel with the German people’ school of thought, looked wistful, and presently went off to his smoking-room,
Rudolph wrote:
It is exactly like one’s private here. One of the masters gave us bayonet drill this morning – this is how it goes:
‘The first thing we ’ave got to consider is wot are the parts of a soldier? First you ’ave the ’ead. Now, the ’ead of a soldier is covered with a tin ’at, so it ain’t of no good to go sloshing it with a bay’net becos all yer gits is a rattle. Wot ’ave we next – the throat, and the throat is a very different proposition. Two inches of bay’net there, and yer gits the wind-pipe and the jugular. Very good. Next we comes to wot yer might call the united dairies. A soldier’s dairies are well covered with ammunition pouches and for this reason should be left alone, and also becos a very little lower down yer gits the belly. Now it only requires three inches of bayonet in the belly, twist it well, and out they comes, liver and lights and all. Etc. (I spare you the rest of the anatomical analysis.) Now, when pursuing a retreating enemy, you should always make a jab for ’is kidneys becos it will then go in like butter and come out like butter. When the — is wounded, you should kneel on ’is chest and bash his face with the butt end, thus keeping the bay’net ready in case you want it to jab at some other — with. You’ve got to ’ate the —s or yer won’t git nowhere with them.’ (Tremendous pantomime.) If it wasn’t so heavenly, I might easily have felt sick.
How are you? If you ask me, I think Florence is more of a beautiful female spy than Olga; I call all this bird-life extremely suspicious. I shall be having some leave soon and intend to conduct a rigid investigation in Flossie’s bedroom. Meanwhile you be on the look-out for suspicious behaviour – cameras, for instance, people lurking on the stairs, false bottoms to trunks and all the other paraphernalia.
I don’t get along without you very well.
Love and xxxx Rudolph.
5
The newspapers suddenly awoke from the wartime hibernation and were able to splash their pages with a story which all their readers could enjoy. The idol of the British people, the envy of all civilized nations, the hero of a thousand programmes, The Grand Old Gentleman of
