Elsie now returned with Milly, who once more dived under the eiderdown, and, with a piercing snore, resumed her slumbers.
‘Did she do anything?’
‘Yes, m’lady.’
‘Good girl. Would you be very kind,’ said Sophia, ‘and go and ask Miss Turnbull if she would give me Mr Egg’s telephone number. Say I’m short of a man for tonight.’
Florence, who had only come off duty at six, was displeased at being woken up. She was understood by Elsie to say that Mr Egg had gone to Lympne for the day, and had her ladyship remembered that there was to be a Brotherhood meeting at 98 that evening.
Sophia saw that she had been rather dense. Of course she might have realized that if Heth had been available to see her there would have been no need for him to write on her egg. Then she saw light.
‘He, Egg, is in agony, because he is unable 2 see me before 2 night.’ Sophia turned to her breakfast with a happy appreciation both of its quality and of her own brilliance.
She picked up The Times and read about the Pets’ Programme. It seemed to have fallen very flat with the musical critic. ‘Not with Milly though.’ Then, without looking at the war news, which she guessed would be dull, she turned to the front page and read, as she always did, the agony column. She usually found one or two advertisements that made her feel happy, and today there was a particularly enjoyable one. ‘Poor old gentleman suffering from malignant disease would like to correspond with pretty young lady. Box 22 The Times.’
When Sophia had finished laughing she became quite wistful. She always called Sir Ivor the poor old gentleman, and he called her the pretty young lady. If only he were not being a dreadful old traitor in Berlin, she would have cut the advertisement out and sent it to him. ‘I never should have expected to miss him as much as I do, but the fact is there are certain jokes which I can only share with him. Funny thing too,’ she thought, ‘suffering from malignant disease, just what he is. National Socialism.’ She cut out the advertisement and put it in her jewel case, deciding that if she ever had the opportunity to do so, through neutrals, she would send it to Sir Ivor in the hopes of making him feel small. Her blood boiled as she thought again of his treachery and of the programme of Camp songs, which was exactly similar to one he had given before the Chief Scout some months previously, and which had included that prime and perennial favourite:
There was a bee i ee i ee,
Sat on a wall y all y all y all y all,
It gave a buzz y wuz y wuz y wuz y wuz,
And that was all y all y all y all y all.
Sir Ivor and Dr Goebbels between them had altered the words of this classic to:
The British E i ee i ee,
Sat on a wall y all y all y all y all,
Like Humpty Dumpt y ump ty ump ty ump ty ump,
It had a fall y all y all y all y all.
So queer it seemed, and so horrible, that somebody who had had the best that England can give should turn against her like that. Sir Ivor had received recognition of every kind, both public and private, from all parts of the British Empire, of his great gifts. Had he been one of those geniuses who wither in attics, it would have been much more understandable. Sophia got out of bed, and while her bath was running in she did a few exercises in order to get fit for the dangers and exactions of counter-espionage.
On the way to St Anne’s, Sophia bought a Manual of Morse Code which she fully intended to learn that day. When she arrived however she found, greatly to her disgust, that, as it was Thursday, there was a great heap of clean washing to be counted.
She supposed that she must have a brain rather like that of a mother bird who, so the naturalists tell us, cannot count beyond three; counting the washing was her greatest trial. There would be between twenty and thirty overalls to be checked and put away in the nurses’ pigeonholes in the ‘dressing-room’ which was a sacking partition labelled, rather crudely, Female. Now Sophia, with an effort of concentration, could stagger up to twelve or thirteen; having got so far the telephone bell would ring, somebody would come and ask her a question, or her own mind would stray in some new direction. Then she would have to begin all over again.
It generally took her about an hour before she could make the numbers tally twice, and even then it was far from certain that they were correct. On this occasion she made them alternately twenty-five and twenty-eight, so she assumed the more optimistic estimate to be the right one, and stowed them away in their pigeonholes. She was longing to tell Sister Wordsworth about Greta and the main drain, but of course that would never do. She did ask Mr Stone whether the drain really flowed underneath the First Aid Post and could
