THE MAN WHO DIDN'T QUIT has a closely cropped moustache and he is tall and straight. When he speaks the words come out sharply and when he talks of the betrayal of his country the words are bits of rounded hail dropping on a tin roof. General Charles de Gaulle, today the mouthpiece and leader of all free Frenchmen, is a very tough citizen indeed.
"France lost the war," he says with the confidence of a man who knows war tactics backwards, "for very definite reasons. These were: First of all, our military system did not bother to develop any mechanized strength in the air and on the ground; second, the panic which gripped our civilian population at the advance of the German mechanized units; third, the tangible effect the fifth column had on the minds of many of our leaders, and fourth, lack of coördination between us and our Allies."
In those few sentences de Gaulle told why a great nation was strangled to death in a few weeks. Behind each of his reasons lies one fundamental fault common to all---the horrible inefficiency of the General Staff, which still thought of this war in terms of the last war. The General Staff was proud of its Maginot Line. Its complacency communicated itself to the civilian population and finally to the Army.
France looked upon the Maginot Line as Americans still mistakenly look upon the Atlantic Ocean. It was a bulwark against invasion. France thought only in terms of defense. France believed that the war would be a war of position as was the last, not a war of movement, of quick, smashing forays by large armies of tanks and motorcycles.
Only de Gaulle saw the handwriting on the military wall. As late as last January he sent a long memorandum to General Gamelin, who was then trying to win the war on blueprints. De Gaulle condemned the policy of passive defense and foretold the disaster it brought about. He pleaded for more, bigger, faster and better-armored tanks; he got nothing but a rebuke for this impertinence.
"Germany can still be beaten, even now," de Gaulle says. "But we must make use of the same weapons which she has used so successfully. Germany won with six thousand tanks and five thousand planes. She must be beaten by twenty thousand tanks and twenty thousand planes."
By a strange paradox the military theories of de Gaulle helped to defeat the French Army. In 1934 he published a book on mechanized warfare. De Gaulle was an obscure captain then known only for his personal bravery during the last war, when he was wounded three times. The General Staff frowned on the advanced theories he pronounced in his book. The book itself, Vers l'Armée de Metier, received scant attention except from a few of his colleagues who thought as he did.
But one German read it, the astute General Hauss Guderian, who was just beginning to organize the mechanized forces of the Reich. Guderian made it his bible and when he swept through northern France with his army of twelve tank divisions, he used the paralysing tactics advocated by de Gaulle.
De Gaulle himself, during May, held command of the French tank army but he had only one division. His tanks performed brilliantly at Abbeville but he was only staving off the inevitable. He himself rode and issued commands by radio from one of the tanks.
He didn't have the enormous sixty-ton tanks used by the Germany Army. So confident was Guderian of the success of these tanks that many of them were armored only in front. From the beginning the Germans fought an offensive war with the possibility of retreat ruled out.
Today de Gaulle is the only articulate voice the free Frenchman has. Each day hundreds of weary French who managed, by some miracle, to escape from the cataclysm that engulfed their country go to his dingy suite of offices in St. Stephen's House on Victoria Embankment, asking to join his forces, pleading for a chance to strike a blow that might by some miracle breathe life into the corpse that is France. Within two months de Gaulle may be a half-forgotten name but if the miracle should happen he will emerge as the greatest and most patriotic of the French generals, the one man who refused used to be a stooge for the miserable set of leaders who figured in the betrayal at Bordeaux. If de Gaulle's past is to be believed it is difficult to think that his future will be sterile.
In the beginning his career followed the military pattern. He graduated from St. Cyr as a lieutenant. He fought in the last war under the then Colonel Henri Pétain. He was wounded twice but each time returned to his regiment. Then, during the Verdun battle, he was wounded badly and taken prisoner by a German patrol. He made five abortive efforts to escape and each time had to endure the penalties for such failure.
His military career after the war was active except for a stretch at teaching in the military college at St. Cyr. During recent years his radical military theories received support from only one man in a high place, Paul Reynaud. During the first week of June he was recalled from the front by Reynaud to join the cabinet as Under Secretary of State for War. Reynaud felt that his colleagues were weakening under the pressure of both German military and fifth column strength; he wanted one additional strong voice to overcome the babble of the incompetent and the senile who through no fault of his had been put into the cabinet which he headed.
De Gaulle's tenure as a member of the cabinet was short-lived. When Reynaud was deposed at Bordeaux and Pétain put in, de Gaulle knew that it was all over but for the division of spoils. He hurried to London where he sent out an appeal to colonial generals for help.
One inducement was offered to French officers who fell in line with the Bordeaux government. The Germans promised them that their pensions would be safe it they behaved well. They held the safety of their families over their heads as another blackjack. Thousands of French officers made their choice. They picked what they thought would be financial security and continued health for their families. They threw in their lot with the Bordeaux group which, day by day, becomes more of a puppet government.
De Gaulle, with the reticence of a professional soldier, refuses to condemn or even comment upon the action of his fellow French officers. He condemns the politicians and the General Staff bitterly, but he has not reproached the men who fought so brilliantly with him at Abbeville and at Cambrai during the nightmare of May. De Gaulle would rather discuss the lessons this war has taught the military world today. No country can say that distance protects it from the mechanized forces of another nation. He says, "To date the war has taught us that we have a real military revolution. If I were an American I would take these lessons to heart. America must be ready at any time with the necessary weapons to meet a modern attack, with mechanized forces of air, land and sea. If I were an American I would take for my slogan, 'We should do our utmost to save liberty in this world by all means and at any cost.'"
De Gaulle stood erect and strong; his face showed nothing but confidence. He terminated our talk with a short nod and a strong handshake.
Outside, in the badly lighted hall, men and women were waiting to see him. There were two small anterooms. In one a bespectacled lieutenant took tithe names of the callers, in another a Cockney lad answered a telephone. The shabbiness of the uncarpeted room and the derelict furniture, dimly lighted by uncertain bulbs, seemed a poor setting for bright dreams. But General Charles de Gaulle, the man who didn't quit, may emerge from the shabbiness of this old office building to make the dreams of hundreds of thousands of free Frenchmen come true.
In London we have our fingers crossed when we think of de Gaulle. We were thoroughly sold on him until the horrible Dakar fiasco. Whether he was entirely responsible for that blunder hasn't as yet been established.
Most of his officers dine at the Coq d'Or, a restaurant on Stratton Street, off Berkeley Square. I was there a few nights before the Dakar expedition. I noticed a group of his officers dining high, wide and handsome. The popping of the champagne corks almost killed the noise of the guns in nearby Hyde Park. I asked my waiter what it was all about.
"The frogs is having a victory celebration," he said.
"What are they celebrating-the Marne?"
"No, they are going to attack some place called Dakar," he said. "Next week, I think. So they're celebrating their victory now."
That was news. That was big news. It was no good for me writing for a weekly magazine but it was a good newspaper story. I phoned Christiansen at the Express and told him.
"Sure," he said wearily, "it's a swell story. But it's strictly 'hush hush.' Everyone in London seems to know about it and I suppose Vichy knows about it and Berlin knows about it and Dakar knows about it."
In any case no one was surprised at Dakar when de Gaulle's men arrived. Dakar will go down as one of the greatest military fiascos of our time.
Was de Gaulle responsible? I don't know. Perhaps he will still emerge as another Foch or Kitchener. But I'd hate to have a dime bet on it.
THE BIG HANGAR DOORS opened and there, poised in the entrance, was the new fighter. Even its drab brown, dark red and yellow, camouflage markings couldn't destroy the slim, proud beauty of the airplane. Sixty-three days ago she had been only a mass of white lines on a blueprint; now she is complete, alive, ready for her first test. On the blueprint she had the speed of a Spitfire; the maneuverability of a Hurricane and a longer range than either. She was just one of many experimental fighters England is building today.
The airplane was wheeled out onto the field. Tommy, the test pilot, talked briefly to the designer. The designer, who also ran the factory and was responsible for production, puffed on a cigarette and then threw it away, half-smoked. He was a little bit nervous, as any father is at the christening of a brand-new daughter.
But Tommy wasn't nervous. Tommy had a small matter of 15,000 hours in his log book. Tommy had been testing planes for ten years. This was routine to him. He hitched up the straps of his parachute and climbed into the cockpit. He switched on the motor and it sang sweetly and truly. Tommy looked over at us and grinned happily. He never seemed quite at home on the ground. Then he opened the throttle. The airplane minced daintily across the field. He headed it into the wind. Then he let it go. The airplane sped past us and then, young as she was, took the air confidently, joyously. She was "air borne" now.
Tommy took her around the airdrome in wide, sweeping circles. He gained altitude; he descended in long, shallow dives. He made stall turns, gliding turns and then he "angeled up," as the R.A.F. lads say, to twenty-one thousand feet. Now we'd see how sturdy this new lass was. The airplane was only a white speck in the blue now---white because the sun was shimmering on its wings. We knew what Tommy was doing now. He was kicking his rudder to the left .and simultaneously pushing his stick to the right; then he was pulling back the throttle, cutting the motor. In short he was purposely putting the new fighter into a spin.
If the blueprints were right she would come out of the spin. Otherwise Tommy would have to jump and the airplane would wind up a smoking mess of metal and wood on the ground. We could see the airplane coming down. It was in a spin; the nose was down and the airplane swung around dizzily. Now the nose came up and she was in a flat spin. That's the nastiest of all spins to be in. Then the nose shot down sharply, the tail came up and the airplane was in a nice, controlled dive. Tommy pulled out of it. He circled around the airdrome once, wiggling his wings. Then he landed and taxied up to us. He climbed out grinning.
"It's a gentleman's airplane," he said. "At four hundred miles I could handle the stick with two fingers. It's a grand kite."
A new fighter has been tried and not found wanting. It is forbidden to give any details of airplanes which have not as yet been officially accepted by the air ministry. It is sufficient to say that this new fighter is as good as anything in the air today. English aircraft production never stands still. Today we think of the Spitfire and the Hurricane as the best fighters ever built. The records of the R.A.F. prove this to be true. Yet every designer in the business is constantly trying for something even better. In time the Germans will catch up with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Then England must have something just a little better.
Word went through the huge aircraft factory of the fine first flight of the new girl. Word sped from the machine shop to the experimental laboratory to the slowly moving production line that the factory's new aircraft had done nobly.
"She'll make the old Spitfire look like a truck," one grizzled old worker chuckled as he bent over his lathe.
"When better kites are built, we'll build 'em," another grinned.
No one in the R.A.F. or in the aircraft production end of it ever calls it a plane. Either it's an aircraft or a kite.
This was just another aircraft factory. Aircraft factories are scattered all over England. One hears reports from Berlin (via New York) that many of them have been destroyed by German bombers. If a reporter who is as objective as it is possible to be these days may say a word, I have visited a dozen aircraft factories (picked at random not by any minister of information but by me) and to date have seen no serious damage at any of them.
Take this aircraft factory where we are now. It is one of the largest aircraft factories in the world. Every two hours a bright, shiny airplane is nosed off the end of the production line and out of the big hangar doors on to the airdrome. The factory was established many years before the war began. Its location was known to every German, French, English and, American aeronautical magazine. It still is. Yet the surface of its closely cropped grass expanse and the even symmetry of its gleaming concrete runways is scarred by one wound---a ten-foot bomb crater so small that it wouldn't attract attention in Piccadilly Circus. Once you are inside the huge buildings you can tell that you aren't in a Detroit factory---you can tell it because if you ask a workman for a cigarette he'll hand you a Player or a Woodbine. Otherwise it is much the same.
Outside there are anti-aircraft guns---plenty of them. On the roof there are spotters with their eyes glued to binoculars. The ordinary air-raid warning telling that German aircraft are in the vicinity doesn't interrupt work. If the aircraft gets near enough to be seen by the spotters they call "local cover" into microphones they have on the roof. That means "get under your benches" or "dive into the local shelters." On the concrete floor of the factory shelters have been built. They are about six feet high and three feet thick-heavily sand-bagged. The workmen have given names to these shelters and have put small British flags on them. One is called "The Duck and Fall In" and a placard embellished by a crude drawing of a duck with a bomb heading for it adds emphasis to the good qualities of that particular shelter. Another merely says "The Rush Inn, Caviar a Specialty."
But they aren't used much by the 6,000 employees of the firm. These men and women are too busy making airplanes to bother about bombs. Not long ago a group of R.A.F. fighter pilots visited the factory. They were entranced by the quick, efficient work of the men and women. They asked hundreds of questions. Finally a foreman patted their squadron leader on the back and said, "Listen, sonny---we are very busy. You and your lads go inside and have a nice cup of tea. We've got a war to win. All you lads have to do is fly 'em. We've got to make 'em and make 'em quick."
The glamor boys nodded silently and walked away. They knew that their job was fairly easy compared to the job that these 6,000 men and women were doing. The backbone of England's defense today is aircraft manufacture. I have been at a fighter command on a bad day. Eight fighters were lost that afternoon. The commander in chief picked up a phone. "Eight aircraft destroyed today," he said tersely. "When can you replace them? ... Within an hour? Fine!"
Within an hour eight Spitfires settled gracefully on the airdrome. Today no bomber or fighter C.-in-C. has asked for replacements in vain . Production is not only amazing but distribution is equally well organized. Lord Beaverbrook is a quick, small man. His airplanes are likewise quick and small. They spend very little time loafing in distribution centers. And they don't take long to build.
A day spent in an aircraft factory tells you why. The 6,000 men and women (about one third are women) here at the factory we're talking of are working rapidly. Walk about as I did and chat with them and you'll notice that even when they're joking with you their fine, quick hands never stop moving. When a voice calls through a loud-speaker, "It is twelve o'clock," they don't saunter toward the lunchroom. They run. At 12:25 they run back to their machines, They don't work sullenly. They work (I know it seems unbelievable) joyously, humming songs, joking with workers at the next bench, recounting the latest quip of Nat Gubbins or of Beachcomber, England's two favorite humorists. The head of the plant and I walked through the interminable lines of machines.
A foreman would shout above the clatter, "Hello, boss," and then go on working.
When the new fighter was ready for production the boss bet the five foremen of the five departments which were to build the aircraft one hundred dollars that the plane wouldn't be ready within three months. They finished it in sixty-three days and gleefully the boss handed out the five hundred dollars.
One foreman stopped work for a moment, "Thanks for that money, boss," he said smiling.
"I suppose you all got together and went on a pub crawl," the boss said.
"No," the foreman laughed, while the workers within earshot waited expectantly. They knew what was coming. "You see, boss, we got together and decided to give that money to Lord Beaverbrook's Spitfire Fund."
The boss rocked with laughter. "Pretty good aircraft, the Spitfire."
"We'll build better," the foreman said, and then bent over his machine. It was a machine for punching holes in steel and aluminum. On the side of it in bright red letters was the word "Cincinnati."
"That's a long way from home," I told the foreman.
"In the machine shop you'll find a few with 'Toledo' stamped on 'em," he grinned. "And we have a 'St. Louis' and a 'Detroit.' Good machines."
We walked on. Here was a room filled with aircraft which were practically completed. Even I recognized the Pratt and Whitney radial motors. "Good combination," the boss grinned. "English fuselage, American engines. It works just as well the other way around, Every aircraft that goes out of here has some American parts in it. Between us we can make pretty good. airplanes."
This factory is one of the very few to use the production line or "track assembly" as it is called in England. The boss installed it a few years back and he says that it speeds up production twenty per cent. This is interesting in view of opinions expressed by American industrial leaders, and printed in English newspapers to the effect that the "belt system" would be impractical in the production of aircraft.
"I just studied a man named Ford," the boss said "It worked well for him---why shouldn't it work well for me? Well, you can see for yourself."
The whole problem of mass production and of the assembly line can be summed up in one word---tools. This designer found out early that every time a new airplane was ready to start its long trip around the assembly line there was a cry from his works department for new tools. Now, as he bends over a drawing board working out a new design, he has one eye cocked toward the problem of the new jigs, cranes, wrenches, tools that will be needed. Even before his airplane is completed on the blueprints, machine shops are working feverishly to make the tools which will be needed. There is very little lost motion.
Such synchronization of effort and such co-operation can perhaps only come under the stress of a war emergency. At this factory the boss knows that every one of his 6,000 workers has a tremendous pride in the product he is helping to create; he knows that his workers are loyal to England and to him. He can call on them for superhuman efforts, confident that they will arise to the need.
There is only one fundamental difference between ordinary group assembly and the track assembly method. In the first method the men move past the work; in the latter the work moves past the men. There is no lost motion. It certainly works in this factory. All this is elementary to anyone who has ever been in a Detroit automobile factory. In aircraft circles it is revolutionary.
The assembly line is really a track. Small carriages with heavy small wheels bear the weight of the aircraft. One line handles the fuselage; the other handles the undercarriage. They move slowly and men who know their jobs work deftly at their given tasks. The fuselage begins as an ugly skeleton. The undercarriage begins as a beetle on its back. The two wheels stick up like two legs. Gradually each takes shape. The fuselage begins to cover its nakedness after traveling thirty feet. It begins to look like an airplane.
The two lines finally meet and a huge crane lifts the fuselage into the air. The wheels and undercarriage slide forward. The fuselage is lowered. It is the work of twenty minutes to join them. Two men push the airplane forward thirty feet. Huge hangar doors are opened. The airplane, whole, complete, stands in the sun. Men come hurrying to attach long black hoses to the petrol tanks. Others put oil where oil should be put. Tommy or one of the other half -dozen test pilots hitches up his heavy parachute and climbs up on the wing and into the cockpit. He presses a button; ---he pulls back a throttle---and another airplane is ready to fight, or bomb, or train fledgling pilots. It is simple as that.
I have heard the heads of automobile companies wax lyrical about the synchronization and sheer beauty of well-managed mass production. It always left me cold. But then I'd never seen an automobile start as a tangle of white lines on a blueprint, I'd never watched it grow from a jumble of ugly parts into something compact and useful and beautiful. Now I can feel a little of what the automobile men feel. I've watched an airplane grow from a dream into a shining, poised, bright thing, and because so many of the machines used to create it and because so many of its parts now hidden by sleek wings and sides were of American make, perhaps the finished airplane meant more to me standing there on an English airdrome than it meant even to the designer or to the men who had built it. In any event, it's nice to see a dream (even a blueprint dream) come true.
I stayed in the factory until dark. The smells of the factory were interesting. The sharp, acid smell from the laboratory, the pungent odor of the milk-white fluid used to prevent drills from overheating, the various odors of the paints, and above all of these a pleasant scent of what seemed like banana oil.
The shift changed at five-thirty. Like a relief orchestra that replaces the main band so gradually that not a note is missed and not an interruption of the music noted. The new crew took over. The assembly line never stopped moving. It moves twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week. Beaverbrook sits dwarfed by a huge desk in the ministry of aircraft production. He knows that every two hours a new airplane emerges from the hangar doors of this factory. He knows that the same thing is happening all over England. Even he, the man who demands perfection, can find very little to complain about the aircraft production of the country.
I walked out into the night. A large aircraft landed and a dozen men hopped out. They were "ferry pilots." Their job was to take new planes to their particular destination.. They wasted little time. They climbed into the new aircraft and without any fuss took off and flew away. It was a night of stars and high above a sickle moon gleamed. But it kept its light for its own grandeur, however; the heavy dark world beneath got very little of it. From the blacked-out factory there was the constant hum of machinery and occasionally the high screech of drills cutting through steel. Above there was the drone of the new airplanes winging their way toward battle; their motors singing a happy tribute to English industry.
I MET NAT at the Savoy bar and he said, "How are things?"
"Things are great except that there's no light, no gas, and no water in my apartment," I told him.
"Come out to the country with me for a few days. We can play some golf," he suggested.
"I'd rather be bombed than bored," I said coldly, because that's how it is with golf and me. We just bore each other.
"You won't have to play golf," he said hastily, so I went with him. Nat and Mrs. Nat and their two children, Phil and Steve live at a place just thirty miles from London. The place has its equivalent thirty miles from New York, or Chicago or Detroit or Los Angeles. It is just another suburban commuters' paradise. Ordinarily the men get the eight-ten train in the morning for London and come home on the five-five. Right now life isn't exactly normal in Nat's town. However, if war ever comes to America places like Bronxville near New York and a thousand other suburban communities will find that life isn't quite normal either. A preview of life in Suburbia as it is in war time might prove interesting and a reflection of what life will be in suburban America should war come. So spend a couple of days with me visiting an ordinary English family living within commuting distance of London.
Nat hadn't been able to get through to his home on the telephone. Any telephone call in England is now an adventure. It is almost impossible to phone a town thirty miles outside of London unless you are transacting Government business.
In view of the fact that my hostess would have no warning I thought the shock of arrival might be broken if I brought her a present. In America I might have brought a bottle of wine, a box of candy, a dozen tennis balls. Instead I brought a twenty-pound roast beef. It is not easy to get beef in London. It is carefully rationed but I had been saving my coupons. When you do get it the cost is exactly thirty cents a pound---almost pre-war prices. There is no profiteering in food in London, though food prices have gone up about twelve per cent.
Nat and I hurried to Victoria Station to get the four-thirty train. We were told that the train was not running today. No one knew why. Apparently the track between London and his town had been bombed. There are several garages in London from which you can rent a car complete with driver. There is only one agency which will drive you after dark. The risk of injury to the car by bombs or shrapnel is too great. I managed to get a car and driver from this one garage.
We drove out through London. Sometimes we'd go a dozen blocks without seeing any sign of damage. Then we'd come to a place where a whole block of workers' flats had been leveled by a destruction bouquet dropped by the Nazi airmen. We passed churches and hospitals that gaped openly with only one or two walls standing.
"They are getting more accurate in their bombing," Nat said. "They've hit thirty hospitals in London so far."
"Two more this morning," I told him. "Anyone who goes to a hospital these days is crazy."
Finally the drab buildings of outer London were relieved by long stretches of country and then there would be a picturesque village. We were in Surrey, a county of long rolling hills which now were mottled with the bronzes and purples of autumn. We went through Nat's village. He lived just outside.
Mrs. Nat was glad to see us. So were the two girls Phil and Steve whose names were really Felicity and Stephania. Their ages were fifteen and thirteen.
"Your mother and two sisters are staying with us," Mrs. Nat said. He looked at her questioningly.
"A bomb hit their house this morning, darling," she said. "But none of them was hurt. In fact I think it's done Granny good. She wanted to stay and put out the fire."
We went into the house. Nat's mother was close to eighty. She was very, very annoyed at the German bombers but not at all frightened. Actually she was a bit superior to the bombs. The two children thought it a great lark---Granny's house being bombed.
"I'll phone and get you both rooms at the Country Club," Mrs. Nat. said. "You'll be quite comfortable."
It was cosy sitting in front of an open fire hearing Granny tell what she'd like to do to the Germans; hearing the excited and somewhat envious wonder of the children, a little jealous because until then their house had been the only one in the vicinity that had been hit.
"It was only an incendiary that hit us," Phil said with contempt. "It came right through the roof, though, and landed on Daddy's typewriter. It burned up all his books but that was all."
"Three other incendiaries landed in the garden," Nat said drily. "And my gentle wife went and put them out with a broom."
"Seems a nice quiet spot here in the country," I said.
"Now we'll have a cocktail," Nat's wife said with a fine sense of the practical. "We'll celebrate Granny getting bombed."
The problem of cocktails (important to any dweller in Suburbia) is not an easy one in England. There is a great shortage of vermouth so we don't have Martinis or Manhattans. There is a dearth, almost a 'famine, in lemons and there are no limes at all so we can't have rum cocktails. We compromised on gin and bottled lime juice.
My roast was brought out and duly admired and it was decided to have it the following day. We'd have chops tonight. Nat had a small garden, but cauliflower, spinach, cabbage had replaced the tulips and roses that had once blossomed there. That was equally true of every home here in Suburbia. The two girls served dinner. There was a cook but the maid had left to drive an ambulance. Stevie brought in a large platter on which there was a huge head of cabbage.
"That looks like something Norman Hartnell made for the Queen," I told Stevie.
"Don't talk about our Queen like that," Stevie scolded. "She's wonderful."
I agreed that she was wonderful. So was the cabbage if you like cabbage. To me it's nothing but a road company of cauliflower and you can have that too.
After dinner we played games, the kind you'd play in Bronxville or Scarsdale or at Lake Geneva. Then the banshee wailed. The siren cut through the room and no one talked until it had died out.
"Oh my," thirteen-year-old Phil sighed. "They're up to their tricks again."
"Run along now," her mother said. This was a nightly routine. The children stayed up until the air warning sounded. Then they went to a shelter Nat had built outside. I went to the shelter with them. It was a fine shelter. The concrete was two feet thick. It was built into a hill that rose steeply in front of the garden. The girls were proud of their shelter. There were four bunks in it and a sleeping bag on the wooden floor. It had electric light and a radio and a row of books.
"Look at the funny books Daddy put in here, Stevie said.
The books were all appropriate to the occasion. There was All This and Heaven Too, From Bad to Worse, Heaven's My Destination.
"Are you coming for breakfast?" Stevie asked with a small anxious tone in her voice. I told her that I was.
"Do you want bacon and eggs for breakfast?" and now the anxiety had deepened. I told her that I didn't and she was much relieved.
"We could only get four eggs this week," she confided.
Eggs cost seven cents each when you can buy them. You seldom see an egg outside of a London hotel. Eggs and butter are scarcer than anything else. When a grocer in a village such as Nat's gets a consignment. of eggs he distributes them equally to his regular customers. This week there were only four for Nat's family.
Two kittens frisked playfully about the shelter bouncing happily from bunk to bunk. One pounced frantically on a gas mask that lay on the bunk.
"I wish we could think of names for the kittens," Stevie said wistfully. "Their mother's name was Sally but we don't know what to call them."
"Call them Blitzie and Spitsie," I told them and the suggestion met with approval.
"I can tell a Spitfire from a Hurricane no matter how high they are," Stevie said proudly. "A Spitfire is low and straight and a Hurricane is a little bit humpbacked. I used to be able to tell a Heinkel from a Dornier but now Mother makes me come into the shelter and I hardly ever see any fights. Have you ever been in Hollywood?" she added irrelevantly.
When I told her that I had, she and her sister sat down in anticipation of a long interrogation. "Whom do you know in Hollywood?" they began.
"Bill Powell is a great friend of mine. So is Herbert Marshall and Jimmy Cagney and I was at the front with Robert Montgomery driving in his ambulance. . . ." These magic names brought no light to their eyes.
"Do you know Miss Shirley Temple?" Stevie asked ominously.
"I have not the pleasure of Miss Shirley Temple's acquaintance," I said with dignity, "but I know Joan Bennett and Loretta Young and Ann Sheridan. . .
I was pulling names out of a hat desperately.
"Funny you never met Miss Shirley Temple," Phil said a bit suspiciously.
"I guess she is too busy to see everyone who goes to Hollywood," Stevie said, "but never mind."
"Next time I'm in Hollywood," I said weakly, "I'll try to meet her." I felt I had lost considerable caste. I went back into the house. Nat was now completely dressed in his Home Guard uniform. He was wearing heavy boots and a huge heavy coat and a forage hat and he had a heavy gun hung from his side.
"I'll be out most of the night," he said. "We're having maneuvers tonight. A group of parachutists will land on Bridley Hill just before dawn. They usually land then, you know. They did in Holland and in Belgium. Our job is to capture them."
"Bring their parachutes home, dear, and I'll have them pressed," Nat's wife said. Then Nat kissed his family goodnight and we went to the Country Club. It was about half a mile away and we walked through the black night. The Germans were overhead en route to London. They go in waves so that it seems as if thousands are always up there. Nat's village was on the direct route to London. We looked towards London. High over the city brilliant golden stars were breaking against the black canopy of the night. But we knew these weren't stars. These were shells from the guns of London; helping to guard the people of London. We were thirty miles from the city. We couldn't hear the guns. But the stars kept appearing. London was having a tough night. Then suddenly the searchlights awoke from their sleep. Their white beams searched the skies. You had to pinch yourself to believe all this. We might be standing in Scarsdale now and watching these searchlights and bursting shells helping to guard New York. We knew that a lot of German planes were over London---the heightened activity of searchlights and shells told us that. We knew that bombs were raining down on London. For the moment I felt a bit disloyal as though I'd deserted the gallant old city. But it was only for one night. I'd be back again tomorrow.
Nat came in about five in the morning and he woke me to say that they had captured the imaginary parachutists. But he was up at ten and we walked to his home for breakfast. We had toast and coffee and fruit. We could have had bacon. A neighbor had wanted some tea so she and Nat's wife did a bit of bartering. Nat's wife got a pound of bacon in exchange for six ounces of tea. Barter is common now in English villages. The two children had been out for some time, Mrs. Nat explained, collecting money for the local Spitfire Fund.
"They haven't been to school for eight months," she said. "The hard thing is to keep them busy. There are of course a few schools open, but they have hit so many schools lately I'd rather keep them home with me."
If you are a mother in a London suburban town you must be teacher, cook, fire fighter, nurse, all at once. Mothers in America may one day be faced with the same problem and will undoubtedly rise to the occasion as have the mothers of England. The two girls returned happy because they had collected one pound ten (six dollars).
"There are some new people down the road in the big red house," Stevie explained excitedly, "And the woman said she wouldn't give anything to the Spitfire Fund because she was a pacifist. I said 'Well, you aren't very patriotic then,' and she said, 'I certainly am. I would gladly play hockey for England.' And do you know what Phil said to her? Phil said, 'Well, if it weren't for the Spitfires you'd probably be playing hockey for Germany right now.'"
"Phil, Phil," her mother reproached, but Nat and I thought it was funny and even Mrs. Nat had to laugh. Laughter is a great weapon these days in England and children are lucky enough to have it in abundance.
"Could I have your cigarette package when you're through with it?" Stevie asked.
I only had two cigarettes left. I took them out of the package and gave the package to Stevie. She was very happy about it.
"I have saved about four pounds of tinfoil so far," she said separating the tinfoil from the paper. "Phil saves paper and tin. I save tinfoil and iron. Our village has sent Lord Beaverbrook enough tinfoil and iron and paper to build two Spitfires."
I didn't like to ask what part of a Spitfire was made of paper. The kids left, busy with plans to collect more iron, paper, tin. All over England youngsters are doing the same. England has eliminated waste. When we typewrite stories or letters we use both sides of the paper. Scraps of food are saved and if not usable in the kitchen are given to a farmer who owns pigs. We don't throw used matches away. The wood can be used again. It is not fashionable to be wasteful in England.
The front bell rang. Three Canadian soldiers stood there smiling. There was a large contingent of Canadians nearby. Every home in the village had been thrown open to them so that they could have hot baths every day. They'd just finished a long hike and they were muddy.
Nat's wife said, cheerfully, "Go right upstairs, boys. There's lots of hot water. And there'll be tea ready when you come down."
"Aren't they a nuisance?" I asked Nat's wife.
"Nuisance? I should say not," she exploded. "They are grand lads. I sometimes have as many as twenty a day in for baths and they're the finest boys you ever saw. God knows there's little enough we can do for them. The least we can do is to give them hot water."
After their baths they came down and had their tea. We sat and talked of Montreal and of Toronto and always they talked of going back "after we've licked the Jerries." As they were leaving one of them said to Nat, "Your wife has been mighty kind to us. Wish there was something we could do in return. Have you a place where you could hang a heifer?"
Nat was startled, "Good heavens, no. And where would you ever get a heifer?"
The soldier was a bit embarrassed. "Well, a few miles from here there's a farmer who has more damn cows. He'd never miss just one."
Nat assured him that the household couldn't use a heifer. They left and Nat and I got out his car and drove to the village. Ordinarily we would have walked but Nat had hiked fifteen miles during the night and his feet hurt. A lifetime of sitting in front of a typewriter hadn't exactly fitted him for long hikes. We walk a great deal in England. Nat was allowed about five gallons of gasoline a week---that was all. So the car was saved for emergency duty.
We parked in front of the local pub and Nat raised the hood of the car and took out the distributor. He slipped in into his pocket. Everyone does that in England. You can get a summons for parking your car without removing the distributor. When parachutists landed in Holland, Belgium and northern France, they immediately grabbed all automobiles within sight. They had mechanics with them so it didn't matter if the cars were locked. But once the distributor is removed it takes more than a mechanic to start a car. If Herr Hitler finally decides to land parachutists in this country he will find that the army of the people, the civilians, will be ready for them.
We went into the pub, which was warm and cosy. It was three hundred years old. The dignified old gentleman who stood behind the bar looked almost that old too. His name was Mr. Adams and everyone called him Mr. Adams.
"I just heard about your mother's house being hit yesterday," he said quietly. "Now the missus and I have a large spare room upstairs with plenty of blankets and a nice fire. We'd be happy, sir, to have your mother and sisters move in with us. I know your own house is pretty crowded."
Nat said, "That's good of you. But it's all right."
Mr. Adams poured us our beer and he added earnestly, "Any time, don't fail to call on me."
Two middle-aged men, obviously farm laborers, came in and one tipped his hat to Nat. "It being Saturday, me and my mate are off this afternoon. I heard they made a bit of a mess at your mother's house. We'd be glad to go up and straighten things out."
"It's all right," Nat said gently. "The lads have already fixed everything up."
We all drank beer in companionable silence and I was thinking of people I knew in suburban towns around New York and I was wondering if they would react in these circumstances as these men and women were reacting.
We walked out of the pub and stood there in the crisp autumn air. Up the road was the village school; across from it the village church and here the pub. These three things are symbols of what England is fighting to maintain. The pub in many ways is more important than the other two; it is the place where men gather to speak their minds. The pub is the symbol of free speech in England.
"You English are pretty swell people, Nat," I said. "I guess you're our kind of people all right."
"Yes," Nat said thoughtfully and then like any Englishman afraid of sentiment he growled, "You might have known Miss Shirley Temple, though. You let the kids down badly."
THE AMBULANCE STOPPED and there was an air warden standing there. He pointed silently. The two girls hopped down from the ambulance and ran into the air shelter. I followed them. This had been a tannery once but it was now an air shelter in the East End of London.
We went in, closed the doors and lit our searchlights. People came, ghostlike, out of the shadow and surrounded us. The two girl ambulance drivers were very businesslike. This was routine to them.
"Where is he?" one of them said.
Two of them led a huge, fair-haired man toward us. He was muttering angrily. There was a bandage on his head and one on his wrist. When one of the girls grabbed his wounded arm he pulled it away.
"He got hit by shrapnel on the head and on his wrist," one of the men explained. "Then he stumbled in here. But there's something funny about him. He's got no papers. Where are your papers?"
"Lost," the tall man said dully.
More figures appeared from the shadows. There were low mutterings. He had no papers. He spoke with a funny accent. Who was he? The girls tried to lead him out into the street and into the ambulance. He wouldn't go. Said he was afraid of the bombs and of the shrapnel. He wanted to stay where he was. He shouted it because bombs were falling near the docks which were close by ---and the anti-aircraft batteries were sending up a lot of heavy stuff. It was very noisy.
"Make him go along," someone said. "Why ain't he any papers?" "Who is he?" They were angry at the man. You carry your identification papers in London just as you wear your shoes. "Before you came he was yelling something in some foreign language. Sounded like German," someone said.
Our small flashlights cut the darkness and grotesque shadows chased after one another on the walls. These people didn't understand the man, therefore they were afraid of him, and being afraid of him they were angry at him. Fear hung limply in the heavy air of the place that had been a tannery.
The tall man was muttering again and I bent close to hear what he was saying. He was talking German, which was no language to talk in the middle of the East End during a particularly terrible air raid. But when he spoke I knew two things about him: first, he was a Belgian and second, he was drunk.
"You're a policeman," one of the men from the shadows said to me. "Why don't you hit him one?"
"I'm not a policeman," I told him.
"Well, you look like a policeman," he growled.
I told the two girl ambulance drivers that the man was a Belgian sailor and that he was drunk. Then I took the bandage off the man's head and the girls saw that it wasn't much of a wound at all. Neither was the shrapnel wound on his wrist. The girls told him sharply to go to the nearest police station. They'd dress his silly wounds there. The girls told the people in the shelter who he was, and now the fear that had hung heavily in the air disappeared and everything was all right. He'd just got drunk and lost his papers.
"And us thinking him a blasted Jerry," someone laughed.
We went outside and the moon was very full and there were no clouds. We climbed into the ambulance and drove back to the station. This was all routine to these girl ambulance drivers.
They were part. of the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service. They were two of 150,000 women who are on duty each night in London.
Their station was in a garage. Back of the garage was the dugout where they stayed between calls. They called it a dugout but actually it was an artificial shelter made out of sandbags. The sandbags on all four sides were four feet thick. Three feet of sandbags covered the roof. The dugout was thirty feet long and eight feet wide. Inside it looked like a sandbagged trench. There was a table and on it a telephone and an electric stove on which a kettle was boiling. The woman in charge of this station sat behind the table. Sixteen other women sat on long benches that ran the length of the dugout. The two girls made their report to the woman in charge.
They all laughed about the drunken Belgian sailor who had lost his papers. They laughed about me being mistaken for a policeman.
They all wore the blue uniform of the L.A.A.S. Half of these girls were drivers, the other half attendants. When the phone rang it meant that there was trouble. When it rang the two girls who were up next stood and walked to the table. Then quietly, casually, they walked out to the garage, climbed into an ambulance and set out through deserted but noisy streets on their errand. Six nights a week, four weeks a month, these girls do this job.
Things were active in the East End this night. They usually are. Occasionally we heard the planes over us and then we'd hear the angry symphony of the air barrage rising to a crescendo.
"There's George," one of the girls shouted cheerfully. A German plane is "Jerry" to everyone in London. These girls call it George and they didn't know why either. Now through the sharp roar of the air barrage we heard the sound of the bombs. They were fairly close and then there was a terrific explosion and the dust from the sandbags filled the dugout and got into our eyes.
No one said anything. The noise and the concussion from a bomb that falls close stun you for a moment.
"That was quite near," the woman in charge said calmly.
"Let's see if it hit the school," one of the girls said. It was a high-explosive bomb and it had landed in the schoolyard next to the garage. It landed exactly one hundred paces from our dugout. There was a large crater in the schoolyard but no fire. We went back to our dugout.
We all had fresh tea because the dust from the sandbags had gotten into our teacups and dust is no good in tea. The girls relaxed, some sitting on the wooden benches, some sitting on the floor. There was an alarm clock on the table. The alarm clock said 11:30. Someone said: "The clock has stopped. Actually it's just midnight."
The woman in charge laughed. "The concussion from the bomb stopped it." She shook it, reset it, wound it and it began to tick on merrily.
"An American alarm clock," I said complacently. "Even a bomb can't hurt it."
"An English clock wouldn't even have stopped," one of the girls hooted.
A slightly built girl walked into the dugout. She took off her blue service hat and said to the woman in charge, "I'd like to work tonight."
"But, Ethel, dear," the woman said, "this is your night off. Why aren't you home in bed?" Then she looked at Ethel and stopped. And for some reason everyone stopped talking.
"When I got home this morning," the girl said, "I found I didn't have any home. I want to work tonight. Let me be first out, please."
The woman in charge was marvelous and understanding. The rest of us sat in silence. The woman in charge said casually, "Yes, Ethel, you and Pringle go out next."
Ethel sat down on the wooden bench. No one asked her any questions.
In the silence the kettle began to hum. Tea is more than a drink in London; it's a symbol of sanity and a reminder of days that were normal and that days will be normal again. One of the girls handed Ethel a cup of tea. "By the way, Ethel," the woman in charge said quietly, "Wyndham Street was hit earlier this evening. It is full of glass. If you get a call in that section keep to the side streets."
Soon the girls started to talk again. They talked of small things, as girls do. A few of them still keep their jobs during the daytime. They grab what sleep they can here in the dugout. The phone rang and everybody was quiet. Ethel and the girl they called Pringle got up. The woman in charge gave crisp directions. They set off.
Then it rang again. "Yes, I've got it. Yes, East End Avenue. Right away." She put down the phone. "Harris and Foster are up. Fire on East End Avenue."
They left and the woman in charge said, "I think I'll take a car and go along. That's a residential neighborhood. May need more than one ambulance. Care to come?"
I nodded. The woman in charge, who made me promise I wouldn't use her name, could drive. But then it was light. It was the kind of night poets sing about. We curse bright nights when the moon is full. On a night like this the Thames would be a white ribbon of milk pointing toward London. You can't black-out the Thames and the Thames tells the German bombers everything they want to know about London.
The streets were deserted of course. This seemed like a dead city except for the noise. The anti-aircraft guns were hurling up thousands of tons of defensive armor and the shell broke high against the stars in sharp, golden flashes. Bombs were falling and the combined noise of the guns and bombs seemed to tear the energy and life from you and make you feel very tired. We sped along and now even above the guns we heard the shattering of glass.
"I told Ethel to avoid this street," the woman in charge said. "And now I go right into it myself."
We drove over glass for three blocks. It was a street of small shops. All had been shattered. Air raid wardens, home guards and the police were all too busy for the moment to start clearing the street of glass. We crunched over the glass and miraculously didn't get a blowout. Then we hurried on past it. We came to East End Avenue. We turned right and saw the fire. A high wind had come up and the sparks were flying all over the night. The firemen were playing two streams of water on the house.
We saw the white ambulance in front of the burning house. It was a nice one, in a row of good, substantial three-story brick houses. We walked up close to the house. I had borrowed one of the tin hats from the dugout. The ambulance girls wear steel helmets with a large black "A" emblazoned on them. No one asks questions when you wear one of these. We just walk in. We walked into the courtyard in front of the house.
The bomb had hit directly and apparently had fallen through the house into the cellar, where it exploded. The firemen concentrated on the bottom of the house. There were perhaps a dozen firemen, four policemen, a couple of air-raid wardens and ourselves there. The rest of the street was deserted. People don't "go to fires" in London. The upper two floors were burning fiercely. But the water had nearly killed the fire in the cellar. Two firemen, shielding their faces from the heat, walked into the building. I crouched down and looked through a broken window into the cellar. The firemen were down there.
"All dead," one of them shouted.
"Maybe not," the other said. Then he called: "Stretchers."
The girls had the stretchers ready. They handed them through the broken window to the firemen in the cellar. Soon the two firemen came out of the building carrying a stretcher. They laid it down. There was a doctor there now. The woman didn't look dead. The doctor had a needle ready and he stuck it into the flesh just below her heart. Then he bent over and began to give her the kind of artificial respiration that lifeguards give.
The firemen came out with another stretcher. The doctor hesitated for a moment and the woman in charge of our ambulance group said, "All right, I'll carry on."
This was a woman too. She looked about thirty. The doctor gave her an injection. The doctor had a stethoscope around his neck. It was a white stethoscope so that he could find it easily in the dark. As he worked the arms of the woman rhythmically back and forth the white stethoscope swung to and fro from his chest.
"Take this damn' thing. It keeps falling over my eyes," the woman in charge said to me and she handed me her steel helmet. She kept on giving the woman artificial respiration. The firemen brought another stretcher out. This, too, was a woman. She was dead. I never want to see that again---someone who has been burned to death.
I stood up and went to the doorway of the house. A fireman came out. "Didn't need the stretcher for this one," he said. He had a child in his arms. The child had long golden hair and, strangely, it hadn't been touched. The fireman walked out of the courtyard and laid the child on the street. The doctor came hurrying over. The child was about three. She couldn't be dead. She was asleep. I turned away when the doctor pressed the needle. I suppose there was adrenalin in the needle.
The fire was crowning the top of the house. It would be out soon but it was flaring up obscenely as though glorying in the thing it had done this night. I walked a little away from the house. A man and his wife were standing there. They lived next to the burning building and the firemen had gotten them out.
I asked them about the three women and the child. They told me their names. The youngest was married and it was her child the doctor was working on. The other two women were her sisters. I asked why there weren't any men in the house.
"Her husband is in the army," the man said briefly.
"There's Jerry again," one of the. firemen said.
We knew he'd come again at night. He could see this burning house at 20,000 feet. We heard the uneven hum of his motors and then the roar of the air barrage keeping him high, keeping him dodging shrapnel so that he couldn't get a good shot at us. The searchlights suddenly snapped on.
"Why does he bomb here?" I asked one of the policemen. "No targets around here, are there?"
He pointed down the street. "See that building?" he said. "That's what he's after."
It was so bright that I could plainly see the huge building. "What is it?" I asked.
"It's a hospital. One of the largest in London," the policeman said. "He's been after it for three nights."
Jerry was dropping his bombs but he was missing us. One of the firemen was working over the child now. The doctor was in the courtyard.
"Put these three women into the ambulance," he said.
One of the girls said, "Shall I take them to the hospital, doctor?"
He shook his head. "No," he said wearily.
There was only the child left. The doctor bent over her again. There wasn't a burn on her tiny body., The doctor put his arms underneath her and lifted her up a foot.
"Keep her head down," he said.
I held the head down and the golden curls were soft to touch. I found myself saying, "Wake up, wake up, wake up."
She couldn't be dead. She was asleep. I've seen three-year-old girl children asleep and this is how they sleep. A three-year-old child always sleeps with a faint frown on her face as though daring anyone to wake her. This child was sleeping like that.
The doctor reached for her arms again. I stood up. The ambulance with the three bodies in it rumbled away---not to the hospital.
I know this isn't a pleasant chapter to read. It isn't a pleasant one to write. It's much better to read and write about the fighting pilots, the "gay, laughing-eyed knights of the air." Sure, that's what war is. Glamorous and exciting. If death comes, well, it is swift and clean. War? Why, war is a line of gallant British battleships plowing through azure waters with flags flying and bands playing and a tot of rum for the lads on watch at night. Sure, that's what war is.
But that isn't the war I see in London every night. This is the war I see. If you want a front seat to the war come and stand over this three-year-old child with me. Don't be afraid of the bombs that are falling close or the spent shrapnel that is raining down on us. You want to see what war is really like, don't you? Take another look at the baby. She still looks as though she were asleep. This is war---fall style, 1940. This is the war that Herr Hitler is waging.
Finally the doctor stood up. The fire had burned itself out now. A murky grayness was lighting the sky. Dawn had come to banish the horror of the night. The German bombers are creatures of the night. They fade before the light of the dawn and scurry back to their own airdromes. The doctor shook his head wordlessly and then the scream of the siren cut through the dawn. It was the steady sound telling us that the German bombers had gone.
"All clear," the doctor muttered ironically. "Well, they've done their work. Why shouldn't they go home?"
He bent and lifted the child in his arms. He walked to the ambulance with her. He placed her on a stretcher and put a blanket over her. He didn't cover her face. It still wore that little frown.
"Maybe she's better off dead," he said.
I shook my head. "Nobody's better off dead," I told him.
WORDS ARE LIKE CORDIALS---too many of them make you sick. Reading too many words, writing too many words, hearing too many words-it's all the same. Now I've written too many words and I'm sick of words.
But in London there is an antidote. You can be jerked back from the unreality of what you are writing by merely stopping your typewriter. All writing is unreal because what you've written has already happened and therefore is dead and only the living are real. I've always felt that once you've read a book that book is dead. I hate to have my room cluttered up with dead books.
No book ever written can equal the drama that is going on tonight in London. A city of six million people is crouching underground; not cowering with fear, but crouching for safety. Babies are being born in shelters under the earth. Men and women are dying as I write this. It is what we call a very "noisy" night in London. Perhaps a hundred German planes are over London now looking for places (if they do look for places) to drop their bombs. If they don't find what they are looking for they'll drop them anywhere. Two landed here in Berkeley Square, less than an hour ago. The first one killed two air raid wardens. There are a dozen fires burning in London now; I put out my lights and drew back my black curtains to see.
Gradually they are chipping away at London as a woodman chips away at a tree. They are trying to kill London. You can kill a tree by chopping it down. You can kill a book by reading it. You can't kill London by destroying the buildings of London. The bombs that are falling tonight are destroying buildings and killing people. But a bomb has its limitations. A bomb can only destroy buildings and kill people.
A bomb cannot kill the spirit of a people who have been through the greatest mass torture any people have ever been asked to endure. Tonight, except for the fires, London is dark and you could walk for five miles through the streets of London without meeting anyone. You might think that London was a ghost city tonight if you didn't know better. You might say that the city slept or even that it was dead.
But those of us who have lived through the past months with the people of London know better. London is more alive tonight than it has ever been in its history. In the morning London will count its dead and then face the new day. London is fighting for its existence. London can never die as long as the spirit of London lives. No bomb, no land mine has yet been devised which is capable of killing this spirit.
And so, knowing this, we laugh a little at the bombs. They try so hard and accomplish so little. They crush our homes; they stun us with their concussion; they kill our neighbors but that's all that they can do. The buildings can be rebuilt; the concussion gives us nothing but headaches; our neighbors are all prepared to die.
But no one in London town is prepared to surrender. Even those who have been cut and mangled by the screaming tons of iron which have fallen on London tonight endure their agony. These civilians of London are good soldiers. London has been hurt tonight and will be hurt again tomorrow night, and every night thereafter. But no one is crying. Not even the wounded. The wounded don't cry.