Henrietta's War Read Online Free Page B

on fire.
    â€˜By gad! The woman can skate!’ shouted Colonel Simpkins and he began tugging at his boot-laces.
    Several people who had hitherto been too nervous to venture far from the edge, now struck boldly for the middle of the pond. Somebody arrived with a gramophone, and started the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz, and Colonel Simpkins and Lady B swooped away in each other’s arms, a challenge to Old Father Time, if ever there was one.
    An unfortunate girl who was due at a V.A.D. lecture thrust her skates into my hand, and, before I knew where I was, Faith and the Conductor had laced me up and supported my trembling feet on to the ice, where they each took an arm, and I immediately developed acute pain in the calves of both legs.
    Mrs Phillips came down from the house and asked us all to tea. We made toast and ate it with bloater-paste to disguise the margarine, and Lady B, who was puffed but happy, told us how she had won some quite grand skating competition in Switzerland when she was young, and Colonel Simpkins said
everybody
ought to skate round an orange
always
.
    As we walked home, the young moon was rising behind the trees, with one very bright star in the top left-hand corner. Mrs Savernack said it wasn’t a star but a planet. I said I preferred to call it a star.
    Mrs Savernack said accuracy had never been Henrietta’s strong point.
    Colonel Simpkins said soothingly that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
    Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,
    HENRIETTA

February 21, 1940
    M Y DEAR ROBERT
A few days ago I took Mr Perry for a walk along the sea-front as far as the rocks. You couldn’t call it a spring day, but it was the sort of day which makes you feel that spring may not be so very far away after all. Mr Perry, who hates the cold, was frisking along in a light-hearted manner, looking very handsome in his little coat, and a redshank on the marsh was giving its strange, questioning cry. I was just trying to decide whether it was saying ‘Why?’ or ‘Who?’ when I saw Faith rushing along the path towards me. She was gasping for breath and her face was quite white.
    â€˜What is it?’ I cried.
    â€˜Mine!’ gasped Faith, seizing me with both hands.
    â€˜What is yours, Faith, dear?’ I said gently, for indeed, Robert, I had begun to think she had lost her reason.
    â€˜Mine, you fool!’ she shouted, and with one shaking hand she pointed towards the sea. Then she pushed me aside and rushed on.
    I looked where she had pointed and there, bobbing up and down not far from the shore, and drifting steadily towards the rocks, was a large, round, black object.
    I stood rooted to the spot with horror, and felt the palms of my hands go damp. Nobody in the world is more frightened of being blown up than I, but there is just one thing I am more frightened of still, and that is a big BANG. To my mind, when threatened with a bang there is only one thing to do, and I did it. I sat down on the ground, put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes tightly, and began singing the ‘Pilgrims’ Chorus’ out of
Tannhäuser
as loudly as I could.
    Mr Perry came and sniffed delicately at my ear, and I stopped singing for one moment to say, ‘Go home, Perry, darling,’ and opened one corner of my eye to see him saunter off in a nonchalant manner. Then I began singing again.
    How long I sat there I do not know, but it seemed hours, and I was beginning to get very hoarse when I felt a light tap on my shoulder and opened my eyes to see Colonel Simpkins bending down and peering at me with a red, anxious face.
    â€˜My dear lady!’ he said. ‘Are you ill?’
    Without stopping singing, I pointed at the sea. The mine was now only a few feet from the rocks.
    â€˜Good God!’ said Colonel Simpkins, and then he began methodically emptying his pockets. First he took out a gold half-hunter watch, then his money, a note-case, his ration-books