diff options
Diffstat (limited to '79228-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 79228-0.txt | 7980 |
1 files changed, 7980 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/79228-0.txt b/79228-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6780159 --- /dev/null +++ b/79228-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7980 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79228 *** + + + + + _Ernie Pyle_ + in England + + [Illustration] + + ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY + + _New York_ + + + + + ERNIE PYLE IN ENGLAND + + COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY + SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + OF AMERICA + + FIRST EDITION + + AMERICAN BOOK--STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK + + + + + _For + That Girl + Who Waited_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + _FOREWORD_ xi + + + _I ON MY WAY_ + + 1. Qualms 1 + 2. Crossing 1 + 3. Way Station 5 + + + _II ALL QUIET_ + + 1. Peace to War--Seven Hours 11 + 2. “He Hasn’t Come Yet, Sir.” 16 + 3. First Impressions 24 + + + _III MOST HATEFUL, MOST BEAUTIFUL_ + + 1. Ringed and Stabbed with Fire 30 + 2. Night Stroll, Illuminated 33 + 3. The Landmarks 36 + 4. Roughing It 42 + 5. Whooo-issshhh! 45 + 6. Sounds and Sights 48 + 7. Blindfolded in Sahara 53 + + + _IV THE HEROES ARE ALL THE PEOPLE_ + + 1. It’s All True 57 + 2. The Cupboard’s Not Bare 60 + 3. Street Scene 68 + 4. This Is the Way of Wapping 74 + 5. The Pynted Awl 77 + + + _V GUNS AND BOMBERS_ + + 1. Tea, with Sound Effects 82 + 2. Miscellany 90 + 3. The Beaver 96 + 4. Shop Talk with the R.A.F. 102 + + + _VI THE CAVE DWELLERS_ + + 1. All I Could Bear 110 + 2. Double-X 115 + 3. Stars and Stripes 122 + 4. Looking Ahead 127 + + + _VII EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH_ + + 1. Fear, with Laughter 133 + 2. Yorkshire Farm 138 + 3. Visit to Scotland 140 + 4. A Scottish Family 146 + 5. The Red Clyde 149 + 6. Defense in Depth 156 + + + _VIII MURDER IN THE MIDLANDS_ + + 1. Train Talk 162 + 2. Factories--Everywhere 165 + 3. Blitzkiss in Coventry 167 + 4. Notes on the Cuff 175 + + + _IX YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ANYTHING_ + + 1. The War in Wales 179 + 2. Miner 183 + 3. No Man’s Land 185 + 4. Longshore Pub 191 + 5. Back to London 194 + + + _X BOMBS DO THE DAMNEDEST THINGS_ + + 1. “Shut Up, They’ll Hear You!” 201 + 2. Germans, Arise and Flee 205 + 3. A Visit with Low 211 + 4. Ready for Hitler 217 + 5. Good-bye to All That 222 + + + _EPILOGUE_ 227 + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Last fall when the great air battles were being fought out over England +and the first full reality of the bombed torment that was London’s +came over the cables to us in America, there grew in me an almost +overpowering urge to be there amidst it all. To this day I cannot +quite put into words just what my feelings were. I am a professional +traveler, but it was not curiosity “to see what it was like” that +made me want to go. And I am a newspaperman, yet the “story” I might +send back hardly entered my mind at all. I simply wanted to go +privately--just inside myself I wanted to go. + +For it seemed to me that in London there was occurring a spiritual +holocaust--a trial of souls--that never again in our day could be +reenacted. I felt that to live your span in this time of ours, and to +detour around an opportunity of sharing in the most momentous happening +of that time, was simply to be disinterested in living. It seemed to me +somehow that anyone who went through the immersion into fear and horror +of the London bombings, could not help but be made fuller by it. + +So I went. Things didn’t turn out just as I had expected. For one +thing, it never seemed dramatic to me when I was there. All the +elements I had visioned were there, yet apparently I had not the +capacity for being erupted by them up into a great new nobleness of +mind and heart. What I mean is that, so far as I can analyze myself, I +feel no different than before I went. I don’t feel cleansed in spirit +or exalted in stature. I merely toasted my shins awhile before the +grate of war; they--the people of England--are the embers and coals and +licks of flame that constitute the very fire itself. We who go and come +away again cannot be other than small beside them. + + * * * * * + +From the day war was declared, I felt keenly for the side of Britain. +But I am no intellectual curator of the world’s morals; the thinkers +who take up the war as a “cause” leave me bewildered. I simply wanted +England to win because it seemed to me safer and sounder for England to +be running the world than for Germany to run it. And now that I’ve been +there, I still feel exactly the same about it. + +Somehow it seems inevitable that there shall be one dominant nation +in the world. I guess it’s just the same principle that makes Ivory +Soap float, or that makes one horse, instead of all the entrants, win +a race. Whichever nation is dominant sets the tempo for a good part of +the world. And if the tempo-setter must be either England or Germany, +it seems to me simple sanity that England should continue to be that +nation. + +The actual policy of a world rule is formed not so much by the leaders +and individual representatives of a country as by the background of +basic character of the whole people. And if I had never known it +before, I discovered this winter that the national character of the +British is a noble character. Sure, there are things about them we +despise; there are intolerable Englishmen by the scores of thousands. +Yet if you judge them by their massed heart and their massed way of +dealing with life--which you must do if you’re deciding who is to +dominate the rest of the world--then the English seem to me to come off +as leaders more nearly perfect than any other nation on earth. + +I have almost no feeling at all against the Germans. I never did, and I +still don’t today, even after they had filled the sky with bombs above +my own private and precious head. I don’t see how anyone can blame +Germany for wanting to be Mr. Big in this world. Doesn’t England want +to be Mr. Big too? And does America want to play second fiddle to Italy +or Germany or Japan? Of course not. + +You cannot help but be anguished at death and destruction, and +sometimes you sink into a despair of abysmal hopelessness when you +stand in the center of a complete ravage--and yet it’s war and I can’t +blame Germany for fighting nor England for fighting back. They’re both +in there punching, and may the best man win. And if England isn’t the +best man, may she win anyhow, dammit. + + * * * * * + +As for my own case history, in the event you care, I’m a farmer who has +forgotten how to farm, and a newspaperman of so many years’ tenure that +I no longer know how to do anything else on earth but work on and write +for newspapers. I can’t even sew on a button anymore. + +It has been eighteen years since I quit school and went to work on a +small Indiana daily, and every minute of that time has been spent on +newspapers. I’ve run the gamut, as they say. I’ve worked every job on a +newspaper from cub reporter to managing editor. + +Nearly all of those eighteen years have been with the Scripps-Howard +Newspapers. I doubt there has ever been a happier association +with a business institution than mine. I’ve never had a boss who +wasn’t a gentleman; never had a superior who wasn’t also my friend. +Scripps-Howard has always been good to me, and liberal too. It was a +nutty idea when I began pestering them, some six years ago, to let me +cut loose from the desk and start wandering around in my car, writing +a daily column about anything that popped into my head. + +But they said okay, go ahead and try it. Since then I’ve covered +200,000 miles and been on five of the six continents and crossed both +oceans and delved into every country in the Western Hemisphere and +written upward of 1,500,000 words in that daily column. + +It has been a joyous life. I’ve gone down the Yukon River on a +stern-wheeler, and lived with the lepers in Hawaii, and petted llamas +in the high Andes, and reveled in the strange lazy beauties of Rio. +There isn’t a state of the Union we haven’t been in at least three +different times. + +By “we” I mean the other half of this gypsy combination, who is known +to the readers of the column as “That Girl.” Almost everywhere I have +been, she has been too. She uses up her time by reading books and +working Double-Crostix puzzles and absorbing knowledge and keeping me +from jumping out of my skin. In all our little triumphs and all our big +despairs, she has been along. + +And then came England. That was different. The government wouldn’t let +her go. Hers was the far greater task of staying and waiting. But now +the “Great Experience” is over, and we have hit the trail together +again, in the old fashion, just wandering around talking to people and +writing about the rain and things. At least I think we have. But maybe +we’re only fooling ourselves. Maybe we’re just pretending that we’ve +picked up the world where we left it last fall. For there is probably +something to the theory that our lives, in common with all others, can +never again be just as they were before 1940. + + ERNIE PYLE + + _Los Angeles_ + _July, 1941_ + + + + + _Ernie Pyle_ + in England + + + + +_I. ON MY WAY_ + + +_1. QUALMS_ + + _New York, + November, 1940_ + +A small voice came in the night and said, “Go.” + +And when I put it up to the boss he leaned back in his chair and said, +“Go.” + +And when I sat alone with my so-called conscience and asked it what to +do, it pointed and said, “Go.” + +So I’m on my way to London. + +Never before have I set out on a long trip with anything but elation in +my heart. It is not so with this trip. This one is no lark. It will be +tough and I know it. + +I will be scared. I know I will feel small and in the way among a +people who are doing a job of life and death. + + +_2. CROSSING_ + + _Aboard_ S.S. Exeter, + _December, 1940_ + +The sailing of a ship, the world over, is a gay event. A ship carries +people out of reality, into illusion. People who go away on ships are +going away to better things. But that was not true as we sailed for +Europe. There was no gayety on the _Exeter_. Never, on any ocean or +in any climate, have I seen a ship sail so drearily. I doubt there is +a single person on board who goes joyously. Certainly no one is going +for the fun of it. The _Exeter_ takes its human cargo into the land of +heavy reality, rather than from it. + +There were no farewell parties aboard ship. What few people had +visitors to see them off sat in the lounges in small, quiet groups, +talking seriously. + +That Girl came to the ship with me. And so did an old friend we hadn’t +seen for years--Jim Moran, the fellow who hunted the needle in the +public haystack, and who sold an icebox to an Eskimo. Maybe you’ve read +about him. We knew Moran back when he was just an amateur crazy-man. +He was a gay fellow to have around this day, and we were grateful for +him. He tried his best to add a touch of joviality to the long-faced +atmosphere of departure. + +“Look at these passengers,” Moran said. “Spies all over the place. +Secret Agent Y-32. There goes Mata Hari of 1940. Everybody trying to +eavesdrop on everybody else. + +“Ernie, you need a dispatch case. Get an important-looking dispatch +case and stuff it full of newspapers. Put a big padlock on it. Carry it +everywhere with you. Carry it to meals. Walk the deck with it. Never +put it down. Then, about four days out, walk away from your deck chair +and leave it lying there. I’ll bet half the people on board would get +maimed in the rush to grab it.” + +And I said, “Oh Moran, shut up.” + + * * * * * + +We were to sail at 11 A.M. But the word passed around that we wouldn’t +get away till several hours later. The uncomfortable quiet of +anticlimax went over the ship. + +Moran sat down and wrote four postcards for me to mail in Lisbon, so +his friends would think he was over there. + +They left the ship at noon--Moran and That Girl. We couldn’t sit there +any longer, just waiting for the last moment to come. I walked out into +the pier shed with them. She slipped me a note she had written, and I +put it in my pocket. We have known each other a long time. + +We didn’t try to say anything but just good-bye. And we made it quick. +For a minute I watched them walking away, down the long pier shed. Then +I went to my cabin and shut the door. + +Finally, at two o’clock, we sailed. Everybody had gone. The dock +was empty and dead. There was no shouting, no confetti, not even a +handkerchief waved. The lonely dock simply drew away. Nothing more, as +we sailed on a cold gray afternoon in November toward the darkness of +Europe. + + * * * * * + +We have just thirty-one passengers aboard. That is only a quarter of +the ship’s normal capacity, and only a sixth of what it carries on +the return trips. Coming back, they put cots in the lounge and pack +in 180 or 190 people. But there are so few of us that everybody has +a cabin to himself. Mine is a big one with two beds, a sofa-couch, a +private bathroom and two portholes. Furthermore, it has a sunny veranda +just outside the door. It is, I believe, the most comfortable cabin +I’ve ever had aboard ship. All I need to set up housekeeping is a +base-burner and a side of bacon. + +We weren’t two hours out of New York when we had boat drill. + +There wasn’t any monkey business about it, either. They swung out the +boats, and tested the radio in No. 1 boat. + +I figured that, due to the instability of world conditions (as some +people call it), we would have boat drill every day. But there wasn’t +another until the seventh day out, when the whistle blew and the bells +rang at eleven o’clock in the morning. + +It turned into quite an experience for a British girl on board. She +had just got up, and was taking a shower. When she heard the bells it +never occurred to her that it might be a drill. She said to herself, +“My God, this is it!” So she jumped out of the shower and into slacks +and sweater without even drying. The lifebelts are on racks under the +beds, and she got her lifebelt stuck and practically had to tear the +bed down to get it out. She couldn’t find her money, so she ran off +without it. She tarried not for lipstick nor rouge. She arrived on deck +pale and breathless--to find that we were only playing. + + * * * * * + +We are now getting into waters where ships do get sunk occasionally. +But there is no anxiety on board about our safety. We are fully lighted +at night, and on each side of the ship is painted a big American flag, +with a spotlight rigged to shine on it. Every night I’ve been meaning +to lay out my heavy clothes on the other bed and have everything all +ready to jump into--just in case. But we’re almost there now, and I +haven’t got around to it. + +Some of the passengers have been hoping something exciting would +happen. One favors picking up a couple of lifeboats from a sunken ship. +Another wants a raider to stop us and search. One extremist even favors +being fired at mistakenly by a submarine--on condition that the torpedo +misses. As for me, I don’t want to see anything in this ocean but +waves. And on second thought I don’t even want to see waves. For I’m +seeing them right now; and to put it bluntly, they make me sick. + +The run to Lisbon is tough these days for the dining room and cabin +stewards. Going over, there are so few people their tips don’t amount +to much. And coming back, although the ship is loaded to the hilt, +everybody is broke, so the tips are still small. But the crew does get +a war bonus of $1 a day for working this run. + +We have one Englishman aboard who is the most satisfactory listener +I’ve ever talked with. He considers everything you say the most +fascinating thing he’s ever heard, and says so with a repertoire of +ejaculations completely new to me. + +For instance, you say you’ve been at sea a month this year, and he +almost jumps out of his chair and says, “No! How extraordinarily +remarkable!” You say something else, and he says, “God save us! Would +you believe it?” You remark that planes are landing completely blind by +radio beam these days, and he leans forward as if about to leap, and +comes out with: “God’s teeth! You don’t say it!” + +That last one is worth the whole voyage to me. + + +_3. WAY STATION_ + + _Lisbon, + December, 1940_ + +You must call it “Leeze-bone,” this only free seaport city left in +Europe. If you say “Leeze-bone,” then you’re a bona-fide European +traveler. If you say “Leeze-bo-ah” you’re a Portuguese and live here. +If you say “Liz-bun” you’re a plain American. + +Today Lisbon is the temporary pasture for all those of Europe fortunate +enough to escape. It is the needle’s eye through which must pass all +non-fighting travel between Europe and anywhere else. A month ago +it was estimated there were 20,000 refugees in Portugal. There are +probably fewer now, for they are being worked out gradually, and +Portugal has tightened her borders against newcomers. You can’t get a +visa for Portugal today unless you can show a ticket to take you on +beyond. + +Most of the refugees are in or around Lisbon. A good portion of them +hope some day to get to North America. Others go to South America and +the Belgian Congo; and since our arrival a whole shipload of Greeks has +left for the Dutch East Indies. The majority of the refugees had money +originally, or they couldn’t have greased their flight from their home +countries. But most of them couldn’t bring much with them. And living +costs in Lisbon, although low by our standards, are high by European +standards. So the refugees live close to their belts. Lisbon is not a +gay place of high night life. + +The staff of the American consulate has been greatly enlarged, yet they +are working as intensely as newspapermen just before edition time. All +day long thick groups of people shove and push and wave papers before +the consulate counters, trying to be next in line to argue for a visa +for that haven of havens--America. Desperation drives people to many +ruses. The consulate clerks have heard so many phony stories that they +practically suspect everybody. Yet they seem to have an attitude of +tenderness toward them all, too, as if to say “You poor devils!” + +Most of the refugees are German Jews and people from the Balkan +countries. But now there are a large number of Belgians and French too. +Many of them are trying to get to England. And England will take them +in, if they can get there. + +Restaurants in Lisbon are excellent. There are half a dozen that would +satisfy any international epicure. Last night I had the best steak +since Buenos Aires, and with all the trimmings it came to only eighty +cents. Food abounds here; they pile it on, they even waste it--while +the rest of Europe draws closer to starvation. + +This is a hilly city--a beautifully hilly city. There are streets +here nearly as steep as those in San Francisco. It is very white, +and from a distance it glistens. And it is vastly larger than I had +expected--nearly a million people--and there are traffic jams just as +at home. + +The sidewalks are made of flat-topped stones, walnut size, laid in +weird designs of black and white as are the sidewalks in Rio. The +streets are practically all of cobblestone. The city is dotted with +parks and circles and statues. + +There are some palm trees, and the other trees still have their leaves +on them. But don’t let such greenery, and such bright sun, and such +blue skies, pull any wool over your eyes. A friend’s description of +southern California fits Lisbon perfectly right now. He said, “You can +lie down under a rosebush in full bloom and freeze to death.” That’s +Lisbon too, in December. + + * * * * * + +Three great warring nations all run regular passenger air lines into +Lisbon. You can see planes take off every day for Berlin and Rome; +and several times a week for England and the U.S. The downtown ticket +offices of the English and German lines are next door to each other. In +fact, I got into the German office by mistake, and naively asked about +planes to London. The young man behind the counter directed me, in +excellent English, to the British Overseas offices next door. + +Theoretically, the air line to England is a commercial line. But the +British Air Attaché here tells them whom to take, and when. When you +arrive from the United States, England-bound, you register in a book at +the ticket office of British Overseas Airways. That’s all there is for +you to do. That’s all you can do. Some afternoon maybe a week later, +maybe two months later, the ticket office will call up and tell you to +get ready. + +Passengers are chosen in the order of their “priority.” Nobody goes +without priority. This is arranged in London only, and the average +traveler can’t get priority at all. Being a newspaperman, I have +priority. If I didn’t have, I might as well go home. But when it will +get me to London is anybody’s guess. All you can do is wait. + +What applies to us, applies to thousands here awaiting transportation. +Trains are crowded. The Rome plane is booked three weeks ahead. Time +is heavy on people’s hands, and as the weeks drag on they draw their +financial belts closer and closer. But at cocktail hour the bars are +crowded, and you hear a dozen different tongues. Americans mostly +gather at the Avenida, and give each other the day’s developments--if +any--in their struggle to get wherever they’re going. + +Even transportation to America is difficult. They say three hundred +people are sitting here waiting for the Clipper. Seats on the Clipper +have been “scalped” for $1000--and then the buyer finds he has bought +nothing, for Panair doesn’t permit transfer of reservations. The +American Export Line runs a weekly steamer to the United States, and it +is booked two months ahead. But many of these bookings are for people +who haven’t even arrived from their home countries yet. Hundreds who +have made reservations will never get their papers to go. They say that +when the weekly boat sails, carrying out about two hundred people, it +pretty well clears out those who are free to leave. + + * * * * * + +As far as I can tell, sentiment in Portugal is overwhelmingly +pro-British. Some friends say they sense a lot of feeling for Germany +here, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. True, you see an occasional +German army uniform on the streets. And you hear a good many people +speaking German. But there is no way to tell whether these latter are +fifth columnists or refugees. + + * * * * * + +Along with George Lait of the International News Service, who was +a fellow passenger on the _Exeter_, I put up for several days at a +pension, which is something halfway between a boarding house and a +hotel. And from my slight experience with pensions in this and other +countries, you can have them, and welcome. But by pulling wires, the +two of us finally got a room in a hotel. + +The new room is about twenty feet square, and it has two big windows +that look onto a narrow street. Early each morning they bring all the +newsboys and street vendors of Lisbon up to this street and test their +lungs. If they can’t wake us up, then they are weak and sick and are +sent home for the day with a black mark. + +Our room is old-fashioned, yet quite comfortable (except for +temperature). The ceiling is far, far above us, and is covered with +colossal scrollwork in purple plaster. The bathroom is simply one +corner of the room walled off by movable panels, which stop five +feet short of the ceiling. Our bathtub has three faucets, one marked +cold, and two marked hot. The point is that one is a little hotter +than the other. I don’t know why it’s done this way. All I care about +is that one or the other should give off hot water; and they really +do--plenty hot. But our radiator does not have the same virtue. It +is a centuries-old custom not to have heat over here. All radiators +are vaguely warm; none is ever hot. They have no effect at all on the +room’s temperature. + +I’ve been cold all over the world. I’ve suffered agonies of cold in +Alaska and Peru and Georgia and Maine. But I’ve never been colder +than right here in this room. Actually, the temperature isn’t down to +freezing. And it’s beautiful outside. Yet the chill eats into you and +through you. You put on sweaters until you haven’t any more--and you +get no warmer. + +The result is that Lait and I take turns in the bathtub. I’ll bet we’re +the two most thoroughly washed caballeros in Portugal. We take at +least four hot baths a day. And during the afternoon, when I’m trying +to write, I have to let the hot water run over my hands about every +fifteen minutes to limber them up. I’m telling the truth. + + * * * * * + +We went down to see the _Exeter_ sail. You’d never have recognized +it as the placid and sparsely populated ship we came over on. In the +lounge stood row after row of cots. Two-by-fours, with holes bored +in them, had been laid over the rugs. The cot legs were set in these +holes, to keep them from sliding in rough weather. Down below, every +cabin was jammed. Cabins with three beds had four people in them. The +ship was alive with children. Luggage was stacked everywhere. + +The stewards were about to go completely crazy. Everybody was wanting +something. And nobody could understand anybody. Bernie Garland, my +steward coming over, said he could recognize about every language in +Europe but he had a cabinful speaking something he’d never heard before. + +On these homebound trips you’re lucky to be aboard at all. Which made +the request of one haughty woman sound ridiculous. I overheard it +myself. She was in one of the best cabins, but she didn’t like it. She +came to the steward and asked if she was in first class. He told her +there was only one class. So she said, “Well, you must have better +cabins. Change my cabin right away, even if I pay more for it.” She +wanted to change--and with eighty people sleeping in public on cots! + + + + +_II. ALL QUIET_ + + +_1. PEACE TO WAR--SEVEN HOURS_ + + _England + December, 1940_ + +The phone rang in our hotel room in Lisbon, and we were told to be at +the marine airport before daylight this morning. Don’t think I didn’t +get all a-twitter. Our almost two solid weeks of waiting were drawing +to an end, and Lait and I decided not even to go to bed. + +Each of us left a small suitcase in Lisbon, to cut down the weight. I +put my excess necessities in a white sugar sack which a boat steward +had given me. And so today I arrived in England carrying a small yellow +bag, a typewriter, and a knotted-up sugar sack over my shoulder. + +It was cold and eerie in the dimly lighted airport building at +Lisbon. We walked up and down to keep warm, until finally the captain +said, “Let’s go.” We followed the crew along a pier, and got into a +motorboat. We could make out dimly the shapes of two big flying boats +at anchor. As our boat eased up to one of them, we jumped through the +door. + +The plane had four motors, and was bigger than the Baby Clippers of +Pan American Airways, but not as big as the regular Clippers. She was +camouflaged. + +The cabin was partitioned into three compartments, with smoking +permitted in the rear one. I had supposed that these planes were +stripped of all peacetime travel comforts to save weight, but not so. +The seats were deep and comfortable, the floor was carpeted. + +The steward gave us blankets. The engines were started, the door +closed, and we taxied far out into the river. We could see the lights +of the city on each shore. Suddenly the motors roared, and spray +blinded the windows. We ran for what seemed a long time, surging +through the water, until finally we felt her break free. The windows +cleared and the shore lights dropped farther and farther below. The hot +exhaust rings of the motors shone dramatically red in the darkness. We +were on the way to England. + + * * * * * + +It might have been a flight in peacetime. Every one on the plane +immediately went to sleep. I slept for a while, but curiosity got the +better of me, and from daylight on I stayed awake. + +Dawn found us over the ocean, with no land in sight. I had been told +the flight would take ten hours, but we picked up a howling tailwind +and came through in less than seven hours. Time didn’t drag at all. +Five hours out, I went through the plane and every passenger was +asleep. As far as I could observe, not one person ever spoke to another +during the trip. There were seven Americans aboard, one Swiss, and +three Englishmen. + +The steward served coffee and sandwiches, and later fruit. Then he came +around and blacked out the windows so the passengers couldn’t see out. +This was done by putting a section of frosted glass over the regular +windows, with rubber suction cups. This lets in light but prevents you +from seeing out. I presume it is done to keep passengers from seeing +convoys in the water below. But the joke was that the steward blacked +out every window except mine. Either he ran out of frosted panes or +else he thought I was blind. At any rate I stared out the window the +whole trip. + +Land came into view on the left. It was dark brown and bare, a high, +rugged coast. I thought it was Ireland. We flew along this coast for an +hour. The air got rough, and five passengers were very sick. Somehow I +escaped that. We passed only two ships, both small. One of them flashed +a signal to us with a blinker. We did not see a single plane on the +trip. + +Suddenly the pilot throttled down his motors and we started losing +altitude. Then I realized we had not been flying along Ireland, but +along the coast of England itself. We landed far out from shore among a +lot of boats at anchor and camouflaged planes resting on the water. As +we struck the surface there was that familiar long ripping sound. + +I felt like a character in a dream. The journey from America was over. +We had arrived. But it didn’t seem really true. Any moment I expected +to wake up and find myself still between those perpetual walls of the +Hotel Europa in Lisbon. + + * * * * * + +A score of British officials, in raincoats and boots, came out in a +motorboat and looked everything over, and a doctor took up the forms we +had filled out. Then we all got into the boat. The men chatted with us +all the way to shore. They said they would try to get us through the +inspection in time to catch the mid-afternoon train to London, but they +couldn’t promise. + +It was raining. We walked a hundred yards along the docks, then into +the main street of the little town. There were soldiers on the street, +carrying tin hats and gas masks. There were women in khaki uniforms, +and many people on bicycles. All the store windows were crisscrossed +with strips of paper. This tends to prevent shattering from the +concussion when bombs explode in the neighborhood. Strips of many +colors, pasted in many designs, made the town look as though it had +been decorated for Christmas instead of patched up for the war. + +I wish you could see that village street. It was like a picture from +a Dickens novel. The gabled buildings, the language of the signs, the +many smoking chimney pots were all the England of fiction, so peaceful, +neat and secure. I had not been ashore three minutes before I was in +love with England. + +We were escorted to a big ground-floor room, the temporary office of +the British Overseas Airways. There were easy chairs and couches and a +coal fire in the grate, and a boy was serving hot tea. It took us two +hours to get through all the inspections. We were taken one at a time +into a room where two men questioned us. They asked about our purpose +in coming, about our money, about whom we knew, and so on. It was by +no means a grilling. They did it in a way that made you feel you were +just sitting there chatting. The procedure was more than courteous; it +seemed genuinely friendly. + +After that they went through our baggage minutely. They even read our +letters. But so great is English courtesy that the customs man asked me +to take each letter from its envelope for him. He evidently thought it +would be prying for him to do so! And then as train time drew near he +said we would have to hurry to catch it, so he closed the bags without +finishing the inspection, gave us advice about trains and the blackout +in London, and hustled us into a waiting car provided by the air line. + +We drove for fifteen minutes through a thickly settled suburb. They +told us bombs had fallen in the street a few afternoons ago, but we +saw no evidence of it. The suburb was like a continuation of the +main street of that first town--neat as a pin, snug, comfortable and +beautiful. + +The train came right on schedule. The porter, an old man, stowed our +bags away carefully and told us just when we would get to London. +It would be after dark, he said, and the Germans would probably be +overhead, but he said for us not to worry. + + * * * * * + +My very first impression of England was of lovely, courteous people. +And I don’t mean to us visitors so much as to each other. It is true +that they are especially nice to Americans right now, but I noticed +that they were just as thoughtful among themselves. + +My only contact with English people before had been in the colonies. +I had assumed that the ordinary Englishman had the same personality +as those in far-off lands who gather in the clubs and hotels of an +afternoon for their gin and tonic and who consider themselves superior +to anything else on land or sea. But the Englishman in mass, at home, +bears no resemblance at all to that. He always seems to have a pleasant +little remark to make. He is interested instead of blasé. He is +considerate, and he seems to enjoy being alive. + +An English friend of mine says all this is true. But he says further +that it is truer now than ever before. He says the war has done a lot +for English character. He says it has drawn the people together, made +them prouder of each other, made them humbler, and hence both mellower +and stronger. + +Anyway, I know that in all my traveling I have never visited a new +country that in a few short hours filled me with the warmth that I feel +for England. + + +_2. “HE HASN’T COME YET, SIR.”_ + + _London, + December, 1940_ + +We rode in luxury on our way to London town. We rode in a private +compartment. We smoked, and read London newspapers, and drank tea, +and ate ham sandwiches. We traveled through a magnificently green +countryside. The fields looked more like parks than farms. It seemed +odd that everything should be so green in December. It was a beautiful +afternoon, not too cold. It would rain a little while, then the sun +would come out bright. + +Our first three hours in England had been so pleasant, the country so +serene, the tea so true to tradition, it didn’t seem possible that +death and destruction could lie only three hours ahead. But it lay +nearer than that. + +We were drinking tea when Lait said “Look!” and there in the sky ahead +silver barrage balloons were floating. There weren’t just a few, but +scores, even hundreds. They stretched on for miles and miles. We knew +their presence indicated we were coming to a good-sized city. + +And then came the first sight of destruction. I don’t remember +specifically what was the first bombed thing we saw, for we had barely +seen the first when we saw a second and a third. Then wreckage became +constant. I remember a crater in a suburban street, then wrecked houses +near by, and a small factory burned. After that, for block after block, +half the buildings we saw were wrecked. Some of the suburban stations +where the train stopped were shattered, but people by the hundreds got +off and on. + +If I were to say there were strain and worry and fear on people’s +faces I certainly would be overworking my imagination. Except for the +ghastly scenery, life seemed thoroughly normal. + +An old man got into our compartment and sat down. He was ragged +and feeble, and until he spoke I couldn’t have told him from an +eighty-year-old Missouri farmer. When the conductor looked in for the +tickets he said to the old man, “Sorry, but you have to move back. +You’ve got a third-class ticket, and here you are in first.” The old +man, in an accent that would be British wherever the sun sets, said, +“Oh dear, oh dear” feebly, and took himself up and out. We wished he +could have stayed. + +Back home I had seen newsreel pictures of bombed buildings, but somehow +I thought the real thing would look different. It doesn’t. The only +thing different is that now it’s real and you feel a revulsion and a +small sinking feeling with the knowledge of the awful power of a single +bomb. You feel what it could do to you personally. + +Finally we left the city and its wreckage behind and were out in green +country again. Every open field had something in it to keep enemy +planes from landing. Some fields were crisscrossed with row after +row of tall white poles. Others had rolls of wire. Some had shallow +ditches. Some had mounds of earth piled up in rows so geometrically +regular that you would have thought they were planting crops instead of +building obstructions. + +Occasionally you would get a glimpse of a silver balloon pulled down +into a woods to nestle until nightfall. Twice we passed antiaircraft +guns out in the fields under canvas canopies, painted so like shrubbery +that we could hardly identify them. + +Every tree, every field, every cricket ground, every house and street +seemed to be doing its bit. In the backyards of suburban homes along +the railroad tracks there were somber marks of what war has done to the +English way of life. I mean private bomb shelters; almost every back +yard had one. + +From the train window a shelter looked like just a large mound of +dirt. From closer up, it could be seen to be a half-underground +cellar, walled with concrete and sheet metal and covered heavily with +dirt, much like the outdoor cellars of our Western prairies. We were +interested to see vegetables growing on the earthen tops of many +shelters. + +All this, you must remember, was still a long way from London. + +Now dusk came on, and we could no longer see fields nor bomb shelters. +The conductor came through and asked us to black out the compartment. +The windows have black shades on rollers, which you pull down and hook +at the bottom. The windows themselves are painted black except for +a square in the middle, and this is fully covered when you pull the +curtain. A faint blue light shines at the top of the compartment. + +Thus we rode on toward London, sealed in a blacked-out compartment, +growing increasingly jumpy as we came nearer that city where the wail +of sirens and the thud of bombs are as routine every night as supper. + + * * * * * + +We were running late by now, and consequently couldn’t tell exactly how +close we were getting to London. The train would stop frequently for +several minutes at a time. At these stops we would turn out the light, +then pull the blind and look out, trying to see something familiar. +George had lived in London for years and he knows the landmarks for +miles around. + +We could not see anything at all. We seemed to be out in the country. +“We’re apparently still a long way off,” George said. Then, on the next +peek, not two minutes later, he said, “We’re here! We’re coming into +the station!” + +We had arrived in the very heart of London before we knew we had even +approached the suburbs. + + * * * * * + +The very first words I heard spoken in London were, “Well, he hasn’t +come yet, sir, he’s more than a bit late tonight.” + +They were spoken by an aged station porter who opened our compartment +door and reached for our bags. The station was lighted so dimly that I +could barely see him, but his voice was old--though it had gayness in +it too. + +What the porter meant was that the Germans had not yet appeared over +London this night. They usually arrive as punctually as the hands of a +clock. Apparently they take off from fields across the Channel a few +minutes before dark and arrive over London a few minutes after dark. + +Our porter talked constantly as he carried our bags through the station +and to the street. We dogged his heels, for we could barely see and we +didn’t want to get completely lost in our first few minutes in London. + +The porter said, “I had a gentleman a bit ago and he said ‘Could I +speak with you for a second?’ I said ‘Yes indeed you may. Time’s up.’ +The gentleman didn’t get it at first, and then he thought it was pretty +good. You might as well have a bit of a laugh, I guess.” + +Our station was right in the center of London. It had been hit at least +three times, and once a German plane had fallen through the roof. Yet +they clean up damage so quickly that we saw no sign of wreckage in the +half-light. + +In my first night here not a bomb was dropped on London. In fact, not +a single German plane appeared over any part of the British Isles that +night. Perhaps it was just as well, for if I had arrived in the middle +of an inferno of explosion and fire they might have had a berserk +American on their hands. Even as it was, those first few minutes +in London will be a panorama running before my memory’s eye for a +lifetime--a panorama more of impressions than of things actually seen. + +The night was not entirely black. The moon was up, and you could dimly +distinguish shapes if not details. You could see the black outline of a +car a few yards away, and buildings stood out against the faint hint of +light in the sky. + +At the porter’s shout a taxi pulled up at the curb and we rumbled off +into the darkness. There was very little traffic. Perhaps two cars to a +block. Now and then there was a bus. You could see pin points of light +moving down the street, but you could get no perspective on them. They +were like slowly moving stars in the sky. Then as they came near they +would be surrounded by a great black shape, and you could tell it was a +bus--but not until you were abreast of it. + +As the moon came out fuller it shone on the sides of the buildings and +made them appear snow-covered. The city was ghostly silent. Only the +low sound of our motor and the small purr of a passing car--that was +all. There was no other sound in the streets of London. Yet it wasn’t +the silence of a graveyard. That wasn’t the feeling at all. It was like +something mysterious, darkly seen in a dream--shapes here, shadows +there, tiny lights swimming toward you, dark bulks moving noiselessly +away. And where I had expected to see block after block of vacant +spaces and jumbled wreckage, there stood block after block of whole +buildings. + +I thought to myself: Is this nonsense? Or is London really still +here? And I realized there in the dark, with a kind of incredulous +excitement, that London was still here, and very much so. + +As we drove along in our darkened taxi, Lait pointed things out to +me--buildings that we could see only vaguely in the hazy light of the +moon. We passed the Houses of Parliament, and saw Big Ben high up there +in his tower. But he was not telling the time, either for us or for +German fliers; he was all dark. We drove onto Victoria Embankment and +along the Thames. We saw Westminster Bridge and a little later Waterloo +Bridge. I was astonished to see them still standing. Since then I have +found that all the Thames bridges are standing, every one of them open +to traffic. We passed the great obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle, +which was nicked by bombs from a Zeppelin in the last war but hasn’t +been touched this time. Then we turned off into a maze of side streets +that finally brought us to Fleet Street, the greatest newspaper street +in the world. There Lait got out to go to his office, and the cab went +on around the corner to my immediate destination. + +The driver couldn’t locate the number. He yelled at the shadows of +some men unloading something from a truck. He yelled at vaguely seen +passers-by. Nobody knew where the number was. Finally the driver--and +this was the only unpleasant thing I had encountered so far in +England--told me to get out and hunt. It seemed that it was not his +responsibility to get me there. + +I said, “Good Lord, man, I’ve only been in London ten minutes and I was +never here before in my life. How in heaven’s name am I going to find +anything in this blackout?” + +So he groused a little and yelled at some more passers-by and finally +did locate the address. I paid him off and carried my bags and sugar +sack up to the door. A tiny blue light shone over it. The entire front +was packed high with sandbags. + +I didn’t know whether I dared to enter or not, for fear of letting out +light. The tenderfoot treads cautiously in London these nights. He +doesn’t want to make a fool of himself. But finally I gingerly pulled +open the glass door, reached in and touched a heavy curtain, and pulled +that aside. There, behind it was a typical office-building lobby, +lighted up. I was in the right place. + +On an upper floor I found the men of the United Press at work. Their +windows were blacked out. Tin hats and gas masks lay thrown on +tables. The men were surprised to see a stranger walk in from America +unannounced at that time of night. + +They gave me suggestions about hotels and made several phone calls for +me. All the calls went through immediately, just as though London had +never been bombed. And they sent an office boy to dig up another taxi, +for not many cabs cruise the streets at night. + +We drove a few blocks in the dark and then pulled into what seemed to +be an alley. It was as dead and silent and black as a pit. + +“I hope I’m not being held up,” I thought. + +At the end of the alley the taxi made a half turn and stopped. Someone +outside opened the door and shone a flashlight on the floor of the +taxi. Then I saw that he was a doorman and that we were at the entrance +of one of London’s finest hotels, the Savoy. + +I went through a revolving door, the panes of which were blacked out +with cardboard, and stepped into the same luxury and brightness and +crowds of people that you can find in any good New York hotel. The +reception clerks were all in tuxedos. The bellboys were in gray +uniforms. The elevator operators wore wing collars. + +I laughed and apologized for my sugar sack, but I needn’t have done +so. Anything is all right during the “emergency.” On my way through +the reception room I noticed a man sitting at a table drinking coffee. +He was on his way to sleep in the hotel’s basement shelter. He was in +pajamas and bathrobe. + +Imagine sitting in the lobby of the Mayflower in Washington or the Mark +Hopkins in San Francisco in pajamas! + + * * * * * + +Before coming here I knew only one person in this city of eight +million. This was Ben Robertson, now London correspondent of _PM_, the +New York newspaper. I hadn’t seen him in years, but within forty-five +minutes after stepping off the train in London I was shaking hands +with Ben Robertson. Talk about being glad to see anybody! It was like +striking gold. + +I found him in the Savoy dining room eating with two young members of +Parliament. One was Dick Law, son of England’s famous statesman, Andrew +Bonar Law. Dick is financial secretary to the War Office. The other was +Jim Thomas, parliamentary secretary to Anthony Eden. + +I hadn’t eaten a real meal in twenty-four hours. So I ate one +now--soup, chicken, mashed potatoes, a green salad, pastry, coffee. You +could get practically anything you wanted. The dining room was packed +and an orchestra was playing. + +Bob Casey of the Chicago _Daily News_ came by, and Larry Rue of the +Chicago _Tribune_. Frank Owen, editor of Lord Beaverbrook’s London +_Standard_, came and talked about how things were going for Britain. + +My new English friends wanted to know what America thought; and they +told queer bomb stories by the dozen. “You’re a welcome sight,” they +said. “We’ve all told our bomb stories to each other so many times that +nobody listens any more. Now we’ve got a new audience.” + +What an introduction to London! I not only felt vastly relieved to +be among friends, but also as snug as a bug and as big as a barrage +balloon. To say nothing of feeling extremely brave, since there were no +planes over England that night. + +It was midnight when I got to bed. It was the first bed I had lain in +for forty hours. + +Everything was wonderful. “This can’t last,” I said to myself. “This +isn’t the way the people live.” But it’s mighty good for your soul on +your first night in London. + + +_3. FIRST IMPRESSIONS_ + + _London, + December, 1940_ + +My first two days were consumed in getting signed up and identified. +Now I have so many papers that I’ve had to buy an extra wallet, a +leather case so big I have to carry it in a side pocket, and it is +already stuffed full. + +First you register with the police and get a booklet with your picture +in it. You have to give them your whole life history. If you move, they +must be notified. + +Then there is the national registration. Here you get another +booklet--and don’t you lose it! Then you get your food-ration book. +Then you report to the Ministry of Information and get a pass with your +picture on it. Then the ministry gives additional cards permitting you +to stay out after midnight and enter prohibited areas, such as zones of +military action. + +Everywhere you go people are nice to you. At the police station it took +half an hour to get my business done because a policeman had to tell +me about the bombs in his neighborhood. I have never seen policemen +at home so friendly and helpful. And it wasn’t just because I was an +American. For I watched them at other desks, where other foreigners +were registering, and these got the same courteous treatment. + +My particular policeman lives in a quiet suburb on a rise of ground, +with a good view. And he said that the night before I arrived London +was a sight to see, with searchlights and noise and fires all over +town. He said a bomb hit his block not long ago and wiped out thirteen +houses. But only five people were hurt and nobody was killed. + +“Imagine bombing a quiet, homey suburb like ours!” he said. “What +military advantage could that possibly have?” + +“Well,” I said, “I suppose the point is to try to break the spirit of +the people.” + +And he said, not boastfully but in an ordinary tone, “I guess so; but +actually it’s having just the opposite effect.” + +I asked him if he had a backyard shelter. He said he did, but never +went into it. He preferred to sleep in his own bed, get a good rest and +take his chances. + +On my second afternoon here I got a haircut. The barber talked all +the time, and for once I enjoyed it. He knew instantly that I was an +American. We don’t look very different to me, but these Londoners can +tell an American a mile off. It didn’t take the barber long to find +out that I had just arrived and that my first two nights in London had +passed without a single bomb being dropped. He said we’d have some +before many nights. + +“And I’ll tell you,” he said, “if you don’t get a little windy your +first night, then you’re not much of a man. A fellow who doesn’t get +his wind up at the first experience isn’t a man at all. He’s just an +animal with no nerves in his body.” + +I told the barber I was all prepared to be London’s biggest coward. He +said not to be ashamed if I was scared and did something silly. He was +an air-raid warden at night in his home suburb, he said, and what did +I suppose he did in their very first raid? He dived for the nearest +underground shelter. When he got down there, he said, he realized that +was no place for a warden to be, and he was so ashamed he took off his +badge so people wouldn’t know he was a warden. + +But that was soon changed. Now his whole district is organized. They +know exactly what to expect and what to do, and they go about it like +a business. He goes to his post every night after supper. Every third +night he is on duty all night, regardless of whether anything happens. +On other nights he stays on if things are happening. He’s not afraid +any more at all. + +I’m mighty glad I got a haircut. The barber was a great solace. Before +that talk I had been afraid of bombs, and also afraid to have anyone +know I was afraid. Now I’m only afraid of bombs. + +I had heard stories of new arrivals over here sleeping right through +their first air-raid warning, but I never thought anything so drab +would happen to me. It did. + +This morning at nine-thirty a friend came to my room. “Did you hear the +warning?” he asked. “Don’t make fun of me,” I said. “There wasn’t any +warning.” But he was right. The sirens went off at 6 A.M. There was +just one plane over town, and it didn’t drop anything. The all clear +sounded at 6:30, and I slept through that too. + +I think the English bed manufacturers should have me write a +testimonial. + + * * * * * + +In my first few days here I have met an enormous number of people. +The first thing everyone says--and I’ll bet I’ve heard it two hundred +times--is this: + +“Is it better or worse than you thought it would be?” + +Then I have to explain to them that in the United States we had felt +that perhaps, because of the censorship, we might not be getting a +complete picture of the devastation. We had been afraid that London was +more grievously wounded than we were being allowed to know. And now, +having been prepared for any shock and having looked at London, I can +truthfully answer that it is better off than I had expected. + +I think the newspapers have given a proper estimate of the damage. +True, the destruction has been immense. But these ghastly blows +actually have hurt London less than it is possible to imagine or +believe without seeing for yourself. + +London as a living, enduring institution is not gravely injured. Not +in its architecture, or in its mode of existence, or its utilities, or +its transportation, or its health. And above all, not in its spirit. So +far, the blitz on London is a failure. London is no more knocked out +than the man who smashes a finger is dead. Daytime life in London today +comes very close to being normal. + +My reply of “better” seemed to please the questioners, with one +exception. A girl said, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear you say that.” I think +she probably felt that I didn’t appreciate what they had been through. +Also, she may have thought that if I wrote such stuff back to the +States it might lead people to believe that Britain didn’t need help +as badly as she really does. + + * * * * * + +There are no restrictions on newspapermen here. They can travel +wherever they like. + +The two sections of London hardest hit are the poor East End and the +rich West End. The latter would correspond to the Times Square and +Fifth Avenue districts in New York; or to all of downtown Washington +between the Capitol and the “Million Dollar” Bridge; or to San +Francisco from Market Street to Russian Hill. + +I haven’t been to the East End yet, but I have walked at least ten +miles through the West End. I covered and re-covered the Parliament +Buildings, Regent and Oxford Streets (the great shopping centers), Pall +Mall and Piccadilly, Park Lane and Leicester Square, the Strand and +Holborn Circus. And the best way I can describe it is to say this: + +You may walk a block or two without seeing a single wrecked building. +Then occasionally you will see a block that is half wiped out. But +the typical block in the West End would have perhaps two buildings +completely wrecked by bomb or fire, and half a dozen damaged but not +destroyed. That still leaves a lot of whole, sound buildings. + +There is in the West End no single great sweep of destruction, with +everything flat--just a building damaged here and another there. + +You are impressed when you see how little effect a bomb has on a +building unless it is a bomb of the very heaviest type. A big modern +building next door to us took a heavy bomb right on top, yet it stands +there today whole and beautiful, only slightly damaged. Steel and +concrete and stone usually stand up. It is the age-weary buildings of +brick and dry mortar that have gone down in heart-sickening heaps. + +Much of the damage is not visible to a person walking on the street. I +was in a plant, the rear part of which had been blown to the ground, +yet from the front it looked untouched. A house next door to doom +may get nothing more than broken windows. The Savoy Hotel stands up +as big as life, but it has been hit more than once. The famous Savoy +Grill is closed while bomb damage is repaired. And when I was taking +a gander out my window I discovered that the room next to mine was +unoccupied--because a bomb had blown off a corner of it. + +Yet the service--food, light, drink, attention--goes on as usual, even +to the floor porter complaining that I hadn’t put my shoes out for him +to shine. The British won’t let anything interfere with their being +British. + +The damage is terrific, but what impresses me most about it--and the +point I want to get over--is this: it doesn’t make any difference! + +That sounds heartless. But honestly, it’s the way the British look at +it. They don’t feel that they have been hurt at all. + +An American who has been here through it all says the most impressive +thing to him is the way people who have been secure have abandoned +their property sense. They can see their buildings go up in smoke, +their savings blasted to bits, and apparently they don’t care--so long +as “we get that guy in the end.” + + + + +_III. MOST HATEFUL, MOST BEAUTIFUL_ + + +_1. RINGED AND STABBED WITH FIRE_ + + _London, + December, 1940_ + +Some day when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to +London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and +look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark +bridges. And standing there, I want to tell somebody who has never seen +it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the +year 1940. + +For on that night this old, old city was--even though I must bite my +tongue in shame for saying it--the most beautiful sight I have ever +seen. + +It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire. + + * * * * * + +They came just after dark, and somehow you could sense from the quick, +bitter firing of the guns that there was to be no monkey business this +night. + +Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans grinding +overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows, +you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear the boom, crump, +crump, crump, of heavy bombs at their work of tearing buildings apart. +They were not too far away. + +Half an hour after the firing started I gathered a couple of friends +and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view of a third of +the entire circle of London. As we stepped out onto the balcony a vast +inner excitement came over all of us--an excitement that had neither +fear nor horror in it, because it was too full of awe. + +You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the +whole horizon of a city lined with great fires--scores of them, perhaps +hundreds. + +There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it. + +The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames +and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we +watched. Big ones died down under the firemen’s valor, only to break +out again later. + +About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors +seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation, like +a bee buzzing in blind fury. + +The guns did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible +days of September. They were intermittent--sometimes a few seconds +apart, sometimes a minute or more. Their sound was sharp, near by; and +soft and muffled, far away. They were everywhere over London. + +Into the dark-shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches +of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They +flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of +dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go +out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with +sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and +soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done +their work--another building was on fire. + +The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames +seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke +ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there +gradually took shape--so faintly at first that we weren’t sure we saw +correctly--the gigantic dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. + +St. Paul’s was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there +in its enormous proportions--growing slowly clearer and clearer, +the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some +miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a +battlefield. + +The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow. Immediately +above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a +ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up +in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing +light--antiaircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the +sound. + +Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if +it were daytime, but now they were pink instead of silver. And now and +then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a +permanent, genuine star--the old-fashioned kind that has always been +there. + +Below us the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the +shadows--the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base +of this dreadful masterpiece. + +Later on I borrowed a tin hat and went out among the fires. That was +exciting too; but the thing I shall always remember above all the other +things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view +of London on a holiday night--London stabbed with great fires, shaken +by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pin +points of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink +that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious +engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in +your soul that this could be happening at all. + +These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful +single scene I have ever known. + + +_2. NIGHT STROLL, ILLUMINATED_ + + _London, + December, 1940_ + +London learns a lesson from each new horror that the Germans bring over. + +Through the school of experience it is gradually acquiring a +superb efficiency at its new career of bomb-receiving. It learned +a keen lesson from that Sunday night fire-bombing which was my own +introduction to modern war. That lesson was that the rooftops of London +must be manned through every hour of darkness. + +They say there are a million buildings in London. Of course there is +not a watcher on every single little roof; but hereafter whenever +Hitler sends his fire-sprayers there will be at least a quarter of a +million pairs of hands and eyes waiting on the darkened rooftops to +smother his fire bombs or direct the firemen to them. + + * * * * * + +Let me tell you how an incendiary bomb works. + +A fire bomb is about a foot long, and shaped like a miniature torpedo. +On the upper end are three metal fins circled by a strip of metal on +top. The bomb is made of a magnesium alloy, with a thermite core. Each +one weighs a little better than two pounds. One plane can scatter a +thousand of them. Ten planes could easily start 750 fires at once, over +a large area. + +Of course you don’t see the bombs falling. They go off when they +strike. If they hit the street they bounce crazily like a football, +sputter violently for the first minute, throwing white fire about +thirty feet, and then simmer down in an intense molten mass and burn +about ten minutes more. It is said they burn at a temperature of +2000 degrees. If one is left on a floor it will burn a hole and drop +through. When they land in the open they are easily smothered with +sand. Common ordinary citizens have smothered thousands of them. + +Sunday night I saw one that fell within two feet of an emergency +sandbox in the street. That was an easy one. But few of them land so +conveniently. + +That night I went to an office building which I visit frequently, and +there two fire bombs had plunged through the roof and on down through +three floors. One of them had gone through a heavy sheet of steel laid +over an air-shaft. It left an opening in that steel plate exactly the +shape of the bomb, and as neat as though it had been cut in cardboard +with a knife. + +Now there was a lesson about placing roof spotters. The men on the +roof of that building knew that those bombs had gone through, and they +were quickly smothered. But there were hundreds of unwatched buildings +in London that night into which fire bombs plunged unnoticed, and ten +minutes later the buildings were aflame. + +That night as I wandered along Fleet Street I saw a five-story building +suddenly leap into great flames. The firemen hadn’t even known there +was a fire in it. + +At home, when a big fire starts, the police rope off the whole section, +but it wasn’t so in London Sunday night. What few pedestrians there +were could go anywhere they liked, and they didn’t have to feel their +way that night, for there was no darkness. + +Probably foolishly, I walked down a street that was afire on both +sides, past walls that would soon be ready to fall. Hundreds of small +motor pumps, carried in two-wheeled trailers behind cars, stood in +the streets. The engines made such a whir you couldn’t have heard a +plane overhead. Firemen by the hundreds were working calmly, shouting +orders to each other, smoking cigarettes, and paying no attention to +pedestrians. + +I walked ten blocks. Every step had to be picked carefully amid an +intertwined mass of fire hose. + +Somehow I didn’t have a feeling that this was war. I just felt as if I +were seeing a terrific number of big “natural” fires. Even when I came +upon two buildings that had been blown to dust by heavy bombs less than +an hour before, there was still a feeling that it was all perfectly +“natural.” + +Although bombs are liable to fall anywhere, it happened that none came +within six blocks of where we stood watching the early part of the +fantastic show Sunday night. There were fires all around us, but we +seemed to be on an island of immunity. + +When we started out among the fires, the friends with whom I had been +watching took another route and I did my fire-wandering alone. Oddly +enough, I was never afraid. As I remember it, my only concern was lest +I get in the firemen’s way. + +When I returned to our oasis shortly before midnight, just as I stepped +in the door the “raiders passed” signal sounded. Up in my room I +discovered that my feet were soaked and my coat drenched with spray +from leaky hoses. + +When I turned out the light and pulled the blackout curtains from +across the windows the room was bright from the glare of the fires, +and it was hard to get to sleep. But I did sleep. And when I awakened, +about six o’clock in the morning, the great light in the sky was gone. +London again was almost as dark as it has been every night for a year +and a half. So well do the firemen of London do their work. + +The coming of daylight is always a blessing. Things have a way of +looking overly grotesque at night. Today I can go out onto our balcony, +where we stood watching London burn, and London will look just as +it did the afternoon before the raiders came. True, property was +destroyed--much property, valuable both materially and sentimentally. +And lives were lost. But London is big, and its lives are many. You +feel a little abashed to realize the next morning that London is still +here. The skyline looks just the same. The streets are jammed with +human beings. + +Life is going on--where last night you felt that this must be the end +of everything. + + +_3. THE LANDMARKS_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Let us go for a walk on the tourist beat--or what was the tourist beat +in the days when tourists could come to London. + +We see that Westminster Abbey has been hit. Its beautiful windows have +been knocked out. But ninety-eight per cent of the building is still +there, and it is still open to visitors. Today I stood over the small +new block of concrete in the floor that covers Mr. Chamberlain’s +grave, the Abbey’s latest. + +It is darkish in the Abbey now, for most of the windows are boarded up. + +Parliament? Yes, these buildings have been hit. But again it is a case +of a smashed finger, not a fatal injury. The entrance to the House of +Commons is gone; there is some damage to the interior; and the same +bomb damaged the rear end of Richard the Lionhearted’s bronze horse and +bent Richard’s upheld sword, but he still rides on. + +This one amuses me: Before the war started, the great tower above +the House of Lords was shrouded by a maze of steel scaffolding, in +connection with a wide plan for remodeling and repair. So what did they +do? They went right ahead repairing. + +And Big Ben? Well, he’s still striking the hours. He hasn’t been +touched, despite half a dozen German claims that he has been knocked +down. + +Bombs have fallen around Trafalgar Square, yet Nelson still stands atop +his great monument, and the immortal British lions, all four of them, +still crouch at the base of the statue, untouched. + +The statues of Lincoln and Washington have not been hit. You can still +get roast beef at Simpson’s (and you still tip the chef sixpence when +he wheels it to your table and cuts off a slice). If you had a favorite +pub, ten to one it is still serving ale. + + * * * * * + +With two exceptions, all the well-known hotels are still operating, and +are full. The exceptions are the Carlton and another that I can’t name. +The Carlton was burned, but they say it is going to be repaired and +re-opened. + +The big hotels have music and dancing as usual. The lounges are utterly +packed at teatime with tea and coffee drinkers. The only difference +from peacetime is that you can’t see your hand in front of you when you +walk out the front door at night. + +St. Paul’s Cathedral has been hit in the rear but the damage is not +nearly as bad as I had heard. The cathedral as a whole is still there, +and it is open. The damaged wing is shut off by a gate, on which a sign +says, not “No Admittance,” but “Out of Bounds.” + +The people of London are both philosophical and proud about St. Paul’s. +They go to look at it without sadness, and they say, “We would rather +have it that way in a free London than have it whole like Notre Dame in +an imprisoned Paris.” + +The Tower of London has been hit, and a bomb struck near the Bank of +England. But both places still stand. The Natural History Museum has +been bombed, and what many people consider a wonderful joke was a +direct hit on the million-year-old skeleton of a brontosaurus. + +Londoners pray daily that a German bomb will do something about the +Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. If you have ever seen it, +you know why. As the British say, they could bear its removal with +equanimity. But the contrary Germans have only taken a few little chips +out of it. + +Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks is open again, after being temporarily closed +by a bombing next door. There are bomb craters in all the familiar +parks. The American Express office in Haymarket has not been touched, +although buildings have been wrecked near by. + + * * * * * + +Some months ago Vincent Sheean had a piece in the _Redbook_ +magazine describing the chaotic wreckage in the West End. I remember +specifically his picture of how Oxford Street was blocked off and +deserted and ankle-deep in broken glass and rubble. Friends of mine +were along when Sheean did his reporting for that piece, and they say +he gave a true picture. But he would be surprised to see Oxford Street +now. + +It is as wide open as ever, jammed with buses and packed with +pedestrians. In fact, it looks about like F Street in Washington the +week before Christmas. Nearly all the stores are open. True, I could +count on my hands the stores left with their original windows. But +losing windows doesn’t cause a building to fall down. Business goes on +as usual. + +Selfridge’s famous department store is standing, and is open. The +great Lewis store burned to the ground, as you may have seen in the +newsreels--they say this was London’s second biggest fire--but Lewis’ +rented all the ground-floor shops in the next block and is open again. +Incidentally, Lewis’ gave London an awful shock the day after the fire, +for they carried ads in the papers saying they knew their customers +would be pleased to learn that a duplicate set of their books had been +removed to the country beforehand, and consequently they had a complete +record of the bills owed them. + +All in all, it seems to me that London’s tourist beat has escaped +remarkably well. + +Just the same, a few minutes’ walk will show you that this is a city at +war. + +Every block is dotted with shelter signs. The official ones are black +metal plates clamped to lamp posts, like street signs. They have a big +white letter “S,” and underneath in small letters the word “Shelter” +and a white arrow pointing to the building in front of which the sign +is affixed. Each sign has a little V-shaped roof over it to keep the +dim night-light from shining upward. + +Every block has a dozen signs of white paper, pasted on building walls, +saying “Shelter Here During Business Hours” or “Shelter for Fifty +Persons after 5 P.M.” A shelter is anything that protects you. It may +be an underground restaurant, a store basement, a bank vault. + +I know buildings in London that go six stories underground. When the +banshee wails in London’s West End you wouldn’t have to run fifty yards +in any direction to find a shelter. + +Other signs, in yellow and black, say “To the Trenches.” They point the +way to shelters dug underneath small downtown parks such as Leicester +Square. Every park and open space in London’s West End has a newly +built catacomb underneath. + +Then there are surface shelters. You see these everywhere. They are +simply long, windowless, flat-topped sheds, about 8 feet high and +10 feet wide, stretching for a block or more. They are built of a +light-tan brick and are divided into sections, each of which will hold +about fifty persons. Some of them are built right down the middle +of wide streets. Others are on sidewalks, up against the buildings, +leaving only a couple of feet of sidewalk room. + +There are also signs with arrows pointing to first-aid posts and fire +substations. + +All over London, in little parks and areaways and alleys there are +tanks of water for fire-fighting. Barrels and buckets of sand, for +throwing on incendiary bombs, small pumps and auxiliary fire apparatus +are scattered everywhere. Even in the halls of my hotel. + +A colossal amount of construction and repair work is going on all over +London. Thirty-five thousand men are engaged in cleaning up the rubble +of bombed buildings. Other scores of thousands work on the streets and +under them on the maze of utility pipes and wires. Thousands more dig, +build and hammer day and night, including Sundays, making more deep +shelters, bricking up window openings, throwing up auxiliary walls. + +Many a building has a brick wall standing in the middle of the sidewalk +about three feet in front of its entrance, with a door in the middle. +A few have built brick walls that entirely blanket their store fronts. +And in some of London’s most important buildings workmen today are +bricking up every window opening, leaving only one little gunhole in +the center. This is for the invasion, if it ever comes and if it gets +this far. Of course nobody believes that it will get this far, but they +are taking no chances. They are making ready to fight in every street, +behind every wall, out of every window, if it must come to that. + +Around some Government buildings there are nasty-looking mazes of +barbed wire. Some of the public statues are completely buried under +mounds of sandbags, but most of them aren’t. + +Piles of sandbags buttress the foundations of thousands of stores. +Many of these sandbag piles look ragged and ratty now, for the bags +have sprung leaks from long exposure to the weather, and sand trickles +out of them. Many of them, for that matter, have been stabbed by fire +fighters getting sand to put out incendiary bombs. + +Army cars run about the streets. Huge, streamlined buses, camouflaged +with a dull brown paint, come to town with soldiers on leave. You could +hardly count the pedestrians in one block who are in uniform. At the +cheaper restaurants the checkroom has more rifles than umbrellas. + +Occasionally in some open space you see a flat sheet of brass-colored +metal on top of a waist-high post. It looks something like a sun dial. +This is a gas detector. If gas ever comes, this metal will change color. + +Great parks are all dug up with trenches and mounds of dirt to keep +enemy planes from landing. St. James’s Park has its honorable bomb +craters, and its below-ground shelters, and even its barbed wire. +Occasionally you see a big gun on a rooftop. + +All this panorama is in addition to the wreckage you see on every side. + +Yes, London is a martial city. You can hardly conceive of Denver or +Indianapolis looking like it. And yet people are so accustomed to it +now that they seem hardly to notice anything different from normal. +Nobody, unless he is brand-new here, stops to look at bomb damage. +Londoners seem barely aware of the barbed wire, the dugouts, the +shelter signs. And I found that I, too, after a few days, could walk +block after block without particularly noticing any of these things. + +It is a new type of life; and that life has now become, through months +of living with it, the normal life. + + +_4. ROUGHING IT_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Some very wrong things were told me in America about the way I would +have to live in London. + +I was told that even in the best hotels you could get hot water only +one day a week; that you couldn’t get laundry done, so you would have +to throw away your soiled shirts and buy new ones; that you couldn’t +buy any new ones; that there would be no decent hotel rooms; that you +could get only one egg a week, and no tea; that food was so scarce +it would be wise to bring concentrated food tablets and beef bouillon +cubes. + +Well, you ought to see where I’m staying. My room is the last word in +good taste. It is completely modern and comfortable. There are deep +chairs, and a bed that is a dream. I have two telephones, and a waiter, +maid and valet who come when I ring. My bathroom is as big as an +ordinary room, and the water is scalding hot twenty-four hours a day. +Above all, the radiator gives off real heat. I’m as warm as I would be +at home. + +On my first morning here I asked if it would be possible to get an egg +for breakfast. I not only got an egg--they brought me two eggs, ham, +toast, jam and coffee, and they’ve been bringing the same thing every +morning. Honestly, I feel ashamed to eat it. Of course only a tiny +portion of London’s population is living like this. My circumstances do +not give anything like a true picture of how England is living today. +But my life now is at least a true picture of how it is possible to +live in London if you pay the price. And the price I pay the hotel is +$6 a day, which includes breakfast. + +All this makes it hard to realize a war is actually going on. But then, +there are things around the hotel that remind you. + +Over the big windows of my room, looking out onto the Strand, hang +thick, heavily padded curtains. On the street side these are black; on +the room side, brown satin. Instead of being an unsightly makeshift, +they are beautiful. Hanging on them is a card warning me not to open +the curtains during the blackout under any circumstances. I was so +apprehensive about doing something I shouldn’t that I slept all that +first night without opening a window. I slept soundly, too, but +naturally I was groggy in the morning. So I asked a clerk what to do +about ventilation at night. He said, “Why, as soon as you turn out the +lights, go and open the curtains and the window too. It’s all right +just so you don’t show a light during the night.” + +So you see I’m slow to catch on, but I’d rather be slow than dead. + +The hotel’s big dining room has been moved to a lower floor, the +better to keep away from the bombs. Here the waiters are all in formal +clothes, an orchestra plays, and bellboys hurry about calling people to +the telephone. You’d hardly know there was a war except that half the +hats in the checkroom are tin hats, half the diners are in uniform, and +hanging from the great center chandelier is an old-fashioned kerosene +lantern, just in case. + +On each table stands a handsomely printed card which says: “This room +is provided with special protection from blast and splinters. The inner +wall is 14 inches thick. The outer wall, five feet distant, is nine +inches thick. The brick joints in each wall are strengthened with steel +mesh, and the two walls support each other by 16 connecting steel rods. +There are nine floors, of steel construction, above this room. The +air-raid shelter is immediately below.” + +But about those other warnings I had before leaving America. I have +sent out my laundry and my coat to be cleaned, and they will be back +tomorrow. They’d be back this evening if I wanted to pay extra. + +As for shirts, I could buy any number of them, and heavy underwear, +socks, suits, coats and everything else any human being could think of +to wrap around his body or hang upon it. In fact, the store windows are +so entrancing that I’m buying sweaters and coats and things I don’t +need at all, just because they are so good-looking. + +And about the concentrated food pills. Well, I haven’t wanted anything +to eat yet that I couldn’t get, except enough sugar. + +I have heard that paper is running short, but yesterday I bought +500 sheets of the same kind of writing paper I use at home, and at +two-thirds the usual price. + +Lastly, about those beef cubes I should have brought. Apparently the +national drink in England is a beef extract called Bovril, which is +advertised everywhere, like Coca Cola at home. Yesterday I went into a +snack bar for some lunch. I asked the waitress just what this Bovril +stuff was, and in a cockney accent that would lay you in the aisle she +said: + +“Why sir, it’s beef juice and it’s wonderful for you on cold days +like this. It’s expensive, but it’s body-buildin’, sir, it’s very +body-buildin’.” + +So I had a cup. It cost five cents, and you just ought to see my body +being built. + + +_5. WHOOO-ISSSHHH!_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Although I’ve had my big night of fire and plenty of bombs too, I have +not yet achieved any intimate acquaintance with a bomb. And I’m quite +willing to have the introduction filed under “things pending.” + +I’ve heard plenty of bombs explode at a distance, and I’ve even felt +the building I was in shake, but I have yet to go through that horrible +experience of hearing a bomb whistling right down toward me. Just the +same, I’ve had this weak old heart stopped once. It didn’t happen on +our big night of fires. It happened before that. + +During your first few days in London you are all at sea. You are tense +and jumpy and expectant, waiting and wondering how you will feel when +you get your first bad scare. Well, one night I was awakened by the +guns about 2 A.M. They kept firing off and on for about an hour, and +then stopped. London was black and silent. There was no sound of any +kind anywhere. I just lay in the bed staring at nothing. + +And then there was a small, muffled thud in the distance. I ducked +under the covers and waited for an explosion. But it never came. + +Just that single ghostly “whooo-isshhh” and thud in the darkness, and +then hours of silence. It took me a good while to get to sleep again. + +The next morning I described it to a friend and asked what on earth it +was, or whether I was just hearing things. And he said, “Why, no; that +was a piece of falling shrapnel.” + + * * * * * + +I suppose there isn’t an American newspaperman in London who lived +through the terrifying raids of August and September, 1940, who has not +been under the bed at least twice when the bombs were whistling and +dropping all around. + +Everyone I have talked to, without exception, says it’s not so bad if +you’re with somebody, but you have an absolute horror of being alone. +Also, believe it or not, there is a general horror of being caught in +the toilet or in the bathtub. + +I was alone in my room the first night I actually heard German planes +overhead. I was sitting at a desk writing when I heard the great +drone of the motors. For several seconds it didn’t sink into my +consciousness that they were not peaceful motors such as I might hear +over Washington or Los Angeles, but were German motors over London. And +then, I remember, I was furious because not a single antiaircraft gun +was firing. + +“Good Lord!” I thought. “They’re right over the hotel. I can hear them +even with the windows shut. Why don’t those guys with the guns do +something?” + +A minute or so later the guns did start. + +The planes were probably a great deal higher than I thought. But I +could still almost swear they were no more than three or four thousand +feet up. If they dropped any bombs, though, none of them fell near us. + +The sound of the motors faded out, but intermittent firing went on for +an hour. Then once again I heard planes overhead. + +I couldn’t keep my mind on my writing. I sat on the edge of the chair, +ready to jump down behind the bed if I heard a bomb whistling. But the +funniest thing, when I look back on it, is to remember going around +the room straightening up everything. I remember laying out on the +desk coins and cigarettes and matches and my door key and knife, all +in a meticulous row. I had just bought ten packs of cigarettes, and +I stacked these neatly. All the letters on the desk I arranged in +regimented stacks. I put a flashlight and a jar of Vick’s salve in a +perfect line with the letters and cigarettes. + +At the time I didn’t even know I was doing it. It was just a nervous +outlet of some kind. When I finally went to bed I suddenly realized +what I’d been doing, and laughed at myself. + + * * * * * + +This hotel has one of the finest basement shelters in London, but none +of the American newspapermen who stop at the hotel ever sleeps in the +shelter. I haven’t slept there yet either. In fact, I find lots of +Londoners who prefer to stay in their own beds. + +The other day we went out to look at some new bomb damage a couple of +miles away. The destruction was ghastly. As we stood and looked, one +newspaper veteran of the Battle of Britain said: + +“You see, you never know where it’s going to hit, and neither does the +guy six miles up there in the dark who lets it loose. Just think, if +he pressed the trigger at the particular time that would get you, what +would be the use of hiding? The chances of any certain bomb having your +number on it are very slim, but if it has, running and ducking won’t +help.” + +As another newspaperman said, “Your best protection is the law of +averages.” + + +_6. SOUNDS AND SIGHTS_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Before leaving the United States I told friends that one of the things +I wanted to do over here was to try to describe what the air-raid +sirens sound like. + +Well, I will try to do it. They don’t sound quite like a fire-engine +siren, although they’re on the same principle. The tone has more of the +old-fashioned automobile Klaxon in it, except that at the same time, +instead of being harsh or squawky, it has an almost musical quality. + +The siren sounds one minute for an alert, two minutes for the all +clear. On an alert, the sound goes from a low to a high pitch, up and +down every few seconds. The result is, if you aren’t close to it, it +sounds much like a train whistling for a crossing--except that it just +keeps on whistling for one crossing after another. + +The sirens are scattered all over London. They are roughly fifteen +blocks apart. An alert usually starts in the south part of London. You +can hear the sirens to the south of you, then all around you, and then +beyond to the north. It is like a series of great sound waves washing +over the city. These waves overlap; and the time from the moment you +hear the first one until the last one within range of your ears is +silent may not be more than four minutes. + +If you’re indoors, the sirens do not seem loud. In fact, during my +first few days here I didn’t hear them half the time. But when your ear +gets attuned to them, you know it the second they start. My hotel isn’t +close enough to any sirens for them to be annoying, however, or to wake +me up if I’m asleep. + +I had wondered whether the sirens kept going throughout a raid. They +don’t. They sound the warning and then are silent until the all +clear--and the silent interval may be anywhere from ten minutes to all +night. The all clear is announced by the same sirens, but instead of +going up and down they go steadily for two minutes in the same tone. + +To me, the sirens do not sound fiendish, or even weird. I think they’re +sort of pretty. + +The other night when the all clear sounded I lay on the bed listening. +You could hear half a dozen sirens going at once, on exactly the +same pitch. The combined whirring of these great horns out there in +the still darkness gave off a sort of musical pulsation. In fact, it +sounded exactly like the lonely singing of telephone wires on a bitter +cold night in the prairies of the Middle West. + + * * * * * + +Now, what do the guns sound like? + +Well, they sound like thunder in a violent electrical storm. When they +are very close they sound as though lightning were striking within a +quarter of a mile. They shake the floor and rattle the windows. Then +as other guns start up, farther and farther away across the city, they +sound like thunder traveling away from you. + +In reading about the terrific noise of the sirens and guns in the great +raids of September, 1940, I often wondered just how close you would be +to the nearest antiaircraft gun. Well, they are all around you. The +farthest one might be only a mile from you. + +People living in the neighborhood of one of these guns come to have a +possessive feeling about it. They call it “my gun,” and tell stories +about it to their friends. And they get quite annoyed if it’s moved +away. + +In these last few weeks London has, with some outstanding exceptions, +been fairly quiet, while the Germans have been giving one-night blitzes +to other English cities. But a great many of the raiders pass right +over London, terrifically high, on their way north. + +Our sirens sound a warning, apparently when the Germans cross the +coastline, usually about six o’clock in the evening. Then about fifteen +minutes later, our guns start up. They shoot sporadically for an hour +or so, and then all is quiet. Sometimes the all clear is sounded at +this point, but more often not. For usually there is shooting again +around 11 P.M. and 2 A.M., and the all clear ordinarily sounds about +three o’clock. + +The guns naturally waken you and keep you awake. But more often than +not I am sound asleep when the all clear tells besieged London that it +can relax once more. + +You’ve read about the barrage balloons over London. Their purpose, as +you know, is to keep German fliers high, from fear of running into them. + +At night they are floated into the sky at the end of thin steel cables. +The balloons are silver-colored and shaped like very fat sausages; and +they have pudgy stabilizing fins at one end that make them look like +Walt Disney elephants with sour but coy faces. + +I had supposed that these balloon cables made a great wall around +London, with the balloons themselves forming the top of this wall. But +that isn’t the way at all. Instead of making a border they run up all +over London, like candles on an eighty-year-old’s birthday cake. + +When the weather is clear you can look up and see a couple of dozen of +them from any spot. They are floating at various altitudes, seemingly +about half a mile apart, and not in line. They’re just scattered up +there, and they look more like a ceiling than a wall. + +As proof of how little the average person looks toward the sky, I have +thought to look at the balloons only two or three times since coming +here, and friends of mine say they haven’t noticed them for weeks. + +Suppose, I asked, a German plane should run into a balloon cable +and cut it in two. Englishmen can’t do the old Hindu rope trick; so +consequently all those miles of free cable up in the sky would have to +come down. What happens then? + +Well, it comes down all right, and plenty happens. The cable folds and +wraps itself around buildings all over its particular section of town. +This doesn’t happen often, but when it does I would just as soon be +elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +On New Year’s Day I took a long walk through Hyde Park and Kensington +Gardens. Believe it or not, there amid the trenches and the bomb +craters and in the raw, cold weather was a whole garden of red and +yellow roses in bloom. + + * * * * * + +A single bombing is referred to in London, with traditional British +reserve, as an “incident.” If you ask a bobby where that big one went +off last night he is apt to say, “Two blocks ahead, a block to the +left, turn right, and you will be at the scene of the incident.” + +When you get there, the “incident” will likely turn out to be half a +block merely blown all to hell. + +The other day we saw a fire engine dashing madly down the street. +There had been no alert, and no enemy planes were over the city. The +engine was simply going to an ordinary old-fashioned fire. It seemed +absolutely incongruous. We had forgotten that fires had been starting +without bombs for centuries, and that fire engines had been running to +them in peacetime for generations. + + * * * * * + +Antiaircraft guns, they tell me, can propel a shell upward for better +than four miles. The shells are set to explode at a given altitude; +or rather, a given number of seconds after leaving the gun. When they +explode they make a great flash, and fragments are thrown over a radius +of several hundred yards. Thus they don’t have to get a direct hit on a +plane, which would be more accidental than anything else. If they just +get somewhere near him the explosion will sure make him jump. + +But what goes up must come down. The falling pieces of these exploded +shells are shrapnel. And if you get hit by a small piece of steel that +has fallen four miles you are going to get hurt. Hence the tin hat or +steel helmet. + +Every man in uniform carries a steel helmet and a gas mask on a strap +over his shoulder. Even when on leave, men in the services are obliged +to carry them constantly. The rule is so strict that if a soldier +gets hit by shrapnel when not wearing his tin hat, then the injury is +considered a self-inflicted wound and he is disciplined accordingly. + +But the people of London themselves have relaxed. Today on the streets +you don’t see one civilian in five hundred carrying either a tin hat or +a gas mask. In fact, real steel helmets are all gone. It is impossible +to buy one. But the stores are selling helmets made of a heavy black +fiber composition. They say these work just about as well as the tin +ones. I bought one the other day for three dollars, and within four +hours I had forgotten it and left it somewhere. So now I either have +to shell out another three bucks, or run the chance of going around +covered with self-inflicted wounds. I can’t decide what to do. + + +_7. BLINDFOLDED IN SAHARA_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Now the days are getting longer, and the people of London count the few +precious minutes of added daylight each day as though they were pearls. + +For truly the blackout is a heavy and insidious thing. It gradually +gets on your nerves until you feel as if you must throw it aside and +let the light out into the night. Modern man is not attuned to natural +darkness. + +Every day the papers publish the exact minute for blacking out. When +I first came to London the nights were at their very longest. The +blackout went on as early as 5:19 P.M. and didn’t end until 8:35 in the +morning. That’s more than fifteen hours of blackness. + +It is a finable offense to show a light from a window during the +blackout. You don’t even dare to light a cigarette in the street. + +One morning a friend of mine, who is stopping in the same hotel, opened +his curtains at 8:25. His watch was fast and he didn’t know it. In just +one minute a plane spotter on a nearby roof had sent a man to knock on +his door and suggest that he be more careful in the future. + +Every afternoon about four a maid comes to my room and asks if she +may “black out now.” But we have made an arrangement for me to take +advantage of the outdoor light as long as possible, and then close the +curtains myself about five o’clock. + + * * * * * + +Some friends of mine live in an apartment. Just before I came here +London had a hot and heavy night, with incendiary and high-explosive +bombs falling over the entire city. Apparently my friends were showing +a little light, for a warden came and warned them. And not a minute +after he had left, two or three bombs dropped within a block or so. + +The warden came back and said: “Now you see? The Germans saw your +light. That’s why we’re getting these bombs here now.” + +Of course he really didn’t think that, but it made a good joke. The +best “joke,” however, was that when the warden continued his rounds he +discovered that those two bombs he was talking about had blown his own +house to smithereens. + + * * * * * + +A few nights ago a warden knocked on my door and said a plane spotter +across the street had seen a light in my window. The warden inspected +the curtains and said they were perfectly all right. But about two +hours later he was back, saying the spotter still reported a light +from my window. + +We finally figured out that a desk light on my writing table was +shining up toward the top of the curtains, and that a little light was +seeping through. So I moved the table to the back of the room, and the +next day the hotel put a heavy auxiliary hood across the top of the +window, around the regular blackout curtains. There have been no more +complaints. + + * * * * * + +London decided to keep daylight-saving time all winter. That puts +us six hours ahead of New York, and eight hours ahead of Denver. It +seems a little odd to think, when getting up in the morning, that in +Albuquerque it is the night before and my friends there are just going +to bed (or at least should be if they’re leading a clean, righteous +life like me). + + * * * * * + +Everybody has read thousands of words about the blackout, but you +cannot know what it’s like unless you’ve been in it. + +There is a slight reflected glow on the streets from the lights of +automobiles and buses, when any of these happen to be passing. But if +no such vehicle is near, you simply have to feel your way with your +feet. + +When I pull my curtains and open the window before going to bed, and +look out upon London, I can see no more than if I were standing in +the middle of the Sahara Desert on the darkest night of the year, +blindfolded and with my eyes shut. Looking down from my sixth-story +window, I can’t see a single pin point of light anywhere. + +The curbs in London are painted white, which makes walking a little +easier. All light poles and safety-zone posts are painted black with +white rings. The fenders of cars used at night are tipped with white. +All moving vehicles carry lights, but they are mere pin points. + +Pedestrians are permitted to use flashlights--called “torches” +here--provided these are small, or shaded, and aren’t pointed upward. I +had been told back home that torches and batteries could no longer be +bought in London, but they can. The price of batteries has been fixed +by the government at a maximum of twelve cents. + +Traffic lights are hooded from above, and the glass itself is painted +a solid black except for a little cross in the middle. This is the +tiniest of slits, yet from two or three blocks away it looks like a +full green or red light. + +People no longer motion for a taxi at night--it would be no use. They +just stand on the curb and yell. At midnight, if I lean out of my +window I can see no more than if I were blind, but I can hear people +all up and down the street yelling for taxis at the top of their lungs. + +It’s miraculous the way taxis get about at night. When you get into one +the driver clips off at twenty-five miles an hour and just keeps on +going, ramming forward into nothingness. + +I have achieved a new high in something or other for myself. The other +night I found the correct bus in the dark, rode three miles into the +night, felt my way across a street into a strange apartment house and +got clear up to the apartment of a friend of mine. It made me feel so +wonderful I took a taxi home. + + + + +_IV. THE HEROES ARE ALL THE PEOPLE_ + + +_1. IT’S ALL TRUE_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +You have all read about London’s amazing ability to take it, and about +the almost annoying calm of Englishmen in the face of Hitler’s bombs. +Well, I am not going to dwell on this, since it has been much written +about already. But I just want to confirm that what you have read in +this connection is all true. I got it the very minute I stepped off the +plane from Lisbon, and I’ve been getting it ever since. + +You get it in the attitude of people, you get it in the casual way +common folks talk, you get it just by looking around and seeing people +going about their business. + +The day before Christmas a hotel maid said, “I’ll never forgive that +old Hitler if he gives us a blitz on Christmas Day.” That’s typical +British conversation. The attitude of the people is not one of bravado. +It is no self-injection of “Do or die for dear old Siwash.” It isn’t +flag-waving, or our own sometimes silly brand of patriotism. In fact, +I’ve never seen or heard the word patriotism since coming here. + +No, it is none of these. It is simply a quaint old British idea that +nobody is going to push them around with any lasting success. + +There are millions of people in this world who fear that England may +eventually lose this war. Such an ending is inconceivable to the +British. + + * * * * * + +The whole spirit of this war is different from that of the first World +War. Over here there doesn’t seem to be the pumped-up, hysterical +hatred that we had for Germany in the World War. I’ve heard Germans +referred to as “the Boche” only once in London. + +You don’t hear atrocity stories told around here about the Germans. +You don’t hear people making outlandish remarks. You no longer hear +stories about Hitler being insane and a pervert. In fact, I’ve heard +him referred to several times as a mighty smart man who has made very +few mistakes. This isn’t spoken sympathetically, or by pro-Nazis, but +by common Englishmen willing to give the devil his due. + +They say Hitler has made only one big mistake so far, and that was by +starting the war in the first place. + + * * * * * + +And the spirit of bravery in the face of death is different in +this war too. You all remember, or at least have read about, the +eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die spirit of soldiers on +leave in the first World War. It was fatalistic, and dramatic, and +what-the-hell. It was champagne and girls and on with the dance while +there’s still time. + +That’s not true in this war. There is night life in London, but not +that daredevil kind of night life. People dance quietly. Late parties +are rare. Drunkenness is not common. Soldiers on leave act much like +civilians in peacetime. For in this war it isn’t the soldiers who may +die tomorrow--it’s the people. + +When the King goes out to inspect his heroes, they aren’t long lines of +straight-standing men in khaki with polished buttons. They are grimy +firemen and wardens in blue overalls, so tired they can’t even stand up +straight for the King. + +When just ordinary people at home may die tomorrow, heroics go out the +window. + +People aren’t filled with a madly sweet compulsion to crowd a lifetime +of fun into their few remaining hours. No, they are too busy, too poor, +too tired, and too placidly determined to win by sticking it out. + +It’s a funny war. As someone remarked, the front-line trenches are four +miles straight up above London, and the heroes are all the people. + + * * * * * + +It is true that all eyes in England look toward America. + +My American accent alone is a key to unlock almost any door in +London--except the doors of the extreme upper classes, of course. + +And just as American public opinion about the war changes gradually, +so I believe the British feeling about the possibility of our entering +the war is changing. A few months ago, they say, all England was rabid +for America to come in. But now many people are looking beyond the mere +emotional effect of our entrance. Many feel that if we came in, all our +production would be kept at home and England would get less than she is +getting now. About a third of the people I’ve discussed the matter with +feel that way. But almost without exception they do feel that we should +furnish cargo ships and convoy them with our warships. + + * * * * * + +Today every London conversation eventually switches around to “He’s up +to something. What do you think it is?” Nine times out of ten Hitler +is referred to as “he” rather than by name. Even the newspapers do it +sometimes. + +Something is being cooked up--everybody is sure of that. Most people +think he will attempt an invasion before spring. Many think he will +unwind an aerial blitz over London this month that will make the +September bombings seem tame. + +Any night he may start it. Any night people expect it. And they are +ready. They feel that Hitler has not got anything that they, the +ordinary people, can’t take. + +And after being here with them for a few weeks I believe they are right. + + +_2. THE CUPBOARD’S NOT BARE_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Food isn’t a very romantic subject. You’ve never heard of a medal being +presented to a war hero because he lived on one meal a day. The girls +don’t flock around the English farmer who makes two potatoes grow where +only one grew before. But believe me, food in this war is only a jump +or two behind planes and big guns in importance. + +And as each month passes, the food problem will become increasingly +vital to both sides. Ultimately, perhaps years from now, it may be that +food will decide who is to win this war. + +It is too early yet for any food shortage to begin making deep marks on +the warring populations. They say food is still plentiful in Germany, +and I know that England is in good shape. That is obvious to anybody +who just eats around. + +There is rationing, of course. Prices are high, and some things are +so scarce they have almost ceased to exist. But as to the basic things +that are needed to keep body and soul together, the situation in London +hasn’t reached even dead seriousness. + + * * * * * + +“Dispersal” is becoming more and more the theme of England in +wartime--dispersal of troops, of factories, of children, of food. The +bombings have brought that about. Scatter every vital thing all over +England in tiny units and small groups--that’s the keynote. Today only +80,000 of London’s one million children are left in the city. They are +all over England. + +They tell me that the soldiers, with some exceptions, eat and sleep +in groups no larger than thirty. Army trucks are always parked a good +fifty yards apart so a single bomb won’t get more than one of them. +Factories have branches everywhere. And as for food, it is stored in +thousands of nooks and crannies all over Great Britain. + +There are stocks of food in empty garages, in old meeting halls, in +unused theaters, police stations, barns, cellars. No one-night blitz, +no matter how terrific, is going to wipe out any notable portion of +Britain’s stored food. + +And speaking of dispersal, the Ministry of Food keeps only a skeleton +staff of 250 in London. The bulk of the ministry’s staff of about 2500 +are in the country. + +England began working out a wartime food-control plan four years before +the war started. It even had all the ration books printed and waiting +months before the war. + +The first rationing was not put into effect until four months after the +war started--that is, in January, 1940. Bacon, butter and sugar were +the first items dealt with. + +When a certain food is rationed, that does not necessarily mean the +country is running short of it. It means that the government considers +this particular food to be essential, and so it begins rationing to +conserve a surplus for the far future. Also, many things are rationed +to insure an equal distribution--so the rich people won’t eat up all +the things the poor couldn’t afford if there were no such controls. + +Today in England it is almost impossible to get onions, raisins, eggs, +lemons or cheeses. Yet none of these things is rationed, because the +government considers them nonessential to sturdy, healthy living. It is +ready to let them go out of existence for the duration. + +Today rationing applies to the following items in the following ways: + +BACON AND HAM--Four ounces a week per person. (Peacetime consumption +averaged 5.6 ounces.) + +BUTTER--Two ounces of butter and four ounces of margarine a week. +(Before the war, people averaged 7 ounces of butter.) + +SUGAR--Eight ounces a week. (Consumption has been cut more than half; +it used to be 17 ounces on the average.) + +TEA--Two ounces. (Prewar consumption was 2.9 ounces.) But tea is not +really short in England, as you can get it in any restaurant and nearly +every grocery. Consumption is down only about one-fourth. + +MEAT--The rationing of meat is based on price rather than on weight, +because of the many qualities available. People today are allowed to +buy one shilling tenpence--about 37 cents--worth of meat per person per +week. This means about two pounds of fair beef. Fowl is not rationed, +and there is a good supply. + +As an example of how rapidly things change, since I wrote the above, +two days ago, the weekly meat allowance has dropped to 30 cents’ worth; +and pork liver, kidney, heart and sweetbreads have been added to the +rationed list. + +The government makes mistakes that cause some confusion, as all +governments do. For example, in dealing with rabbits the government +set a maximum price for the retailers but none for wholesalers. As a +result, the grocerymen must pay 17 cents a pound for rabbits but they +dare not charge their customers more than 15 cents. The upshot is that +plenty of rabbits are wasting away in warehouses. + +The cut in sugar is probably what pains the average Englishman most. +The English people have been used to tremendous quantities of sugar, +probably a great deal more than was good for them. Doctors think this +cutting of sugar consumption in half will be a fine thing for the +national blood pressure. + +The stores are nearly sold out of candy. I went to one today which had +just one box of candy left. Chocolates run from 50 cents to $1 a pound, +and they’re not very good either. Many of the pieces are filled with +dry cake. + +When you eat in restaurants, the finest places give you two small cubes +of sugar with each cup of coffee; the medium-priced and cheap places +only one. And I don’t like coffee with one cube of sugar. + +Back in Lisbon I kept slipping cubes of sugar into my pocket from the +hotel table, and I arrived here with about twenty. So for a while I had +an extra one to drop in each cup of coffee, but they’re all gone now. +If I were making this trip over again I would throw away my shirts and +bring three pounds of sugar. + + * * * * * + +There are approximately forty-six million people in the United Kingdom, +so England prints fifty million of her food-ration books. For everybody +must have one. + +In the past, new books have been mailed out every six months. Starting +in July, 1941, the books will be good for one year. Also, instead of +tearing out coupons, the grocer will merely cancel them with a stamp. + +People the world over love to figure out stupendous statistics, and the +Food Ministry is no exception. It has estimated that these changes will +save a thousand tons of paper and will dispense with the handling of +14,500,000,000 coupons a year. + +Each member of a family, including each child, gets a ration book. Then +the housewife goes to her favorite grocer and registers. She isn’t +allowed to change grocers except at six-month intervals, unless she +moves. And she can trade only where she is registered. + +Although I carry a ration book I couldn’t buy anything on it unless I +first registered at a store. Even then, if I wanted something scarce, +such as oranges, eggs or onions, they wouldn’t sell me any because of +my not being an old customer. + +Rationing is a complex affair. If you eat at home you can buy only +so much a week. Yet you can go to a restaurant and get all you want, +without even showing your ration book. + +The hotels do their buying in big lots and can get choice things, but +they, too, are rationed. Today they are allowed only 50 per cent of the +bacon and ham they used last May. In January, 1941, they are getting +less than half the meat they used in January, 1940; and now that is +being cut still further. + +They are allowed to give each diner only one-fourth of an ounce of +butter and margarine (only one-twelfth of an ounce of this can be real +butter), and they will serve you only one meat course. + +If you live in a hotel you can stay for five days without a ration +book. After that, they take the coupons from the book at the end of +each week. + +You can eat in public places for practically any price you care to pay. +At our hotel it runs around two dollars for dinner, so I eat elsewhere. +Dinner at Simpson’s, with soup and dessert, will cost better than +a dollar and a half, yet the other night at one of Lyons’ numerous +“Corner Houses” we had a good enough dinner, with music and everything, +for 50 cents. The place was packed with soldiers and their girls, and I +don’t mean officers. + +Only the more expensive places give you napkins now. At night, eating +places are rather infrequent, so you almost have to eat at whatever +place is handy. + +You hardly ever see real butter in the restaurants. They serve +margarine instead. At the Food Ministry it’s pronounced with a hard +“g,” as in Margaret. It’s all right, too. The government now requires +that all margarine be injected with vitamins “A” and “D,” and they say +it has all the food qualities of real butter. + +Also, you never see real cream. What you get is a ghostly white mixture +of vegetable oils. It’s thicker than cream and it has the oily texture +of mayonnaise, but I can swear that it isn’t bad at all. + +As cargo space in English ships grows more and more precious, the +importation of foods is increasingly restricted. Anything bulky is +cut out. They have now stopped importing any fruit whatever, except +oranges. Even canned fruits have been stopped. To take the place of +fruit in diets, the government is encouraging Englishmen to eat more +vegetables and grow more vegetables. + + * * * * * + +Most food prices in England are controlled by the government, but even +so the average cost of food has gone up 22 per cent since the war +started. As in all inflations, either in wartime or peacetime, wages +have not risen accordingly. Hence many people have a tough time making +both ends meet. + +I will give you a list of representative food prices. Some of them +do not seem so extraordinarily high, but you must remember that the +average white-collar employee in England doesn’t make as much as we do +at home. Also, he pays out more in taxes. + +Bacon is 35 cents a pound, in our money. The best butter is 35 cents, +with the average quality 32 cents, but you don’t get a pound a week +unless there are eight in your family. Margarine comes in two grades, +at 9 cents and 15 cents. Sugar runs around 7½ cents a pound, tea 50 +cents, and joint steak costs about 42 cents a pound (when you can get +it). Stewing beef is around 30 cents, and joint roast about 36 cents a +pound. + +In meats you take whatever the dealers happen to have. Often you have +to accept mutton instead of beef. There is no pork at all. The price +of turkeys for Christmas was controlled at 50 cents a pound; whereupon +chickens, which were not controlled, shot up to 60 cents a pound. + +Eggs are 80 cents a dozen, but you can get only about four eggs a week +at the stores. Oranges are 3 cents apiece and are still obtainable, +although they are growing scarcer. You can get lemons and onions only +when a new shipment arrives, and they won’t be arriving much longer. +Lemons are 11 cents a pound. Apples have been up to 35 cents a pound, +which is three or four apples; but the price is now controlled at 20 +cents a pound for the very best, running down to 11 cents. Soon there +will be no more apples, until England’s own crop comes in next fall. +Some grapefruit have been coming from the Bahamas and Palestine; they +run from 10 to 20 cents apiece. + +Bread stands at about 14 cents for a four-pound loaf, and there is +plenty of flour. The government subsidizes the bread makers, for it +wants everybody to be able to buy bread cheaply. Bread will be one of +the last items ever to run short. + +First-grade potatoes average 18 cents for seven pounds. Milk is 7½ +cents a pint, but for children under five and nursing mothers it is 3½ +cents. And all families with incomes of less than $8 a week can get +milk free. Some three million people are eligible for this free milk, +and two and one-half million of them are taking it. + +The English feel deeply the present shortage of “biscuits” or, as we +would call them, sweet crackers. These biscuits are of many forms, +candied and filled, and the English people practically lived on them, +along with their tea. But they have almost gone out of existence. + +Whenever a shipment of precious things comes in they are ladled out by +the grocer as great favors to his best customers. + +An American friend of mine read in the papers about a new shipment of +onions, so she asked her grocer if he had any. He said he didn’t have a +one. But then he disappeared into a back room for a moment, and when he +returned he slyly handed her a sack and said, “Here are your oranges, +Madam.” When she got home she found two wonderful onions in the sack. + +Most of my eating has been done in hotel dining rooms. They are packed +at night with wealthy-looking Englishmen and women. Almost daily I hear +some Englishman express a little shame at sitting there eating such a +fine meal, and a little revulsion at the sight of hundreds of well-fed +diners like himself around him, when so much of England’s population +can’t eat that way. + +As for myself, I have ham and eggs every morning for breakfast, where +I had expected none at all. I couldn’t have this if I weren’t “eating +out”; and I, like the Englishmen who eat at hotels, feel a little guilt +at each mouthful I take. + +With Germany bearing down harder in her U-boat strangulation campaign, +there is more talk in the newspapers and among groups about stricter +regulation of food. The striking thing about this talk--and I think it +is an example of British character--is that the people want the Food +Ministry to cut down on food faster than it is doing. + +You can hardly conceive of the determination of the people of England +to win this war. They are ready for anything. They are ready to take +further rationing cuts. They are ready to eat in groups at communal +kitchens. Even the rich would quit their swanky dining rooms without +much grumbling. + +If England loses this war it won’t be because people aren’t +willing--and even ahead of the government in their eagerness--to assume +a life of all-out sacrifice. + + +_3. STREET SCENE_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +Along the nearly two miles of Regent and Oxford Streets where the big +stores and fashionable shops are situated, I believe the windows have +been blown out of two-thirds of the buildings. But the store owners +have been ingenious about fixing up the damage. + +They cover the great gaping front of a shop with wallboard, leaving a +rectangular opening about the size of a table top right in the center. +They put a pane of glass across this opening, and then they install a +window display just as before, except on a smaller scale. Often the +wallboard front is painted blue or brown or gray. Some of the stores +even have hunting scenes or marching soldiers painted like a frieze +across the top of the new wallboard front. + +The result of all this is that instead of looking like patchwork, it +makes what seems to me a neater and more attractive line of store +fronts than before the bombings. + +When a building is only slightly damaged by a bomb it is immediately +repaired. Workmen are busy day and night cleaning out rubble and +putting buildings together again. It is amazing how quickly they can +turn a scene of destruction back into something normal. + +But if a building has been too badly damaged for repair it simply +stays that way until the war is over. No rebuilding from the ground up +is permitted. The government needs all materials too badly--cement, +bricks, steel. As a result, when the war is over England will probably +have the greatest building boom in the history of the world. And maybe +this very boom will be the thing to hold down unemployment and to ease +the terrible shock of nonproduction and depression that follows all +wars in all countries. + +Maybe that will be one of England’s silver linings. + +The most puzzling thing to me about all the work of repairing and +shoring up buildings and erecting shelters is where all the brick comes +from. There are so many hundreds of surface shelters, so many thousands +of bricked-up windows and protective walls, so much buttressing and +fortifying and repairing, that you’d think there couldn’t have been +that many bricks in the world. Yet you see more bricks stacked up +everywhere, in alleys, along sidewalks, even in lobbies of buildings, +ready for use. And these are all new, whole bricks. + +Don’t tell me the British don’t have a sense of humor. + +I never get tired of walking around reading the signs put up by +stores that have had their windows blown out. My favorite one is at a +bookstore, the front of which has been blasted clear out. The store is +still doing business, and its sign says, “More Open than Usual.” + +A sign on a barber shops says, “Blown Over Here from Across the +Street.” A sign on a bomb-scarred pub says, “Even Hitler Can’t Stop Us +from Selling Watney’s Ale.” And in front of a beauty shop along the +Strand there is a sign saying, “Non-Stop Perming During Raids.” + + * * * * * + +The other day I noticed a piece of stone about the size of a walnut +lying under the radiator in my room. I picked it up and examined it. +It was rounded at one end, and you could tell from the other end that +it had been freshly broken off something. I studied it a long time, +and finally came to the conclusion that it was a toe off some statue, +or possibly from the sculptured frieze that adorns the roofline of our +hotel. But how did it get into my room? + +It suddenly dawned on me. And when the maid came in to straighten up I +said, “Maid, have the windows ever been blown out of this room?” + +“Why, yes,” she said; “just a few days before you came. But they put +them back in, you know.” + +They did a nice job of clearing up my room, but they forgot to look +under the radiator. So I have a souvenir. + + * * * * * + +And now at last I am all equipped with a steel helmet and a gas mask. +A friend who has just left for America gave me his. As soon as he was +gone I brought the mask up to my room and tried it on. It is a big one, +issued by the American Embassy, and it is so complicated that I can’t +make head nor tail of it. If the gas ever comes I might as well throw +this contraption out the window and take a deep breath. + + * * * * * + +The famous fore-and-aft hat of the London bobby is gone for the +duration. Today all policemen wear steel helmets. These are painted +dark blue, with “Police” in white letters on the front. + +London is fairly crawling with policemen. You meet half a dozen in +every block. I understand there are now 40,000 bobbies--just double +what there used to be. They are mostly young and soldierly looking, and +I have found that instead of being austere they are very friendly. In +fact, they will talk your head off if you stop to inquire your way. + + * * * * * + +London is plastered with posters and signs of warning, instruction +and advice. Many of them are illustrated. For instance, one of them +pictures a man and a woman gawking skyward, and the inscription says: +“Don’t stand and stare at the sky when you hear a plane.” Then it +explains that planes drop their bombs long before they are over the +objective, and warns that if you stop to look up when you hear motors +you may get one smack in the face. + +A few blocks from my hotel is a huge store called His Majesty’s +Stationery Office. There you can buy for a few cents any one of +thousands of detailed booklets on wartime food, arms, shipping, air +raids, bombs, and so on, which the government has issued. + +There is always a crowd in front of the counters, buying wartime +education. + + * * * * * + +Many automobiles have little printed signs on the windshields saying, +“Free lifts at your own risk.” These are driven by suburbanites who get +extra rations of gasoline for bringing other people to work. There are +20,000 of these now, but the arrangement is likely to be discontinued, +for public transportation is practically back to normal. + +Newspaper cartoonists are having a lot of fun with these small details +of wartime life. For example, just after the British captured Bardia in +Libya, a _Daily Express_ cartoon showed Mussolini standing alone in the +desert thumbing for a ride, and Hitler flying over in a German plane +with a sign on it saying, “Free lifts at your own risk.” + +Nearly all the stores and offices close at four o’clock so people can +get home before the blackout. At four-thirty the sidewalks and streets +resemble Broadway. At five-thirty they look like Main Street on a dull +Monday night. + +Since gasoline is rationed, I was astonished by the heavy daytime +traffic. There is constantly a solid wall of those big red doubledecker +buses, and there are so many private cars that I don’t see how the +streets could hold any more. I hate to think what traffic was like in +peacetime. + +A friend of mine says he thinks the autos here must run on air. People +get only a couple of quarts of gas at a time. When you get into a car +the gas needle always seems to register zero, but somehow they keep on +running. + + * * * * * + +I’ve just had my first air-mail letter from the United States. It was +eighteen days on the way, which I’m told is faster than usual. Many +air-mail letters take a month. American magazines and newspapers do +not arrive until six weeks after their appearance back home. + +I remember reading that in September it took five days for a letter to +be delivered right here in London, but now I get mail in the morning +that was posted the evening before. The local postal service seems to +be completely normal. + +London’s weather is not so bad as I had always heard, at least not +yet. Incidentally, the censors won’t let you cable anything about the +current weather--what it is like this morning, for instance. That might +give the Germans an idea. + + * * * * * + +Newsboys in the streets of London never open their mouths. I wish +our newsboys would develop that habit. Over here they just write the +biggest news of the day on small blackboards with chalk, or print it +on white paper, and prop these bulletins on the building walls beside +them. Most of the “newsboys,” incidentally, are old men. + +Taxi meters here start at the equivalent of fifteen cents. A trip costs +about the same as, or perhaps less than, in New York. In the daytime +there are plenty of taxis everywhere, and the taxis are a sight to +behold. All of them look as though they had been designed in Queen +Victoria’s time and ought to be pulled by horses. But they run fine, +and I swear they can turn around in their own length. + +One of the few things I have found that are cheaper here than at home +is a haircut. I paid only thirty cents the other day in the hotel +barbershop, and since then I’ve seen haircuts advertised at fifteen +cents. I’m going to get a haircut every day from now on--enough to last +me for a year or two. + + +_4. THIS IS THE WAY OF WAPPING_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +This is the way the people of London are. + +Last night I was standing in the dimly lighted office of the marshal +of a big air-raid shelter in the East End. A bareheaded man with a +mustache, a muffler and a heavy overcoat was sitting in a chair tilted +against the wall. I hadn’t noticed him until he spoke. + +“Have you been around Wapping?” he asked. + +Wapping is a poor, crime-heavy, conglomerate, notorious section of +London. Also it has been terrifically bombed, as has all of London’s +waterfront. + +“No, I haven’t,” I said, “but it’s one place I’d like to see.” + +“Well,” said the man, “I’m a policeman and tomorrow’s my day off. I’d +like nothing better than to show you around Wapping if you would care +for me to.” + +Would I care for it! To get around Wapping with a policeman as a +private guide--you can’t beat that if you’re out to see London. I +jumped at the chance. + +So Mr. Ian Rubin, London bobby, and I walked six miles around Wapping. +We did back alleys and dark places, burned warehouses and wrecked +churches, block after block of empty flats. We did Wapping with a +fine-tooth comb. And so I’m in a position to say that as far as Wapping +is concerned there almost isn’t any Wapping any more. + +Wapping is one part of the big borough of Stepney. Today its population +is a mere few hundred. The entire ward was compulsorily evacuated in +that first awful week of the blitz. They put people on boats and took +them down the Thames. Those who have come back are mostly men. + +In normal times Wapping would be a swarming, noisy mass of humanity, +a population as dense as in our Lower East Side in New York. Today I +walked block after block and met only half a dozen people. There was no +sound in the streets. The place was dead. It was like a graveyard. + +We walked into the big inner courtyard of a square of tenement flats. +Rear balconies on each floor formed the walls of a square. The windows +were all out; the walls were cracked; abandoned household belongings +lay where they had been thrown. In the balconies above, no faces peeped +over the railings. There was no sound, no movement, no life in the +whole block. It was the terrible silence of that Wapping courtyard that +got me. + +Policeman Rubin and I walked on. We went into the station of a +demolition squad--the men who pull down dangerous walls before turning +over the general job of demolition to others. These are brave men. +Five of them, in workmen’s clothes, were sitting before a crackling +fireplace. There was nothing for them to do today--but there might be +any time. + +They were very friendly, but I could barely understand their Cockney +speech. One of them asked me if it was possible to write a letter to +San Francisco. One of his fellow workers answered for me. “Sure, you +dummy,” he said. “You can write anywhere you want.” + +Everyone of these men had been bombed out of his flat, one of them +three times. Their wives have been evacuated, but they stayed on to +work--a part of London’s great civilian army. + +We stood now in a vacant lot where until last September there had +been a five-story block of flats. It was fully occupied when a bomb +hit. On the wall of a building across the alley you can still see the +handprints of a man who was blown from his flat and smashed to death +against the wall. + +We stood amid the wreckage of a church, in which Policeman Rubin +himself had toiled all night helping to reach a mother superior who had +been buried in the debris. She was dead when they found her. + +We went to see the Church of St. John of Wapping, well known to +American tourists. Only the steeple was left, and it was being torn +down for safety’s sake. + +We passed a pub where in the old days pirates and smugglers used to +gather from the ends of the world to sell their illicit goods. It has +been boarded up since September. + +We passed an undamaged warehouse, where big sacks of East Indian spice +were being loaded onto drays, and the smell was sweet and wonderful. + +We came to a street sign that said, “Danger. Unexploded Bomb.” So we +walked around it. + +Policeman Rubin showed me where a time bomb fell at the edge of a +school. They couldn’t get it out, so it lay there nine days before +blowing the school to smithereens. The wreckage of the school still lay +there in a heap. + +I saw firemen damping down the inside of a warehouse in which a small +new blaze had sprung up after months of smoldering. + +I saw great mounds of burned newsprint paper, and other mounds of +scorched hemp. I saw half walls with great steel girders hanging, +twisted by explosion and fire. + +But I saw whole warehouses, too; for Hitler didn’t get them all. + +We wandered back and forth through dead, empty streets, and looked at +hundreds of ground-floor apartments where rubble-covered furniture +stood just as it had been left. The owners probably will never come +back for it. + +We walked for another hour, Policeman Rubin and I, and then suddenly we +came upon a small store with the wallboard front and little show-window +center which are today the badge of a bombed establishment that’s still +doing business. And when I saw that window it dawned on me that in a +solid hour of walking this was the first open store window I had seen. + +Every other doorway and window in an entire hour of walking through the +heart of a city district was a doorway or a window into a room that no +longer held human beings or goods. + +That is the way in Wapping today. + +There will have to be a new Wapping when this is all over. + + +_5. THE PYNTED AWL_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +We got on a bus, a friend and myself, to see more of London’s +devastated East End, where the poor people live. London buses are +double-deckers, and you can smoke on the top deck, so we sat up there. + +You don’t just pay a flat fare in London. The conductor comes around +and sells you a ticket to wherever you want to go. But we weren’t sure +just where we wanted to go, not knowing London well. + +“I think we’d like to go around the Isle of Dogs,” I told the +conductor. So he told us where to change buses. + +While waiting for the second bus we bought four apples (thirty cents) +and ate them. This second bus took us only a short way, and we had to +get off and walk two blocks, for the street had been blown up. A big +group of men in workmen’s clothes stood waiting for the next bus. + +“Is this where we get a bus to the Isle of Dogs?” we asked. + +One little stoop-shouldered fellow with yellow teeth and a frazzled +coat said, “Just where do you want to go?” + +We said we didn’t know. He laughed and said, “Well, this bus will take +us there.” + +So we all got on, and after a while a big man who was with the little +fellow moved back and said he and the little fellow were going to walk +through a tunnel under the Thames and would we like to get off and go +with them. We said, “Sure.” + +It was a foot tunnel, not big enough for cars. These two men work on +barges carrying freight up and down the Thames. They leave home one +morning and don’t return until the next afternoon. They were carrying +tin lunch boxes now. + +The big fellow had been to New York six times, before the first World +War, working on ships. He told us about it as we walked through the +tunnel. + +At the other end we came out into what is known as Greenwich. The two +men walked us past Greenwich College, which is very old. We stopped +before some iron gates and peered through them at some far domes. + +“Now that there,” said the little fellow, “that’s the fymous pynted +awl.” + +“The what?” I said. + +“The pynted awl,” he said. “You know, doncha, the fymous pynted +awl--the pynted ceilin’, you know.” + +And then I realized he was saying “painted hall.” So we looked +appreciatively. + +“All American tourists knows it,” he said. “The artist he lyed on his +back in a ’ammock for twenty years pyntin’ that ceilin’, and when he +got through he found a mistyke in it and he went cracked worryin’ about +it. Nobody else to this d’y has ever been ayble to find the mistyke. +You tell the Americans the bombs heynt touched the pynted awl.” + +We came to the little fellow’s corner, so we shook hands and said +good-bye. The big fellow got on a double-decked trolley with us, and do +you know that this cockney, a complete stranger, insisted on paying our +fare--and him as poor as a church mouse! He said people had been nice +to him in New York. But that was twenty-five years ago. + +After a while we said good-bye to him and got on another bus. It took +us down into Blackwall Tunnel, back under the Thames. Then we got out +and walked down into the neighborhood of the great West India docks. +They won’t let you onto the docks, but we could peep through. + +It was raining now and very cold, and it was getting dark. We walked +amid wreckage and rubble and great buildings that stood, wounded and +empty. It was ghost-like and fearsome in the wet dusk. Poor, pitiful +East End! True, Londoners say the slums should have been knocked down +long ago, but this is a grievous way to go about it. + +We got lost, and a policeman showed us the way again. At last we took +another bus back toward the city. At Aldgate East Station I got off to +change to the underground, while my friend continued on the bus. + +It was pitch black now. I decided to get a bite to eat. I made out, +faintly, the form of a policeman, and asked him where I could find a +place to eat. He said there was a pub around the corner, three doors +away. I felt my way around, but couldn’t find the door of the pub. + +In a minute a figure stood beside me. It was the policeman. He pushed +the door in the darkness but it didn’t give. + +“It’s closed,” he said. “But you can get something across the street, +there where you see that little light behind the curtain.” + +So I felt my way across and into a tiny place. It wasn’t very clean. +There were bare tables, sawdust on the floor, and three candles burning +on a counter. + +“What kind of sandwiches have you got?” I asked. + +“Hot or cold?” said the man behind the counter. + +“Hot,” I said. Whereupon he dished up a great big fried fish, filled +the plate with crisp fried potatoes, and handed it over. I recognized +the dish as the famous “fish and chips.” + +I wasn’t too eager to eat it in such a place, but one bite was all I +needed. I never tasted better fish or potatoes in my life. And my whole +supper cost a shilling--twenty cents. + +I got back to the underground and bought a ticket to Charing Cross, the +station nearest my hotel. When I got to the station and came upstairs, +ready to venture out into the complete blackness, I asked the station +starter which direction I should take to walk toward the Strand. + +All you have to do over here is open your mouth. In one word they +know you’re a stranger. And knowing that, they help you. The station +man took my elbow, led me outside and across a couple of drives and +sidewalks, and got me out into the middle of the street. + +“Now go straight ahead,” he said, “right up this street, and you’ll +come to the Strand.” + +He must have guided me for half a block. I made it to the Strand, and +made it clear back to the hotel, which was about eight blocks. I didn’t +get lost, or run into anybody, or fall down. I walked into the Savoy +feeling like King George himself. + + + + +_V. GUNS AND BOMBERS_ + + +_1. TEA, WITH SOUND EFFECTS_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +If I was going to get by with calling myself a war correspondent, I +figured it was time to get out and see some shooting. So the War Office +fixed me up with a solemn, complicated pass to spend a night with an +antiaircraft gun crew. It took quite a while to arrange, but finally +the day arrived. + +I waited until late afternoon, then put on my galoshes and my tin hat, +bought ten packs of cigarettes for the gun crew, got into a taxi and +went off to the war. When I got there I found that instead of ten men +there were hundreds. + +A sentry took me to a little cabin where two officers were having tea. +They wrote down the number of my pass, and said some boob had told them +over the phone that my name was MacInernie. Then they asked me to have +tea with them. + +The day had been dark and gloomy, and the clouds were hanging low. I +was disgusted, for my pass was only good for one night and it didn’t +look like flying weather to me. + +“You can’t tell a thing about it,” one of the officers said. “Sometimes +they come over on the most illogical nights.” + +Another officer, who was just going on twenty-four hours’ leave, said: +“They’ll be over. They always come when I go on leave. It’s never +failed yet.” + +He left, and another officer came in and joined us at tea. + +This hut was a sort of battlefront apartment. The officers don’t live +there, but they eat, sleep and work there, near the guns, while on duty. + +A soldier in uniform poured our tea. As dusk came, he pulled down the +blackout blinds. It was nearing six o’clock. The officers don’t eat +dinner until about nine-thirty, so they were having very late tea. + +Now it was all dark outside. And suddenly the sirens went off. + +We all looked at each other. + +“I told you they might come,” said an officer. But I could tell he was +really surprised. + +A telephone rang. The officer on duty listened for a minute and then +pointed to a wall map, indicating a spot halfway between the Channel +coast and London. + +“They’re right there now,” he said. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.” + +He leisurely finished his tea, and had started to put on his overcoat +when the phone rang again. + +“Righto,” he said over the phone. And to us he said, “The men are +running to the guns now. Come along, let’s see what’s up.” + +Each of the guns was set down in a sort of concrete cistern. These gun +bases were built before the war started. One of the gunnery officers +used to play on this very ground as a child. + +There were several small rooms, entirely underground and heavily +concreted. The instrument men sat down there, with headphones on, +making red marks on a map of London. Each red mark indicated a plane. +They’d erase the marks almost as fast as they put them down, and +indicate new positions. + +Up above, right at the center of this antiaircraft settlement, was a +complicated instrument through which the artillerymen sight. In daytime +they can get the exact bearings of a plane with this instrument, but +at night it’s no good. So they have to use a sound detector. This is +a big revolving machine with phonograph horns, at which half a dozen +soldiers sit in the dark and read illuminated instruments. It is +extremely sensitive. The other night they got a Salvation Army band on +it. Honestly. + +One man calls out the readings by telephone to the control room below, +where these are noted on charts. + +I had got it into my head that these sound detectors were hooked +directly to the guns and that the guns just automatically pointed and +fired whenever the sound mechanism thought the time was propitious. But +it isn’t done that way. All the dope from the sound machine, and that +which comes over the phone from other instruments all over London, is +rapidly tabulated, and calculations are made, and the guns are then +aimed and fired manually at wherever they figure the plane should be by +that time. + +The Germans were mighty busy this night. They were overhead constantly +for four hours, starting fires and dropping heavy explosives, many of +which we could hear blowing things to destruction around us. + +“See!” said my friend the officer, standing there in the dark. “By all +rights it should have been a quiet night, and now look at this! You +were lucky.” + + * * * * * + +Now we are standing down below, on the floor of a huge concrete +“cistern” somewhere near London. It is a wet, chilly January night. +A huge gun sticks its snout up out of the cistern against the faint +light of a moon-tinted sky. + +The base of the gun is half enclosed in a steel cabin, like the cab of +a locomotive. On each side of the gun barrel sits a man on a stool, +just like an engineer and fireman. The man on the right, by cranking a +wheel, keeps the gun moving around on a swivel, following the hand on a +dial which points toward the sound of motors in the sky. The man on the +left similarly raises and lowers the gun barrel. + +Down in the pit are other men. They are all in uniform, but here in the +dark they are mere shapes. They might as well be woodcutters or farmers +for all you can tell. + +Nobody says anything. + +Three men stand just behind and to one side of the gun. Before them, +lying in a rack that moves with the gun, is a row of big shells. The +shells taper down to a pencil-point end. That end is a steel cap, shiny +bright, with figures and marks on it, and right in the end, like the +eye of a needle, there is a small hole. One man stands there with a +narrow steel punch stuck through this hole. He holds the punch in his +right hand. In his left is a shielded flashlight pointing down onto +the end of the shell so he can read those little figures which a few +seconds later will be bursting through thousands of feet of sky. He +stands there waiting--everybody is waiting--everybody is ready for the +order. + +Off in the darkness, some yards away, technical information is being +relayed from one instrument man to another. The sound-detector boys +phone, “One three five one four zero one four five,” giving the course +of the enemy plane. Over the phone from somewhere else in London comes +the plane’s altitude. Mathematicians figure the angle, the range, the +bearing. They call out as they figure. It is all quiet, but it is tense +and rapid. The officer in charge stands alone there in the darkness. He +takes no part in the details. The enlisted men do all that. + +Finally there is a shout: “Stand by to fire.” The voice carries to all +the gun crews, and each acknowledges with a yell. + +We are about ready to shoot at a German. Let’s go back to one of the +gun pits. + +The boys are waiting. Not a word is said. Then comes a yell: “One +five.” That’s the order for setting the time fuse. When that yell comes +it means that within a few seconds a shell will be on its way up into +the sky. + +It is a dramatic thing, like the opening gong of a prize fight, ending +months of training. + +At the yell, the man with the punch gives the tiny end of the shell a +little twist. He has set it at “one five”--in other words, he has set +it to explode fifteen seconds after leaving the gun. + +It takes him less than a second. He steps back. The man next to him +already has this huge shell in his arms. He half throws it into the +arms of the man next to him. This one swings it onto a set of rollers +and shoves it upward to the man on the left side of the gun cab. He +jerks it off the rollers, switches it into a steel cradle alongside the +gun barrel. A lever rolls the cradle over and the shell is in the gun. +An automatic ram pushes it tight, the breech snaps shut and locks. It +is all done in the dark. + +The gun is ready. We all step back. + +There is utter silence, absolute suspension of all motion. A newcomer +puts his fingers to his ears and gets tense all over. + +It seems like hours now that we have been waiting, although it is +probably only a few seconds. + +Then, faintly, out of the darkness and into your muffled ears comes a +human voice, yelling “fire,” and all the guns go off at once. + + * * * * * + +Your first experience in a gun pit is truly a shocking one. + +From every side you seem to have been struck by a terrific blast of air +that almost knocks you down. And somewhere around you--you don’t quite +place it--there are horrifying sheets of flame, as if everything on +earth had caught fire and exploded. And mingled with both these things +there is certainly the loudest noise you ever heard. + +The whole thing shakes you, physically and spiritually. And before you +have really come back to your senses, you are following the crashing +shell on its journey. The terrible blast seems to go shattering and +crashing its way on up, up into the heavens, with a series of great +reverberations as though the climbing shells were bursting through +sheet after sheet of waxed paper stretched tight across the sky. + +And then, if you wait maybe half a minute, you can hear faintly the +explosion of that very shell which a minute ago you saw being loaded +into the gun. Now it is flying into a thousand vicious little pieces, +miles up there in the darkness. + +But by now the yell, “One seven,” has come through the night, the dark +shapes of boys in uniform have moved wordlessly in routine little +motions there in the open-air cistern, and another shell is already +tearing toward the moon. + +Some people can’t stand heavy gunfire at all. And I’ll have to admit +that the first four or five times the guns were fired during my night +with the ack-acks I didn’t like it either. I wished I was home in bed. + +But then I swear I got used to it. + +Our battery fired close to a hundred rounds that night. It got so we +would stop talking a few seconds before the guns went off and then go +on with the conversation as soon as the noise was over. + +Some of the gunners were telling me about a photographer who came up +one night to take pictures. On the first blast from the guns he started +running blindly away and charged right into a wire fence, which knocked +him down. But it was no disgrace, for people who are like that just +can’t help it. + +The blast from these antiaircraft guns is almost beyond description, +but I can give you some examples. + +The door to one of the underground concrete rooms where the men doze +during quiet periods had a brand-new steel latch. On my night with the +battery, the first salvo broke that steel latch in two and blew the +door open. + +They use up light bulbs at a terrific rate. The concussion breaks the +filament. In the soldiers’ canteen only one light bulb was left out +of the original six when I went down after an hour’s firing. And in +the hut where the officers on duty have their meals, the blast rocks +the building, knocks dishes off the table, and puffs out the blackout +curtains so that they have to be readjusted each time. + +Rubber earplugs are available, but the men don’t wear them. They get +used to the blast, and it doesn’t bother them. + +An officer and I were standing in the dark listening to the Germans +overhead. + +“They sound as if they were flying along evenly,” he said, “but they +aren’t. When there is a formation, they may be flying five hundred +feet above and below one another. If there’s just one, he flies a +zigzag course. Not only that, but he goes up and down, too, like a +roller-coaster. That’s so we can’t get a good sound gauge on him.” + +It always sounded to me as if there were only one plane in the sky at +a time. But at the end of two hours I asked about it and the gunner +officer said: + +“It’s hard to say, but I’d guess that anywhere from one to three +hundred had been over tonight.” + + * * * * * + +The value of antiaircraft guns is not measured necessarily by the +number of planes they bring down--although the guns are officially +credited with about 450 of the 3050 German planes shot down over +Britain since the war started. Their greater value is in keeping the +raiders high and keeping them jumping around, which makes accurate +bombing very nearly impossible. In fact, the average height at which +those 450 planes were plugged from the ground was 16,000 feet. + +Searchlights are almost never used any more. Consequently, the gunners +can’t see how near their shells are coming to the target. But they did +have a fantastic sight a few nights ago. They were looking at the sky +through binoculars when suddenly they saw, silhouetted against the +moon, three German planes in formation. But before they could fire the +formation was out of sight. + +The boys say the Germans occasionally watch for gun flashes, then take +a quick bearing and try to drop a bomb on the gun station. + +Every morning the gun crews have drill. They can set the fuse, load and +fire in a few seconds, but they get even better. And after the regular +drills the boys practice voluntarily for hour after hour. + +“Is that because they like guns,” I asked, “or is it because they want +to get ahead?” + +“It’s literally because they’re that determined to win this war,” the +officer said. + + * * * * * + +This night with the antiaircraft gunners was my first glimpse into the +soldiers’ side of the war. I’ll long remember one moment late in the +evening when I stood between an officer and a sergeant there in the +darkness with the guns roaring and bombs crunching and planes grinding +overhead, and the British officer said: + +“Isn’t this ridiculous--all of us trying to kill each other? And we +thought it would never happen again!” + + +_2. MISCELLANY_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +The brother of a man I know has a hobby of riding around on a bicycle +every morning looking for new bomb damage. He phoned this morning +to report that he had a big special one. (Reports of unusual bomb +damage are spread around town by mouth-to-mouth grapevine, since the +newspapers aren’t permitted to mention specific locations.) So we took +a bus to the scene about two miles from our hotel. + +The report was correct, plenty. We learned later that the damage was +caused by a German plane which crashed with its full load of bombs. +They found little pieces of the plane. + +All the nearby houses had been blown down. Big stone buildings +remained standing, but their office furniture was splintered and +smashed into ruin. There wasn’t a window left for six blocks in any +direction. And yet a policeman said only a dozen people were hurt and +nobody was killed. Many bomb explosions are as freakish as that. + +All the public clocks in the area were stopped, but none at the same +minute. Among the half dozen that I saw there was a variance of half an +hour. The answer is that the blast moved the hands. + +Some London buildings now have corrugated-steel shutters that are +pulled down at night over windows and doors. They don’t save the glass +if a bomb hits close by, but they do prevent shattered glass from +flying all around. In this particular explosion these steel shutters +were bent and twisted, some of them bashed in but others ballooned out +toward the street like a weak spot in an inner tube. That is another +freakish thing about bomb explosions--the pull is often greater than +the push. + + * * * * * + +I saw the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens today for the first +time. I think it must be the loveliest statue in the world. There is a +big bomb crater two hundred yards away, but the statue is untouched. I +think they ought to remove it and bury it for the duration. + +The statue of Queen Victoria at Kensington Palace has several small +chips missing from the hem of the Queen’s dress, the result of a small +bomb that dropped a hundred yards away. + +Many bomb craters in the parks are being filled with debris hauled from +bombed buildings. + +Three-fourths of the windows of Buckingham Palace are blown out and +boarded up. In one window a torn, ragged blind has been hanging for +weeks. I’ll bet they wouldn’t fix it for ten thousand pounds, for it +shows all England that their King is taking it too. + + * * * * * + +While the checkrooms in restaurants will check tin hats and soldiers’ +rifles, they aren’t supposed to accept gas masks, the point being to +make you keep your mask with you all the time, just in case. + +The streets are full of soldiers on leave, but you rarely see a sailor. +There are so many different uniforms that I haven’t got them all +straight. But I can tell all the dominion soldiers, for they have the +name of their country--Canada or Australia or New Zealand--spelled out +on their shoulder tabs. And that is true also of foreign units in the +British Army. You very frequently see the word Poland or Czechoslovakia +or Belgium on officers’ shoulder tabs. + +The Poles, incidentally, have been doing some wonderful fighting with +the British, especially in the air. They are highly skilled fliers, and +they fight with a terrible zeal. England looks upon the Polish airman’s +uniform with deep respect. + +The uniform of the Royal Air Force is a pale blue. England idolizes the +R.A.F., as well it should. The uniform commands a deep-down gratitude +the minute it is seen, whether on a wing commander or a corporal +mechanic. + +Another thing about soldiers on leave in this war--almost any place +you go you can see a private and a colonel and their two girls eating +together. No, it doesn’t mean that the war has brought true social +democracy to England. It merely means that conscription makes officers +of some aristocrats and privates of other aristocrats, and when they’re +on leave they’re both still aristocrats, regardless of their uniforms. + +King Zog of Albania lives at a prominent hotel, and since he doesn’t +like to sleep in the hotel’s regular shelter he sleeps in the basement +dining room. The waiters have to clear out all diners shortly before +midnight so the King can go to bed. + + * * * * * + +Bombs or no bombs, you can still see plenty of movies in London. You +can also go to a play, or a ballet. You can play the dog races. You can +watch prize fights. You can ice-skate at public rinks. You can sit and +drink intoxicating spirits. + +The government has just promised that there will be no rationing of +beer, and although I wouldn’t know personally, of course, my gumshoe +men report that whisky is readily obtainable. Wines are getting short. + +A few of London’s movie theaters have been bombed out of existence, +and most of the legitimate theaters are closed, with signs saying “Due +to Present Conditions....” Yet several new plays have opened in the +last six weeks. Pantomimes are showing as usual. There are concerts by +the London Philharmonic, and the Anglo-Polish Ballet goes on twice a +day. A new idea is the “luncheon ballet,” which is becoming extremely +popular. There are two of them, already. And there is also “luncheon +Shakespeare.” + +All this daytime stuff, of course, is the result of the nighttime +blackout and the German raids at night. With three or four exceptions, +the movie theaters are open only in the daytime. The movies start as +early as 10 A.M., and the last showing is usually around 5:30. + +“The Great Dictator” is running at three theaters. You can also see +“They Knew What They Wanted,” “Northwest Mounted Police,” “Strike Up +the Band,” “The Thief of Bagdad,” “All This and Heaven Too” and “The +Return of Frank James.” This last one starts its last show as late as +seven o’clock. I suppose that’s because Frank is a tough guy. + +Despite the winter weather there are plenty of open-fronted places +called sports gardens, which are packed with pinball and claw machines. +There is always a crowd playing them. + +You have no trouble getting enough sleep these winter nights. The +Germans come over every night the weather is fit, but it gets really +noisy only a couple of nights a week. Even then it seldom lasts more +than two hours. + +Britain manufactured millions of rubber earplugs when the raiding was +so bad last September and people couldn’t sleep. But the public didn’t +take to them. They’re uncomfortable, and anyhow people like to hear +what’s going on. At an Air Raid Precautions post the other night they +dragged out a three-gallon can full of these little plugs, which look +something like golf tees. The warden wanted me to take a quart of them. +I didn’t want any, but I took a handful to bring home as souvenirs. + +War has given the English language some new words. At least, it has +made some obscure words commonplace--for instance, “stirrup pump.” That +word is as common today as automobile or cigarette. + +A stirrup pump is a small hand pump with its complement of a few feet +of hose and a couple of buckets of water, for putting out incendiary +bombs and small fires. They are scattered all over London--thousands of +them--and everybody is supposed to know how to use one. + +Sand is also all over the place. Right here in the Strand there is a +green sack of sand, resting on top of two bricks, leaning against +every lamppost. This is so everybody will know where the sand is; +if an incendiary bomb falls near you, you won’t have to run around +frantically looking for sand to throw on it. + +Many buildings have sandbags stacked against their bases, but not many +new ones are being put up. For they don’t seem to serve much purpose. +To make this early precaution look more sightly, and also to protect +the bags from weathering, many places have boxed in their sandbags. +So now there appears to be just a huge toolbox sitting there on the +sidewalk up against the building. + + * * * * * + +People at home wonder about the censorship over here. Well, on the +whole it is not so strict. I know some American correspondents who +think it should be stricter than it is. + +There are only a few general subjects that you’re forbidden to +mention--such as troop movements, the location of guns, and the +location of any specific bombings until after a certain amount of time +has elapsed. There are also other items, such as not giving current +weather conditions or the routes of ships or planes, or cabling +anything about a fire until it is out. (The rules were relaxed on +London’s big night of fire.) + +The best thing about the press censorship here is that you always know +just what is being cut out. The censor calls you on the telephone. +And you can even argue with him. Of course you usually lose out, but +imagine arguing with the censor in some countries! + +As far as my stuff is concerned, the censors have up to now cut out +a total of not more than six sentences, and these were nothing I +particularly cared about. + +They don’t censor opinion. If you wanted to, you could say that you +think England stinks, and it would go through. I think the censorship +has allowed America to get a pretty honest picture of what has happened +over here. + + * * * * * + +There are no skyscrapers in London. Like Washington, the city has a +height limit for building, something like eleven stories. But spires +and belfries and cathedral domes reach to great heights. + +I can’t think of a single really large modern building in London that +has been wholly destroyed by bombs, unless the bombing was accompanied +by fire. + +I don’t believe there is an aerial bomb in existence that could knock +down the Empire State Building. + + +_3. THE BEAVER_ + + _London, + January, 1941_ + +I always thought that a member of the peerage gave off a constant white +light, like an incendiary bomb, and that if you got caught in this +light you became weak all over, your tongue froze and you were sort of +hypnotized. It had never occurred to me that an English lord, when you +actually met one, would be a human being. But now I’ve met one, and +I’m still shocked to realize that he spoke real words to me and that I +spoke words back to him. + +The great man in question is Lord Beaverbrook, the big newspaper owner. +But right now he is much more than a newspaper owner--he’s the man who +is rolling out the planes with which Britain intends eventually to win +this war. + +Lord Beaverbrook is Minister of Aircraft Production. There wasn’t +any such ministry until last May. Airplanes weren’t coming off the +line fast enough to catch up with Germany. Everybody was trying, but +everybody apparently was trying in all directions at once. So Mr. +Churchill put his finger on Lord Beaverbrook and said, “You’re it.” + +I doubt if Lord Beaverbrook knew any more about aircraft production at +that moment than I did, but he did know how to get things done. He has +the American sense for ignoring tradition, and an almost inspired zeal +for accomplishment. He stepped into his new job with a bang and said, +“No, we won’t cut red tape; we’ll just ignore it.” + +What he did, and how he did it, must still remain in the secret files, +but you can draw your own conclusions--Britain has been getting very +bold in the air of late. Daylight raids across the Channel have become +a steady occurrence. + +People close to Lord Beaverbrook have a tenacious affection and respect +for him, but as a public figure he has collected his share of dead +cats. The English public considers him a robber baron. The aristocracy +regards him as a man in trade. Plenty of bricks are hurled at his +present success. People say, “Yes, he succeeded, but he did it by +ruthlessly robbing other ministries.” + +I don’t know that Lord Beaverbrook ever answers these jibes, but if he +wanted to he could say, “Well, you all said the production of planes +was the most important thing in this war. If that’s true, then what was +wrong with taking things from other departments?” + +Lord Beaverbrook likes a fight, and he doesn’t especially care for +applause. As one writer put it, he’d “rather be cleverly attacked than +fulsomely praised.” He likes to be in there swinging against odds. And +he has a vitality, both mental and physical, that exhausts the people +around him. + +When he jumped into this thankless job last May he became a new man. +His asthma disappeared. He worked from nine in the morning till three +the next morning. Like Edison, he can exist on little sleep. And he had +his whole staff going at a high pitch. He loved it. + +But now his asthma has come back, and he doesn’t keep the ridiculous +hours he did at first. When I said to him, “I’ll bet you love your job, +don’t you?” he smiled and said, “I’d like to be out of it.” + +It’s my guess that Lord Beaverbrook has aircraft production ironed out +so well that it no longer tests him, and he is becoming bored with it. +To me, that’s just as pertinent an indicator of his success as the new +audacity of the R.A.F. + +Lord Beaverbrook was born in Canada. Before he was thirty he had made +a million dollars. Then he came to England to make his mark. He was +elected to Parliament long ago, in 1910. During the first World War he +was Minister of Information. He is the best-known newspaper figure in +Britain. He has taken a big hand in politics, and now again he is doing +a vital war job for England. And yet he still sort of considers himself +a foreigner. + +When I sat down across the desk from him, the first thing he said was, +“Well, what do you think of them, aren’t they wonderful?” He meant the +British people and the way they are taking the war. + +“I’m a foreigner here, you know,” he said, “so I can see them as they +can’t see themselves. They’re the greatest race on earth. Nobody else +could have pulled themselves together like this. I doubt if we could +have done it in Canada.” + +“Could we Americans have done it?” I asked. + +“Well, yes,” he said. “At least in the East they could have.” + +I damned well resented that, being an old Montana cowboy myself. But +then I remembered I was in Whitehall and not on the Powder River; so, +like the British, I pulled myself together and carried on. + + * * * * * + +A little knot of half a dozen or perhaps a dozen men will emerge at the +end of this war as the great leaders who pulled England through. Most +of them will be men who forgot politics for the duration, men who laid +aside their skittishness and slashed out and did things. They will be +men who kept pace with the British national character, not those who +were dragged along by it. Lord Beaverbrook, I have no doubt at all, +will be one of this select group. And for that reason I want to tell +you all the little things I know about him. He has already been written +about a great deal in America, but it takes a lot of writing to make +the public know a man, so I’ll just add my share. + +He is of medium height, stocky though not heavy. His shoulders push +forward, and when he sits at a table he almost seems to crouch. His +face is sallow, and it leaves the impression of being square rather +than round. His mouth is big, his lips pursed. His black hair is thin +on top, but on the back of his head it is thick and heavy, almost down +to the collar line. He was dressed in black when I talked to him. + +Lord Beaverbrook doesn’t speak like an Englishman. He still speaks like +a Canadian, which means like an American. He knows America intimately. +His last trip over was made in October, 1939, just after the war +started. + +“You know my friend Dick Merrill, don’t you?” I asked. + +“I certainly do,” he said. “He came down to the boat the last time I +was in New York. I sent him a cable when his new baby was born. I have +flown with him a lot.” + +Lord Beaverbrook used to have his own airplanes. He still occasionally +flies about England, visiting aircraft factories, but he goes in +government planes now. + +He owns three big London newspapers--the _Morning Express_, the +_Evening Standard_ and the _Sunday Express_. You’ve probably heard of +his modernistic black-glass Express Building in Fleet Street. Back +home, every time I read about Fleet Street being bombed I wondered if +Beaverbrook’s glass house had been hit. It has not, although buildings +a hundred feet away have burned. In October a bomb did go through the +roof of the Standard Building, however. + +Since taking on the aircraft job, Lord Beaverbrook has paid almost +no attention to his newspapers. At the _Standard_ they didn’t hear +from him for weeks, until one day he called up and said, “What do you +mean by attacking the Presbyterians in my newspaper?” His father was +a Presbyterian minister and he himself knows the Bible intimately. He +almost always quotes from it in his speeches. + +He is very much opposed to smoking. He used to play tennis avidly but +has given it up. Almost his only relaxation now is the movies. He is a +movie fiend, and has a projector at his country home. He’s crazy about +Marlene Dietrich. As one of his fellow workers said, Lord Beaverbrook +probably thinks the greatest contribution America could make to Great +Britain would be to send over more Dietrich films. They say he has seen +“Destry Rides Again” nine times. + +Lord Beaverbrook loves to hear people singing together. He sings +himself--but, as somebody has said, he has more rhythm than tone. His +favorite songs are “Little Joe” and “See What the Boys in the Back Room +Will Have.” + +Around town Lord Beaverbrook is known as “The Beaver.” At the aircraft +office he is spoken of as “The Minister.” + +He is a great friend of Richard B. Bennett, former Prime Minister of +Canada, and he has Bennett at the ministry with him. + +During the week Lord Beaverbrook sleeps at night in a heavily walled +room at one of his newspaper plants. Week-ends he goes to a place +outside of town, but even so he drops in at his office on Sundays. + +He has two sons and a daughter. Max, the elder son, is in the R.A.F. + +Lord Beaverbrook’s government office is a lovely one, in contrast to +the dark Victorian offices that many British statesmen occupy. It looks +out across a park and down upon the Thames. The office is a large one, +with rugs and deep leather chairs. On a table at Beaverbrook’s left are +four telephones--three black ones and a green one. The green one is for +intercabinet communication. + +Outside the office is a large room where six secretaries, all men, +work. The door between is always open. Secretaries and technicians have +constant access to the Minister. They are in and out all the time. + +It is usual for Beaverbrook to be talking to four or five people at +once about different things. He is a colossal asker of questions. +Before you sit down he has found out whether you smoke, drink, fight, +swim or speak Esperanto. At least, that’s what everybody says. But he +must have figured I didn’t know anything anyhow, for he didn’t pump me +much. + +He seemed to me to be in complete repose. He didn’t impart any feeling +that he is the slashing dynamo he really is. + +In personality Lord Beaverbrook runs the scale. He probably would have +been a great actor. He has one act of intimate confidence, one of +savage bullying, one of grave piety, one of profound and devastating +gloom. At times when he walks into a cabinet meeting, they say, +you can hardly keep from crying, he looks so tragic. But the chief +characteristic of Lord Beaverbrook is probably his wit. He has a +brilliant but left-handed humor. People who don’t know him well are +often unable to tell whether he’s serious or joking. + +That wit of his can on occasion be scalding. They say he likes people +who can stand up to his barrages. He’s not a man who has to be agreed +with. And on the whole he doesn’t care what the public thinks or says +about him. He likes to fight, that’s all. + +In getting things done he is not unlike Churchill. And that is the way +to win a war. + + +_4. SHOP TALK WITH THE R.A.F._ + + _An R.A.F. Bomber Station, + February, 1941_ + +Although I can’t tell you where it is, or give people’s names, I am +spending a few days with the Royal Air Force. The place is not near +London. + +My pass for visiting this certain bomber station is good for two days. +The weather is nice here, but bad on the Continent, so nightly flights +have been called off. But I don’t care; for what I prefer, anyway, is +just to sit around as I used to do at home on bad weather days and do a +lot of “hangar flying”--in other words, just talk. These R.A.F. pilots +had never heard the expression “hangar flying,” but they thought it +very apt and have started using it, so I guess I have now given my +share of American aid to Britain. + +There are many pilots at this field, and I have come to know some of +them very well indeed. The R.A.F. boys are just like any group of fine +aviators at home. They’re the cream of the crop, and swell guys, from +station commander on down. + +A visitor is not permitted to describe an R.A.F. station, but I can say +this: My greatest surprise was at its close resemblance to a big Army +Air Corps field in the peacetime United States. I had expected to find +things tense and hectic, with secret hangars and everything camouflaged +to look like something else. I had expected to find the whole place +rather makeshift, for quick moving; and that everybody would be in +overalls and like firemen, ready to jump into their boots and go at a +second’s notice. It isn’t that way. + +The officers have pleasant private rooms. The enlisted men live in big +permanent brick barracks. In the officers’ mess there is a great sunny +lounge room with a huge fireplace. It resembles a country club more +than a battle station. There is a game room, with billiard and pingpong +tables and a tiger rug on the floor. There is bar service, so that the +pilots can have a friendly drink at lunch and dinner time. During the +day they go about their normal duties, testing and checking aircraft, +practicing formation flying, attending to the countless clerical desk +tasks which are necessary in running a flying field. + +Only in the early afternoon, when they gather around a big map-covered +table in the “briefing room” to lay out plans for that night’s flight, +and again when they take off one by one on the long journey to the land +of the enemy, and once more when they begin to drop down one by one +out of the black skies, is there any warlike feeling about the place. + +Well, there is one other thing you notice, too. As we sat around +the great lounge before lunch, with many pilots in the room, I was +struck by the scarred faces of some of the men. There weren’t a lot of +them--half a dozen at most--but they were enough to prick the illusion +that this was a peacetime flying field. Yet the boys say they have +lost remarkably few bomber crews in the last bitter six months. Almost +everybody shot down over Germany has managed to land by parachute +and is now in a prison camp. Fatal crashes on home soil have been +comparatively few. + +I asked how they got weather information from the other side, and they +said it was difficult but, with their own observations and certain +information that does come through, they were able to forecast pretty +accurately. I asked the station commander why some night, just for the +hell of it, he didn’t call up Berlin on the radio-telephone and ask how +the weather was over there. He laughed, and said he believed he would; +but of course he won’t. I’ll bet they’d be so flabbergasted the first +time that they’d tell him. + +The R.A.F. boys have a high regard for the flying ability of their +foes, and a healthy respect for antiaircraft fire from the ground. + +They don’t worry about shell fragments hitting their bombs and +exploding a whole plane in midair, for such a smack doesn’t set bombs +off. In fact, occasionally they can hear shrapnel striking the bombs +slung beneath their planes, and that’s a sound they are glad to hear, +for it means that the thick steel walls of the bombs have kept the +shrapnel from coming up through the fuselage and into the seat of the +pilot’s pants. + +I asked one boy whether he ever had a funny little feeling in his +stomach when he sent a bomb on its way downward, and he said, no, not +actually, although sometimes he did indirectly when he got to thinking +about it later, back home. But any regret is overcome by the thought of +what the Germans did to Britain first. + +Among the rumors we occasionally get back home is that German planes +are being turned out with very few and very poor instruments. The +R.A.F. boys say that is nonsense. German planes shot down over England +are all fully equipped with instruments, and these boys say their +workmanship is superb. The lads who have to face the music don’t fool +themselves, as we sometimes do at home. + +An all-night flight to Germany or Italy in a bombing plane is a long +and grueling task. And it’s the sort of job you can’t keep on doing +night after night, as though you were going to work in a mill. + +In the heavy days of the spring of 1940 bomber pilots were making as +many as five trips a week, but now the average is less. When they +have made a certain number of trips they are “posted” for other +duties--which means a rest. It usually involves transfer to a training +station as an instructor. + +Although the boys are all disappointed when bad weather washes out any +one night’s operations, still I believe they are a little glad to have +the rest when it comes. It takes some months to work up the number of +trips necessary before a man is given a rest. This station has only one +man so far who is back on night bombing duty after having been posted. +He came back in less than the scheduled time--because at the training +station he talked so much about his experiences he drove his fellow +pilots almost crazy! + +The funniest incident I have heard about at this station is about one +of their bombers that got lost and finally landed in Germany, just +after daylight. The fliers asked some German farmers where they were, +and the farmers told them. They got back in the plane and flew safely +home. + +But they rarely get lost, for they are thoroughly skilled at instrument +flying when they arrive for duty. + +I have a friend--the best one I’ve made, and whom I’m going to see +again in another part of the world--who was telling me about a crash +he’d been in. We were riding in a car as he talked about it--he and I +in the front seat. I asked him if this was his only accident. He said +“Yes,” and then reached around and said, “Where’s some wood to knock +on?” Three other pilots were riding in the back seat, and they yelled +as if they had caught somebody stealing jam: “Jimmy’s shooting a line! +Jimmy’s shooting a line! He must be, if he’s looking for wood to knock +on.” + +You hear that term, “shooting a line,” more than any other expression +around an R.A.F. field. The boys razz each other with it. They don’t +spare anybody, no matter what he’s been through. Anyone who talks about +anything he has done is accused of shooting a line. And since everybody +talks, everybody is eventually accused. It’s all good-natured. + +They had one pilot, now transferred, who was a colossal line-shooter. +He would come back from every trip with the most fantastic tales of his +adventures. He never repeated himself, and he never had a dull story. +The boys felt lonesome for weeks after he left. + +At home we have only a few sergeant pilots in the Air Corps, but +Britain has many of them. It is not unusual for a great British bomber +to be captained by a sergeant, who all during the trip is in command +over the commissioned officers who make up his crew. + +The greatest discomfort the bomber crews have is the cold. They almost +freeze to death. The planes are heated by hot air from the engines, yet +so much cold wind gets in that they really suffer. They’re now getting +electrically heated boots and gloves, which will solve the problem. + +Unlike our airline transports, a bomber has only one set of controls. +The captain and the second pilot have to trade seats when they relieve +each other. One of the boys told me how one night over northern Italy, +when he was second pilot but was flying the plane at the time, the +motors suddenly went dead. So he nosed the plane over into a dive, and +while they were diving straight downward he and the captain changed +seats. The motors caught again at 3000 feet and they came home safely. + +And incidentally, you know how worried we get on an airplane when one +motor goes out? Well, it is not unusual at all for these bombers to +come all the way from Berlin on one engine. + + * * * * * + +These young fellows admit that they do get scared sometimes. +Scared--yet on the whole they take it just as a matter of course. + +Usually they circle over the objective for an hour or so, dodging +antiaircraft fire and getting a good sight on the target. One officer +told me that once when he was flying as a second pilot, and not at the +controls, he actually went to sleep right over Berlin--slept in his +seat for half an hour and didn’t wake up till the captain yelled at him +to work out a course for home. + +I asked if they ever saw German night fighters in the air. Not often, +they said, but they’ve all had instances. One of my pilot friends says +he has ordered his tail-gunner never to fire if he sees a German plane +flashing past in the night, for there is always a chance the German +didn’t see them. This friend has had half a dozen cases where a German +fighter whizzed past so close there was almost a collision, but the +enemy never saw them at all. + +The five men who go out in a bomber take a lunch of chocolate, cakes +and fruit and a thermos bottle of hot tea or coffee. One pilot said +he opened his hot tea one night and found that it was frozen solid. +Most of them aren’t interested in lunch while flying. What they really +look forward to is that hot breakfast when they get home, just before +daylight. One officer whom I know, a tail-gunner, doesn’t care much for +sweets and he always brings his bar of chocolate back with him from +Germany for his five-year-old daughter. + +A pilot flies the same plane every trip. And he tries to keep the same +flying and ground crews. On days when he is not scheduled to go out +that night, he hangs around the plane getting it all fixed up just the +way he wants it. He comes to think of that plane as almost belonging to +him. + +A man bent on a mission of death finds time to appreciate beauty, too. +One of the boys said the most beautiful sight he had ever seen was the +Alps on a clear moonlit night. He had never seen them before. They were +covered with snow, and their dark-shadowed sides gave the effect of a +ghostly etching. + +Another pilot looked down one night on his way home and there were +stars right beneath him. He thought sure he had got bottom-side up, but +it turned out he was seeing a reflection from the sky in the English +Channel below. + +Pilots have various slang terms for things. An automatic pilot is known +as George. An airplane is a kite. And of course the Germans are always +referred to as Jerry. It happens that I have a very close friend back +in America named Jerry. I hope when I get home she doesn’t try to bomb +me. If she does, I suppose I’ll just have to shoot her down. + + + + +_VI. THE CAVE DWELLERS_ + + +_1. ALL I COULD BEAR_ + + _London, + February, 1941_ + +This war has driven millions of people to burrow underground like +moles. On an average, one-fourth of London’s population has slept +underground in the past six months. + +On nights when the raids are bad, about half of London is below the +surface. And in certain sections, such as the Borough of Stepney in the +poor East End, with its population of a quarter of a million, they say +that on bad nights ninety-nine per cent of the people are down below. +It is a sorry life. + +I have been in shelters night after night after night. I’ve been in +about fifty of them in all, from the lowliest to the most luxurious, +from vast stockyards of places that hold 14,000 people, on down to +refined little underground homes buttressed like Gibraltar. + +It is going to be hard to describe a shelter so that you can picture +it; just as it would be hard to describe a ship to somebody who had +never seen one. For there must be as many kinds of shelters under +London as there are kinds of ships on the sea. But in general, +sheltering falls into four classifications: (1) the tubes, which is +to say the subways; (2) private shelters, under hotels and apartment +houses; (3) vast public shelters in the basements of thousands of +strong buildings, and (4) Anderson shelters--the artificial cave that +the home owner builds in the backyard for his family alone. + +I suppose that back home we have read more about life in the tubes than +in any of the other shelters. Possibly that is because it is forbidden +to name other big shelters, for fear of directing German bombs to them. +Yet fewer people sleep in the tubes than in any of the three other +types of shelter. + +Here are some figures to show just how much of London can get under +shelter at night, how much of it actually takes shelter, and where: + +(The last column of figures comes from a shelter census taken +throughout Greater London on a recent quiet night.) + + Capacity Census + Tubes 178,000 96,000 + Private group shelters 930,000 209,000 + Public Shelters 1,323,000 368,000 + Anderson shelters 3,418,000 1,271,000 + ---------- ---------- + Total 5,849,000 1,944,000 + +Taking into account the evacuation, on which there are no definite +figures, let us assume that the population of Greater London today +is eight million. Then these figures mean that there are shelter +accommodations for nearly three-fourths of the people, and that on +quiet nights only one-fourth of the population uses them. On bad nights +this figure doubles. + +When I say that only a fourth of London is burrowing in these winter +nights, don’t get the idea that the other three-fourths are out around +the town. Only a few thousand are. The rest are at home, behind their +blackout curtains. + +In the past few weeks bad weather has disrupted the raiders, and they +have been over London on an average only four nights a week. And only +about one night a week has there been really heavy raiding. People grow +nonchalant about it, possibly too nonchalant. But just let London get +two bad nights in a row and see what happens. You would see well over +half of London diving for the basements. + +Today, after six months of hiding from bombs, the shelter population +has become pretty well settled. The same people go to the same shelters +each night. They sleep in the same spots, either in bunks or on the +floor. The Ministry of Health is installing bunks so fast there are now +some 350,000, and before spring the number will probably pass a million. + +There are all kinds of opinion about the people who live in shelters. +Social workers think they’re wonderful. Some people consider them +cowards. As far as I can see, they have the same strengths and +weaknesses that people in the mass have everywhere, in war or out. They +are just people doing the best they can with a situation that is pretty +bad. + +The shelters do harbor some conscription dodgers and petty thieves, +and a horde of young men who refuse to act as fire watchers or do much +of anything else. They are weak characters. At home they would be +drugstore cowboys; here they’re called “tube Cuthberts.” + +When life has simmered down to the point where you have to choose +between being bombed and living like swine on the floor of a dungeon, +then life has indeed become pretty bleak. And this isn’t just in +London. All over England people are burrowing in shelters at night. +Millions of them are living through these sixteen-hour winter nights +like that--just down there waiting in a tube or a basement or a dugout. + +There is no denying that it’s better than being dead, but it’s a hell +of a way to live. + +I got my first view of an underground shelter crowd at the big +Liverpool Street tube station. + +It was around eight o’clock on a raidless night. A policeman in the +upper vestibule told us just to go down the escalator and take a +look--as though it were a zoo. So we did. + +Somehow I must have thought that there’d be nobody down there that +night, or that if there were they’d be invisible or something, because +I wasn’t emotionally ready at all to see people lying around by the +thousands on cold concrete. + +In my first days in England I had seen terrible bomb damage. I had seen +multitudinous preparations for war. I had talked with wounded soldiers. +I had gone through London’s great night of fire-bombing. I had listened +for hours to the crack of guns and the crunch of bombs. And although I +didn’t especially know it at the time, none of these things went clear +down deep inside and made me hurt. + +It was not until I went down seventy feet into the bowels of the +Liverpool Street tube and saw humanity sprawled there in childlike +helplessness that my heart first jumped and my throat caught. I know I +must have stopped suddenly and drawn back. I know I must have said to +myself, “Oh my God!” + +We hunted up the shelter marshal, and talked to him for a long time. +He was immensely proud of his shelter, and I suppose he had a right +to be, for they say it is paradise now compared to what it was in the +beginning. He told us to take a walk through the shelter and then meet +him at the back entrance. + +This is a new section of the tunnel, not yet used by trains. The tube +is narrower than most of New York’s subway excavations, and it is +elliptical in shape. It is walled with steel casing. + +We walked to the far end, about an eighth of a mile, through one +tube, and then back in the parallel tube. On benches on each side, as +though sitting and lying on a long street-car seat, were the people, +hundreds of them. And as we walked on they stretched into thousands. In +addition, there was a row of sleeping forms on the wooden floor of the +tube, stretched crosswise. Their bodies took up the whole space, so we +had to watch closely when we put our feet down between the sleepers. + +Many of these people were old--wretched and worn old people, people +who had never known many of the good things of life and who were now +winding up their days on this earth in desperate discomfort. They were +the bundled-up, patched-up people with lined faces that we have seen +sitting dumbly in waiting lines at our own relief offices at home. + +There were children too, some asleep and some playing. There were +youngsters in groups, laughing and talking and even singing. There were +smart-alecks and there were quiet ones. There were hard-working people +of middle age who had to rise at five o’clock and go to work. Some +people sat knitting or playing cards or talking. But mostly they just +sat. And though it was only eight o’clock, many of the old people were +already asleep. + +It was the old people who seemed so tragic. Think of yourself at +seventy or eighty, full of pain and of the dim memories of a lifetime +that has probably all been bleak. And then think of yourself traveling +at dusk every night to a subway station, wrapping your ragged overcoat +about your old shoulders and sitting on a wooden bench with your back +against a curved steel wall. Sitting there all night, in nodding and +fitful sleep. Think of that as your destiny--every night, every night +from now on. + +People looked up as we came along in our good clothes and our +obviously American hats. I had a terrible feeling of guilt as I walked +through there--the same feeling that I have had when going through +penitentiaries, staring at the prisoners. I couldn’t look people in +the face; consequently I didn’t see very much of the human visage that +night, for I looked mostly at the floor. But I saw all I could bear. I +saw enough. + +Since that first night I have seen so much of it I no longer feel +that way about the shelterers in mass. Repetition makes the unusual +become commonplace. Enough of anything dulls the emotions. But I still +think my first impression was a valid one. I still think it speaks the +frightening poverty of character in this world more forcibly than do +the bombs that cause it. + +A bombed building looks like something you have seen before--it looks +as though a hurricane had struck. But the sight of thousands of poor, +opportunityless people lying in weird positions against cold steel, +with all their clothes on, hunched up in blankets, lights shining in +their eyes, breathing fetid air--lying there far underground like +rabbits, not fighting, not even angry; just helpless, scourged, weakly +waiting for the release of another dawn--that, I tell you, is life +without redemption. + + +_2. DOUBLE-X_ + + _London, + February, 1941_ + +I went into an East End shelter, beneath a railroad track, with a +friend who supervises repair work on shelter buildings. + +This railroad runs through the city on a high grade, the top of which +is heavily arched over with stone. At the street level, under the +tracks, are large rooms. And here underneath the rumbling trains people +sleep at night. + +It was about 11 P.M. when we went into one of the rooms. It was +dungeonlike and gloomy, with only a faint light, and very cold. About +twenty people lay on the floor on mattresses, covered with quilts. +Everyone was asleep, or so we thought. + +My friend looked at the ceiling to see if recent work aimed at stopping +the seepage of water had been finished. We didn’t say anything, but +suddenly from among the recumbent forms came a woman’s voice: + +“When are we going to get bunks--after the war’s over?” + +The voice was old, but it wasn’t a complaining voice, or a bitter one. +There was even a note of gaiety in it. + +The remark opened up other sleepers, and many of them put in an +oar. They lay on their backs and talked up to my friend about the +discomforts of this miserable place. + +There were old men and women with lined faces. There were middle-aged +men who said nothing. There were children. And side by side lay two +girls--beautiful girls in their twenties--with nets on their hair and +cold cream on their faces. At Ohio State they would be popular coeds. +Here they lay on their backs on concrete floors, looking up as we stood +and talked for some fifteen minutes. + +And then in the midst of this conversation I heard--if you’ll excuse +me--what seemed to be someone using the toilet. The room grew silent +for a moment, and the sound was magnified. + +I didn’t believe it could be true--here in public before children and +elders and two lovely modern girls you’d have been proud to take to the +Ritz for dinner. It seemed impossible among civilized people. But it +was true. The only toilet in that room was a public bucket. + +Nobody laughed or blushed. This vulgar intimacy had become accepted as +a way of life under the whip of war. + +As we left, the old voice with the gaiety in it called to me and my +friend: “We’ll all be dead before you get this place fixed up, so you’d +better leave a deposit on a wreath for me.” + +They were all laughing as we left. + + * * * * * + +Shelter Double-X is in the East End. I call it Double-X because I can’t +give its real name. + +People feel sentimental about Double-X, they have been there so long. +Some ten thousand people live there every night. It is one of the +biggest shelters in London. It is so big it is like a state fair. It +takes you hours to go through it. + +Openings have been walled up, and shock walls have been built a few +feet in front of the entrances. The great vaultlike space is divided +into bays, each holding more than a hundred persons. Each bay is +numbered, and each one has its own submarshals, selected by the people +themselves. + +At first, ten thousand people slept on the floor. But now bunks are +going in. + +Double-X has two big first-aid rooms, with Red Cross nurses in charge. +It has canteens. It has a wagon refreshment stand, run by a Negro. It +has one vast long promenade devoted to nothing but milling up and down +on parade, just like the boardwalk at Atlantic City, except under cover. + +Double-X is not modern and not too immaculate, but it has the saving +grace of having become a social center. People like to be at Double-X +because they have so much fun. It’s full of young people, handsome +young people, walking and talking and laughing. And it’s cosmopolitan. +There must be somebody there from every nation on earth. + +Everything happens at Double-X, from births to deaths. Evening +classes for adults are held. There is a library. There are romances. +Multitudinous soldiers on leave go there to find girls. Double-X +is a big, jolly city, all under one roof. Its inconveniences are +overshadowed by its personality. It is a gigantic human omelet, fried +in war. + + * * * * * + +Now to a private Anderson shelter. + +This is a half-above-ground cellar, usually built in a backyard. As +I have said before, there are thousands upon thousands of them in +Britain--in the suburbs, the small towns and the country they hold more +people than all other kinds of shelters put together. + +Any person making less than $20 a week is supplied free with the +material for an Anderson. Others must buy their own. + +An Anderson shelter is formed of walls of sheet iron, heavily banked on +the outside with dirt. A direct hit will demolish an Anderson, but it +is good insurance against a nearby blast and flying debris. The other +day I saw one standing quite unharmed not 15 feet from a bomb crater +that was 20 feet across. + +But four people are miserably cramped in an Anderson shelter. Often the +owners have trouble with water seeping up through the floor. And it is +a problem to heat them without suffocating. + +At first the Andersons were considered wonderful, but now the +government is threshing over a new policy of shoring up and fortifying +one room in your house as a healthier and safer shelter. + + * * * * * + +The average Londoner who sleeps underground every night has done a lot +of shopping around before settling down in a particular shelter for the +duration. It is something like looking for a new apartment to rent. The +choice is based on what looks safest, and on whether you like the crowd +or not. + +As horrible as shelter life seems to me, one marshal told me he felt +sure that after the war many people would want to keep on living +underground. Londoners are gregarious. They like to be in a crowd. + +I’ll have to admit that the people I’ve seen in many shelters seemed to +be making a picnic of it. Also, people have a feeling that the more of +them there are together, the safer they are. + +I was in a good-sized room that was only half-filled, and the people +were grumbly and unhappy. The marshal said that if you’d pack fifty +people in there they’d be as happy as June bugs. + +Some people, of course, do prefer the quiet and privacy of the smaller +public shelters, where just a few people can sit around, sew, play +cards and talk. + +I went into one basement that held only two dozen people, and they had +a piano. They were all singing when I walked in. And they happened to +be singing “Marching Through Georgia.” + +In Soho I visited two or three shelters in the basements of small +office buildings. They were cozy and pleasant, and you had at least a +feeling of privacy. In the small shelters you can fix up a bunk in a +corner with some permanency, and get a few little homey things around +you. + +People often go long distances to sleep in their favorite shelters. +They say people travel by bus and subway four or five miles to sleep in +the big, jolly Double-X shelter; yet other people who live within two +blocks of Double-X will travel four or five miles nightly by tube to +sleep underground at Marble Arch. + +Although people in all the public shelters have to take their bedding +home every morning, “guests” in some shelters are so permanent that +they are allowed to install their own iron beds and chairs. You see +whole rows of deep old leather chairs right out of the sitting rooms at +home, with old people sitting up asleep in them. And there are hundreds +of canvas deck chairs that people sleep in all night. + +Whenever, late in the afternoon, you see somebody with a cheap brown +suitcase going down the street, he is on his way to a shelter for the +night. I wish I had been in the cheap-brown-suitcase business this past +year. You even see people going to shelters in taxis, but with their +cheap brown suitcases. + +At Double-X you see hundreds of baby buggies parked around the walls. +They didn’t bring babies; they brought bedding. Officials think they +may be forced to forbid baby buggies, for people bring so much stuff in +them. It takes up too much room. Some people come practically ready to +set up housekeeping. + +I was amazed at the number of soldiers in the shelters. That seemed +dreadful to me. A soldier comes home on a few days’ leave for some +life, liberty and a little fling at happiness. And then, because his +home has gone or his folks have moved, he has to spend his leave lying +on a dungeon floor. + +However, not all the soldiers go to shelters because they have to. Lots +of them go there to pick up girls. And officials at Double-X hint that +some of the girls are not of the whitest virtue. The wardens worry +about this; but virtue or not, I will say that there are girls at +Double-X in the poor East End who are the loveliest I have seen in all +London. + +Incidentally, the girls over here are wearing coats with those +Alaska-type parkas, of the same material, that pull over the head. And +they look snappy. + +Many people, after trying the new shelter bunks installed by the +government, go back to the floor. The bunks are less than two feet +wide, and too short for comfort. On the floor, people have room to +stretch and roll around. + +Most of the bunks are three-deckers. Those in the tube stations are +made of steel. All the rest are of wood, pegged together at the joints +so they can easily be knocked down and moved. They are unfinished, and +look very home-made. Some have slat bottoms, others canvas bottoms. + +The other night I was in a shelter that had not had the bunks installed +yet, and the marshal said the people had taken a vote and only two out +of the three hundred wanted bunks. But they have to take them anyway, +for the Ministry of Health says so. + +A few people, in the better shelters, bring pajamas and put them on +before going to bed. But they are very few. Most people sleep with +all their clothes on, even their hats. I have been surprised at how +few slacks I’ve seen on women. I should think they would be ideal for +shelter sleeping. + +Before leaving home I was told by a British friend to bring a ski +suit. He said it was just the thing for jumping into quickly, and for +shelter wear. But I’ve been practically living in shelters for a week, +and I haven’t seen a ski suit yet. Anyway, I would feel sort of silly +stretched out here on a deep sofa in room 672 of the Savoy Hotel in a +ski suit. + + +_3. STARS AND STRIPES_ + + _London, + February, 1941_ + +A lot of mighty fine sacrificing is being done in the bomb shelters of +London. + +I don’t care where you go, whether to one of the vast corral-like +shelters or to a small neat one in the West End, there is somebody +there who is giving his time and his strength and his heart for his +fellow humans. + +Take one big basement shelter in the East End which holds around three +thousand people. There in that vast hotel of sorts is a tiny, dwarfed +man named Mickey Davis. He comes only to my waist. You have to lean +over when you talk to him. + +He has not been out of that shelter since last September except for an +occasional walk. He works day and night. And he doesn’t get a cent for +it. People idolize him. + +“There’s something queer about living underground,” he told me. “You +stay down here so long you don’t even want to go outside. Then when you +do go out and get accustomed to the fresh air again you don’t want to +come back down.” + +There are thousands and thousands of “Davises” serving these harassed +people of London. + +I have a friend who works as an accountant all day and then serves most +of the night as a shelter marshal, without pay. I’ve seen girls who +clerk all day in a ten-cent store and then go to an East End shelter +to serve thousands of people over the canteen counter till ten o’clock +at night. And they are up at five in the morning to serve early tea +and coffee. They do that every night, and they get no pay for it. In +the West End I saw women of comfortable means who go every night to +sit on stools and make sandwiches by the thousands to be sold to the +shelterers at cost. + +Britain’s civil army has its big blitz heroes who are the greatest this +war has produced. But it also has its little heroes by the tens of +thousands. I think it’s lots harder to be a little hero, because you +have to keep so everlastingly at it. + +Back in September, shelter management was in a state of chaos. They +were just learning then. So great were the crowds that women would +fold up their bedding and go out the front door of a shelter at eight +o’clock in the morning, and then turn right around and stand there all +day in line, waiting to get back through the same door at four that +afternoon. + +But now the population of each shelter is pretty well settled down into +permanent residence. Also, each section or bay of a shelter is somewhat +self-governing. A deputy marshal, chosen by the people, knows everybody +in his particular bay, and where they sleep, so they no longer have to +wait in line. The marshal reserves space for them. + +All these deputy marshals are volunteers, serving without pay. Chief +marshals get about $13 a week, and how they work for it! + +It was amazing and touching the way the Christmas spirit was kept up +during the holidays. People banded together and got up Christmas trees, +and chipped in to buy gifts all around. I visited more than thirty +shelters during the holidays, and there was not a one that was not +elaborately decorated. + +In all the shelters used by Greeks, the people have fixed up composite +pictures of King George of England and King George of Greece alongside +each other. Every shelter has a flag and at least one big picture of +the King and the usual “God Save Our Home” mottoes. And that brings +me back to a little incident up at the vast and conglomerate Double-X +shelter, which has a heavily Jewish population. + +The shelter marshal there asked me if I knew where he could get an +American flag. + +“It’s funny your coming here tonight,” he said, “for I just had that +request this morning. Most of the people here have relatives in the +States. They want an American flag. They say England and America are +the only two countries left in the world.” + +Well, I’m not much on flags, but I figured it was up to me. So I went +down to Selfridge’s, bought the last American flag they had and took it +out to Double-X. + +The next day the shelter marshal called up, practically agog with +gratitude, and said the people had made a great fuss over it. He said +the women had started already making copies of it to hang all over the +place. He said he had put twenty-four Greeks from a torpedoed merchant +ship in that bay the night before, and they cheered when they saw the +flag. + +So I guess Ernest has done his good deed for 1941. The flag cost $2.50 +too. I’m all torn now over whether I should be a hero and pay for it +myself, or be a heel and put it on my expense account. I guess maybe +I’ll wait until I can be a more expensive heel. + + * * * * * + +I want to tell you about two remarkable shelters in London. Both of +them come under the head of private group shelters. They are not open +to the public. + +The first one I saw, I was taken into privately and half +surreptitiously, for few people even know that it exists. It must be +one of the safest shelters in all London. It is in the basement of an +apartment building, in a business section, and there is a bank on the +ground floor. The shelter is the basement vault of the bank. + +They’ve spent more than $10,000 fixing it up. Not a cent of this went +for fancy trimmings, for the shelter isn’t fancy at all. Every penny +went for the physical strengthening of this vault. + +There are five stories of strong building above the vault, and the +ceiling of the vault itself is five feet of concrete. The vault +consists of two rooms. In the smaller one, concrete has been added to +make the ceiling eight feet thick. The walls are more than three feet +thick. The doors are of heavy steel. On two sides of the vault are +hallways, and beyond these another thick wall. Surrounding all four +walls is old Mother Earth. + +An elaborate arrangement of huge cogwheels manipulates a heavy steel +trapdoor in the ceiling. This is an emergency escape door. Above this +door, which leads to the ground floor, is the heaviest table I ever +saw. Its legs are oaken posts a foot thick, and it has a heavy steel +top to keep debris from choking down on top of the door. + +The steel doors of the vault close on rubber strips, which make it +gas-proof. If the lights are knocked out there is an auxiliary lighting +plant, run from batteries. The ordinary escape doors out in the hall +have been shored up with lengths of railroad iron to support debris. + + * * * * * + +At the door of the Savoy Hotel’s shelter a man in a tuxedo sits at a +desk. He checks in those residents of the hotel who wish to sleep in +the shelter. + +Inside, the shelter is softly lighted and quiet as a grave. It is +air-conditioned. Great heavy satin draperies hang at the doorways, and +other draperies divide the shelter into bays holding about twenty beds +each. There is a wide aisle down the center, and the curtains make it +all resemble a gigantic Pullman car made up for the night. + +The beds are soft and deep. They have mattresses of the same type as +are found in the regular hotel rooms. The linen is fresh. + +There is a separate lounge in one corner where you can sit in deep +chairs at tables and drink coffee. Just one floor up is a small bar. + +The whole shelter is shored up with an intricate framework of heavy +steel piping to brace the ceiling against the weight of bomb debris. At +the entrance are three separate doors, one after the other, and each +has a gas-proof curtain that can be lowered. + +The shelter has its own maids and porters. It also has a full Red Cross +unit, manned by seven part-time nurses. During the early September +raids they treated many bomb casualties brought in off the streets. + +The Savoy shelter can sleep more than two hundred people. Many of the +hotel’s guests sleep there every night, whether there’s a raid or not. + +Single men and single women are assigned separate bays, and there are +bays for married couples. And carrying shelter etiquette to the nth +degree, they even have a separate compartment for chronic snorers. They +just herd ’em all together and let ’em snore it out. In fact, when the +blitz first started, and before they hit on the idea of segregating the +noisy ones, the hotel had one man on its night staff whose sole duty +was to go around and shake up snorers! + + +_4. LOOKING AHEAD_ + + _London, + February, 1941_ + +As a whole, life in London’s public air-raid shelters reminds me of +nothing so much as our own makeshift depression camps at home. + +They sprang up suddenly out of a desperate need and amid considerable +chaos. Like our camps, they are gradually getting better. As in our +Okie camps, the people have set up a form of self-government. They +elect their own leaders, and they have committees and representatives +who sit on higher councils for making shelter rules and demanding +better conditions--and God knows there is plenty of room for better +conditions in some of the shelters. + +The body heat of thousands of packed people makes some shelters +stifling. In others, deep beneath stone arches and with concrete +floors, the chill dampness is deadly. At one church in Stepney, people +were actually sleeping until recently in stone coffins that once held +corpses. + +It wasn’t until my second week of visiting shelters, when I was taken +purposely to certain places, that I saw what a modernized shelter can +begin to look like. + +Let us take the Borough of Stepney as an example of what they are +trying to do. This borough of a quarter of a million people has 300 +shelters. They are not at regular intervals, but they are never many +blocks apart. Most of them are not marked. At night you have to know +ahead of time which door to go in. It is possible to walk along a dark +sidewalk at night right past a door behind which there are lights and +three thousand people and not realize that there is a soul within miles. + +All these basements are leased by the borough. When the blitz started +they weren’t ready, and ever since they’ve been working on these +basements right in the midst of all the people, trying to make them +more habitable. But now Stepney has a program. More basements are +constantly being rented and converted into shelters. When the program +is finished, if it ever is finished, they hope to have 500 shelters. + +Both for safety from bombs and for reasons of health, they want to +disperse--to get the shelters thinned out. Under the new program they +pick a strong basement, then work on it for weeks until it is fully +ready before letting anybody in. At first it is shored up with a maze +of brick walls, which also divide the basement into rooms housing +twenty or thirty people each. Then wooden bunks are installed in rows. +The ceilings are sealed with concrete so water can’t seep through. +The floors are concreted, if they were not already. A first-aid +room is installed, with medical supplies. Banks of modern private +toilets are built. Some shelters will even have shower baths, for +the disinclination of poor people to bathe is worrying the doctors. +Canteens are installed so the shelterers can get something warm at a +reasonable price. Last, and best of all, a system of forced ventilation +is put in. It is really air-conditioning--it can blow in either hot or +cold air, and suck out dead air. + +That is what Stepney is aiming at. And other boroughs are doing the +same. When all this program is finished, London’s shelters will be +quite habitable underground dormitories. But right now too many of them +are little better than underground Hoovervilles. + +The churches have really done a great work in this shelter emergency. +Many thousands of people are spending their nights in the lower depths +of strongly built churches. In fact, of all the public shelters I +have seen I like best the one in the basement of the Church of St. +Martin’s-in-the-Fields, in Trafalgar Square. + +This old church is known to all American tourists who have been in +London. Until a year and a half ago its extensive crypts were filled +with the bones of the ancient dead. But the rector had these taken out +and buried elsewhere about eighteen months ago, preparatory to using +these rooms for social activities. They got the job finished just +in time for the war. The newly emptied crypts made perfect air-raid +shelters. And that is what they are today. + +The crypts are filled with double-decked bunks. Central heating has +just been installed. Also banks of private toilets. Everything is +clean. There is a separate crypt for mothers with small babies. There +is an all-night restaurant for people in uniform. There is a canteen +for civilians. + +You don’t have to listen to a mission sermon, either. There are +billiard and pingpong tables in the big central hall. It is more like a +clubhouse than a church. + +St. Martin’s can sleep 500 people. Although it is in the rich West End, +anybody can come. And anybody does--well-dressed men of the world, old +Jewish mothers, soldiers, girls, and a great run of just average people +like you and me. + +You warm to St. Martin’s as you do to a new acquaintance whom you like +immensely. There is character here. + +When you see a church with a bomb hole in its side and 500 fairly safe +and happy people in its basement, and girls smoking cigarettes inside +the sacred walls without anybody yelling at them, then I say that +church has found a real religion. + +Before I started over here I had a horror of being caught in some +big wartime epidemic this winter. Well, it hasn’t happened. So far, +England’s wartime health apparently is excellent. How or why, I don’t +know; for it seems to me that with a fourth of London’s population +crammed into holes beneath the earth’s surface an epidemic would be a +setup. + +It’s true that the city has been full of colds this winter. Many people +who use the air-raid shelters suffer from something called “shelter +throat.” There is always much coughing--heavy coughing. I’ve had my +cold, along with the rest. It kept me in bed for nearly a week, and I +didn’t feel so good. But I wasn’t half as sick that week as I was the +day I got my doctor’s bill--$38. + +Scarlet fever and diphtheria have actually shown a decline this winter. +Pneumonia is up just a little. There has been no outbreak of real +influenza. Typhoid has caused no worries. The only disease that has +really gone up is cerebrospinal meningitis, known as spotted fever. +This has jumped from 1500 cases in 1939 to 12,500 cases in 1940. + +Right now London is in the midst of its most critical two winter +months, and the doctors are keeping their fingers crossed, knocking +on wood and throwing salt in seven directions. If they can go another +month they’ll be over the winter hump, and if they do get through +without an epidemic I think they should salaam three times to +Allah--and then start on preparations for next winter. + +Those shelters have got to be improved faster than they are being +improved now, regardless of cost. An epidemic in London might give +Hitler the opening he’s waiting for. These people simply can’t go +on living through winters this way without grave trouble. It seems +to me that before another winter every big shelter must have a +system of forced ventilation, sanitary toilets, adequate heating and +warmer floors. They must be made dry. They must have better medical +departments. + +They did the best they could this winter. The biggest shelters have +nurses. There are some doctors on duty. But most of the smaller ones +have nothing of this sort. I visited one where the people themselves +had chipped in to buy a medical kit; and the shelter marshal, who knew +nothing at all about medicine, was acting as doctor and nurse. In +another, the medical box was padlocked, and whoever had the key hadn’t +been around for days. + +I remember reading a report by British doctors early last fall, saying +that the lice and flea population of London was increasing alarmingly. +I’ve asked about this at several of the poorest shelters, and so far as +I can tell this increase has been halted. The smell of disinfectants is +strong in all the big shelters, for they are cleaned and sprayed every +morning. But, to my mind, they still aren’t clean enough. + +The first-aid rooms in the larger shelters are really miniature +hospitals, staffed by Red Cross nurses and doctors who volunteer their +services nightly. At the Double-X shelter I looked over their records +for the last two months. About a fourth of the cases they had treated +were of people suffering from boils. This seemed odd, so I asked about +it, and one of the nurses said it was the result of the poor people’s +diet. Blood, toil, tears, sweat--and boils. + +Shelter life in London, even at its best, is no bargain. I had thought +I might find it exciting, or even romantic in spots, but I didn’t. It +seems to me there is something degrading to the human spirit in lying +all night, crowded among other people, on a basement floor, within +arm’s reach of open toilets, in bad air and under constant supervision +even on nights when no raid is in progress. I fear eventually it will +do the same thing to weaken characters that being in prison does. + +There are millions of people in London who prefer to take their chances +in their homes, or somewhere else above ground. And I believe I am one +of them. + + + + +_VII. EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH_ + + +_1. FEAR, WITH LAUGHTER_ + + _York, + February, 1941_ + +Yesterday I received notice that if I didn’t get a move on I was to be +expelled in disgrace from the Guild of Perpetual Travelers. So after +six weeks of gathering moss in London, I packed my old sugar sack, +shouldered my tin hat and gas mask, and hopped a northbound train to +see how the war was getting on in the hinterland. + +I took a 4 P.M. train out of London on the 160-mile ride to York. I got +to the station half an hour early, and a good thing too, for within a +minute after the train backed into the station there was hardly a seat +left. + +Easily two-thirds of the people on trains these days are in uniform. +There are very few women. Soldiers on leave travel with full kit, +including rifle. And a soldier with his full kit resembles a packhorse +starting on a ten-day camping trip. They carry all this stuff because +they must be ready at any moment. If the invasion comes while they’re +at home, they simply report to the nearest army post and start shooting. + + * * * * * + +You might think that with a war on, half the hotels in England would +have to close. But it’s just the opposite. The hotels have waiting +lists, and if you don’t make reservations ahead you are liable to find +yourself homeless. + +That nearly happened to me in York when I arrived at eight o’clock in +the evening. If it hadn’t been for a beautiful switchboard girl who +called every hotel and boarding house in town I would have had to sit +in the lobby all night. I fed her chocolates while she phoned, so we +both profited. + +Finally she found a place, a funny little semi-hotel that turned out to +be grand. The owner was also the bellboy, and he built me a coal fire +in the grate, put a hot-water bottle in the bed, and then stood and +talked for half an hour. + +There are many good-sized cities in England that haven’t been blitzed +yet. York has had only a few raids, and only a small number of people +have been killed by bombs in this city of 85,000. + +As we stood in my room talking, I said to the owner: “What shall I do +about ventilation tonight? I can’t open the blackout curtain with this +fire going in the grate.” + +He answered, “Oh, this terrible old building is full of drafts. You’ll +get plenty of air without opening a window.” And he was right. + +Until nearly midnight I sat before my fireplace reading the newspapers. +I felt very strange, way up here in York. The city, covered with +snow and very quiet, seemed terribly old, and nice in a Dickens way. +Although it was February, you somehow expected to see Santa Claus +coming down the chimney. + +The papers had grave editorials warning about the coming invasion +attempt. I read and thought, and read and thought, here alone in +my ancient room in old York, and a funny thing happened. I had +been in London so long I had acquired the London outlook, the +London casualness, the London assurance that no matter what happens +we can stand it. The Londoner’s psychology is like that of the +aviator--somebody will get killed tonight, but it’ll always be somebody +else, never me. But now, away from my eight million friends in London, +this psychological cloak of safety fell away. Here in these strange +surroundings, among people not yet hardened to bombs, here where the +warning siren is an event, the whole horrible meaning of invasion shone +clear before me like a picture. The frightful slaughter that even an +unsuccessful invasion would bring grew stark and real to me for the +first time. And I tell you I became absolutely petrified with fear for +myself. I would have given everything I had to be back in America. + +I probably wouldn’t have slept a wink if it hadn’t been for the +bathroom. I discovered it after midnight, when everybody else had gone +to bed. + +The bathroom was about twenty feet square, and it had twin bathtubs! +Yes, two big old-fashioned bathtubs sitting side by side with nothing +between, just like twin beds. + +Twin bathtubs had never occurred to me before. But having actually seen +them, my astonishment grew into approval. I said to myself, “Why not? +Think what you could do with twin bathtubs. You could give a party. +You could invite the Lord Mayor in for tea and a tub. You could have a +national slogan, ‘Two tubs in every bathroom.’” + +The potentialities of twin bathtubs assumed gigantic proportions in my +disturbed mind, and I finally fell asleep on the idea, all my fears +forgotten. + + * * * * * + +Some friends drove me over to Harrogate, which is one of England’s +flossiest spas. It is some twenty-five miles from York. + +Harrogate has curative waters, outlandishly huge hotels with prices so +high they are famous, and in war or peace a stream of wealth and titles +that stuns you. + +Into this display of ease a German raider came, in daytime, and the +people all stood in the street watching, thinking it was a British +plane. They changed their minds when a bomb came down. + +I asked if Harrogate had underground public shelters like London’s and +a slightly cynical English newspaper friend of mine said: “Yes, but +nobody ever goes into them. Harrogate is so flossy that everybody is +afraid of being seen in a public shelter in the presence of someone who +isn’t his equal.” + + * * * * * + +English place names fascinate me. There is a street in York called +Whipma Whopma Gate Street. + + * * * * * + +I went down to the tiny lounge of my hotel and sat in front of the fire +with six other guests for late tea. + +This little hotel is the only place I’ve been in--outside of an +officers’ mess--where they’ve had sugar in a bowl on the table, instead +of just a cube for your coffee. The owner said he had found that by +just leaving it out like that, putting people on their honor, guests +used only half the sugar they did in peacetime. + +There were two traveling salesmen at the hotel--one who sold shoes, and +one who sold bread. One of them was from Sheffield, which was badly +blitzed just before Christmas, and he had his wife and two boys with +him. Due to the blitz, the youngsters had a six-week vacation from +school, so they weren’t feeling so hard toward the fortunes of war. + +These two boys were much more interested in asking about streamlined +trains in America than in telling about Sheffield’s blitz. They have +never been on a train. But they have studied mechanical magazines, +and they told me all about the famous Royal Scot and Silver Jubilee +streamliners. + +When we did talk about bombing, I found that they knew as much about +the characteristics of the various bombs as any air warden I’ve talked +with. Yet the recent Sheffield blitz didn’t seem paramount in their +minds at all. + + * * * * * + +Traveling salesmen have a tough time now. They can get plenty of +orders but they can’t get the goods to fill them, because most of the +factories are engaged in war work. Also, their gasoline is rationed. +They’re allowed from five gallons a month upward, depending on how +useful the government considers them. And they try not to do much night +driving, for it is not so pleasant in the blackout. Yet, despite all +this and despite the snowy roads and despite the fact that England +is thickly populated and the speed limits are low, these traveling +salesmen will do 200 miles in a day when they can get gas. + +These two were on the road the next morning by daybreak. + + * * * * * + +Some friends and I, in a York pub, got into a conversation with a +native Yorkshireman, and I couldn’t understand a word he said. I +wouldn’t have let on, except that the friends with me were all British +soldiers and they couldn’t understand him either. So finally we got +into one of those long ridiculous discussions, the way you do in pubs, +with us trying to analyze his talk and him trying to analyze ours. +We all had a wonderful time--probably much better than if we had +understood each other. + +Not all Yorkshiremen talk the way this one did; not even a majority. +Only on farms and in two or three other instances have I had trouble +understanding Yorkshiremen. After I got home that night, and was still +thinking about that fellow, the awful thought occurred to me that maybe +he wasn’t speaking a local dialect at all, but simply couldn’t talk +plain. + + +_2. YORKSHIRE FARM_ + + _Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, + February, 1941_ + +The farmers of Yorkshire are getting a big play in the newspapers right +now. For England realizes that she has got to turn this island into a +big farm, what with Hitler trying to starve her to death by blockade. +So I have been looking around some of the farms up here in Yorkshire. + +The English farmer has had a terrible time since the last war. His +standard of living has been abominably low. They say it is an amazing +thing that anybody stayed on the farm at all. + +The government did help a little, though not as much as ours has done. +But now the government is doing things about the farms. It supplies +loans, controls some prices, and in certain places does practically +everything for the farmer except sitting on the fence and chewing a +straw. But even so, the farm situation seems to me to be still fairly +chaotic. + +The main point is to get as much new land planted as possible. In many +places they are plowing up cricket fields and golf courses. Every city +and village has its “allotment plots,” where townspeople with other +jobs use their spare time working small patches in the city park, +raising vegetables. + +Despite England’s dense population, plenty of land is available. For +example, the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1938 had roughly 750,000 +acres in grass, and only 250,000 acres of tilled land. But in 1940 +and 1941 more than 100,000 acres of this grassland has been plowed up +and planted. Over here they call it “plowing out.” The old days of the +great landholding squire with scores of tenants have pretty well passed +since the last war. A majority of farm land is now owned in plots of +about forty acres. + +There is a hue and cry against the government right now for including +farm hands in the next call-up for the army. The critics contend that +the farms need all the experienced men they have, and that the army +doesn’t need men at all. A “women’s land army” has been formed for work +on the farms. It has 9000 members now, and another thousand are being +recruited. + + * * * * * + +I dropped in to see one Yorkshire farm family. They are not exactly +typical, for they live on government land and are much better off than +most English farmers. + +The head of the house is Robert Wray, who is getting along in years. He +wears leather boots, and a shirt with a collar button but no collar. He +has rheumatism and stays in the house on snowy days such as this one +was. His son Richard does the work, and will until he is called up for +the army. Mr. Wray’s daughter, who was down on her knees scrubbing the +floor when I was there, had just been married and was still very blushy +about it. + +The Wrays have sixty acres, and practically a model house and barn, +built by the government. They pay an annual rental of $4 an acre, and +their yearly income is about $800. + +They live three miles from town, and they don’t have a car or electric +lights or a telephone. They live mostly in the kitchen in winter, but +their kitchen is nicer than most farm kitchens. Instead of a regular +cookstove, they have an open coal grate with ovens built into the wall +beside the grate. + +They have a bathroom, with nothing in it but a bathtub. When I looked +in, there was three inches of water in the tub, and it was partly +frozen over. The toilet is an old-fashioned one in a fuel shed a +few steps back of the house. Every room in the house, including the +bedrooms, has a small coal grate, but these are seldom lighted. + +The house is brick. Practically all English farmhouses are brick or +stone, for timber is scarce. The barn is concrete, and the very last +word. The Wrays keep about thirty head of cattle, a dozen pigs, a few +chickens and no sheep. They farm with horses. All the stock is kept in +separate stalls, spread deep with straw. + +The war seems remote from the Wray farm, yet they are in it along with +all the rest of England. Their home is never likely to be bombed, but +they will feel a drastically tightening economy, and harder work, and +one by one the absence of kith and kin who go away to fight. + +On a wall of the Wray sitting room are two framed pictures. They are +photographs of the young bride’s two uncles, in World War uniforms. One +of them never came back from the last war. And before this one is over +there will be more pictures of fighters on the wall--husbands, brothers +and cousins. For everybody is in it, one way or another. + + +_3. VISIT TO SCOTLAND_ + + _Edinburgh, + February, 1941_ + +Traveling through the countryside of Great Britain these days is hardly +an undiluted pleasure. + +The bad points of traveling include: crowded trains and delayed +schedules, if you’re going by rail; snowy roads, unmarked highways and +a shortage of gasoline, if you’re driving; packed hotels, few taxis, +and, worst of all, hotels that are unheated despite the fact that the +north of England is nearer to the Arctic Circle than Newfoundland is. +On the other hand, there are good points: warm trains, good food, +pleasant companions, beautiful snow-covered scenery, and the fact that +people will always help if you ask them. Bad as the drawbacks sound, +you do get where you’re going, and with surprising speed and comfort. + +There is actually more rail traffic now than in peacetime, but of +course this increase is in freight trains. Passenger service has been +cut down, but not as much as I had thought. There are thirty passenger +trains daily from London to Scotland. The trains are terrifically long +and they are always packed. + +There are no restrictions on travel in England. You don’t have to get +special permission or anything of that sort. You just get on a train +and go. I’ve never had to show my multitudinous special papers since +the day I got them. When I register at a hotel I have to put down my +nationality, my passport number, where I’ve just come from and where +I’m going. The English do too, except that instead of a passport number +they put down their national registration number. + +The better trains carry restaurant cars at dinner time. The diners are +nicer than ours at home, with deep easy chairs. They bring you soup, +lamb, boiled potatoes, cabbage, canned fruit and coffee for about +eighty-five cents. Eating is pleasant on an English train. + +For a stranger like me, it is hard to know when you get to where you’re +going. You almost never see a conductor or a porter. Only occasionally +do they call out a station, and the names have been taken off most +of the stations in order not to give pointers to the Germans if the +invasion comes. At night, of course, the train windows are blacked out +so you can’t see the station you’re coming into, anyway. + +I’ve worked out a scheme of eavesdropping until I spot somebody who is +going where I’m going, and then when he starts putting on his coat to +get off I start putting on mine. + +Some people know the railroad by heart. The other night, on the way +from London to York, our train slowed down and we all thought we were +coming into York. + +“Wait a minute,” said a man in our compartment. “I’ll tell you in a +minute.” + +He sat listening as the train crept forward. Suddenly we could tell we +were crossing a bridge. + +“No, this is not York,” the man said. “This is Selby.” + +From the time we left London, four hours earlier, he had never looked +up from his book, but just from the sound of the wheels he knew exactly +where we were. That’s what living in the blackout does to your senses. + + * * * * * + +In some railroad stations there are porters to help with your bags, +and in some there are not. It is tough on a stranger getting to his +destination at night--and I seem to arrive everywhere at night. You +get off the train and there you are--all alone in a strange city, +not knowing in which direction to go, everything black, and no taxis +available. You just have to stand around helplessly until you dig up +somebody with a kind heart. + +It was nearly midnight when we got into Edinburgh, and it was snowing +and cold. The station was a madhouse of soldiers. I never saw so many +in my life, outside of a camp. A lone taxi would arrive about every +five minutes, and somebody else would get it. Finally, after about a +half hour, I did get one. + +Friends had told me about a hotel which they said was the warmest in +Edinburgh. I’m glad they didn’t direct me to the coldest one, for my +room had no heat whatever. It was like a refrigerator car. So the maid +came at midnight and built a fire in the grate, plugged in a little +electric heater and put a hot-water bottle in my bed. The grate fire, +incidentally, costs fifty cents a day extra, the electric heater thirty +cents. + +I asked the maid to awaken me at eight in the morning and build another +fire when she arrived. So when she knocked, before daylight, I reached +over to unlock the door, as it was close to my bed. But the door wasn’t +as close as I thought, and I kept reaching outward in the dark and +finally reached too far, lost my balance and fell right out of bed onto +the floor and sprained a thumb. + +As I lay there in the dark on the cold floor, tangled up in bed covers, +freezing to death, my thumb hurting, there all alone in a pitch-black +icebox in Scotland with not a friend within four hundred miles, I +thought: Of all the damn fools I’ve ever heard of, you take the prize. +For you could be in Panama or Hawaii now if you had any sense. + +But I haven’t any sense, and in spite of everything, I’m glad I’m here. + + * * * * * + +Edinburgh is a graceful city. It is the Washington or the Ottawa of +Scotland. It is a city of government. It is a planned city. And it +is the sturdiest city I have ever seen. In its buildings, I mean. +Everything is of massive stone, so massive and so heavy that the entire +municipality seems embedded in the rock underfoot. + +It seems to me that Edinburgh would stand up physically under an +aerial blitz better than any other city in Britain. They haven’t had +one yet, and if they ever do, it will be the rankest of outrages, for +Edinburgh is not an industrial city. + +Many things are different up here. There is more food than in London, +and a greater variety of it. You have no trouble getting an excellent +steak. + +Some people say Edinburgh is the gayest city in Britain now. There are +beautiful restaurants, where Scottish officers dancing in kilts make a +picture. + +You never see a civilian with a tin hat or a gas mask. Edinburgh +children were evacuated, but eighty per cent of them have come back. +The movies run at night as well as in the daytime. Nobody sleeps at +night in public shelters, although shelters are available. + +I have friends here who travel to London weekly and who know what has +happened down there. These friends get disgusted with their home folks +when they return. + +“Up here we are all complaining about our stomach aches and +rheumatism,” they say. “It sounds mighty trivial when you have just +come from London, where they really have got something to complain +about--and don’t. I think a little blitzing would do us good.” + +True, Scotland has not been on the receiving end of many bombs. True +also, there is a certain fundamental dislike of England, but that goes +by the boards in an emergency. Their heart is in the war all right. I +have got the impression that if I were an invading German, or even a +fire bomb, I wouldn’t relish the job of trying to land on Scottish soil. + +As far as I can see, Edinburgh’s past immunity to danger has not made +it lax. The city seems to be ready and waiting. It is organized in +every way. Its officials have visited blitzed cities to study what has +happened and have prepared accordingly. + +For example, much of Edinburgh lives in small apartment houses that +they call tenements. Because of this municipal singularity, the Air +Raid Precaution service is different from that in other cities. +Edinburgh is organized tenement by tenement--a warden for each +tenement, and he is on duty right there all the time. + + * * * * * + +I like the Scottish people. Somehow I had them all wrong. For one +thing, I thought I wouldn’t be able to understand anything they said, +but they are easy to understand. Also, I thought they were dour. On the +contrary, they are fundamentally witty. It is hard for a Scotsman to go +five minutes without giving something a funny twist, and it is usually +a left-handed twist. All in all, I have found the Scots much more like +Americans than the Englishmen are. I feel perfectly at home with them. + +And incidentally, just a couple of tips in case you ever come over +here: (1) Don’t refer to Scotland as if it were a part of England, as +I did; for it isn’t. England is England, and Scotland is Scotland. (2) +Don’t say Scotch unless you are referring to the whisky. People are +Scots, and they are Scottish but not Scotch. + +Incidentally, Scotch whisky is getting short. Many bars limit their +customers to two drinks. The whisky is being sent to America for good +American dollars to spend on arms. + + * * * * * + +It seems that one Scotsman was telling another about being in a movie +theater when some German raiders came over. The manager stopped the +film, went onto the stage and announced, “The sireens has went.” + +It was now time for the other Scotsman to laugh, but he didn’t. He +studied it over for a long time, then finally laughed and said, “I +suppose the joke of it was that the sireens hadna’ went?” + + +_4. A SCOTTISH FAMILY_ + + _Newhaven, Scotland, + February, 1941_ + +As far back as he can remember, Walter Rutherford’s folks have been +fishermen. But his father said he would rather see his sons dead than +see them become fishermen, so they became such things as engineers and +shopkeepers. + +But Walter stayed close to the sea. Newhaven is a fishing village, and +Walter runs the shop that outfits the fishermen. He is a ship chandler. + +For twelve years he has been president of the Fishermen’s Society, a +proud organization that goes back to 1648. Packed in a shoebox at his +house are the beautiful silver cups and medals that go with the honor. +Mrs. Rutherford has sung in the Fisherwomen’s Choir since she was a +girl. This choir is famous, and often travels to London to sing. + +I was a guest at the Rutherfords for an evening--at my own invitation, +but nobody could have been treated more genuinely if he had been kith +and kin. I went to see them in order to find out whether the war was +really close to the average family in Scotland. And people assured me +the Rutherfords were typical. + +Well, when the war came Walter turned over his ship chandler’s shop to +Mrs. Rutherford and went to work in a factory that makes marine engines +for the government. He is a gauge maker--the same trade he followed at +Glasgow in the last war. He had been out of it eighteen years, but he +is at it again now. + +Walter is a grandfather, yet he gets up at 6 A.M. and rides a bicycle +to work in the dark--for during the winter it isn’t daylight here until +nine o’clock in the morning. That is, he did ride a bicycle, but he is +walking now. The other morning his front wheel hit a curb and he took a +spill, landing in the snow “right on my bottomside,” as he says. + +Walter works twelve hours a day, with only one day off every two weeks. + +“Those are mighty tough hours,” I said. + +“They are tough for a man who is getting along,” he said. + +Mrs. Rutherford laughs about his “getting along.” For he looks about +thirty-five. He has a ruddy, windy face without a single line in it. He +wears a turtle-neck sweater and hops around like a jumpingjack. + +“I’m always being taken for his mother,” Mrs. Rutherford laughs. “But I +don’t mind.” + +Mrs. Rutherford is a large woman, and she is straight up and down no +matter whether she is standing or sitting. She has enough humor for a +dozen Scotswomen. She keeps long hours in the chandler’s shop, which is +under their apartment on the street floor. + +“Sometimes I just feel like closing it up,” she says, “and other times +I’m thankful I have it to keep me from thinking.” + +And believe me, she has plenty to think about. Her boy, who is her +pet, was a fish auctioneer, but now he is in the R.A.F. in Malta. Her +son-in-law was a fisherman but is now in a naval patrol, feeling his +way around among the mines. Her other daughter’s fiancé is a dispatch +rider with the Fusiliers. They were just ready to get married, but it’s +off now till after the war. + +And the children’s best friend, just down the street, also went from +fishing into the naval patrol. A few weeks ago his boat hit a mine. +They could hear the explosion from the chandler’s shop. His young wife +was in the shop and heard it too. They never found anything of him at +all. + +“It was seven weeks after our boy left for Malta before we heard from +him,” Mrs. Rutherford says. “I would come up here from the shop and cry +by the hour with a broken heart, but finally we got a cable from him.” + +Everybody in this village has somebody in the war. + +Mrs. Rutherford is so impetuous she can’t stay sad very long, and so +honest she says just what she thinks. She has no inhibitions. She is a +good deal like my own mother. Walter tells how one night recently she +was listening to someone speaking on the radio from America, talking +about liberty and how we must give all aid to Britain, and suddenly +Mrs. Rutherford yelled at the radio, “Oh shut up! Stop talking so much +and do something!” + +The Rutherfords are neither poor nor very well off. The chandler’s shop +has put their three children through school and has bought them a house +and car. The car is laid up now, for Walter works all day and Mrs. +Rutherford doesn’t drive. + +“But you are not going to sell that car,” says Mrs. Rutherford. “It’s +going to be right here for the boy when he gets back. It’s a bonnie wee +car.” + +The Rutherfords both use “wee” and “bonnie” almost constantly. Such +native expressions sound odd alongside their modern slang phrases, such +as “fed up.” + +For “herring,” Mrs. Rutherford says what sounds like “hen.” Being in a +fishing village, they have to eat an awful lot of fish. “It’s just hen, +hen, hen, morning, noon and night,” she says. + +The Rutherfords never miss church, but they are far from being churchy +people. + +Their home is in what we would call a cooperative apartment. They own +the first and second floors of one section of a brick building. They +have two bedrooms, a kitchen and bath. As in many Scottish houses, the +kitchen also serves as a living room. There is a parrot in a cage by a +blacked-out window. + +At ten-thirty the youngest girl, who lives at home, came in from a +movie. Then Mrs. Rutherford put on the coffeepot, got out a jar of +cakes and made sandwiches. We all sat around the kitchen table and ate +and talked. I never felt more at home in my life. + + +_5. THE RED CLYDE_ + + _Glasgow, + February, 1941_ + +Edinburgh is on the east side of Scotland and Glasgow on the west, but +since they are at Scotland’s narrowest point they are only an hour’s +ride apart by train. The country between looks very much like Indiana, +except that the fields are smaller here. + +That’s the trouble with America--it’s so big and has so many kinds of +scenery that it makes all the other countries look like something at +home, instead of looking foreign. + + * * * * * + +Edinburgh is cultured, scholarly, historical and quiet. Glasgow is +industrial, cosmopolitan, pulsating and full of business. They are as +different as two cities could be. + +Sailors have told me that they found Glasgow the warmest city on the +Seven Seas, as far as making you welcome was concerned. Personally, I +could see no difference along that line between the two cities. I was +chilled physically and warmed spiritually by both of them. + +We got off the train at Glasgow, checked our bags and took a walk. In +sight of the station was a building wrecked by a bomb--one of the very +few in Glasgow. The only casualties were two people who started to walk +downstairs in the dark after the blast; the stairs weren’t there. + +Glasgow has not had a blitz. They have expected one all along, for +they have factories and great shipyards. The people can’t understand +why Hitler hasn’t tried to give it the works. Some say he is saving +the shipyards for himself--after he seizes Ireland and swings across +the Irish Sea. Others say very knowingly that he is saving them for +something else, but they are so knowing that I never know what they +mean. + +We walked through a big park by the station, full of brick air-raid +shelters exactly like the surface shelters in London. I went up to see +what one was like inside, but its slatted door was solidly locked. My +Scottish friend said, “That’s just in case there is a raid and somebody +wants to get inside.” + +We were already overdue at an appointment, but my friend said I would +have to see how the businessmen of Glasgow work. So we went to a +basement coffee house which was nearly a block long, with deep rugs and +walls solid with framed paintings. The whole place was packed, with men +sitting two and three at a table, their hats on, drinking coffee and +talking. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. + +My friend made up an imaginary conversation at a nearby table. “Now +this is a sure-fire thing if I can just get hold of a little capital,” +one fellow was theoretically saying--and my friend said the chances +were 10 to 1 he was actually saying just that. That’s how business is +done in Glasgow. It reminded me of Rio de Janeiro, where people go +to work at ten and knock off at ten-thirty for a couple of hours of +sidewalk coffee drinking. + + * * * * * + +Glasgow is prosperous now. It needs to be. It had a tough time through +the depression--a black, dismal, dangerously tough time. + +Glasgow is on the River Clyde, and all over Britain you hear of +the “Red Clyde.” They don’t mean red with blood, they mean red +with Communism. Glasgow is supposed to be the center of Communism +in Britain. The _Daily Worker_ had a Glasgow edition until it was +suspended recently by the government. + +I’m not a muckraker nor a political investigator, so my delvings into +the Clyde’s redness have not been deep. But I have got the same story +from the rich and the poor and the middle-income man alike, and that is +that the Clyde is not so red after all. Not even a small fraction of +one per cent of the workers are Communists. They are just tough guys +who are agin things as a matter of habit. They are agin their bosses, +they are agin their political leaders, and they would be agin Stalin or +agin Hitler if one of those gentlemen happened to be their boss. But +there is no question with the men of Glasgow about who is going to win +this war--that’s Great Britain. + +These fellows up here in the shipyards, the dockworkers down in +Liverpool, the coal miners in Wales, the Cockneys in their London +slums, and farmers all over Britain--they are the guys who will have +to have a new deal when the war is over. They are the guys the country +must make some war aims for when the victory is won. + +The men of Glasgow drink big and talk hard. You see a shipyard worker +go up to a bar in a Clydebank pub and he will say, “A glass and a +half.” You know what that means? It means a glass of beer and half a +glass of whisky, the equivalent of two big slugs. He drinks the whisky, +washes it down with the beer, and goes back to work. + +We got aboard a Glasgow police launch for a private sightseeing +excursion down the River Clyde, past the great shipyards. + +The day was miserable and dark, with lowering clouds, cold and windy. +Mist and smoke combined to make the same stuff they call “smog” in +Knoxville. You can’t keep a shirt clean in Glasgow either. + +There are bridges across the Clyde in Glasgow, but none out toward +the sea. However, there are frequent little ferries, in which the +passengers stand up. These ferries are free, run by the city. “That,” +said the policeman at the wheel, “is for Aberdonians [people from +Aberdeen]. They come down here on a holiday and ride back and forth all +day.” + +All the world makes a byword of the Scotsman’s thriftiness, but in +Scotland itself they blame it all on people from Aberdeen. + +And while we’re on the point, I notice in Glasgow that your Scottish +friends insist on paying for the first ones, and they always say, “No +sir, you can’t pay for anything in Scotland.” + + * * * * * + +The River Clyde is not very wide, but on its two banks for several +miles downriver is probably the greatest concentration of shipbuilding +in the world. + +One great shipbuilding yard after another--you can’t begin to count the +number of ships under construction. They run all the way from the mere +ribworks of ships being started, which resemble dinosaur skeletons, on +up to ships ready to be launched in a few days. And at the docks there +is ship after ship, already launched but without superstructure yet, +going through the process of being fitted for sea. + +Several things impressed me about these shipyards. One was that ships +look smaller in stocks than in the water. Another was that the stocks, +instead of being at right angles to the river bank, were all built +slantwise. That is because the river is so narrow the ships would scoot +clear across the river on being launched and ram the other bank. So +they set the stocks slantwise and launch the ships to slide upriver. + +Stocks from which a ship was launched yesterday will have the keel of a +new one started today. + +From the river, the stocks where the _Queen Mary_ and _Queen Elizabeth_ +were built don’t look big enough to take a tramp steamer. + +The stocks of a shipyard, instead of being a great permanent thing +like a drydock, look scant and temporary, more like a high corral +fence, except that huge movable cranes tower over each of them. Seen +at a distance, this vast mass of cranes gives you the same feeling of +density that the oil-well derricks do around Long Beach, California. + +We were on the river for two hours. As we chugged back to our little +dock I thought to myself: Yes, Britannia still rules the seas. And I +also thought: But what about after the war--when all of these giant +stocks stand empty, and instead of the miles-long rattle of riveting +hammers there is a dead silence, and the thousands of men haunt the +pubs for lack of anything else to do? What about the “Red Clyde” then? + + * * * * * + +After the river tour I had nothing to do for a couple of hours, so I +took the opportunity to see “The Great Dictator,” which is now showing +all over Britain. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The theater +was a big one, but it was packed. It made you feel that the war wasn’t +real. + +I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the picture, and when Chaplin made his +much discussed speech at the end it somehow made me embarrassed. People +know all that over here already; that’s what they’ve been fighting +about for a year and a half; it seemed superfluous. + +But the people of Glasgow cheered it heartily. + + * * * * * + +At Clydebank I made some new friends and spent an evening with them. +They are good, normal, intelligent, Scottish working people. Their name +is Roberts. They live in a brick-row house in a wide suburban street. +They are a family of seven--a grandfather, his three grown children, a +son-in-law and two little grandbabies. + +William Roberts, the head of the house, was a needle straightener in a +sewing-machine factory, but he is retired now. I never knew before that +there was such a thing as a needle straightener. + +Greta, the youngest daughter, now works in that same factory, but it +doesn’t make sewing machines any more--it makes munitions. + +Willie, the son, used to work in the shipyards, but has tried to better +himself through much study, reading and thinking. He works for the +government now, making talks about war aims all over the country. The +family laughs and calls him “The Professor.” He farms a small allotment +in a park a few blocks away. + +The son-in-law is a plater in the shipyards. + +Like good average people anywhere, the Robertses say what they think, +and it isn’t all in praise of the government. They are right in +the midst of the details of war work, and details that are wrong +loom large to them. They see inefficiency and waste and floundering +organization, and they come right out with it. They sound just like +people at home. + +Greta said to me: “Do you suppose America will come in at the last +minute again, and say she won the war?” Yet in spite of that crack we +got along famously. + +Greta once worked in London for three months; her greatest desire is to +see Hawaii. + +Her brother and I were a little late getting home, and we missed +supper. So Greta threw together a snack of fried eggs and sausage. The +rest of the family sat in front of the fireplace while we ate. + +There was a jar of jelly on the table. I took some onto my plate and +began putting it on some bread. + +“Wait,” Greta called, “that’s jelly.” + +“Sure, I know it is,” I said. + +“But you’re putting it on your bread!” she exclaimed. + +“Of course,” I said. “What should I do with it?” + +“Why we eat it for dessert,” she said. “I never heard of putting jelly +on bread with your meal.” + +She laughed every time I took a bite. + +No American had ever been in the Roberts’ home before, and I think I +amused them a great deal. They said I talked with a drawl just like +the cowboys in the movies. Greta said she really expected me to go +“Yippee!” every once in a while. + +The Roberts family has an Anderson shelter back of the house. They have +fixed it up with electric lights and a heater, but they have never had +to use it. They appreciate the fact that they’ve been lucky, and they +don’t count on the luck lasting. They are ready for a raid when it +comes, and they expect one. + +At the fireside we got to discussing Mr. Churchill. Back in America +I suppose we hear Churchill’s name mentioned a dozen times a day, but +when we started talking about him here it suddenly occurred to me that +I had heard his name mentioned very seldom in England. I don’t know +why that is, for Britain idolizes him and certainly is behind him to a +man. Yet they don’t talk much about him, and I never yet have heard him +referred to as “Winnie.” + +I thought the Roberts’ feeling about Churchill was very revealing. All +their critical talk about production and speed and British methods of +warfare and so forth was just good democracy expressing itself. But +their talk about Churchill showed where their real feelings lay. + +The son-in-law, sitting on a couch, shook his head and said: “I don’t +know what would happen to us if we lost Churchill.” + +And the father, in a deep chair by the fire, said: “Yes, it would be +bad. He’s the man who pulled us together.” + +By then it was midnight and the last bus was about due, so I said +good-bye and felt my way out into the Scottish night. + + +_6. DEFENSE IN DEPTH_ + + _Paisley, Scotland, + February, 1941_ + +This is the city that used to make Paisley shawls. It wasn’t until I +came here that I discovered genuine Paisley shawls haven’t been made in +sixty years. That is, real hand-woven ones. + +But America still knows this city, at least indirectly; for as one +person expressed it, “Nearly all the buttons that hold up the pants of +America are sewed on with thread from Paisley.” + +This is a great textile city, but it is neither shawls nor thread that +I’m going to write about. It is the Home Guard. + +You have heard about Britain’s Home Guard, the civilian army which has +sprung to arms to make an invasion of Britain impossible. There are +today something like 1,700,000 men in the Home Guard, which came into +existence in May, 1940. At first their organization was flabby and +almost without direction. Today they are well equipped and well trained +and, I can assure you, very formidable men. + +They are here literally to defend their homes. Every city, town and +village has its Home Guard. They drill, and practice marksmanship, and +study plans. They are ready for whatever comes. + +Today the whole force is uniformed. The uniform is brown, just like +the regular army’s, but they wear white armbands with the words “Home +Guard.” This may be abandoned, however, for in case of invasion the +Germans could spot them too easily. + +A large percentage of the Home Guard are World War veterans. +Practically all the members have daytime jobs. + +As we sat around a Home Guard post at night, drinking late tea, I asked +the men around me what work they were in. There were three salesmen, +an architect, a billposter and his assistant, a school janitor, a +preacher, a truck driver, a schoolteacher and a lawyer. + +The Paisley Home Guard has a strength of several thousand men. Every +so often each man is on duty all night. He spends most of his duty +night in cleaning guns, studying military tactics, and maybe drilling. +There are a few cots, and the ones who have to go to work early in the +morning are allowed to snatch a few winks. But for two hours every +night each man is actually out in the dark patrolling--looking for +parachutists or anything suspicious. + +This patrol is maintained all over Britain by the Home Guard, every +night, all night. They patrol in strength, so that if they should spot +a German landing party one man could run back and give the alarm while +the others held off the attackers until help came. + +The Home Guard is essentially a deep-line defense. The way Britain +figures it, the Navy and the Air Force are the first lines of defense +against invasion. If Germany should break through these, behind them on +the land is Britain’s now formidable regular army and an intricate maze +of defenses that would astound you. The fourth line of defense is the +Home Guard, whose duty is to prevent infiltration by the enemy back of +the front lines--the thing that has destroyed so many other countries. + +They estimate that a planeload of parachutists, with everything planned +perfectly, could jump out over Britain at night, collect into a group +after landing and be ready with bicycles and machine guns to go into +action within fifteen minutes. It is the Home Guard’s job to see that +they are spotted and wiped out before the fifteen minutes are up, or, +failing in that, to hold them up until the regular army arrives on the +scene. + +They say there is no spot in Britain, no matter how isolated, that +cannot be reached in force by the regular army within an hour. + +Every street and every country road in all Britain is patrolled +throughout the night by the Home Guard. + +I have a friend who was driving along an east-coast road one night. It +was isolated, bleak and lonesome country. He stopped for a moment on +personal business, and stood looking toward the sea. Then he drove on a +few miles, and stopped at a pub for a drink. While he was in the pub a +Home Guardsman came up and required him to identify himself. Somebody +had seen him out there in the darkness. + +“And suppose,” my friend asked, “suppose I hadn’t stopped at this pub +for a drink. What would you have done?” + +“You wouldn’t have got four miles,” the guardsman replied. “You’re +being watched for right now at every crossroad in every direction from +here.” + + * * * * * + +The Home Guard which was not even in existence less than a year ago, +today is well equipped. + +Most of the Guard’s arms have come from America. In one post I saw +American rifles and machine guns. The Guard is well supplied with +hand grenades. And the countryside is a network of tank traps and +obstructions that even the local people don’t see or recognize. + +Provincial England is determined that the Germans shall not pass. +Of course there is some good democratic bellyaching against the +government, and derision about mistakes. There are thousands of +hot-stove-league fighters who know how to run the war better. There +are some shirkers, and no doubt even a few fifth columnists. And yet I +suppose there never has been a nation more unanimous in its mind than +Britain is now. If she ever stumbles in this war, I feel absolutely +certain that it will not be by the immoral Quisling route. + + * * * * * + +Among the soldiers of Britain, and even among the bombed people of +London, I have found very few who hate the Germans with the frenzy +of World War days. But these middle-aged Home Guardsmen do. Most of +them carry over their hate from the last war, and it is intensified +by resentment at having to do the job all over again. It is further +intensified by the fact that now they’re fighting for their own homes +and families, right in their own streets and their own fields and +pastures. + +In Home Guard posts you hear the terms “Boche” and “Hun” more often +than you hear “Jerry.” The Home Guardsmen say they intend to take no +prisoners. They say they intend to use their bayonets when they get +that close. + +I don’t know whether it has been definitely settled which is the +stronger--steel or a man’s spirit. I only know that Britain’s Home +Guard is armed with a state of mind that is likely to make parachuting +a very unpleasant calling. + + * * * * * + +No doubt you’ve read that when the invasion comes the church bells will +ring all over Britain. We were talking about this the other night at a +Home Guard post, and as we talked I realized I had not heard a church +bell since I came to England. It is, in fact, against the law to ring +a church bell today in Britain. They’ve even stopped firing the famous +one o’clock gun from the castle in Edinburgh, a custom there longer +than anyone can remember. + +Recently in one district of Paisley they had a surprise mobilization of +the Home Guard at 6 A.M., which was long before daylight. Nobody but +the leaders knew about it ahead of time. + +They didn’t ring bells. They just passed the word along from house to +house. And with no prearrangement or warning at all, fifty men out of +the membership of fifty-three in this section were at their stations +inside of fifteen minutes. + +I talked to a Home Guardsman who is sixty years old and has seven +service medals. He has fought in Egypt, India and Africa. He was in +the Boer War and the first World War. Now he is a billposter by day and +a guardsman by night. On the side he is an informer for the Ministry of +Information. And he has a son who went through Dunkirk. He just hopes +the Germans will come--that’s all he hopes. + + * * * * * + +I sat until 3 A.M. in front of a glowing fireplace with David McQueen, +a Presbyterian minister here in Paisley. + +The Church of Scotland, you know, is Presbyterian; and it used to be a +part of the State. Presbyterian ministers here are highly educated in +the classics. When you sit with Mr. McQueen you are sitting with a man +of intellect. + +Mr. McQueen is in the war. He has raised thousands of pounds for +soldiers’ entertainment. His church runs a canteen for the troops +stationed here. Wounded R.A.F. fliers come to live with him in his +manse, to recuperate. And Mr. McQueen is a private in the Home Guard. + +They wanted to make him a padre for the Guard but he wouldn’t do it. He +said that if they did that then they should make the pipe organist a +bandsman, and no band is needed. So on every duty night David McQueen, +Presbyterian minister, is out in the dark fields in uniform, patrolling +up and down, looking for Germans. + +When his turn falls on Saturday night, he has to go right to church +Sunday morning without a wink of sleep, and preach two sermons. He says +he has to keep the church cold in order not to fall asleep while he’s +talking. + +That’s the Home Guard for you. + + + + +_VIII. MURDER IN THE MIDLANDS_ + + +_1. TRAIN TALK_ + + _On a Train in England, + February, 1941_ + +You can go from Scotland back to London, some 400 miles, on an +overnight sleeper. Or you can take a sleeper to the industrial +Midlands, which is where I’m going. + +English sleepers are much pleasanter than most of ours. Every berth +is in a separate compartment. It has a washbowl, plenty of mirrors, +baggage racks, shelves, and room enough for a circus giant to undress. +The compartment is air-conditioned, and you can keep warm and have +fresh air all night without opening a window. If two people are +traveling together they get two compartments with a connecting door. +When the conductor awakens you in the morning he does so with a tray of +hot tea and a package of cakes. + +They say that before the war it was unheard of for one Englishman +to speak to another on a train. But the war has broken that down. I +have now made five trips by train, and only on one of them was I in a +compartment where people didn’t talk. + +It is now quite good manners for men in uniform to start talking to +each other. A question about some detail of traveling usually opens the +conversation. + +And as for me, after I’ve said a few words one of my fellow passengers +is always sure to ask if I’m from Canada. I say no, America, and then +we are off. They are all interested to know what the American public +is feeling about the war. But I tell them I don’t know, since sentiment +apparently has changed since I left the States. + +You’d be surprised how much they know about us in Scotland. I was +actually ashamed, for I met hardly a Scotsman who didn’t know twice as +much American history as I do. + +This new familiarity on the train is still a little hard for some +aristocrats. The higher they go in the scale, the less talking they do. + +The other evening I was in the dining compartment of a train, along +with two naval officers, an army colonel and a Polish officer--all +obviously gentlemen. And from the time I went in until I was having +coffee more than an hour later, not a word was spoken by any of us six +men sitting there beside each other. + +Finally, toward the end, one of the naval officers offered the other a +cigarette, and then offered one to me. We took a few puffs, and I said +it was a good cigarette. The other naval officer said he liked it too. +That was the sum total of that evening’s conversation. + +But between York and Newcastle I was in a compartment with a +middle-aged civilian, an officer of the merchant marine and a very +young commissioned officer of the Fusiliers, and we talked our heads +off. + +The civilian said he had traveled this thirty-mile stretch of railroad +every day for twenty years. He lived in one town and worked at a +factory in another. The night before he had been roof-spotting at his +factory. + +The merchant-marine officer was serving in convoys around the British +Isles. He had been in Baltimore, Florida and Los Angeles, and said he’d +like to live in America five or six years, but not permanently. + +The young army officer was more than six feet tall, but looked as if +he should have been in high school. Yet he was a veteran of Dunkirk, +and he told us about those hectic days. He said he went two days and +nights without sleep or food, but didn’t miss either of them. + +We were riding through a blizzard, and the train was nine hours late. +These two men had been on the train eighteen hours without anything to +eat, and they were about starved. The young fellow said he never got +half as hungry at Dunkirk as he was now. + +Both of these young men had been through stuff on land and sea where +their lives for the moment were not worth a dime. Yet the thing that +seemed to impress them most about the war was the way London takes the +bombing. They had both been there on leave, and they said they could +hardly believe the way London stands up to it. + +Also we got to talking about conscientious objectors. They’re called +“conchies” over here. These two young fellows in uniform were +completely tolerant of the conchies. They felt that if a fellow was +sincere he should be allowed to do some kind of nonmilitary work. + +The young officer ran out of cigarettes and kept smoking ours and +apologizing. When the civilian got to his station he said good-bye and +got off, but in a moment he was back pounding at the window. We opened +it, and he handed the young officer a package of cigarettes. + +The English are really proud of each other. Half a dozen times when +I’ve been talking to strangers they’ve got off on the general subject +of how Britain pulled herself together. And half a dozen times I’ve +heard this same expression: + +“They said we were decadent, and soft from easy living and the desire +for peace. But I guess we’re not decadent yet.” + + +_2. FACTORIES--EVERYWHERE_ + + _Birmingham, + February, 1941_ + +This is a city of more than a million people--the second largest city +in England. + +Since it is a manufacturing city, the Germans have tried to give +it the works. They have made scars, but they haven’t been able to +obliterate Birmingham. The city is damaged in about the same proportion +as London’s West End, which is bad, but not bad enough for Hitler’s +purposes. Up to the moment, Birmingham is not a city that will have +to be rebuilt after the war. It is a city that will just have to be +patched up. + +Birmingham has big factories, but it is also noted for its little ones. +It is a city wherein the small individual plant still lives--where +craftsmanship is a virtue. There are more than 2000 factories in +Birmingham. That’s why Hitler would almost have to wipe out the city +before he could put Birmingham’s production out of business. + +Practically all of these factories are making something for the war. I +went to visit one small plant. It was in a darkish old brick building, +covering about an eighth of a block. Hitler could never find it unless +he sent a man on a bicycle to ask a policeman. + +Tom Waterhouse is owner and manager of this plant. It is what we at +home would call a machine shop. And it is small industry at its best. +There are only twenty-five employees, and their average service in this +same concern is twenty-five years. As I went through the shop I asked +the first four men I came to how long they had been with the company, +and the answers were thirty-five, thirty-seven, forty and forty-five +years. + +“What do you make here?” I asked Mr. Waterhouse. + +He laughed and said, “We make whatever nobody else wants to make. +We make hundreds of crazy things--special parts for guns and marine +engines and so on. There is no mass production here. Every piece is a +special piece for a special purpose, and they’re made practically by +hand.” + +Mr. Waterhouse’s office is full of age, and of things stacked up. +On the walls hang half a dozen stuffed fish. Mr. Waterhouse says he +just lives to fish. For thirty years he has been head of the biggest +fresh-water fishing society in the world. He is the czar of 40,000 +English fishermen. + +If you think war doesn’t affect the average person--well, Mr. +Waterhouse has not had time to go fishing since the war started. + +On a window ledge is a row of shrapnel and bomb fragments and nose-caps +off bombs. These were all picked up right around the plant. “We used to +make quite a point of collecting them,” Mr. Waterhouse says, “but now +they’re so common we don’t even keep them.” + +Most of the Waterhouse employees are Home Guardsmen or air-raid wardens +in their home suburbs, and all of them take turns as roof spotters at +the plant. Mr. Waterhouse takes his turn with them. + +He has kept a diary ever since the war started. In it he notes the +weather for each day, the number and severity of raids, and the big +news of the day. He sees the war as concerned with only one thing--the +right to live in a country where you can say what you think and do +whatever you damn please. + +“Hell, man!” he said. “You couldn’t even knock off to go fishing, under +Hitler.” + + * * * * * + +Back home I know people have wondered how it could possibly be true +that England is getting along with her factory production when Hitler +has such a vast air armada and such a little distance to fly it, and +when England is so small and congested and easy to hit. I’ve wondered +myself. + +Well, for one thing, England is not so small as you might think. It +is as far from Lands End, on the southwest, to John O’Groat’s, on +the north, as it is from New York to Chicago. And crosswise, at the +average, England is more than 200 miles wide. You can sprinkle a lot of +factories over that much territory, and Britain has sprinkled them. + +If they have 2000 factories in Birmingham--which they have--then +they have tens of thousands in other places. They are practically +everywhere. If Germany knew where they all were, and could send planes +over unopposed in the daytime to destroy them, it would take months +just to pick them out and blow them up. But with daylight bombing +completely whipped, and small spots impossible to find at night, and +with even the terrific all-night blitzes getting only a fraction of +the factories in a congested area, and with a smooth system of quick +repairs to damaged factories--well, Britain has been able to go right +on manufacturing through it all. + + +_3. BLITZKISS IN COVENTRY_ + + _Coventry, + February, 1941_ + +Coventry represents to Americans, and to most Englishmen too, the +all-out one-night blitz at its worst. Many other cities have been +blitzed since then, but Coventry remains the No. 1 example in our minds. + +The Coventry blitz occurred on the night of November 14, 1940. I have +read a great deal about it, and have seen many pictures of it. Further, +I have seen so much hideous damage in London that you could no longer +call me an amateur at viewing wreckage. Yet when we drove into Coventry +I was horrified. + +We walked and drove around Coventry for three hours. And late in the +afternoon I realized that I had been saying to myself half out loud, +saying it over and over again like a chant: “My God, this is awful!” + +The center of Coventry is in ruins. All of the hotels are gone. A big +newspaper office is a jumble of wilted presses and linotype machines, +with twisted steel girders sagging among them. There are not many +public eating places left. You can stand on what used to be a main +corner in downtown Coventry, and in three directions see nothing +but waste. You can walk down what was a street but now you walk in +ankle-deep mud. You would barely recognize it as a street. On each side +tractors and cranes and men with blowtorches are untangling and hauling +away twisted girders and mingled rubble. + + * * * * * + +Nobody has been able to put that night of Coventry’s into words. + +The noise was fiendish. It seemed that the entire city was burning +down. They say the final death toll was a little over 500. It seems +almost impossible that the loss of life should have been no more +than that. For Coventry is a city of a quarter of a million people. +That means that only one out of 500 was killed. The only reason many +thousands of others didn’t lie dead the next morning is that they took +to the shelters. + +The city had two mass burials, with more than 200 bodies in each. And +such is Coventry’s opinion of the Germans that they kept the time of +the funerals secret, for fear of a blitz directed at the mourners. + +Other dead were buried privately by their families. + +Scores of bodies were unidentified. The only way the death of some of +the people was known was from the fact that their families never saw +them again. I feel certain that they will still be finding bodies in +Coventry long after the war is over, when the final removal of tumbled +debris is undertaken. + +Daylight found Coventry in a daze. I have friends in Birmingham who +were here by dawn. As they drove into town they found people leaving +the city by any means at hand. My friends say the look of horror in the +faces of these people was something they can never forget. Everyone was +stunned. You could ask a simple question and they either did not know +the answer or would just stare at you. Their minds seemed dead. + +What brought people out of this, and back to life again, was two +things. One was the visit of the King, who came on the second morning. +He came unannounced, and only a few people were around when he arrived, +but the word spread quickly. And somehow the realization that the King +was there among them startled the people out of their stupor and they +were actually able to cheer. + +The second thing was the prodding into action by city leaders. An +emergency council was immediately formed. A local “Churchill,” a man +who had never held office, just walked into the breach and started +orders flying while others stood by helpless. Loudspeaker trucks and +handbills spread the command that Coventry had to be cleaned up. And it +was this getting people into action again--even though the action was +merely throwing brickbats from one pile onto another--that jerked their +spirits back into circulation and started the stream of life flowing +once again in Coventry. + +We walked through a street that was a no man’s land. Utter destruction +lay on both sides. One side had been brick houses, the other side a +warehouse. Now both sides were just piles of broken brick. + +We turned into an alley that had been cleared. A jumble of bricks had +been pushed back from the line of the alley, and a little picket fence +built around them. The fence was newly painted green. + +Back in the alley we found J.B. Shelton. He is living in a brick +lean-to about the size of a double bed. It used to be a washhouse, and +it has a fireplace at one end. + +“J.B.” hunted around for a couple of boards and laid them across +boxes for us to sit on. The debris we had just passed used to be J.B. +Shelton’s house and office. In fact, he had owned four houses in a row. +They all make one big heap now. + +At the edge of the rubble a twisted iron bed sticks out beyond the line +of wreckage and gets in the way of the picket fence J.B. is building +around his ruins. Since the bed lies in such a way that he can’t get +it out from the rubble, he is sawing off the protruding ends with a +hacksaw so his new picket fence will fit evenly along the line of +destruction! + +J.B. Shelton is a case. He is not very young, except in enthusiasm. He +wears leather leggings, and a funny kind of celluloid collar with no +tie, and an old cap. He laughs and talks, and it is hard to get him +stopped. + +He is a draying contractor, but his life interest is archaeology. +In fact, he is Coventry’s official archaeologist, although this is +merely a job of love and no pay. For years he has been digging up old +Roman relics around Coventry. He says the blitz bombs have unearthed +wonderful things for him. He is, I believe, the only man in Coventry +who is authorized to poke in the ruins anywhere he wants to without +getting arrested for looting. + +He had a museum of Roman things back there in his alley. It is all +shattered and waterlogged now, and many of his prize pieces lie in the +mud on the floor. But still he stands there amid the debris and points +at an old log and launches into its Roman origins. You’d think you were +in a Harvard lecture room instead of standing in an alley in Coventry +where you can’t see a whole building in any direction. + +Finally we got him shunted away from his archaeological talk and onto +the night of the disaster. + +“Where were you that night?” I asked. + +“Where was I?” he said. “I was right here, right here in this alley, +running up and down all night long.” + +And then J.B. Shelton went into action. He made that night almost as +clear as if we were living through it. + +“My house was already afire, so I just tried to save the stables,” he +said. His five horses were tied in their stalls in a frame building +running along the alley back of the house. + +“All night I was running up and down the side of these stables, like +this, throwing water on the boards. I got the water out of that open +tank there. + +“Every once in a while a new place would catch. I’d get it out, and +then the hay would be on fire. I’d get it out, and then some sacks of +oats would be on fire. + +“Around midnight I got the horses all out. They took it fine. I had +sacks ready to put over their heads, but only had to do that on one of +them. I took them out two at a time so they wouldn’t be scared. I got +them all out and tied them to trees in that open space back there at +the end. Then I had to come back and go after these fires again.” + +Running up and down and throwing water, with incendiaries and heavy +bombs and sparks and timbers falling around him, all night long--all +this to save an old clapboard stable that isn’t worth fifty dollars! + +“Say, it was hot there, mister!” Shelton said. “Sparks were falling +just like rain. See all these holes in my old coat? That’s where sparks +fell on me. + +“When I’d hear a big one coming I’d go down like this.” And to +illustrate he dropped flat on his stomach in the cold mud of the alley. + +“The noise was terrific,” he said. “All night long the planes were +diving right down on top of us. That warehouse there was all afire, +and the sparks were a-flying. Say, I’ll never see anything like it +again. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world. Say, it was +wonderful!” + +And I suppose that if you have the divine gift of looking fully upon +life and serenely upon death, such a night really would be wonderful. + + * * * * * + +Drive out of Coventry today in any direction and on the outskirts of +town you’ll see vast fields solidly covered with dumped truckloads of +brickbats and rubble. As a Coventry friend of mine said, “There are +probably more second-hand bricks here today than anywhere else in the +world.” + +While the downtown wreckage is being cleaned up and hauled away, most +of Coventry’s ruins will have to lie where they are until peace comes. +Coventry will not look like a normal city again until many years after +the war. + +No complete rebuilding is allowed now. But the city is already throwing +up little one-story frame buildings with slanting roofs--much like +chicken coops--to be used as temporary shops by the merchants who were +blasted out. + +Coventry is carrying on as best it can. Everybody is back at work, but +few people are living normally. A good portion of the population are +living in single rooms salvaged from shattered homes. + +For three days after the blitz all of Coventry lived on sandwiches +carried around in mobile canteens. After that, communal kitchens were +set up to provide hot food. Rationing was discontinued, but has now +been resumed. + +There is plenty of food in the shops now, but the shops are so few that +there are always long lines of people waiting to get in. + +Once more the beautiful girls of Coventry (and I mean beautiful) grace +the streets. And best of all, the dog races have started again. The +profits go to the relief of Coventry’s bomb victims. + + * * * * * + +If you get a chance to see the short film, “This Is Britain,” which is +now showing in America, I hope you’ll go. And when you do, look for a +Coventry woman named Pearl Hyde. She makes a little speech in the film. + +Well, I know Pearl Hyde. She is one of Coventry’s greatest heroines. +She has just been decorated with the Order of the British Empire for +her bravery. + +Hers was not just a frenzied gallantry of the moment. It was a coolness +and tirelessness that lasted ten days and nights on end, almost without +sleep. + +Pearl Hyde is head of the Coventry branch of the Women’s Voluntary +Services. It was Pearl Hyde who fed and clothed and cheered and really +saved the people of Coventry after the blitz. For more than a week she +plowed around in the ashes of Coventry, wearing policeman’s pants. She +never took off her clothes. She was so black they could hardly tell her +from a Negro. + +Her Women’s Voluntary Services headquarters was bombed out, so she and +her women moved across the street. Her own home was blown up, and even +today she still sleeps in the police station. + +Pearl Hyde is a huge woman, tall and massive. Her black hair is cut +in a boyish bob. And she has personality that sparkles with power and +good nature. She is much better looking than in the film. And she is +laughing all the time. + +She was just ready to dash off somewhere when I went in to see her, +but she tarried a few minutes to tell me how good the Americans had +been with donations. She talked past her time. Suddenly she looked at +her watch and jumped up in a great rush. I held out my hand by way of +good-bye, but instead of shaking hands Pearl Hyde grabbed my frail +shoulders in her great hands and said: “Here’s a kiss for America.” And +she smacked me a big one right on the face. + +As little loath as I am to be embraced by the feminine gender any time, +any place, I was rendered stone dumb by this sudden attack. I stood +there speechless and blushing as Heroine Hyde strode away with great +long steps and all her fellow women workers stood laughing with delight. + +And so, when one of these days I step into a homeward-bound plane I +will carry as souvenirs of this shattered city a couple of small pieces +of broken tile, a mental picture of destruction that can never be +erased, and last but best--a large, ample Coventry blitzkiss. + + +_4. NOTES ON THE CUFF_ + + _Warwick, + March, 1941_ + +This is a small and ancient city on the banks of the River Avon. It is +just ten miles from Stratford-on-Avon, the immortal home of Shakespeare. + +I ducked in here for a week-end in the hope of writing some ageless +literature while under the spell of Shakespeare. But the hotel thought +we were still living in The Bard’s time, and consequently I spent the +week-end in bed with a hot-water bottle. If you mention the word heat +around here they report you to the police as a suspicious character. + +After breakfast I fled outdoors and walked around town for an hour +just to get warmed up. Motor travelers were passing through town, and +within ten minutes two cars pulled alongside me to ask directions. One +driver wanted to know how to get to Stratford. The other asked the way +to Kenilworth. I didn’t know, so I merely replied, “Brother, I’ve even +forgotten the way to New York.” In each case the motorist drove quickly +on, looking back as though he thought I was touched in the head, and +possibly even subversive. + + * * * * * + +Being too cold to think, I thought I would just put down a few tag ends +of the last few weeks, which have stuck in my mind. + +For one thing, here is a little item about the old tradition that +Scotsmen are so tight. Well, back in November the government sent out +a frantic call for all citizens to turn in binoculars, as they were +needed in the armed forces. You could either donate, lend or sell them +to the government. And up to date the proportion of binoculars donated +outright to the government is three times as great in Scotland as in +England! + +The three most popular entertainers who ever visited Glasgow are Harry +Lauder, John McCormack and Gene Autry. + + * * * * * + +Of the things I brought with me from America, the wisest of all was +a pair of galoshes. I have worn them almost constantly for the past +month, and I think I would be dead without them. For some reason they +don’t have galoshes in England. I’ll bet thirty people have commented +on my pair and said they wished they could get some. + + * * * * * + +English hotels all start their day at noon. Consequently it is +possible--and has actually happened to me--to stay only one night at a +hotel and yet be forced to pay for two nights. + + * * * * * + +There is a saying all over England that the safest place to be during +a raid is in a church spire, and I am beginning to believe it. I have +seen dozens of wrecked churches but I don’t remember one whose steeple +wasn’t still standing. + + * * * * * + +One funny thing about blitzed cities--you always see, either lying +around or stuck on a pole by some jocular workman, a naked wax dummy +from a store window. There was one in Coventry on top of a steel post +stuck in a pile of jumbled brick right in the center of town. In +another town I saw a dummy propped up on the sidewalk, and a local man +said they had found the dummy’s foot two blocks away. + + * * * * * + +I haven’t heard a warning siren since leaving London, but people tell +me the sirens sound exactly the same all over Britain. + + * * * * * + +A very friendly lady who has donated her car and her driving services +to the government drove me down here from Birmingham. There are +thousands of such women in Britain. This particular one was a Mrs. +Matty, and I mention it because she has a sister named Mrs. James Cruse +who lives in Denver. + + * * * * * + +In Britain you never hear the war of 1914-18 spoken of as the World +War. They always say “the last war.” + +The other day a newspaper proposed that we call the last one “German +War 1, and this one German War 2, and just keep on numbering them in +the future until we run out of numbers.” + + * * * * * + +England likes to tell jokes on the regimented minds of its +civil-service employees. They say this one is true: In order to get +onto an R.A.F. station you have to have a special pass, which is +usually a small slip of pink paper. So the other day a girl of the +Women’s Auxiliary Air Force received an order from Whitehall which +said, “Report to R.A.F. station such-and-such at 10 A.M. and show your +pink form.” + + * * * * * + +If it weren’t for the soldiers on the streets and the one lump of sugar +for your coffee, it would be hard to realize a war was on when you +visit many of England’s small cities and towns which have never known +the crunch of a bomb. + +In the provinces, policemen still wear fore-and-aft hats instead of +steel helmets. + + * * * * * + +A lady from America writes and wants to know if I am wearing a +correspondent’s uniform. The answer is no. The only ones who wear +uniforms are those accredited to the army. There are only a few of +these. + +As for me, I feel silly enough carrying a tin hat and a gas mask around +the provinces, let alone appearing in a uniform. + + + + +_IX. YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ANYTHING_ + + +_1. THE WAR IN WALES_ + + _Cardiff, + March, 1941_ + +The very first sight that greets you as you walk out of the railroad +station in Cardiff is the city’s big municipal stadium. It sits quite +alone, surrounded by a grassy park. It is like some of the fine +stadiums at home, with a great steel-trussed grandstand, roofed over. +It cost a lot of money, and the people of Cardiff have packed it on big +soccer and rugby days. + +But Cardiff should have known better than to erect this deadly war +machine right out in the open, for you can’t fool Hitler. He knows all +about the airplanes and tanks and battleships they’ve been building out +there on the cricket field. And so he has blown their stadium all to +hell. + +Outside of that, you don’t see much bomb damage around Cardiff. If you +were to set out deliberately on a “damage tour” you could pick out +quite a total of wrecked houses and burned stores; but if you are just +wandering around like a tourist the bomb wreckage doesn’t stare you in +the face around every corner. + +The sizes of British cities are always amazing me. Cardiff, for +instance, is a city of a quarter of a million people. And did you ever +hear of Newport? I’m sure I never did. Well, it’s only ten miles from +Cardiff, and its population is 100,000. + +Wales, as you know, forms the west central part of Britain. It is noted +for its coal mines, and somewhat for the bad condition of its miners. +And Wales is mountainous. To my surprise I have found that there are +mountains on this island rising as high as 3000 to 4000 feet, but +the mountainous sections are thinly populated. The bulk of Wales’s +population of more than two million is settled along the southern coast. + +The Welsh people look and dress very much the same as Americans. They +are noted as singers, but I’ve not heard anybody singing in Cardiff. + +You see an amazing number of bicycles here. Late in the evening, when +people are on their way home from work, you can hardly cross the street +for the bicycles. + +I had supposed that Cardiff was a grimy, smoky city, bearing the marks +of the coal-mining industry. To my amazement, it turned out to be light +and clean, much more so than most English cities. The streets are wide, +there are vast parks and lovely buildings, and as you go around you +pick up a feeling that Cardiff has everything in hand. + +Cardiff is full of defenses. More street obstructions are noticeable +here than in most of the places I’ve visited. Every city seems to have +its own special type of street barricade with which to stop the German +invaders if they come. Public shelters are different in Cardiff, too. +Everywhere else the street shelters are made of a tan-colored brick, +but in Cardiff most of them are concrete. + +There is very little public sheltering in basements here. The big +street shelters are preferred. In the residential sections these +shelters are built right in the middle of the street. In case the +bombing gets hot, people have only to run out their front doors and +halfway across the street. + +I ran into something in Cardiff I had not seen in any other +city--automobiles driven by coal gas. The point is that gasoline is +rationed, and coal gas isn’t. + +A huge canvas bag is installed on the roof of the car, and surrounded +with a railing. It looks like about five layers of featherbed. The only +change in the motor that’s necessary is a new top to the carburetor. + +It’s all right as a makeshift, but not too satisfactory. For one +thing, it costs $120 to equip the car for coal gas. Then you don’t get +as much power as with gasoline. And that big bag has a terrific wind +resistance. When the gas gets low the bag flops around in the breeze. +Also, if there is a heavy snow or rain, the weight presses down on the +bag and forces gas into the carburetor too fast, making the engine +choke and backfire. + +And worst of all, you look silly as hell driving down the street with +this balloon on top of you. + + * * * * * + +The WVS (Women’s Voluntary Services) has done excellent work in +Cardiff, as it has everywhere else. + +I somehow managed to get myself into the good graces of the WVS +commander for all Wales. She turned out to be a beautiful, cultured +girl only two years out of a university. When I asked her how one so +young had risen so high, she said it was a mystery to her too. Her name +is typically Welsh--Eirwen Owen. She can even make a speech in Welsh if +she has to. She has some 8000 women under her, and she handles it all +with the utmost calm. + +The WVS was anxious for me to know how much they appreciated the gifts +sent from America. They said they didn’t know how they would have +clothed all the bombed out people and poor evacuees who have come from +other sections if it hadn’t been for the American gifts. + +We went around to one of their distributing sections, where half a +dozen women in green smocks were sorting out and repacking huge boxes +of stuff from America. It has been quite an education for them. They +read on the bills of lading such unknown items--to them--as slickers, +Mackinaws, and gum boots. They had never heard of these things by these +names. They open the big wooden boxes as though they were Christmas +packages--to see what a Mackinaw is. In most cases they are immensely +pleased; but one thing did stop them--union suits. They had never +heard of union suits. Over here nobody ever saw underwear all in one +piece before. In fact, when they went to distribute them, lots of +old-fashioned Welsh people refused to take them. + +And while we’re on the subject of American gifts, maybe the merchants +of San Francisco would like to know that some of those boxes of +elaborate mechanical erector sets they sent over are now in Wales. They +got here too late for Christmas, but they’re being distributed now by +the women of the WVS, who think they’re the most wonderful things they +ever saw. + + * * * * * + +Once in a while German bombers come over Cardiff and drop propaganda +leaflets. The last time they did it the pamphlets were a translation +of one of Hitler’s speeches. The people of Cardiff consider this such +a great joke they collect them as souvenirs to keep after the war, and +they are actually peddled around for a shilling apiece. + + * * * * * + +Cardiff has 600 Belgian refugees. And to their eternal discredit, they +are making asses of themselves--demanding, complaining, pestering. +They are the crankiest people in a jam that Cardiff has ever had to +deal with. + + * * * * * + +I have been riding around Wales with a gentle Welshman by the name +of Eames whose wife is a first cousin of Chief Justice Hughes. Which +would make it a small world after all if I only happened to know Chief +Justice Hughes. + + +_2. MINER_ + + _Ebbw Vale, + March, 1941_ + +This is a coal-mining town of about 30,000 people in the hills of +Monmouthshire, near the border of Wales. + +The altitude is only 900 feet here, but the hills roll in long, vast +ridges, and there are no trees; the snow lies deep on the ground, +whereas down on the coast it has all melted. You have a feeling of +great height here. All day long I had to pinch myself to realize I was +not somewhere in the Rockies, above timberline. + +The coal miners in and near Wales have had tough going since the last +war. They are among Britain’s neediest people. And unlike the rest of +Britain, unlike most of the warring populations, the present conflict +hasn’t done their employment much good. + +The reason lies in transportation. The railroads are tied up hauling +munitions, and they haul only such coal as is necessary. There’s no +real coal shortage in England, but nobody has any more than just +enough. And there’s no use digging coal if you can’t haul it away and +sell it. Consequently the mines aren’t working in any frenzy. The loss +of French markets was a blow too. + +Ebbw Vale happens to be very prosperous at the moment, due to local +manufacturing which uses coal, but it is rather the exception. Western +Wales is still in the lower brackets of depression, and a good part +of its working population has gone to great factory centers such as +Birmingham and Manchester, seeking work. + + * * * * * + +I came to Ebbw Vale to see how close the war has come to the average +family over here in the hills. My “average man” turned out to be Henry +Powell. He lives in a two-story brick-row house on a sloping street. +Children were sliding down the street on sleds. + +Henry Powell is seventy-one, and he is well preserved. He has spent +fifty years underground and it hasn’t hurt him. He retired from +coal-digging a couple of years ago, on a small pension, but is back at +work again now, for he wanted to do a little something in the war. They +have put him to cutting down timber supports in unused mine tunnels. + +Henry Powell has a big family. There are eight in his house. His sister +lives next door, and there are half a dozen in her house. They are all +mixed up--children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and in-laws. + +Mr. Powell owns his home. He started buying it when it was brand-new, +and moved into it the year after I was born, which was 39 years ago. + +Mrs. Powell is dead now. Two of Mr. Powell’s sons were in the World War +and one of them was gassed. Some of his grandsons are already in the +Home Guard, awaiting their call-ups for the regular army. + +Just before Mr. Powell quit the deep pits two years ago there +were three generations of his family working side by side in the +pits--himself, three sons and three grandsons. + +Mr. Powell feels that he has done pretty well for a miner. He has +bought his house, raised a big family, taken care of his relatives, +kept himself respectable, and has nothing to regret. His home is +comfortably and nicely furnished, and he himself is as neat and clean +as a whistle. + +He has had only two holidays in his life. (Over here when they say +holiday they mean three or four weeks off in which to take a long +trip.) He has been to London a couple of times. + +He doesn’t smoke, but for fifty years he has stopped for two pints of +beer on his way home from work every evening. + +About the only way the Powells are directly affected by the war is +through the rationing of food. But they don’t suffer for anything. +There are some shelters in Ebbw Vale, but the Powells have never been +in them. All in all, life is not a great deal different for them from +what it was in peacetime, and they themselves, in truth, are not much +different from Americans. + + +_3. NO MAN’S LAND_ + + _Bristol, + March, 1941_ + +It was midafternoon when I got off the train. We had come through the +long tunnel under Bristol Channel, and the compartment had been full of +smoke. So I checked in at a hotel and went to my room to wash off the +soot. + +It had been more than three weeks since I had heard a siren, a bomb +or a gun. After a lull like that, you actually get out of practice. +You drop your protective armor of expectancy. Thus it was that I was +standing there all relaxed in a quiet hotel room, washing my hands, +when all of a sudden there was the damnedest explosion I ever heard. +It shook the windows, and made the curtains puff, and to say that it +shook me would be a vast understatement of fact. + +My first conclusion was that it was a sneak daytime raider, but still +it hadn’t sounded just like a bomb. So I sat down and tried to think. +I finally figured out that it must be dynamiters, blasting some unsafe +bombed walls just back of the hotel. And that’s what it was. + +After my strength came back I called up some people to whom I had a +note, and arranged to meet them. + +“Gee whiz,” I said when we got together, “Bristol has certainly been +knocked around. I didn’t know Bristol had had it this bad.” + +“Why,” they said, “you haven’t seen anything. Come on.” + +So we taxied to a certain corner where the street was blocked, and then +got out and walked. It was the worst day I have seen this winter. There +was a somber black rain that was nearly sleet, and a piercing wind that +cut through any kind of clothes. + +And so, bent against the storm, we walked. Walked through streets where +on Saturday nights a hundred thousand people used to mill up and down, +but where today all was silent. For this part is now closed to the +public; you can enter only with credentials. It is a No Man’s Land. + +This part of Bristol is just as bare and ruined and destroyed as any +1918 village in France that we used to see in pictures. In fact, it +looks exactly like those pictures. Only a few walls are left standing. +There is such an incongruous maze of hanging, twisted girders as I have +never seen elsewhere. Tearing it all apart and hauling it away will +surely be a greater job than building it in the first place. + +Drive around Bristol, and all over the city you will find whole +blocks knocked down and burned up. And there is a general scattered +devastation that is staggering if you add it up. + +My friends and I wandered like children back and forth amid this +strange land that used to be. I said almost nothing, for what was there +to say? I had never known that anything could actually be like this. + +In the midst of our wanderings I saw a familiar figure coming toward +us. He was walking with a policeman down the middle of what had been a +street, and he was huddled deep in his coat against the bitter rain. I +knew the man well, yet so ghostly was the setting, and so strange this +place we inhabited, that I could not believe a human acquaintance of +mine could be there too, in the flesh, on such a weird, mystic day. + +It was Gault Macgowan of the New York Sun. Neither of us knew the +other was in Bristol. I have not seen him since to talk it over, but I +believe he must have had the same strange feeling about me. For he came +up and looked at me for a long time, in a puzzled way, before he spoke. +We said a few words of surprise, and then walked on again in opposite +directions, on through a kind of world I hope America never sees. + +I truly believe that if it were possible for you to come to Bristol +directly from America, arriving blindfolded so you could not accustom +yourself gradually by seeing lesser damage as you drove along, and let +me lead you to this vast blocked-off graveyard in Bristol and then +suddenly snatch off the blindfold and let the fury of the scene engulf +you all at once--I truly believe there is not one person out of ten, +man or woman, who would not stand there with tears in his eyes, and his +head bowed in anguish and despair. + +In Bristol I met a man who is a “reader” in imperial history at the +University of Bristol. The great hall of the university, with its +lovely walls paneled in oak, stands just outside the professor’s +window, or rather did stand there before the fire bombs gutted it. + +My history professor says the hall was the most beautiful thing he had +ever seen. To him its loss was the worst of all the blows that have +befallen Bristol. My professor is blind, but just the same he can see +these beautiful things that are now gone. + +He invited me to come out to his apartment after dinner. His name is +Charles MacInnis, and there’s nothing professorish about him at all. +He said he couldn’t offer me anything to drink except whisky, beer +and wine. I told him not to worry, that we had to put up with these +hardships in wartime. + +He insisted on sending a taxi for me, because it is hard to get taxis +at night in Bristol. The sirens sounded just before the taxi came. The +driver took me out in a hurry, for he was on roof-spotting duty at his +garage and he had to get right back. He wouldn’t have come at all if +the sirens had sounded before he started. He said he’d return for me +at ten-thirty if the all clear had sounded. If it hadn’t, I would just +have to wait. + +Mr. MacInnis is a Canadian, from Calgary. He has always been blind. + +Once he took a crack at newspaper work in Calgary. “But because I was +blind they thought I was religious,” he said, “so they put me on the +church notices. That’s all the newspaper work I ever did.” + +In 1915 he finished school in Canada and came on to Oxford. When he +finished there, the University of Bristol offered him a job. He has +been here ever since. He is one of Bristol’s most active citizens. He +has written a book about Bristol, and he gave me a copy of it. He +married a Bristol girl, and they have a twelve-year-old boy who has now +been evacuated to the country with his grandparents. + +The MacInnises have a nice six-room apartment with a center hallway, a +library, and a big sitting room at one end. We went into the sitting +room, and in the middle of the floor there stood a table with nine +wooden pins on it and a stick raised above, from which hung a wooden +ball on a string. + +“Have you ever played table skittles?” Mr. MacInnis asked. + +“I never even heard of it,” I said. + +“Then you had better learn,” he said. “That’s what they play in the +pubs around here. Everybody plays it.” + +So we played, and Mrs. MacInnis won both games. + +“I like this game because it isn’t intellectual,” the professor said. + +The all clear sounded as we were playing the second game. + +“Do you have a shelter in the basement?” I asked. + +“There is one,” Mr. MacInnis said, “but we’ve never been down.” + +“Not even during those terrible all-night blitzes?” + +“Not even then,” he said. “What’s the use? You might get buried. We +never stir from the apartment. You sort of get used to it.” + +“How do your dogs take it?” I asked. They have two beautiful dogs, a +Samoyed and a cocker. + +Mr. MacInnis laughed. “They don’t get frightened,” he said. “In fact, +they don’t seem to mind it at all, except for screaming bombs. One of +those screamers sounds like a cat howling, you know, and the dogs set +up an awful howl.” + +The basement shelter has a gas-proof room for the dogs, in case gas +ever comes. + +“I don’t want you to think I’m impertinent,” I said, “but can you +describe to me what a blind man’s conception is of the damage to +Bristol?” + +“Well,” Mr. MacInnis said, “I’m sensitive to light, and when I walk +down the street I suddenly realize there is light at my side and I know +I am passing a building that isn’t there any more. I see it as piles of +brick, partly standing walls, charred timbers and twisted girders.” + +And I realized that although he was using the same words of description +that I use, there was no possible way for him to tell me what he sees +in his mind, because piles of brick and charred timbers are only words +to him. He has never seen any. + +Mr. MacInnis is a hard worker. He does voluntary work day and night. He +has a job that might best be described as that of a morale-keeper-up +for the blitzed and homeless of Bristol. He makes speeches, organizes +entertainments, helps people find homes, and gets better things for the +shelters. Everyone I met was full of praise for him. + +He has lots of humor--a sort of sardonic humor. He thinks the funniest +war story is one that happened right at the university, and he heard it +himself. It seems that Kings College, a big medical school in London, +decided to evacuate to Bristol. All the professors arrived and held +their first meeting on the morning after Bristol had experienced one of +its worst blitzes and many scores of people lay dead. + +“The meeting was very serious and businesslike,” Mr. MacInnis said. +“The professors were doubtful whether they could carry on normal +instructions here because transportation from London was not so good +and the new school was not properly equipped with corpses!” + +The doorbell rang. The all clear having sounded, our taxi driver was +back on the dot. Mr. MacInnis ran ahead of me down two flights of +stairs and out the front door into the dark street to the taxi. And as +I groped my way behind him, it dawned on me that this vile blackout +which is scourging England today has no terrors at all for a man who is +blind. As the philosophers would say, there is recompense in everything. + + +_4. LONGSHORE PUB_ + + _Shirehampton, + March, 1941_ + +Last night I decided to do a little pub-crawling, to see if I could dig +up a piece of conversation among some longshoremen. + +I have always thought of longshoremen as hard guys, quick to suspect +an outsider. So I sidled up to the bar sort of timidly. But these +longshoremen were so suspicious that before two minutes had passed I +had the life history of the fellow next to me, voluntarily. The problem +wasn’t getting him started, it was getting him stopped. + +His name was “Nobby” Clark. In fact, all the Clarks in these parts +are called Nobby. This special Nobby lost a leg in the last war. His +brother was killed in France. His two sons are in the forces now. His +sister and a niece were killed by a bomb last fall. And now his own +house has been blown up, and he and his wife are living with friends. + +“But Hitler won’t get me,” Nobby says. “I’m too tough and too lucky. +Here, wait a minute, a stranger can’t pay for his own here, and anyway +this is my birthday. Here’s to ol’ Hitler, bad luck to ’im!” + +Well, that was a good start, so then we got to talking to Tom +Woolacombe and his brother-in-law. They are dock workers too. + +The brother-in-law’s left arm was in a plaster cast. It seems he and +another fellow were sitting in front of their fireplace one night, and +everything was peaceful and quiet, and no raid was on, and all of a +sudden the whole side of the house, fireplace and all, leaped out and +fell on them. + +The reason for this odd behavior on the part of the house was that +a time bomb had buried itself in the ground just outside, one night +earlier, and nobody knew about it till it went off. The boys said they +sure were surprised. + +After a while Tom suggested that we walk up to his place, which was +just a couple of blocks. So we got two bottles of beer for his wife and +walked home in the moonlight. Mrs. Woolacombe was a little disconcerted +to see Tom home so early, and with a stranger too, and she obviously +wasn’t any too pleased about it. But after we talked a while everything +was all right. + +The Woolacombes, to be blunt about it, have had a bellyful of this war. +As Mrs. Woolacombe puts it, “I’m proper fed up. Bombs, bombs, bombs, +all the time.” + +You’re afraid to go anywhere. You get so jumpy you hate everything. +Sitting out there in that lousy Anderson shelter night after night gets +on your nerves. And what’s the use to plant vegetables in your back +yard? The bombs are just as liable to come along and blow them up. + +Yes, the Woolacombes are proper fed up. + +Tom has steady work unloading ships. He is 57. He says he makes just +enough to get by. They live pretty well, but there is nothing left over +on payday. They rent their two-story six-room house for $2.75 a week, +which they consider high. + +Their two sons are in the army. So is their married daughter’s husband. +Another daughter, Alice, whose husband has been killed, lives with them. + +Alice has a little boy three years old, and I noticed that he kept +walking around saying to himself, “War’s over. War’s over.” + +“What’s he saying that for?” I asked his mother. + +“Well,” she said, “several weeks ago he wanted something, I forget +what, and I told him he couldn’t have it till the war was over. Ever +since he has been saying ‘War’s over’ to himself all the time.” + +It sounds like using the Coue system on the war. + +There are two more Woolacombe girls. Eileen, who is sixteen, sells +tickets at a movie theater. Violet, who is twenty, works in a munitions +factory. + +The Woolacombes have had an incendiary bomb through their roof. This +was during a heavy raid, and they were all in the backyard shelter. +Things got a little quiet, so Alice stuck her head out to see what was +what. And it looked as if the whole world was afire. So they all jumped +out and ran to the house, and some neighbors and wardens came running +too. They finally got the incendiary put out. All their sand was frozen +solid, so they had to use ashes out of the grate. The fire burned up +all the clothes in a corner closet. They’ve got this room closed off +now, and aren’t using it. + +After a while we went back to the pub and sat around talking with a lot +of longshoremen. It is the custom here for men to eat an early supper +at home and then go to the pub and sit from seven till ten, when the +pubs close. + +The men were mostly middle-aged and there was no loud talk or singing, +such as you find in so many pubs on these wartime nights. + +These longshoremen carried the bitterest feeling about the war that +I’ve run onto yet. “This ain’t war,” they say. “This is just plain +murder, bombing our homes and women and children like this.” If I heard +that once, I heard it twenty times. + +These men are mostly veterans of the last war and they still have an +idea that wars should be fought on the battlefield. As you can see, +they are very old-fashioned and don’t understand the New World Order. + + +_5. BACK TO LONDON_ + + _London, + March, 1941_ + +And so back to the big city. + +The returned sojourner can see changes in London after being gone for a +month. Not much physical change, of course, for the bombings were light +during most of my absence. But there is more sugar, more chocolate, +more cigarettes. In a restaurant the waiter brought four lumps of sugar +and whispered, “Two for your first cup, two for your second.” Of course +he was angling for a bigger tip, and he angled well. + +There are now plenty of chocolates in the shops, whereas chocolates +were close to being extinct right after the holidays. + +There has never been a real shortage of cigarettes, but there has been +a scarcity of various brands. When I first came to England I shopped +around among the English cigarettes to see what most closely resembled +the American kind. I finally lit on one called Wix. Well, the day I +left London for the north I went to fifteen tobacco shops and succeeded +in collecting only five packs of Wix. Yet on my return when I went +Wix-hunting again the first two tobacconists sold me a carton each. + +While there are more cigarettes and sugar and chocolates, there is less +meat. For several nights now they say Simpson’s has been without its +famous roast beef. My hotel has no steaks or chops. This is a temporary +shortage, possibly due to transportation trouble, but it is becoming +more habitual all over London. + +There seems to be more food and a greater variety of it everywhere in +the provinces than in London. The smaller the town the more food there +is. The supply of sugar and eggs is practically normal in the smaller +places. + +The Food Ministry has announced a general all-around tightening of the +British belt, and I think it’s a good thing. For an island that imports +so much and has such vulnerable sea lanes, England has been eating too +much. As a matter of fact, the Food Ministry is several months behind +the people. They have been quite willing for a long time to have their +belts tightened. + +Furthermore, the picture of rich people eating grandiosely in +restaurants while the poor theoretically go hungry is rapidly becoming +a hallucination. You still pay exorbitantly at the big hotels, and you +get all the overabundance of silverware and yessirs and delay that +seems to be fashionable, but when you come to sum up what you’ve had to +eat you could have fared better in somebody’s home. + +And speaking of food, you may remember that a while back I said the +only thing I missed over here was enough sugar. That must have put +ideas into people’s heads, for I have already received two one-pound +boxes of sugar from readers in America. And I hear that more is on the +way. + +One box was sent by Mr. and Mrs. Dick Petticrew of East Lansing, +Michigan, whom I don’t know. On the customs declaration which +accompanied the package they had to indicate to whom it should be +delivered if I couldn’t be found. So the Petticrews wrote “Winston +Churchill.” + + * * * * * + +Scotland has become a new national home for the Poles who got away +after the German occupation. There are many thousands of Poles in +Scotland now, and most of them are in the army. They get along well +with the Scots. + +They are fine soldiers. Nobody in this war is fighting with more +burning fire in the soul than the Poles. I have yet to hear a word +about them that wasn’t in praise. No German will ever get mercy from a +Pole on this island. + + * * * * * + +The other day I saw a question sent from America asking what people in +theaters did when an air-raid warning sounded. Well, I can tell you. + +Having a touch of the heebie-jeebies, I decided to go to a movie. The +picture was “Dulcy,” and everybody thought it was swell. The theater +was a huge one in Leicester Square, and it was packed. In the middle of +the picture the film stopped and a sign was flashed on the screen. It +said the sirens had just sounded and that anyone who wished could leave +and go to the public shelters across the street. The picture was then +resumed. + +Not a soul in that whole theater stirred. + +Afterward another sign flashed, saying the all clear had sounded. + +People simply don’t pay attention to daytime warnings any more. Even my +own faint heart ceased long since to do even a slight dervish when the +sirens moan. + + * * * * * + +I think I have enough official British credentials in my wallet to get +me out of anything, up to and including assassination. Yet in all my +recent travels I have been called upon to show them only twice. + +Both cases were ridiculous. Once it was a matter of a nosey hotel clerk +in Wales. The other instance was in the peaceful Cotswold Hills of +Gloucestershire. There I had to identify myself in a big way before +being allowed to see a communal dining room for evacuees. You could +have sat Hitler down there for a meal and he wouldn’t have found out +anything. + +That’s one trouble with war--the farther you are from it the sillier +the people get. + +In most of Great Britain they are too busy to fussbudget with red +tape. I have been amazed at the utter freedom in England today. People +come and go, brag and criticize, talk and listen. It is remarkable and +admirable. + +On gun stations, at flying fields, in pubs or on trains, I have never +run into anybody who seemed suspicious or secretive. The average +Englishman just can’t conceive of there being a fifth column in this +country, and as a general premise I think he is right. + +In fact, in wartime England today I believe you can nose around with +less bogeyman interference than you can in America. + + * * * * * + +In spite of being accepted everywhere over here on friendly and +intimate terms, I am an American and therefore an alien, and all the +alien laws apply to me. For example, it is against the law for me to +have a guidebook now without a permit. I am a criminal if I carry the +famous Baedeker guidebook of Great Britain, even though the damned +thing is printed in Leipzig and the Germans have all the copies they +want. + +It is a little shaming somehow to be considered an alien, when I speak +the same language and am on the same side of the fence. In fact, I +don’t like it, and I said so to an English newspaper friend of mine. +But his answer stopped me cold. He said: + +“Well, I worked in New York on the Sun for eight years, and I was an +alien over there!” + +I hadn’t thought of that. + + * * * * * + +Road signs have been taken down all over England, in case of invasion. +The names of towns on public and private signs have been painted over +with black paint. The result is that the average Englishman trying to +drive even a little way from home gets lost and has to stop and inquire +the way about every two miles. + +It is against the law to leave a car that could be driven away by +the Germans. You have to immobilize your car when you leave it, even +though you might be walking only fifty feet away to ask a policeman +for directions. In daytime, just locking the doors and taking the key +counts as immobilization, but at night you have to take out some vital +part, such as the distributor. + +Most cars over here are small ones, from 8 to 15 horsepower. No new +cars at all are being manufactured for sale. The price of second-hand +cars is shooting up, because the army is taking all it can get. + +If you wreck your car badly it is almost impossible to get repairs, due +to the control of materials and the shortage of civilian mechanics. +Many garages and gas stations are closed. A great many garage men have +gone into the tank corps. These tank corps men wear the regular brown +uniform, the same as the rest of the army, but they have a blue cloth +cap, like a beret, which drops over one ear, making them look very +cocky and tough. + + * * * * * + +During the past month I have traveled about 1500 miles by train and 500 +by car, and except for small things the travel service was excellent. +I have been on twelve different trains, and except for the week-end we +got caught in a Yorkshire blizzard I’ve never been more than half an +hour late in reaching my destination. + +In the latter part of my travels, after getting the hang of things, I +rode third-class all the time. It’s about one-third cheaper, and the +only difference is that the seats are just a shade nicer in first class +and you sit with officers instead of soldiers. Frequently there are +first- and third-class compartments in the same car. + +The railroads get a lot of criticism, but I think they are doing +wonderfully. They have not been taken over by the government. + +Occasionally a section of track will be blown to extinction. The +railroads have a time limit on themselves of ten hours, I believe it +is, no matter how big the crater or how twisted the wreckage, in which +to have trains moving again across the bombed spot. + +And the way these trains blast along through the night, with no lights, +gives you the shivers. One road has just raised its wartime speed limit +from sixty miles an hour to seventy-five. + +There is one thing about the British railroads that I haven’t figured +out yet. You’ll get on a train that is the dinkiest local you ever saw, +stopping at every crossroads, taking hours to go a few miles. Then all +of a sudden, halfway to where you’re going, the thing mysteriously +becomes a highball express and makes the last half of the trip going +like the wind, roaring through cities without even stopping. + +I suppose it’s just a change of pace to fool Hitler. + + + + +_X. BOMBS DO THE DAMNEDEST THINGS_ + + +_1. “SHUT UP, THEY’LL HEAR YOU!”_ + + _London, + March, 1941_ + +I suppose every person in England who has had a bomb within a block +of him has his own freak bomb story to tell. Bombs seem to do the +damnedest things. Every raid brings a flock of incidents as miraculous +as the old one about the tornado blowing a straw through a tree. + +Most of the unusual bomb stories have to do with escapes. Air Raid +Precautions men say there are more freakish escapes than freakish +deaths. For example, one bomb on a recent night came right through +the roof of a building and smack into a pub full of men sitting there +drinking beer. It blew the place all to pieces, killed some people in a +house across the street--and hurt no one in the pub. + +In another case, a bomb glanced off a roof and landed in the open. It +apparently had a delayed fuse. Two policemen went up to inspect it, and +it went off. No trace ever was found of one policeman, but the other +one--well, the blast blew his tin hat onto the roof of a five-story +building, and blew all the buttons off his coat, but he wasn’t hurt. + +In Stepney a policeman was doing roof-spotting duty on top of a +seven-story building. A bomb hit the building and blew the policeman +off the roof. He fell seven stories, and landed on concrete. He went +to work as usual the next day. + + * * * * * + +In my room I have a circular lead nosepiece from a German bomb. It +is about half as big as a saucer, and must weigh two pounds. It came +screaming into the apartment of a friend of mine one night, and this +friend gave it to me. It arrived in his place through a window, flying +horizontally and spinning furiously. It hit a wall, and it was spinning +so fast it circled three walls of the room, just like a hippodrome +motorcycle racer who rides against the vertical wall of a bowl. But the +astounding thing is that in its mad rush this heavy disk raced right +across the glass doors of a built-in china closet in one corner and +never even cracked the glass. + +One surprising thing about bomb explosions is that the suction toward +the explosion is almost as great as the blast away from it. That’s +because the explosion creates a vacuum, and then as air rushes back +into the vacuum it does so with just about the same hideous force with +which it rushed away. Because of that you’ll see wreckage from the same +bomb hurled in opposite directions. Say a bomb lands in a street. On +one side it may blow a house inward, but on the other side the whole +front of a house may be sucked out. I know one case where the suction +of a bomb pulled a rug off the floor right from underneath two tables +and a piano, and left them standing just as they were. + +And then there is the story--my man says he saw it--of a skilletful of +frying fish being blown off a stove in one house and landing upright on +a stove in a house four doors away. My man does go so far as to admit +that the skillet lost its contents on the way. + +I believe all those stories. It would be hard to tell me a bomb story +I wouldn’t believe. But here’s one even I must take with a grain of +salt: + +A gentle lady of culture and means was sitting in front of a fireplace +on the ground floor of her home one evening. Her housemaid, having +finished her work, was sitting in her little attic bedroom on the +fourth floor. A bomb came through the roof, plunged through four +successive stories, and exploded in the basement. When it was all over +the gentle lady was sitting in her maid’s attic rocking-chair and the +maid was sitting downstairs in front of the fireplace. + +Both were unhurt, of course. And both quite unruffled, you may be sure. + +Maybe lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but bombs do. +I could show you a narrow brick-row house in London that has been hit +five times, yet not another house in the block has been touched. Also, +I know cases where a bomb has fallen through the darkness for four +miles and landed in the center of a crater blown by a previous bomb. + +There is an odd belief in London that corner buildings attract bombs. +It doesn’t seem reasonable, yet I have seen scores of corner places +blown down, with everything else all around them untouched. At Coventry +I saw one street corner where four separate bombs had taken out the +four corner houses. + +On the other hand, just two blocks from my hotel there is a small +crater in the middle of a street intersection, where a traffic cop +would normally be standing, and none of the corner buildings has been +touched. + +Those who hold with the corner theory think air currents, caused by the +funneling of air through the streets, force a bomb to deviate just a +little at the last second. I can’t see it. + +A Fleet Street friend of mine went out one night and got himself tight. +He managed to drive his car home through the blackout, but the entrance +of his garage was narrow and, being three and a half sheets in the +wind, he decided just to leave the car out in the street. During the +night his garage was demolished. + +I have been told of a woman in a suburb who thought she heard a knock +at the door. As she opened it a small bomb came sailing through, +kerplunk onto the living-room floor. The lady gave a yell and dashed +out the door. About three seconds later she saw her house fly into a +million pieces. + +One of my best friends here is an American who has a horror of crossing +a street during the blackout. He has lived here several years and knows +hundreds of people. Two close friends of his were killed by autos in +the blackout, yet he has never known anyone, even casually, who was +killed by a bomb. + +Friends are always telling me about shrapnel falling around them. I +have been out in the streets a lot at night but I’ve heard only one +piece of shrapnel fall. + +I do know, however, that if you’re out when the guns are firing +pretty heavily you find yourself edging over toward the inside of the +sidewalk, against the building walls. No matter how hard you pull +yourself out toward the curb, you discover you’re still walking along +close to the buildings. + +I have a friend who was driving into town one night when a piece of +shrapnel hit the street, just missing the car. But it bounced so hard +it came back up through his fender from underneath and left a big hole. + +Another funny thing about raids--when you hear planes overhead you have +a feeling that you must be very quiet or the German pilots will hear +you. If I’m in my room I unconsciously stop typing for fear of making +a noise and attracting the bomber’s attention. Often, while planes are +overhead, you can hear people down in the street in the dark yelling +for taxis at the top of their lungs. I always feel like opening a +window and yelling, “Shut up, you fools, they’ll hear you!” + + * * * * * + +Some people seem to attract exciting incidents as though they were +magnets. George Lait hadn’t been here a week till he had been blown off +the seat of a car, had put out incendiaries that came through his roof, +and had seen shrapnel smack the sidewalk within three feet of him. + +But me--the nearest I have been to drama was one night when we +had seven incendiaries on the roof of our hotel and a bomb around +the corner, and that happened to be the night I was visiting an +antiaircraft gun station miles away! It’s probably just as well. Maybe +I wasn’t cut out to be a hero anyhow. + + +_2. GERMANS, ARISE AND FLEE_ + + _London, + March, 1941_ + +Tex Bradford walked into my room at seven-thirty in the evening and +said he had only a few minutes. He took off his coat and threw it on +the bed, and asked if he could wash up. He left at two-thirty the next +morning and hadn’t washed up yet. + +Tex is one of the many Americans over here serving with the Canadian +Army. He’s a good old boy from down in Texas. He looks like Texas, too, +and it’s a shame he can’t wear a ten-gallon hat with his uniform. + +He doesn’t smoke or drink, but how he can cuss! He says alcohol +doesn’t mix with nitroglycerin, and using nitroglycerin is his +normal business. For by vocation and hobby Tex is an oil-well fire +fighter. He says there are only three men in America doing his kind of +fire-fighting. And he says he’s the best-looking one of the three. + +Tex loves fires more than anything on earth. He almost goes crazy +thinking of all the wonderful fires here in London, and him way down in +southern England drilling recruits. But Britain is beginning to wake +up to Tex. He has a technical education and a lifetime of experience +that are wasted on the drill ground. So now he is frequently called to +London to make speeches and confer with fire fighters. + +When he’s in the city he pays his own hotel expenses. He makes about +thirty appointments a day. When he leaves a message for anybody he +signs it with a rubber stamp that he carries in his pocket. He already +knows every important name in the city. He goes around in the rough +battle dress of a Canadian sergeant, but admirals and generals don’t +faze him. In fact, I’m sure he must faze them. + +You ought to hear Tex talk. He says more words in one hour than any +human being I’ve ever met. He talks all over the place. He hadn’t been +in my room five minutes before he was running back and forth like a +madman, pulling a theoretical fire hose up to a theoretical blaze. +When a friend of mine walked in Tex was down on his knees loading my +wastebasket with theoretical nitroglycerin to put out a big crater fire +in Texas. + +He carries with him constantly an immense black briefcase that weighs +fifty pounds. He calls it Bradford University. It is a traveling +encyclopedia. No matter what subject or name you mention, Tex will dig +in there and find some reference to it. He is inseparable from this +briefcase. He works with it the way a ventriloquist works with his +dummy. Before you know it the floor is covered with his papers and +letters. He reassembles them and puts them back in the briefcase, then +litters the floor with them again a dozen times during the evening. + +Tex closed his big oil-field fire-fighting business in Corpus Christi +last summer, stored all his equipment, sent his family to California, +went to Canada and joined up. He did it because he was in Germany after +the last war and he says Germans are not the people he wants to run the +world. Also, he has an itchy foot. + +Mrs. Bradford knew the minute war was declared that Tex would get in it +sooner or later. So she was resigned to it. + +They have three sons--one working in Death Valley, one in college and +one in high school. + +Tex was born in Australia, of Texas parents. I asked him if that made +him American or Australian, and he said: “If your cat went next door +to an oyster shop and gave birth to a litter, would they be oysters or +kittens?” At any rate Tex is a Texan. + +He fought with Pancho Villa in Mexico. He has been on the Panama +police force. He was a friend of Jack London in California. He +battled Hoover’s soldiers the time they burned the Bonus Army out of +Washington, even though he wasn’t in the bonus march and didn’t believe +in it. He has never collected his own World War bonus. + +He is a fanatical admirer of President Roosevelt, and donated three +months of his time in 1936 to help reelect him. He has been an +engineer superintendent at a CCC camp in Shiloh Park, Tennessee. He +has followed oil fields on every continent on the globe. He has gone +to military school and six or eight universities and taken dozens of +correspondence courses, and he wishes he could live 300 years so he +could do all the things he wants to. + +Tex is rough-fibered and tough-minded, yet he is informed on every +subject under the sun. He uses unusual words and uses them easily and +correctly. His mind seethes and foams. He can’t tell a single thing +without telling twenty other things along with it. He gets continents +and decades away from the subject, but he always remembers to get back +to it. He just has so much to tell he tries to tell everything at once. + +Tex is busier than two dozen bird dogs. He is just fighting this +war to a standstill. He wrote more than 700 letters to senators and +congressmen urging them to hurry with help for Britain. He carries a +hundred indexed file cards of the names of people he must see in London. + +He is a friend of Major George Fielding Eliot, of Pat Hurley, of +Congressman Dick Kleberg, of Frederick Delano, of Dale Carnegie. He +admires Lowell Thomas. He loves to make public speeches. + +Tex weighs 190, and has a chest like an ox. He lets you hit him with +all your might right in the stomach, and it is like hitting a stone +wall. He marches fourteen miles a day carrying a seventy-pound pack and +comes home ahead of the column, doing a jig. Officers tell me Tex is +one of the greatest inspirations the Canadian Army has. He is tough and +he is smart. And he is burning for a fight. + +Yet Tex is as bald as an owl, he is slightly deaf, he wears glasses to +read with, and he is a grandfather. + +Germans, arise and flee from this transplanted scourge of the plains! + +Maybe you would like to hear something about the other Americans in +England. + +Well, there are approximately 4000 of them. If you would tell that to +any individual American who lives here he would be amazed, because the +most gregarious one probably doesn’t know more than a hundred. Outside +of newspapermen, I haven’t met a dozen Americans altogether. But 4000 +is the Embassy’s figure. + +They fall into three groups: Those in business or holding jobs. Those +of dual nationality who married Englishmen. Those who came here to +retire. + +Some 1600 of those 4000 want to go home, and have notified the Embassy +to that effect. But there is no way for them to get there unless they +fly to Lisbon, and you have to have pull to get a seat on the plane to +Lisbon. Unless the United States sends another ship to Ireland, these +people are here for the duration. Most Americans think it is ridiculous +that our government refuses to let them travel home on British ships, +because of the danger, yet forces them to stay here amid constant +danger. + +Of these 4000 Americans, not more than 200 take an active part in +American doings. The rest just go their own ways. They are scattered +all over England. The retired people mostly live in the country, out of +harm’s way. So far as I can learn, only one American has been killed by +a bomb in England, and only a few have been hurt. The number of those +who have been scared green is not available at the moment. + +Americans over here have been very active in donating money to British +relief. Furthermore, some sixty American businessmen have formed a +mobile division to help fight the invasion if it comes. They furnish +their own cars, which have been camouflaged and equipped with machine +guns, rifles and “Molotov cocktails.” They drill, and wear British +uniforms, but they will see action only if the invasion comes as far +as London. I understand they would like to enlarge the unit but can’t +find any more interested Americans. + +There are many Americans (not counted in those 4000) serving here with +Canadian troops, but they are hard to count because most of them claim +to be Canadians. Many of them are like the fellow who was asked the +other day where he came from and said “Vancouver, Saskatchewan”--which +was like saying Seattle, Nebraska. + +The busiest American over here, I think, is a fellow named Gilbert +Carr. Back home in 1920 he would have been a typical Babbitt. He +belongs to every lodge and society you’ve ever heard of. He has lived +in England twelve years, and represents the Sunmaid Raisin Company. + +Through an arrangement with the government, Mr. Carr is allowed to keep +his staff of thirty-five people at work by handling dried fruits from +Greece, Smyrna and Australia. He used to handle 15,000 tons of American +raisins a year, but now he handles only about half that amount, and +they are not American raisins. + +Mr. Carr knows all about bombs. Acting on the theme of dispersal, he +packed up most of his clothes and took them to his warehouse, just in +case his house should get hit. That night a bomb went clear through the +warehouse, blew it apart, set it afire and burned it to the ground. Mr. +Carr lost all his raisins, his records and his pants. + +The next night a bomb exploded outside his office window and shattered +the place, but nobody was in the office at the time. They cleared up +the glass and went back to work. At his house, in Croydon, a bomb fell +in the back yard next door and broke all his windows, cracked the walls +and blew the doors off the garage. He had a man come the next morning +to put the doors back on. That night they were blown off again. + +Mr. Carr still lives in the house, with the windows boarded up. He gets +home about eight at night, and works on his papers till he goes to +sleep, stretched out between two chairs. He is downtown at eight in the +morning. + +He spends two hours a day on the raisin business. The rest of the day +he is working for Britain. He is a director of the American Ambulance, +secretary of the American Committee for Air-Raid Relief, and a director +of the recently opened Eagle Club for Americans serving with the +British forces. He is also a governor of the American Club, a director +of the American Chamber of Commerce, adjutant of the American Legion +post, and just now he is acting head of the Allied Relief Fund in this +country. + +He has desks all over town, and shoots around from here to there. He is +the guy who is always called on to do things. He has a big heart and a +good physique. He’s not afraid of bombs, but he says he gets bored with +them. + +So do I. Bored limp sometimes. + + +_3. A VISIT WITH LOW_ + + _London, + March, 1941_ + +It would be hard to say, I suppose, who is the greatest cartoonist in +the world today. But a good many people think it is David Low, and I +wouldn’t be a bit surprised myself if he were. + +Low draws for Lord Beaverbrook’s London _Evening Standard_. He draws, +at the most, three cartoons a week. Occasionally he gets a dry spell, +calls up the office and says he’s tired, and drops down to one a week. +When he does this, he finds it just as hard to produce one cartoon a +week as three. And yet I think this respite from the daily grind must +have some bearing on Low’s greatness. As he says, nobody in the world +can produce a good cartoon every day. + +I went to see Low with fear and trembling, since great names affect me +that way. But I needn’t have. He is pleasant and companionable, and you +feel at ease with him. + +His cartoons are the most powerful, often the most scalding, that I +have ever seen. Low’s own philosophy is toward the socialistic, and he +is pugnacious and caustic in his thinking. Yet as he sits in front of +his fireplace puffing at his pipe, his voice is soft and his manner +gentle. He reminds you of a very young “Foxy Grandpa.” + +Low is fifty. He is neither big nor small. His hair is nearly gone on +top. His eyebrows are black and extremely wide. He has a grand little +smile. + +For many years he put himself in his cartoons now and then, in just +a few quick lines down in the corner. It was mostly eyebrows. You +wouldn’t think it could be anybody. Yet when you see Low, he looks +exactly as in those cartoons. + +He wore a beard until a few months ago. He finally shaved it off +because it made him a marked man. Everybody recognized him, and he +couldn’t get any peace. He is no recluse, however. He loves to walk, +and is out a good deal. He has many friends and goes out often to +dinners and entertainments. + +Low speaks with the confidence of one who knows he is a master in +his field, yet he speaks with the quiet of a professor, and not as a +braggart. And he has a nice sense of self-ridicule too, for he says: + +“A cartoonist has it over newspapermen who write, because if somebody +doesn’t like your cartoon you can always say, ‘Well, you just don’t +understand it.’” + +Low is a New Zealander. He has always been a cartoonist. He came to +England twenty-two years ago, via the United States, and has never been +back to New Zealand. He has a sentimental feeling about his homeland, +and fears that a return to the old scenes and old friends after all +these years would be disillusioning. + +He says he has never felt thoroughly settled in London. He feels that +an Australian or New Zealander is more at home in America than in +England. His last visit to America was in October, 1936. He saw Jack +Dempsey and Father Divine and President Roosevelt. + +The Lows subscribe to many American magazines, including _Life_ and +the _New Yorker_. Mrs. Low scans the new fashions in the ads. “We +can’t buy anything,” she says, “so the next best thing is to look at +the pictures.” The only thing they don’t like about American magazines +these days is that so many of the cartoons are on the war, and they see +enough war cartoons at home. + +Low drew for _Collier’s_ a while last year, but had to work so many +weeks ahead that he felt his cartoons lost their punch, so it was +dropped. + +He has two daughters--Prudence and Rachel--in their late teens. +Both are political-minded. In fact, the whole Low family is a very +important part of Low’s greatness. The family breakfast is literally +a conference. The four of them thresh over the world news for cartoon +ideas. As Low says, “We digest it, argue it, analyze it, sing it, act +it out, and balance it on our noses.” + +Out of this intellectual jamboree usually comes a cartoon idea. But not +always. For like all great men, Low finds his head nothing but clay +sometimes. The day of my visit was an example. + +“I got up this morning a complete blank,” he told me. “Here historical +events by the hundred were just crashing about us, and I couldn’t get a +thing. Didn’t have anything by lunchtime either. Finally at two o’clock +I got an idea. + +“You can always work when you have to. I started at two, and the +cartoon was finished by four. But I’m not going to look at Monday’s +paper.” + +Low works at home, and the paper sends a messenger out for his cartoon. +He has had a tough winter. Because of air raids, the _Standard’s_ +engravers wouldn’t work after dark. So he had to have his cartoon in +their hands by shortly after lunch. “That meant getting up at seven, +two hours before daylight, and trying to be funny,” Low says. “You +ought to try that sometime.” + +People say David Low is the highest-paid cartoonist in the world. He +also makes money from books and radio. Yet his tastes are simple. He +says, “I actually prefer a nine-penny seat in the cinema, and I really +like cheap cigars better than expensive ones. Just happened to be born +that way.” + +But the Low house in North London is charming and comfortable. It has +deep furniture, floor lamps, a cozy log fire and books on each side of +the mantel. A nice girl in brown maid’s dress lets you in and serves +tea. It is more like an American home than an English one. + +The house is a $1.10 taxi ride from the Strand. Low himself rides the +subways. I did too coming back into town, and had to change three +times. At one place when I asked directions of a woman subway guard she +said, “Change at Leicester Square, dearie, they’ll put you right.” + +The Low house is a rambling two-story brick one, with a big green +garden behind. There have been a good many bombs near by. Low’s mother +and aunt, who lived a few blocks away, had their house blown up a few +days after they had felt a premonition and moved out of it. Despite his +eminent position, Low serves his regular turn as firebomb watcher in +his block every Monday night. He has put out many incendiaries. + +Low had always worked in a studio some fifteen minutes’ walk from his +house. The studio had no telephone, no messages were delivered, and he +received no callers. But he now works at home, because of the bombs. He +has an elaborate backyard shelter, with an expensive pumping system to +keep it dry. But he was never satisfied with it, so he finally shored +up one room of his house with heavy steel beams and brick. The whole +family sleeps in this room when the raids are bad. The house also is +full of buckets of sand, buckets of water, and stirrup pumps. + +Low seldom goes to the _Standard_ office. His drawing paraphernalia is +spread on a long table at one end of his den. He works at an elbow-high +drawing table, and draws standing up. On the average, it takes him +about six hours to do his cartoon. + +He is his own man. His position in British journalism is unique. +Beaverbrook gives him a free hand. He does not have to follow policy. +It’s not unusual for Beaverbrook to see himself cruelly lampooned by +his own cartoonist in his own paper. + +Low is very busy and gets busier every day. He says he can’t stand +having any kind of challenge made to him without taking it up. For +instance, he always hated to write, and never felt he could write. But +some years ago a publisher asked him to write a book. He couldn’t bear +to have the publisher think he wasn’t capable of it. So he wrote one. +Now he has four going all at once. + +It was the same way about public speaking. He can now make a public +address without getting sick at his stomach. In fact, he broadcasts +to America every two weeks, and gets a great satisfaction from it. He +feels that you can convey a hundred per cent more with your voice than +you can through the printed page. + +Low is crazy about the movies. Good or bad, he still likes them. He is +also a great fellow to try games. He has played practically every game +ever invented, from golf to pinochle. But his interest in such things +quickly ebbs. Many of his games he has played only once. He used to sit +by the hour playing the player-piano in his living room, but now it’s +never touched. + +I am no autograph collector, yet I couldn’t bear to return to America +without one of Low’s cartoons. So I asked the _Evening Standard_ for +one of his originals. + +The one they gave me would make you dance with gratitude. I don’t +know why I was so honored. To begin with, it is a gruesomely powerful +war cartoon. A few weeks ago the _Standard_ had it on exhibition in a +front window. A bomb fell in the street outside, and blew a jagged hole +right through the center of this Low masterpiece. How is that for a +double-barreled war souvenir? + +I took the cartoon with me out to Low’s house. He had not known about +the bomb incident. When he saw the hole, it was as though I had +handed him the Pulitzer Prize. You never saw anybody so delighted. He +thumbtacked the cartoon onto his drawing-board, and inscribed it to me. +Then he started walking around the room, thinking and chuckling. To +Mrs. Low he said, “I want to put something funny on it. Come on, help +me be funny.” + +But before Mrs. Low could be funny he said, “I’ve got it,” and went to +the drawing-board and started writing. And this is what he wrote, in +the white space right next to the jagged hole: + +“Dear Hitler--Thanks for the criticism. Yours, Low.” + +And he beamed like a child as he rolled it up and handed it to me. + + +_4. READY FOR HITLER_ + + _Dover, + March, 1941_ + +All day long I rode around southeastern England, skirting the coast +from the mouth of the Thames to Dover. And somehow I got an impression +that Germans wouldn’t be welcome in these parts. + +I never hope to see again in my lifetime so much barbed wire and so +many highway obstructions and roadside blockhouses as I saw in this one +day. + +Right at the moment the military arm is sick of visitors, so I couldn’t +get a pass to see all the heavy stuff and the hidden stuff and the +trick stuff that Britain has evolved to foil the encroaching villain. +But just driving around, almost like a tourist, you are constantly +in such a maze of soldiers, camouflaged trucks, half-hidden guns, +trenches, pillboxes, lookout towers, blocked roads and endlessly +stretching barbed wire that when you finally leave it you begin to feel +lonesome and unsafe. + +The censorship doesn’t permit a description of camouflage, but I saw +camouflaged things that would make you split with laughing if it +weren’t so deadly serious. + +Many farmhouses stand empty, for they will be in the line of battle if +battle comes. Sheep graze in the fields while soldiers occupy the sheep +sheds. A farmer’s simple thatched home may be a general’s headquarters. +Every roadside wood doesn’t cover a gun, but you don’t know which one +does and which one doesn’t. + +The public is barred from this whole area covering the Channel coast +and extending for many miles inland. Those who live in the area can +move about freely, but nobody can come in from outside without a +special pass. + +Each town along the coast is so heavily defended in front that it seems +to me impossible for the Germans to make a landing in force directly +by water. So the next assumption is that they would land men and tanks +and guns inland, by air, and then try to push back and capture a port +to establish a bridgehead for water-borne troops. Consequently the +cities are as well defended behind as in front. For miles, in a great +semicircle behind each city, the fortifications are complex. Roads +and fields and fence-rows are entangled and blocked. Behind them are +hundreds of gun posts in natural craters. + +Everywhere in the whole area are soldiers. They stand guard at nearly +every side road, and at most of the side streets in the towns and +villages. You can see them running, drilling and practicing out in +the fields. You meet them in long lines marching down the road, in +full kit. Maybe they don’t look exactly like men from Mars, but they +certainly don’t resemble Englishmen. + +Although the whole country is already solid with obstruction and +defense, men are still working constantly on more and more of the same. +If they put much more concrete down here I think the whole end of this +island will sink into the sea. + +Surprisingly, the towns in this area don’t seem like ghost towns at +all. Only about a third of the people have been evacuated, and new +soldiers coming in more than make up for this decrease in population. +In Dover, Ramsgate and Deal the streets are filled with people. The +pubs and picture shows operate as usual. The shops are well stocked. +Nobody seems to be going around casting haunted looks over his shoulder. + +It is next summer that the difference will be really apparent. For this +is the Atlantic City and Coney Island section of England, where half +a million Londoners come on a holiday to stroll and bathe and lounge. +They won’t come next summer. For one thing, most of the big hotels are +evacuated. For another, the great beaches and promenade decks up on the +cliffsides are now all tangled with barbed wire and concrete blocks. +And the sands where massed thousands used to lie and relax are now bare +and blocked off. + +All this is reason enough for the crowds not coming next summer. But +the best reason is--the government won’t let anybody in. Not even the +Germans. + + * * * * * + +Dover, as you know, is the English city that is closest to France. It +is subject both to air raids and to shelling from German guns across +the Channel. + +I suppose most of you picture Dover as a deserted city, a half-wrecked +ghost town. It isn’t at all. It is quite alive. Thousands of people are +living here and going on with their business. In fact, Dover is not as +badly damaged--not nearly so--as Coventry or Bristol. The waterfront +is pretty well battered, and most of the buildings there have been +evacuated. But the rest of the city carries right on. + +The Grand Hotel, where all the American newspapermen stayed during the +great air-raiding days of September, 1940, has since had one whole end +bombed off. This end simply fell away from the rest of the hotel as +though a giant hand had cut it off with a knife. If you look way up +at the naked standing wall, which used to be an inside wall, you will +see one lone white washbowl still screwed to the wall. They say a +newspaperman went away hurriedly, leaving his razor lying on the bowl, +shortly before the hotel was hit. Presumably the razor is still there, +but there’s no way to get to it. + +The Dover area gets a bunch of shells from the other side about once a +week. But even the ones that land right in town do little damage. + +Even a newcomer like myself, after a few minutes of practice looking, +can go around town and say, “This was a bomb” or “This was a shell.” A +shell seems to knock down only just what it hits, instead of wrecking +everything all around the way the big bombs do. I saw buildings in +Dover that had received direct hits by shells yet had lost only a few +feet of brick and stone off one corner. + +German planes cross the coast so frequently that cities in this area +have six or eight siren warnings a day. In fact, these coastal towns +have recently put in effect a dual warning system. The regular siren +goes when the planes are first caught by the sound detectors. Then, if +the planes come directly overhead, a local warning is sounded. This +may be a steam whistle or a compressed-air squawker different from the +regular siren. + +There was a first warning in Ramsgate while we were there, in +midafternoon, and I noticed lots of people take to the shelters. + +Ramsgate, incidentally, has a public shelter system that is unique. +It is a vast network of tunnels in the chalk rock, winding around +underneath the city at an average of sixty feet below the surface. The +total length of this network is three and a half miles, and it can be +entered from twenty-three different points. + +In the event of a night-long blitz the entire population of Ramsgate +could crowd into these tunnels. They were started the year before the +war and took more than two years to build. In places the tunnel is so +big you could lay two railroad tracks side by side. In this part the +city has built little “apartments.” These cubicles are merely wooden +frameworks covered with black burlap. They are about six feet high and +have no roof, but they do give some privacy. + +These apartments are permanent homes for 1700 Ramsgate people. They +live down there like prehistoric people in caves. Some of them have +been bombed out of their homes; others are people who are just afraid. + +I’ll tell you something to show you how wide awake this coastal defense +area is. A friend from Tunbridge Wells drove me around. We drove all +day, and covered 150 miles. Of course we had the necessary passes to +enter the area, but we didn’t have any special route mapped out for +ourselves and had sent no word ahead. + +In midafternoon we drove into Ramsgate, a good seventy-five miles from +London. We stopped at a busy corner and asked a traffic policeman the +way to the Lord Mayor’s office. The policeman was a nice-looking, +pleasant young fellow. He told us the way, then looked in the car and +said: + +“Is this Mr. Pyle?” + +My first impulse was to dismount from the car and bow to the passing +throng, on the assumption that my prowess as a literary gentleman was +now recognized in the uttermost corners of the earth. But logic stayed +this action. No such conclusion was permissible under the cold light of +fact. + +The truth is simply that the police all over the area were being +notified from one city to the next who we were and what we were about. + +In cases like this it is soothing to know that your past life is +an open book and your bib is clean. I’m glad now I never even stole +watermelons as a boy. + + +_5. GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT_ + + _London, + March, 1941_ + +The time has almost come for me to start home. + +I came over here originally for only a month. Somehow that has +stretched on into a fourth month, almost without me being aware of +it. The truth is, I like it over here. But I don’t like any place as +well as America, and I guess it’s time I was getting out of England +anyway. I don’t yet say “rahther” nor “bloody,” but I do find myself +automatically looking in the right direction for traffic. Another month +and I would probably be standing for Parliament from Hants. + +After three months in Great Britain I still have no fears about +Britain’s “sticking it.” Of course I would like to say that everybody +was made of steel, that nobody ever got scared or panicky, and that +every single soul was working himself to the bone for the war. But I +have run into people who were petrified by bombs. I have one friend who +loses several pounds during every bad raid. I have also been in some +badly blitzed places where spirits were getting pretty low and people +were wondering just how much more they could take. I have found a good +many stories of selfishness and of running away by people who could +afford to run away. + +But none of these is expressive of the national character. What you +have read in the daily papers back home about Britain’s courage and +calmness as a nation is absolutely true. Maybe there is something that +would break them, but it hasn’t come yet. + +Britain as a whole is of one mind. I have never heard any defeatist +or appeasement talk. Even on the Clyde-side and in Wales I heard very +little of “this is a capitalistic war” kind of talk. + +It is my feeling that the people are ahead of the government in the +national will to win; that much of the government still waits to cast a +timid political eye at the tides of opinion and the shades of precedent +before acting; and that only a few are of the stripe of Churchill +and Beaverbrook, with the capacity for complimenting their people’s +intelligence by moving boldly. + +On the whole I have worked up a feeling, from 2000 miles of travel +over Britain, that the war effort is not yet supreme. Thousands and +thousands of people want to do something to help but are given no +direction, no orders. The organization of the war effort seems to me +far from perfect. Talent and time and desire to serve are wasted. + +As far as I could gather during my travels, the mass of the British +people aren’t thinking much about war aims. They haven’t any very +specific ideas of their own. They hope for a better world somehow, but +they are pretty vague about it. The chief thought right now is to get +the war finished, and then fix it so Germany can’t do this thing again +to the next generation. + + * * * * * + +The most important person in the British government, as far as I am +concerned, is a Welsh girl named Gwyn Barker who handles the wants +of American newspapermen at the Ministry of Information. She is +the most thorough, punctual and altogether satisfactory government +representative I’ve ever dealt with. Furthermore, she is personally +delightful. In Welsh her name is spelled “Gwynedd.” + +It seems to me Americans are wasting their time worrying about what the +war will do to the characters of the children. They fall so quickly +into a familiarity with the ways of war that it becomes wholly natural +to them. + +One afternoon in Bristol I called on the Rev. Mr. Murray, vicar of St. +Michael’s Church. The Murrays have a very robust young son named John, +nineteen months old, who paddles around the room and says a few words. +A few months ago when he heard a plane, John would go to the door, +point up and mumble “Airplane.” But now when he hears one he points up +and says, “Airplane--boom!” + +London is “cleaner” than when I came here. Bomb wreckage, except +that of the previous two or three nights, is all pushed back of the +sidewalks. Many places have been entirely cleared away and now stand as +vacant lots. Every day the great rubble heap on the grass of Hyde Park +grows bigger. It now covers acres, and it is only one of many. + +The open basement of what was Lewis’ great store is now almost clear. A +new sidewalk is being laid in front of the hole. Almost no streets are +now closed by that strange English sign “Diversion.” + +Things are growing tighter daily. There will soon be meatless days +officially, and in hard fact they are here already. Only a few silk +stockings are left on sale. Radio sets are limited from now on. The +railroads may soon raise their fares again. The Home Guards must wear +their uniforms to work. Conscription of labor is in the balance. + +Gas drills are being held in various suburbs. Recent tests showed some +masks “out of fit”--gas gets in through the side. Four hundred masks a +day are being lost or left on subway trains. The newspapers continually +berate the public about not carrying masks, yet not one person in a +hundred does it. + +Now that the lend-lease bill is law, the British talk more frankly to +Americans. “Why shouldn’t you give us the stuff?” my barber asks. “You +don’t ask a man to repay you a shilling when you’re both running for +your lives.” + +It is the belief of most Americans I know over here that America is +headed rapidly toward war. Their feeling seems about fifty-fifty for +and against the idea. + +More and more Americans are rolling in--here to study this, and study +that. + +Books about the war are coming out by the dozen, but no masterpiece +seems to have been written yet. + +New stage plays are opening all the time. “Gone With the Wind” is +running into its second year, and you have to get seats ahead of time. +Leslie Howard is making a film. Lawrence Olivier has passed his R.A.F. +medical examination. + +The air war is picking up. There is a lot of sudden dying in London +every night. It is hit-and-skip dying. It is death dealt by mystic +lottery. A lone bomber three miles above in the dark lets one loose. +That bomb will hit some small spot in a big area thirty miles across, +it will pick out some doomed handful from among London’s eight million +people. Until it hits, nobody knows. + +Ten may die tonight out of the eight million. What marked those ten to +be drawn in the lottery instead of us? What fate drew a bomb to their +special hundred square feet? My room is the same size as theirs, why +didn’t it come here? There is no answer. That’s why you get so you +don’t pay any attention. + +There is no feeling of stringency or acuteness in daily life. People +seem to live even more laxly than when I first came here. They know +something is bound to come--but I am certain the public is not worrying +about it. + +The war is not dramatic to the British people. They go from day to day +and take care of whatever happens. There is no fury, no frenzy, no +great hatred, no general fear, no fanaticism. Faces look the same as in +peacetime. There is no urgency in the British demeanor. In three months +I have not met an Englishman to whom it has ever occurred that Britain +might lose the war. + + * * * * * + +Now it is time to go. It is not easy to leave. There is something about +leaving England in wartime that you cannot bear. I have been all around +to say my good-byes, and I have told them all that it was not good-bye +forever, that I would be back. + +Spring comes early in England, and it is a lovely thing. Already the +days are soft and gentle. It is wonderful to be alive when warmth and +freshness spreads over the land. All through England people are looking +forward to the real, blooming fulness of spring. For many of them, it +will never happen. I could not bear to think that for me there might +never, never be another spring. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + _Albuquerque, N. M._ + + +The long trip home is done. The wars are far distant, and over the +desert there hangs an infinity of space and time that seems put here to +prohibit any contemplation of giant struggles far away. + +It is so quiet out here just at dawn. I don’t know what, but something +awakens us--the silence or the gentleness--something awakens us just at +daybreak. And we get up, and watch the light come softly over the bare +Sandias to the east, and it is a perfect hour. The little birds hop +from the sage-filled mesa at daylight, and they come over into our yard +and they peck in the fresh earth, and waddle around and sing and have a +wonderful time. + +The friendly hot sun makes its arc across the peaceful sky, and evening +is here. We have a window which looks to the west, and every evening +I sit there and watch. Just as the sun touches the horizon its gold +radiates upward onto the hanging clouds above, and the unearthly long +line of the mesa rim turns into a silhouette and the old volcano peaks +stand silently black in their filament of fire, and all out and on +beyond, everywhere, is the gentle rolling vastness of the desert. What +you see then from our west window is something completely enthralling, +something that is big, and finer than any words. + +All this is here for us to relish, so lovely and beautiful and serene. +But when we sit in our west window at sundown it is past midnight +in London, and the guns are going and the bombers are raising hell +and my friends of yesterday are tense and full of a distracting +excitement--peering, listening, alert to death and the sounds of death. + +Out here, so remote from turmoil, the ghostly rustle of a falling +bomb can surely be only something you dreamed once in a nightmare. +There can be no truth in it. And yet you know. Day and night, always +in your heart, you are still in London. You have never really left. +For when you have shared even a little in the mighty experience of +a compassionless destruction, you have taken your partnership in +something that is eternal. And amidst it or far away, it is never out +of your mind. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Perceived typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79228 *** |