I nodded weakly and studied the shelves of tinned peas for a few moments, before deciding to leave the shop without buying anything. You see, I don’t have a fighting spirit. The thought of all-out war overwhelms me. I feel like Britain is a bird wounded from the last battle, and there’s a savage crow right there, ready to push us out of our nest and take over.
I had to get on. Apart from my other visits, I had to check on Mrs. Winthrop and baby Lawrence. The Brigadier has been keeping me away, insisting that Miss Paltry is seeing to her, which is ridiculous as I’m just as well qualified. But today I heard that the Brigadier was going to London, which left the coast clear. I was desperate to hear about her birth story, find out how it fit in with Hattie’s. So I trudged determinedly up to the Manor.
Mrs. Winthrop was looking exhausted. “He can’t stop crying, poor lamb,” she sniffed. “Nanny Godwin says she’s never seen anything like it.”
“I’m afraid some babies are like that. It’ll pass with time.” I scooped him up to calm him down, his dark, scraggy hair glued to his scalp with the sweat of crying. “Now tell me about the birth. Did Miss Paltry give you some medicine at all?”
“Yes, some nasty green stuff. I thought I was going to be sick, but then the contractions started. It might even have brought them on,” she mumbled, almost as if she were talking to herself. “But the dreadful part was when the baby came and she had to rush him away to her house because of the breathing problem.”
What? I thought. Another breathing problem? “Did you see that he wasn’t breathing?”
“No, I hardly saw him before she took him away.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
She gushed forth about how Miss Paltry saved baby Lawrence’s life by whisking him away to her house to use the ventilating machine. It seems incredible that two babies had the same breathing problem in the same day. Perhaps it had something to do with the medicine? But no matter how many questions I asked, I simply couldn’t get to the bottom of it.
After I left, I had to deal with a billeting problem. Since I am the Billeting Officer in Chilbury, I’m responsible for finding spare bedrooms for evacuees or war workers, and because Chilbury is five miles from the Litchfield Park War Center, I’m continually getting called upon to find more beds for their people. Now they need another two rooms for senior staff. I tried half the village before giving up.
“But what about your David’s room?” Mrs. B. snapped as we congregated for choir practice. “He’s in France now. There’s no reason for you to keep his room empty when there’s so much need.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Quail stepped in. “Here you are foisting goodness-knows-who on everyone else, and you’re not even prepared to take one yourself.”
“David’s only just left. You can’t expect me to give up his room just like that?” I thought I was going to burst into tears but quickly pulled myself together. “In any case, I don’t see you giving up Henry’s room,” I retorted to Mrs. B.
“He’s an RAF pilot and comes home on leave.” She puffed herself up a little. I can’t bear how she goes on about RAF pilots and how they’re the crème de la crème of the military, as if David’s some little nobody worthy of a bullet or two.
“That’s not the point,” Mrs. Quail came to the rescue, but then turned on me again. “But, Mrs. Tilling, you can’t call yourself a Billeting Officer if you don’t billet yourself. It’s not fair.”
“Indeed. You said these new billets are for important bigwigs at Litchfield Park,” Mrs. B. snipped. “Ivy House is the perfect place for someone to stay whilst working their hardest to win this war. And you have a telephone, too, and there aren’t many houses in the village with one of those. It’s your duty, Mrs. Tilling, to take one in.”
“Don’t you have a telephone, Mrs. B.?” Mrs. Quail snipped back. “Surely you can find space for a bigwig?”
As if by magic, Prim swooped down the aisle.
“Ladies, it’s time to rehearse.”
Everyone fell quiet and went to their places, except for Mrs. B., who was still quietly smarting.
“We need to focus on ‘Ave Maria’ tonight for the competition. Let’s start at the beginning and take it to the end of the chorus.”
Mrs. Quail pounded out the introduction, and then we jumbled the entry and were off key and far too loud.
“What a muddle!” Prim said when we’d come to the end. “You’re all out of balance with each other. Now, let’s try a few arpeggios.”
We did some arpeggios, and then some scales, and sounded a little more together, but the argument had put us out of keel. During one of the scales, Mrs. B. thumped her music score down and marched off out of the church.
“Right, let’s try ‘Ave Maria’ again,” Prim continued, ignoring the departure.
It was better, but still not good.
“It’s simply too difficult,” Kitty whined.
“Perhaps we should pull out,” I said quietly.