Autobiography

by Diana Cooper

  We left at the usual 4 a.m. next day, boarded our own good Anzac Clipper and spent the most hideous day of the trip. The sky was grim and, for reasons and currents best known to the skipper, we flew for twelve hours one hundred feet above sea-level. This means no air at all, bumps, alarming squalls and blind flying through rainstorms. We lay about like so many living sardines in a tin on a stove—all dignity, all shame lost, sweating, stinking, writhing, not speaking, not eating, obnoxious to each other and to ourselves. Borneo passed practically unnoticed. It ended, and there was Singapore at our feet, with silver bomber Buffalo planes escorting us in, Commander-in-Chief Brooke-Popham on the jetty and the whole set-up entirely to my liking—liveries of ostentatious gold and white and scarlet on Malay and Indian servants, A.D.C.s, movie-men, gaping coolies, old Indian men with white beards and grubby ordinary European shirts hanging loose, as often as not their turban in hand, allowing their shower of straggly grey hair to fall to their waists. Cantonese men and women in black trousers and gleaming clean white jackets of the chic-est cut, pomaded black hair set with gold ornaments. Rickshaws and their runners looking like clockwork toys.

  We drove through this enchanting town, as full of character and colour as one could desire, sometimes like a print in Hickey’s diary, sometimes like old Monte Carlo (for that is its chief date, I think—1860), sometimes like a vision of Peking slums with a population’s washing hanging flag-like on rods out of windows, children being bathed in the street, cunning workmen making shoes or gongs or earrings, sometimes like England for a flash with a cathedral and a spire.

  Less English were God’s acres being mown by the fingers and thumbs of natives advancing on all fours in a serried row and plucking the growing grass-blades. It was the relief of it not looking like Cleveland, Ohio, that pleased me so much.

  Government House is as cool as a fishnet and, although it is the size of Welbeck, we can all see and hear each other, which comes of having no doors or windows. My bed stands, mosquito-curtained, in the middle of a room thirty by thirty. For all that I was woken in the night by a downpour of rain on the face, driven in from the Western Approaches, delicious and cooling. It’s hot, but not as hot as the halts on our journey.

  Sir Shenton and Lady Thomas were kind as could be, and happy in the job, no complaints, anxious to help, discouraging though about getting a house for our Mission. Not a hope—too many Generals, Admirals, Australians in Singapore, no building being done. “Not an earthly!” But they got me a little Cantonese amah with hands as delicate as filigree, as much gold in her teeth as in her hair, and four words of English: “Chancellor” (Duff), “barff” and “can do.” Officials for dinner, and a lot to learn. Conversation too confident—“They won’t come here,” “We’ll give them a warm reception”—every platitude to be found untrue.

  Letters from Conrad greeted my arrival. They must have come via Africa.

  Mells

  13 August

  It’s only a week ago that I stood on the control tower like Dido with a willow in my hand and waved you goodbye as you took the air. There are not words to tell you of the blank in my heart. We had quiet guard. I wore my new inch-thick serge battle-dress, long winter-drawers, two pairs socks, leggings, sleeved cardigan, kept on my fleece-lined greatcoat, got a good fire going in the small windowless hut, snuggled up close to Les for warmth’s sake, but couldn’t keep out the cold. I thought of you naked and sweating on your Portuguese bed. This is August in England and cruel it can be.

  I’m reading the History of Greece by Robertson and am intensely interested in it. The Greeks had trial by jury and there was no judge. The jury settled the sentence too. Unlike us the number on a jury was 201, 401 or 6000. No other numbers were allowed. Then I read about Prodicus, who gave a course of lectures on the whole of wisdom. The course cost two guineas. For those desiring something less ambitious he had a course (also taking the whole of wisdom) which cost tenpence. I shall come to Alexander the Great soon, and then for some odd reason the history of Greece ends, or isn’t worth bothering about.

  This morning I went to the Chitton workhouse to see old Teddie, my tenant, pensioner and ex-gardener, and the one that only eats duck’s eggs from running water. The workhouse master had rung me up to say that old Teddie was very ill and when his mind wandered “a babbled o’ Mr Russell.” The screens were drawn round the bed—heralds of death as I think—and when I said to the nurse: “I’ll only stay a minute,” she said that I could stay as long as I liked. I thought that this meant nothing matters now. It wasn’t painful. He talked all the time of crops and gardens. It is cheering to see the care with which the old and impoverished are tended in England—charming nurse, cleanliness, comforts and attention, even spoiling in Teddie’s case, as everyone loves him. I shouldn’t mind dying in the workhouse. It didn’t seem much different from my costly nursing home.

  18 August

  Teddie died this morning. His life bears out your contention about the hooch. He was a perpetual drunkard for sixty years and then died at seventy-six because he would scratch his face with his dirty hands. The nurses worried him not to, but he turned a deaf ear to their counsels and gave himself blood-poisoning.

  The carter said several times, “He was a witty man.” He uses “witty” to mean “able,” i.e. having wits etc. I never heard it so used before.

  31 August

  I am very much wrapt up in the History of Greece and sometimes I have to look on to see what is going to happen. I’m reading about Lysander now (of Hector and Lysander). I daresay I thought him mythical, but he wasn’t and he was a Spartan admiral who won the battle of Ægospotomi.

  When Farmer Pony of Eggford (always so called to distinguish him from Farmer Pony of Chantry) cut his wheat he found the missing German. I mean the one who was missing from the bomber that I saw shot down. He was food for worms when he was found, as you can well imagine. I always thought that he was in the wheat and I am so thankful he was not in mine.

  12 September

  I am reading a new life of Trelawny. When Leigh Hunt arrived at Leghorn to stay with the Shelleys they got off the steamer with six small and dirty little Hunts and a goat, also a seventh child en ventre de sa mère and born on landing. Byron’s bulldog flew at the goat and bit off one of its ears. And when Byron moved about Italy he took “pet geese” with him. There were more eccentric people then, but few as eccentric as Trelawny.

  To Bath, where I saw Mr Miller, my dentist, who did not fail to show me the tiepin given him by the Duke of Connaught and the coloured photograph of the orchids sent him by Queen Mary. I thought it (the orchids) an unusual present from a queen to a dentist.

  Two adjoining houses were found for us, standing in green gardens three miles from the town’s centre. They belonged to the Government, so why the gloomy predictions? Government House produced every conceivable amenity from another hill G.H. We could all pack in. Tony Keswick, Martin and ourselves in one; our gallant Military Attaché Robertson and Alex Newboult of the Colonial Office would fill the other house, that was also to be offices. Della and Denis Allen from the Foreign Office were due from Chungking to be part of our set-up. Quantities of servants lived in the compound with wives, concubines and children. Their reason for living seemed to be for our comfort and their smiles never faded until the last goodbyes.

  We were delighted with everything, including my own pretty improvements. You came in through a Florentine arcaded approach to an open hall with wide brick stairs that led to the only other floor. On the ground there was a long large living-room with pillared loggia on which I had put Mrs Hawksbee rattan chairs and tables for pahits and stengahs. This room had a spacious alcove which acted as dining-room for eight or ten people, also a palatial Hollywood bed and bathroom, which was given to Tony Keswick. The living-room was to be Duff’s office, impressive with green lines and scrambling telephones. Upstairs was just such another long drawing-room, a large bedroom for us and a single room for Martin Russell.

  Pains taken ha
d repaid me and the house was delightful. White gardenias picked long-stalked in our own garden, a lot of clean white rugs and Oriental jars, white cushions, no glass windows or curtains, a few noble lanterns hung from the ceiling, white and painted to my order by a street-side artist with appropriate characters in red. I could not tell if they had painted the appropriate, or whether I was advertising trusses or aphrodisiacs or my own or Duff’s price. White china windmills all over the ceiling did not improve the appearance, but they circulated welcome air.

  A midge in the ointment was Duff’s outlook. He did not really know what he was doing in Singapore. No one complained, or if they did they strangled the complaint when change loomed up. Confidence and a relaxing climate had lulled the administrators into an euphoric coma. True it had been the same in America when Japan was talked of, not least in Pearl Harbour, but at Pearl Harbour there was feverish activity. In Singapore one might have been behind the Sleeping Beauty’s briar roses.

  I knew I must beware of wishfully thinking all was well. There was not much for me to do; perfunctory packing of parcels; in wartime the English always turn to that activity, but there was nothing much to pack. Wandering in the Chinese streets was my delight, watching the cunning workmen carving and hammering and painting, visiting the cripples’ meeting-place where they all sat resting from their labours of begging, legless and armless, with little tassels of fingers springing out of their shoulders and suchlike. The coffin-makers’ street, the models made less sinister than ours, fish-lanterns, painted candles, paper houses and shoes, roast joints and sham coins, all for pyre-burning. The native restaurant with new aromatic smells—soya? sesame? There the Chinese sit on high bar-stools, buttocks and feet gathered up on to the seat monkey-wise.

  We dined one night with Mr Kao, the Chinese Consul-General, another English couple name of Scott (M.O.I.), another Chinaman, Martin, Tony and I. The meal was a chinoiserie, chopsticks and all. The house was a European disgrace, full of photographs of Chiang Kai-Shek and scrolls of characters, treated as Titians, not texts. “Whose calligraphy is that, Mr Kao?” I gathered from Tony was the correct question. There was a grog-tray on the terrace bearing a hundred bottles, many of which are only seen in bars, like Crême de Violette and Crême de Cacao, besides every known spirit and aperitif. After some adventurous drinks we sat down to a table of Mr Kao’s own design. It was round, and the centre of its circle (in diameter about a yard) whizzed round dumb-waiter fashion—very ingenious and well suited to Bognor. Soup first, next a very small spatchcocked sucking-pig with sly unspatched almost-human face and the crackliest of skins, eaten from the centre dish with chopsticks. The host, Mr Kao, handled an extra pair of sticks for passing delicacies to his guests. Then a fish à la nage in its own bouillon, thin shark’s fins swimming in the same, followed by cabbage and mushrooms sweetly blended. Then—East compromising with West—a chicken pie very unlike ours. A delicious dish of sweet-sour something came next, and then little bags of suet containing I don’t really know what—a great many eaten by each guest (Duff made a beast of himself) and we wound up with a nice delicate duck soup. All very good, eaten out of little Chinese bowls with sticks and all tasting, to my amateur palate, identical.

  Conversation was restricted to food-subjects with occasional health-drinking. If Tony said “You’re a wonderful man, Mr Kao” in a rollicking way, Mr Kao would grin and say “You think so, Mr Keswick? You think so?” delighted and in part believing it. Mrs Kao, a dear woman, was the fifteen-stone skeleton of the feast, having no English. She all but wept in the ladies’ lu when she explained to me in pidgin how fond she was of conversation. The evening broke up in an avalanche of rare gifts—tins of green tea, four scroll-pictures of the seasons by a living though traditional artist (they will greatly ornament our house) and a book by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. We came home laden like children from a Christmas tree. The two Chinamen trying to translate the poems on the scrolls were so reminiscent of poor Maurice. He, though, was always sure, since his were extempore, whereas they could never agree as to the meaning of the characters, let alone the translation.

  Java was to be Duff’s first engagement. It had been decided that I should not be taken—Hudson bombers were not suitable for women, was one excuse; joy-riding was another. I wanted to go and fought valiantly with Duff’s loyal backing and the Dutch Governor’s wife saying disappointment would be felt if the lady didn’t come. At midnight, before the start at dawn, my battle was won.

  I’m experiencing my first flight in a bomber, two-engined and a bit grim, not gadgeted like a submarine as I expected. Plenty of space for us three, and three Australian crew. We flew low enough to see the horrors of Sumatra below—a relentless jungle, alive, no doubt, with snakes and deadly animals. We wore parachutes. The harness robbed me of dignity. Straps between one’s legs in a skirt are always mortifying to one’s pride. What good, I thought, will a parachute do us in a sharky sea or a cobra-swamp? What happens if, the engines stalling, one does by a miracle land, or crash in the machine through the forest, breaking one’s fall in branches? One lights a fire perhaps as a signal to a saviour and as a warning to beasts not to venture. One is seen by the saviour. What then? He cannot land; there are no paths. I’m over that same jungle as I write, so I’ll change the subject and get back to arrival at the Batavian airport.

  “Got away with it again,” the pilots love to say to me as we bump down to earth. I wish they wouldn’t. It makes each subsequent flight more alarming. I don’t even like “Happy landings”—too near the knuckle.

  We drove for two hours up mountains to the Governor’s Summer Palace of Sans Souci, a particularly unattractive residence, but we were shown on arrival to our own little fresh guest-house, with native bath-house consisting of an Ali Baba jar and a pannikin (much nicer than a shower). We felt independent and private and greatly exhilarated by the cold snappy air, said by most to be “like champagne.” I forgot about India and Canada and was surprised by the official pomp, for after a reasonable interval officials arrived and said that the Governor would see us.

  We sat down twelve to dine—ourselves, secretaries, aides, aides’ wives and officials. Full pomp—a liveried dwarf Malay behind each chair. They serve you on their hunkers if you are sitting on a sofa or at tea, and, pressing both hands to their parts, bow from the waist in acknowledgment of an order. Guests are assembled in a horseshoe and the Governor and his wife are brought out when all is ready. The English are so dreadful, I thought, and no one ever warned me about curtseying, so when to my surprise he walked up to me, first extending a hand that I had so lately pressed, I shook it with warmth and held my full height. All the other ladies fell flat on their faces. We think no royalty exists unless it’s King George. I apologised afterwards but could find no civil excuse.

  Faithful Conrad had continued to write almost daily, and his letters reached me at the end of our visit.

  Mells

  20 September

  Anniversary of the fall of Rome 1870, and I for one jolly well hope it will soon fall again.

  I’ve had such a comic letter from the Milk Board. The writer called invasion “War Disruption” in an effort at originality, and wanting to say that there is no need to be very particular about the cheese, he says: “In this regard I suggest that an over-meticulous technique need not be visualised under the circumstances.” That’s his way of making his meaning quite clear to the Somerset farmers. Quorum pars minima sum.

  The whole day has been devoted to silage-making and I think it is going all right. The book of instructions tells one “not to be self-conscious about trampling the silo.” Can it be at all usual for farmers to suffer from self-consciousness in kneading well on the silage?

  I see the Pope has told the President’s man in Rome that he is unable to “take sides” in this war. One must find it hard not to take sides in the quarrel of Germany versus Poland, or Germany versus Czechoslovakia. Hilaire once said to me that the Papacy has always been wrong; all through history it has alway
s taken the wrong side. When I said “Why?” he said “Well, what would you expect of a lot of clergymen?”

  I revelled in returning safe to my quiet house, to the grinning servants, and to the cross bird that I had bought—a jade-green parakeet, fat and preened, with scarlet cheeks and nose. I would take it walks on a hibiscus branch (the Chinese take theirs in cages). It hated both me and Martin. I was glad to get back to the flowers and the golden orioles flapping about in the branches outside.

  Singapore

  29 September

  Health worsening daily—permanent headache now. Shall I try tiger-balm, the Chinese cure-all, or better shall I go to Malacca? “I want to be alone.” Duff and his Tony and his Robbie (the Major’s pet name) are off for the day and two nights by train to Kuala Lumpur. I could take two days too, but mentioning it to Duff produces an eruption. I make every thing more difficult—don’t I know that I’m only here on sufferance?—I’m not to go to Chungking—I’m not to lose face everywhere by not giving official warning of my visit etc. Then I turn sulky, not surprising when you feel as sick as I do. So after twenty-four hours sweet Duff showed remorse and said I could do what I liked always—that I could go to Malacca—that he wouldn’t have come without me, and by this show I was cured of my sulks, but not, alas, of the heavy fog in the head. I think that if I spend five hours in the air-conditioned train, see Malacca, sleep at the Governor’s Rest House, avoid all food and drink and return next day in the same cold train, I shall mend.