The Tightening String

by Ann Bridge

  ‘Splendid’ she said. It was something if adorers would work overtime without complaint. ‘Right – take all this downstairs.’ When the girl had gone she asked for the Minister’s study on the house telephone – rather to her surprise he replied; she had half expected him to be out, shooting or playing golf. ‘Who is that?’ his voice asked, non-committally.

  ‘Me’ Rosina said foolishly.

  ‘Oh my dear – where are you?’

  ‘In my office. May I come along?’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Nice week-end?’ he asked when she sat down. ‘Did the Baron play?’

  ‘Oh yes – he gave me 2000 pengoes, and put me on to Baron Schönheim, who he says will find me girls to make shirts and pyjamas out of all that Jug flannel. But he told me a frightful story’ – she repeated the tale of the parcels being sent to Lisbon.’ Do you think it can be true? It seems so dotty to try to send them through Switzerland, when parcels on from there are held up for weeks because of the R.A.F. raids on all the Rhineland railways. Mademoiselle O- told me about that the other day; she said the situation was quite desperate, even for the invalid foods and medicines.’

  ‘Alas, I’m afraid anything can be true of the Red Gross’ Sir Hugh said sadly. ‘It’s personnel are devoted people, but very few of them have much training in administration; and you see they are not under any Government department, so they are not accountable for their actions to Parliament.’

  ‘Then who are they accountable to?’

  ‘Only to public opinion – and that moves slowly. But it is beginning to move – Morven hears there are going to be some very awkward questions in the House of Commons next week.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘The Secretary of State for War, since soldiers are his pidgin; but of course he won’t be able to anwer them – only express a pious hope that the prisoners will soon get some parcels. He can’t compel the Red Cross to act rationally, or prevent them acting irrationally.’

  ‘What would you say was the rational action for them to take?’ Rosina asked, again thinking of the Baron’s remarks; she distrusted her own views where her emotions were involved.

  ‘At present, pour money in here, where all the resources of Egypt, Turkey, and South-East Europe are available, and there is rapid access to the camps; and let you and my wretched staff send the stuff on!’ he said, smiling a little ruefully at her. ‘And ship those miserable Lisbon parcels to that Serbian port next door to Fiume; they could come here by rail and go straight on into Germany. In fact Morven says that a Jugoslav ship-owner has offered some of his ships for this very purpose.

  ‘And haven’t they been accepted?’ Rosina asked, staring.

  ‘Oh no – not yet. They probably won’t be, till it’s too late. God knows how long we shall be here – but now, we could help; this is the ideal route, since the R.A.F. isn’t bombing the Austrian railways.’

  ‘But why can’t they see that?’ Rosina asked, fuming.

  ‘Age; inexperience; and a preoccupation with the past. Many of the devoted old gentlemen in Grosvenor Crescent are retired Generals; it’s fixed in their minds that in the First World War Switzerland was the place to send parcels through, because it was a neutral country contiguous to Germany, with an open frontier to the South – Italy; so Switzerland it must be. What they have omitted to register is that in this war Italy is an enemy, and France occupied by the enemy. So parcels still have to go via Geneva, although, for the moment, Hungary occupies the position that Switzerland held from 1914 to 1918.’

  His stress on the words ‘for the moment’ struck a chill into Rosina’s heart. Of course they would get out somehow, whatever happened; diplomats always did. But what would become of David if they had to ‘walk to Jerusalem’, wheeling that pigskin bag with the drinks and spare clothing in Countess Pongracz’s old garden-basket? Had she better lay on an invalid chair for Lucilla to push her Father down through the Balkans in?

  ‘Min dear, how long do you think we shall last here?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no idea. You’re thinking of David, of course. But he seems much better – Mendze is pleased with his progress’.

  ‘Yes, naturally I’m thinking of him – he’s not likely to be fit for “escapes and hurried journeys” for a good long time.’ She paused. ‘But I’m thinking of the prisoners too. They’re getting nothing; I’ve just been reading the most horrifying letters. What happened about those quilts? So many Vertrauensmänner- and relations – ask for blankets. Could you possibly telegraph to the wretched Red Cross and ask when they will cough up the money to buy the quilts? They’re terribly good value at sixteen bob, and it’s getting late in the year.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’ He went across to his desk, opened a drawer and consulted his notes, and wrote rapidly; then he pressed a bell. ‘That do?’ he asked, handing her the draft telegram.

  ‘Yes, fine – you’ve even repeated the dimensions. You see they’ll make perfect sleeping-bags – and we’ve bought up all the large safety-pins in Budapest and Sofia and Belgrade!’

  Martha Beckley appeared in response to the bell.

  ‘Hullo, Rosina. Do any good at Schloss Weissberger?’

  ‘Yes, a lot. Two thousand pengoes, and no end of advice about begging and seamstresses. If you could come in for supper tonight we might concert some plans.’

  ‘Not for- I will after. How good. Two thousand!’

  ‘When you two young ladies have finished your private conversation, I should like to give a telegram to my secretary’ the Minister said, with his sidelong smile. Rosina said – ‘Oh, so sorry’; Martha, in a cold flat tone, said-‘Yes, Your Excellency?’

  ‘None of your lip, Martha. Here you are’ – he handed her the sheet of paper.’ For the Red Cross, per the Foreign Office – and I think it had better be in code, innocent as it is.’

  ‘Very good, Sir. I’ll send it off at once.’

  ‘Less of your “ Sir”; that’s lip too, as well you know, between you and me,’ Sir Hugh said cheerfully.

  ‘I didn’t think there was anything between you and me, least of all lip, or lips’ said Martha Beckley as she left the room.

  ‘Oh what a splendid girl! I thank God for her every day’ the Minister said fervently. Rosina Eynsham was laughing. ‘Why do you laugh?’

  ‘It always amuses me to see Martha slapping you down. But I agree – she is God’s gift to anyone. How soon do you think we shall get an answer to that telegram?’

  ‘Heaven knows – the old gentlemen in Grosvenor Crescent are apt to take their time. However I addressed it to His Lordship personally, and headed it “Urgent”. We’ll see.’

  The reply did not come for over a week, and was highly unsatisfactory when it did. The Germans, the British Red Cross stated firmly, would never allow quilts to be sent to prisoners-of-war; it was far too easy to conceal compasses, or even small maps in them; the whole idea was impossible.

  This obstructiveness made Rosina quite furious; she was nervy anyhow, between overwork and anxiety over David, and Martha had told her of the bitter questions (and futile answers) in Parliament about parcels for the prisoners, reported by the wireless – something which did not appear in the Bulletin. In her office she asked the telephone operator to get her a friend at the American Legation; America was the ‘Protecting Power’ for Allied prisoners-of-war, and members of the Embassy staff in Berlin were already detailed to visit the camps in this capacity.

  ‘Oh Howard, listen. Is it really impossible to send quilts to our prisoners? Could you find out? Look’ – she put her problem. ‘We use Hungarian Red Cross labels, of course. How soon can you get an answer? Honestly, I don’t believe they know a thing in London!’

  ‘Relax, Rosie. It won’t take long to find out; I’ll call you back the moment I hear. Don’t kill yourself. How’s David?’

  In just under two hours the American rang back.

  ‘Rosie? Good news! I got onto Perce in Berlin, and he went right round to the Ober-Kommando Wehrmacht. Will
you take this down? – got a pencil? In quotes: “If the quilts are in bales or parcels bearing Hungarian Red Cross labels, and are sent across the frontier at Hegyes-halom”’ – he spelt it out-‘“they will be accepted by the German authorities, and forwarded to the camps immediately.” That do you?’

  ‘Oh, marvellous! Bless you, Howard.’

  ‘I’ll send you on the text of the order when I get it from Perce. But this should fix your old Red Cross.’

  ‘Infernal old Red Cross!’ Rosina exclaimed. ‘Howard, I can’t thank you enough.’ In her excitement she went straight across the passage to the Minister’s study and tapped on the door, a thing that normally she never did – she either telephoned, or sent a servant to ask if His Excellency was at liberty? He was, on this occasion, and she showed him, glowing, what she had scribbled down at Howard’s dictation. ‘Now they’ll be able to sleep warm this winter’ she said triumphantly.

  She was mistaken. Sir Hugh prudently waited for forty-eight hours till the text of the German permission had come; then he sent another cable to the Red Cross, quoting this, and requesting that funds should be made available for the immediate purchase of 44,000 quilts for the P.O.W.s But the old gentlemen in Grosvenor Crescent did indeed take their time; it was not till the spring of the following year that permission and funds were given – for the purchase of 10,00 quilts, for 44,000 men! Corporal Fraser and his like had to spend their first winter in German prison-camps under ‘the one thin blanket’.

  Chapter 8

  The Prisoners’ Relief Organisation Committee met once a week. It was always a slightly tedious affair to Martha and Mrs Eynsham, who both felt it rather a waste of time to listen to Eleanor Wheatley letting off bitcheries at Gina Morven, who hit back, to dear Hugo prosing, and to the general diffuse inconclusiveness. But after her return from the Weissbergers Rosina duly made her report, and read out several of the Camp letters.

  ‘And have you seen this Baron Schonheim?’ Mrs Wheatley asked.

  ‘Not yet – 1 only got home two days ago, and I’ve been busy buying the instruments for the orchestra for that Stalag. They don’t seem to have mouth-organs here; Stalag XX wants 500. Someone will have to go down to Belgrade.’

  ‘What makes you think they have mouth-organs in Belgrade?’ Mrs Wheatley asked pertly.

  ‘I rang up Sir Monty, and they have millions, it seems. But who does the Committee wish to tackle Baron Schönheim?’

  ‘You, of course,’ Horace said. ‘Shut up, Eleanor’ – as his wife opened her pretty doll’s mouth to speak. ‘Yes, Gina?’

  ‘I could go to Belgrade and fetch zese mouse-organs. Mrs Eynsham ees busy, and her husband so sick.’

  ‘Good, Gina,’ Martha Beckley said. ‘That is approved, I take it?’ Martha kept the Committee’s minutes. ‘And that Mrs Eynsham tackles Baron Schonheim?’ She made rapid notes.

  ‘There’s one other point’ Mrs Eynsham said. ‘The most terrible letters keep coming in from the camps; I haven’t read them all to you. But no one is getting anything except from here, and Mrs Campbell’s air parcels from Estoril – tiny ones, of course; and it seems that the Red Gross pays no attention to anything but public opinion. So if anyone knows influential people in England, I think it would be a good plan to write to them, and ask them to rouse up the Red Cross, and also to send money direct to us, who can get stuff in.’

  ‘Letters by bag take eight weeks now’ Colonel Morven said gloomily – ‘wandering round by the Cape and Khartoum.’

  ‘I know. But Martha has had an idea about that. Tell your friends to address their letters with – we hope – their cheques, to i Verböezy-utca, Budapest; put no stamps on, and send them in a covering envelope addressed to our Ambassador in Lisbon. He’ll send them on by ordinary European airmail.’

  ‘How do you know he will?’ Eleanor Wheatley wanted to know.

  ‘Because she rang him up and arranged it’ Martha Beckley said impatiently. ‘Don’t be so tiresome, Eleanor. A cheque has gone to cover his stamps, too. And you all send your letters, also in two envelopes, the outside one addressed to the British Ambassador, British Embassy, Lisbon. They’ll probably get through in eight or nine days.’

  ‘That’s smart!’ Colonel Morven said. ‘I shall write to Regimental Headquarters at once, and ask for funds.’

  ‘I shall write to the Archbishop of Canterbury’ Horace said, grinning. ‘He might make a speech in the House of Lords; if public opinion is what we have to rely on, that could help. Rosina, get me some flimsies made of the more tear-jerking letters, will you?’

  ‘Of course – the best of ideas.’

  ‘You don’t know the Archbishop of Canterbury, Horace, do you?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘He confirmed me – that’s quite enough. You write to your tedious old Uncle Lord Cuddesdon – he could make a speech too, though no one will listen to it; I believes he empties the Chamber the moment he gets up to speak! Anyhow he might send us a few quid – he’s hideously rich.’

  ‘Hideously mean, too’ Eleanor said. ‘However, I’ll try it on. He was in the Ox-and-Bucks in the Boer War, or the Crimean War, or something, so he might know what a soldier is.’ They laughed, glad that Mrs Wheatley was being co-operative for once; indeed the whole small group was fired with a fresh eagerness at the idea of conducting this new campaign.

  ‘Poor Gina – what a pity you can’t write to anyone!’ Eleanor Wheatley said presently, spoiling the pleasant feeling that had suddenly prevailed.

  ‘I can! I do! I write to ze Pope’ Gina replied with vigour.

  ‘What can he do?’ Eleanor was asking contemptuously, when Geoffrey Milton, the Press Attaché, lounged in. He was in theory a member of the Committee, but seldom graced it with his presence. ‘What can who do? ‘he asked.

  ‘The Pope, for the P.O.W.s’ Martha replied, cutting Mrs Wheatley short.

  ‘My impression of this Pope is that he can do practically anything for anyone’ Milton said. ‘I gather the Vatican already has a high-powered relief organisation mobilised; helping the French refugees, so far. But why should he bother with our prisoners? Isn’t that up to the Red Cross?’

  ‘It should be, of course’ Martha said, ‘but they’ve fallen flat on their faces over this job, so far. Didn’t you know? Tell him, Rosina.’

  ‘Yes, do help me to earn my salary’ the young man said, in a voice as melting as his huge eyes. ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘You’d better come along to my office and see the actual letters’ Mrs Eynsham said. ‘Then you might create a Press riot.’

  ‘Give me a précis.’

  She did, briefly and forcibly.

  ‘No parcels at the camps yet, except ours? After four months? All roosting at Lisbon? How awful.’

  ‘Can’t you get in an article, Geoffrey?’ Horace Wheatley asked. ‘The Yanks in Berlin are visiting the camps – you’ve only to see Howard and get the low-down on the whole thing, straight from the horse’s mouth. Send one of your reporters round.’

  Mr. Milton reflected – they all watched him.

  ‘No,’ he said at length. ‘I don’t think it will work.’

  ‘Why not?’ Martha asked sharply.

  ‘Oh, because the British Red Cross is an untouchable – in the upper sense! It’s a sort of Holy of Holies, or a Sacred Cow.’

  ‘You must have seen the questions in the House’ Horace said.

  ‘Oh yes – quite nasty, and from what you tell me well-merited. But I still don’t think the time is ripe for an article about it.’

  ‘Oh very well – let us all write our own letters’ Mrs Eynsham said brusquely. ‘I’ve never had much faith in the Press, anyhow.’ She rose, gathering her papers and stowing them in a leather case. ‘Have we finished, Hugo? If so I’ll go and get on with my work. The time is always ripe for that!’

  ‘Let me drive you home – that’s a huge brief-case for you to carry’ Milton said as she walked out.

  ‘What a home-taker you are! – if it isn’t Lucilla, it’s even me’
she said, getting into his Chrysler; her bag was very heavy.

  ‘Rosina, why are you so nasty to me?’ the young man asked, as he shot off up the narrow street of golden houses.

  ‘Oh, like begets like! I think you’re nasty, and a coward too – otherwise you’d get an article into the Press at home about this Red Cross nonsense, headed “By telephone from Berlin”. But you only care about your career, not about those frozen starving boys,’ she exclaimed in exasperation. The car pulled up at her house, and she sprang out. ‘Thank you.’

  He leaned out of the window, his face sad as she had never seen it.

  ‘Rosina, do you really think me a coward? Unworthy?’

  ‘Yes of course. How could anyone think anything else, after your performance just now?’

  ‘I’ll think about an article’ he said, and drove away.

  The very next night Gina Morven travelled down to Belgrade; her husband telephoned to his opposite number there, and she was met, and put up, and taken round the town by a Jugoslav-speaking lady to buy ‘mouse-organs’; there were plenty of these, but in small quantities, a dozen in this little shop, twenty in that – her task occupied several days. Five hundred mouth-organs take up a surprising amount of space, too, and are rather heavy; she returned in triumph with two enormous cardboard dress-boxes which were already beginning to burst at the corners. Horace and Mr Smith re-packed them in stronger cartons, weighing them carefully – no prisoners’ parcels were supposed to exceed five kilograms.

  Rosina had come up against this difficulty over the instruments for the orchestra. A ‘cello by itself weighs anything from eighteen to twenty-five pounds; packed in a wooden crate for transit it was far over the permitted weight – the postal and railway officials protested. Dismayed, she consulted Sir Hugh.

  ‘Ring up old Willie – he will fix it for you somehow’ the Minister said. ‘Rather a good idea, a camp orchestra. Have you got them any music? That will weigh tons, too.’

  ‘I haven’t begun to try – I’m rather stupid about music. I’ve got all the fiddles and so on – the instrument-makers have let us have everything at twenty-five per cent below wholesale price.’