The Tightening String

by Ann Bridge

  ‘What does your cable say?’ Milton asked. She took it from her bag and gave it to him.

  ‘Proceed Athenswise’ he read. ‘Yes, well Athenswise is the only way you can proceed, as things are. Now don’t make an exhibition of yourself; dry your eyes and go. Goodbye.’

  ‘But my visas! Can’t you get them for me?’

  ‘No. Go to the Consulates – that’s what they’re for.’

  ‘Exit traitress, sobbing’ Milton said aloud, after the messenger had ushered Miss Marston out – he had a taste for Shakespeare. But he used his local ‘sources’ to ascertain that Miss Marston really had secured her Yugo-slav, Bulgarian and Greek visas, and was leaving on the midnight train – he reported this to the Minister shortly before the party began.

  ‘Good’ Sir Hugh said again.

  The Staff party was a tremendous affair. Fifty-seven people sat down in the big dining-room to soup, five turkeys, spiced baked ham, and plum-puddings lit up with brandy; they pulled crackers over the almonds and raisins, and then moved across to the drawing-room, where Martha and Rosina organised guessing-games and charades. Martha was in despair over the dinner – the chef, who closely resembled Erich von Stroheim, had sworn that he knew how to make ‘Sauce Bred’ – i.e. bread sauce; but he didn’t – he had used rye bread and put it through a sieve, so that the turkeys were accompanied by a grey, rather slimy fluid tasting of treacle, as rye bread does.

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Martha. Everything else was perfect,’ Rosina told her. David had gone home to bed, but Lucilla was sticking it out nobly; she put a paper cap on the Minister’s head, and with a quick movement managed to kiss Colonel Morven under the mistletoe before he realised what was happening, amid applause – this provoked a general outbreak of manoeuverings under the bough, and much mirth.

  ‘How I admire that child of yours’ Sir Hugh murmured to Mrs Eynsham.

  ‘So do I,’ Rosina said.

  Chapter 12

  Late in January 1941 the Minister informed Mrs Eynsham that the Red Cross had at last sanctioned the purchase of 10,000 quilts, and that the Embassy at Ankara was being instructed accordingly. ‘They know where to get them I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes, I left the estimates and everything with her.’ (‘Her’ meant the Ambassadress.) ‘But why only ten thousand? That will leave more than three-quarters of the prisoners with none.’

  ‘Almighty God is not the only institution whose ways are past finding out’ Sir Hugh said wryly.

  ‘No but really, they must be dotty!’ Rosina said, very much put out. ‘They’ve got packets of money from the miserable relations, and I sent on the American Inspectors’ reports, all saying blankets were so desperately wanted.’

  ‘Well we must leave that. I’ve said you would divide them up and forward them if they were sent here. Can you?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘How quickly do you suppose your Istanbul merchant can produce them?’

  ‘He said about eight weeks, for the whole amount. Why?’ she asked, a shade of anxiety in her voice.

  ‘Oh, everything is going from bad to worse. The more successful we are in North Africa, the stronger the pressure Hitler applies hereabouts. I don’t think Rumania can hold out much longer – then we may have to accommodate our surplus staff from Bucharest.’

  ‘Well if they have some good strong men, who can help Horace and Hugo and Mr Smith to pack, that will be splendid’ Rosina said blithely. But she was not feeling at all blithe – if Rumania went, yet another escape route would be closed, and the mouth of the sack become narrower still.

  Her view of the dottiness of the British Red Cross was increased a few days later. Diplomats acquire friends everywhere, and during a spell in Berne Rosina had become very friendly with a wealthy and leisured Swiss bachelor, who admired her poems; he still wrote her long, witty, and rather literary letters four or five times a year. When her telephone rang one morning, and Bertha said – ‘A call from Geneva’ – she was delighted to hear his voice.

  ‘Oh Melchior! How are you? Are you coming to Hungary?’

  ‘No. I am quite busy here, doing some work for the International Red Cross. But there is something you should know.’

  ‘Tell away’ Rosina replied, delighted to learn that she had got a private sleuth in Geneva.

  ‘You will not believe it, but the British Red Cross have sent 10,000 pairs of grey flannel trousers for your prisoners! Naturally the German authorities will not accept them; for prisoners all must be khaki.’

  ‘What lunatics!’

  ‘We hear that you are sending much clothing; this is why I telephone. All must be khaki.’

  ‘We’ve been having everything dyed khaki since last August, except pyjamas’ Rosina replied crisply. ‘But a thousand thanks all the same, Melchior. Can’t the Swiss get the trousers dyed? The men are simply frozen.’

  ‘I hope so – this is not in my hands. But is it not strange that the British Red Cross should ignore this fact?’

  It was, very strange. After some reflection Rosina rang down for a typist and dictated a letter to an elderly General, also a friend of hers, who was, she knew, now high up in Grosvenor Crescent. She sent it by air via Lisbon, and after a few days received a reply which filled her almost with despair.

  ‘It is not our business, or yours, to supply clothing for the prisoners’ the General wrote. ‘Under the Geneva Convention the obligation to clothe prisoners adequately is on the Power which holds them. In the last war we never sent clothing to our prisoners.

  There you were – the last war – Mrs Eynsham thought bitterly. The past, the past! What about the present? Did no one in London realise the famine of woollens of all sorts in Central Europe, created by the British blockade? She sent a rather tart reply to the General, pointing out this situation: ‘You can’t really expect the Germans to give our prisoners what they haven’t got themselves. But if you do manage to get clothing for them, why not dye it khaki first?’

  In those early days of 1941 Mrs Eynsham had several face-to-face conversations with the members of the American Embassy staff in Berlin detailed to visit the prisoners; they came down to Budapest to get a little sleep – the R.A.F. raids on Berlin were making the nights there a horror, as the Luftwaffe raids were doing to London. (But the Londoners had no Budapest to go to.) What these kind, devoted Americans told her made Rosina more reckless and determined than ever to do all she could, while she could – it couldn’t be for long – for the prisoners. Bed-ticking – that had got to be procured somehow, or even sacking, to cover the straw in which so many of the men slept; straw harboured lice, the hideous insects loved it, it seemed. She procured mattress-ticking from the Hungarian Red Cross, and sent it all over Germany; the men in the Stalags needed this form of help most, since officers were given mattresses.

  During those obsessed days Rosina Eynsham thought constantly of Florence Nightingale, and found consolation in the thought. That great woman had been perpetually at odds with officialdom, perpetually slapped down – but she had stuck to it, and won in the end. She, Rosina, in her very small way would stick to it too, as Miss Nightingale had done, regardless of consequences. This was her private war – by which she meant her own share in the War; how fortunate she was to be given a real part in it while living in safety in Hungary. And she had been greatly comforted to learn that David approved of her efforts: Sir Hugh, in one of his engaging indiscretions, had told her about his Counsellor’s communication to the Private Secretary. Precious David! Even being torn in two between her attention to him and the work for the prisoners was part of her individual war effort.

  The Minister’s prognostication about Rumania proved quite correct. Early in February the British Legation there was recalled, since the country was practically under German occupation; the Minister and most of the staff went home through Turkey, but one attaché and a couple of typists were sent up to Budapest to lend a hand to the overworked personnel there. Sir Hugh realised that the string round the mouth of th
e sack was getting very tight indeed. There was only one way out now, south through Yugoslavia; the small railway running up to the Russian frontier through Ruthenia had been closed owing to bombed bridges for some time past. He had already taken certain measures. Workmen had come in and dug a huge square hole in the courtyard, just inside the porte-cochère; in this one of the big oil companies had placed a tank holding thousands of gallons of petrol, and erected a pump over it; when the tank was filled the Legation had its own private supply of petrol. Next he chartered several lorries, and parked them discreetly here and there; he knew what had happened when the British Legation had to leave Warsaw in a hurry. Only one lorry, bought by the fore-sighted wife of a member of the staff for her private collection of modern pictures had been available to transport essential documents and safes; her pictures were left behind, the official necessaries had been taken. Sir Hugh was not going to have anything of that sort happen; he ordered all the members of his staff who possessed cars to lay in a supply of 4-gallon cans, and to fill them from the Legation pump. Hearing of all this Rosina Eynsham laughed a little – perhaps she wouldn’t need old Countess Pongracz’s garden-basket after all! But she still kept her pigskin bag of supplies in her bedroom, ready packed to leave at a moment’s notice; it had been there now for nearly a year – an uncomfortable year.

  Mrs Eynsham had little time nowadays to get out into the country, to her the great restorer of peace and strength; but one afternoon fairly late in February her work was so well in hand that she decided to drive out again to Buda-Örs. She felt that she needed to be restored: she was worried about both her children. Dick, after his escape from Dunkirk, had spent six months ‘drilling grey-haired sublieutenants with broomsticks over their shoulders’, as he described it; bored with this, he had got himself transferred to the R.A.F., and was now on the point of becoming a Pilot-Officer, the most junior of officer-airmen. But with the great shortage of pilots after the losses in the Battle of Britain, he wrote that he had great hopes of soon starting ‘ops’ as a bomber-pilot – not altogether a reassuring occupation to his Mother. As for Lucilla, she was steadily becoming paler, thinner, and more nervy – her Mother suspected, as mothers do, her attachment to Hugo, but lacked the courage to embark on the subject with her.

  It was a mild day, pale sunshine from a pale sky, and a definite feeling of spring in the air, though patches of discoloured snow still lay under northward-facing banks. Mrs Eynsham left the car – her own, this time – in the usual place, and walked along the familiar track under the small pine-clad ridge; the sun already had power enough to make the surface muddy, though she could still feel what her Father used to call ‘the bone in the ground’ beneath the sticky mud. The grass beside the track was withered and brownish after its long weeks under the snow; but here and there, in sunny sheltered hollows the aconites were beginning to open – some still tight yellow knops, a very few fully out, staring like broad golden pennies at the sun; she knelt and picked them, delighted. Up among the dark pines to her right the tits had decided that it was spring; they were tzipping everywhere among the branches, busily seeking the last seeds in the pine-cones. In the little glens running up towards the top of the ridge, too rocky and steep-sided to be planted with conifers, the cloud-shaped bushes of Cornus mas bore a faint yellowish tinge; the buds of their absurd little tufts of flowers were already taking colour. Rosina wandered along, happily, and sat down on the rock where she always rested; inevitably, she thought of last year, of the terrible days of Dunkirk. There were no nightingales now, and the flowers were different – so were her private forms of anxiety: Lucilla and David were added to her concern about Dick. But, as always, Buda-Örs brought her peace.

  Peace never lasted long in Budapest in those days, though. She told the chauffeur to drop her at the Legation, and went up to her office to see what fresh work had come in. On top of the usual pile of acknowledgements and requests from the camps was a pencilled note from Bertha, the telephonist: ‘The Gnädige Frau was called from Geneva; she shall call back at once. It is highly urgent.’ A Geneva number was given.

  Rosina put the call in – while she waited she went through the acknowledgements from the Vertrauensmänner, and ticked them off on her typed lists. Bother – two Stalags had failed to acknowledge twenty-five parcels each. Those tiresome old Sergeants! They never could be bothered to put pen to paper. She began to draft telegrams.

  ‘Apparently you have not received our parcels Nos. XY 471 to XY 496 stop Supplies so difficult here that in view of your non-receipt am cancelling all further despatches your camp.

  Mrs Eynsham.’

  She was just recopying this, with different parcel numbers, when her telephone rang.

  ‘Hullo? Oh, Melchior – how nice! I’m sorry I was out. What goes on?’

  ‘A quite incredible nonsense! The British Red Cross has at last decided to send some underclothing to your prisoners – shirts, vests, pants. They buy these from your Middle East Command in Cairo.’

  ‘But how wonderful! How many?’ She at once thought of the lamentable shortfall of the quilts ordered.

  ‘About forty thousand. But it is not wonderful at all – how do you think they propose to send them?’

  ‘Well either to Salonika or the Piraeus by sea, and on up to us – the railway’s still open.’

  ‘Tout au contraire! They insist that this clothing shall be sent to Genoa, and from there to Geneva, to be forwarded to the camps.’

  ‘But that’s quite mad’ Mrs Eynsham exclaimed, aghast. ‘Genoa’s in Italy, and Italy has been enemy territory since last June, eight months ago. What can they be thinking of?’

  ‘Who can conceive? This is why I telephone. But can you perhaps do something?’

  ‘I’ll try. Dear Melchior, thank you so very much for tipping me off – you are kind.’

  ‘I am more exasperated than kind, I fear’ the Swiss said. ‘How are you? And David – and la belle petite?’

  ‘All quite all right’ Rosina fibbed briskly. ‘I’ll let you know what happens. Bless you for this.’

  She rang off, and imprudently hastened along to the Minister’s study without telephoning first to find out if he was free. He was not – at his ‘Who is it?’ she said ‘Me’ and went in; a lean man with a lined clever face rose as she entered – she recognised Count Teleki, more renowned as a geographer and naturalist even than as his country’s leading statesman.

  ‘You know the Prime Minister?’ Sir Hugh said, rising also.

  ‘Yes indeed. I hope Countess Hanna is better?’ she asked, as the Hungarian kissed her hand. ‘I see you are both busy – I’ll come back presently, if I may,’ she said, embarrassed at her gaffe.

  ‘Do – I will ring you up’ the Minister said. ‘Some trouble about the prisoners, I suppose?’ He turned to Count Teleki. ‘Mrs Eynsham – and indeed all our staff – work incessantly on getting supplies to our prisoners-of-war.’ The great man nodded. ‘So I hear.’

  ‘Your Excellency, I should like to take this opportunity of telling you personally how grateful we are for all the help your people are giving us’ Mrs Eynsham said, rather formally; she was rather a one for seizing chances. She glanced at Sir Hugh, and seeing approval in his face she pursued her theme. ‘The generosity of your shopkeepers has been beyond belief – for the prisoners they sell us everything at wholesale price, or even less. And I should like to thank you for the agreement about goods in transit from Csepel Island; this has meant so much for our men, and it must have been a Government decision.’

  The lined severe face relaxed into a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Eynsham. What you say makes me very happy. Of course you have good friends’ – now he smiled finely, and Rosina knew that he meant Prince Willie – ‘but this can surprise no one! Au revoir.’ He kissed her hand again, and Rosina hurried out of the room.

  She had despatched her telegrams to the two peccant Scrgeaxit-Vertrauensmänner, and nearly finished logging up the receipts for parcels from the more reli
able ones, when the Minister rang through. ‘Come along now, if you’re free.’

  In his study Rosina began by apologising.

  ‘I am so sorry I burst in – I won’t again.’

  ‘Well it is wiser to make sure first. But in fact I’m glad you came. You did well – he was pleased by what you said about Hungarian help. Where do you get your inspirations? – for you were all astray when you came in and saw him.’ He grinned rather mockingly at her.

  ‘The Holy Spirit, if at all’ Rosina said. ‘I pray every morning for help in everything I do – but I’m not sure that I always listen very carefully to what I’m told!’

  ‘You really are devout?’ Sir Hugh asked, a little incredulously.

  ‘No, only croyante, up to a point – I couldn’t call myself devout. But I do really believe that it is in God that “we live, and move, and have our being”, so it seems silly not to ask for help about our daily jobs’ Rosina said briskly. ‘Our Lord told us to ask for whatever we wanted – “ask and ye shall receive”. He ought to have known what He was talking about.’

  Sir Hugh laughed at that.

  ‘I envy you your faith’ he said. ‘But now, tell me what made you burst in.’

  ‘Oh, such a frightful thing.’ She repeated what Melchior had told her about the underwear from Cairo.

  ‘How incredible!’ the Minister said.’ This must be put a stop to.’ He went over to his desk, and began to write.

  ‘Are you telegraphing to the Foreign Office?’ Rosina asked, curious.

  ‘No, to the Ambassador in Cairo. He will deal with it much more quickly, and we can’t afford any delay if we are to get the stuff up here and across the frontier in time.’

  During the ensuing weeks ‘the Athens Underwear’, as it came to be called, developed into a positive obsession. The Ambassador in Cairo fairly easily persuaded Middle East Command to ignore the instructions of the Red Cross in London to despatch this vital consignment through enemy territory, and instead to send it to Budapest via the Piraeus. But there were hitches and delays. The Minister cabled repeatedly to Cairo, then to Athens – where at last 294 bales and six cases were reported to have been put on rail.