Rosie's War

by Rosemary Say

  He looked away as if to end the meeting. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Say,’ he muttered quietly.

  I had never believed his expressions of concern for me. So that was that and thank you, Mr Close.

  I left his office and wandered down the long corridor. For the first time since I had left the Manguins at the station in Avignon I was really frightened. I went to the flat and packed my things. The martinet of a matron took my uniform and wished me well with some doubt in her voice. She allowed me to telephone the US Embassy from her office. I was out of luck. Mr Sutton was away until the day after next.

  I went to the staff canteen and sat glumly over a cup of coffee. I did not even have anywhere to sleep that night. Whom could I turn to? I had the address of Claude Manguin’s sister, Lucile, who ran one of the most notable dress houses in Paris on the rue Gambon but I didn’t think I could call on her. I was beginning to realize that I was actually dangerous to people. I was an enemy alien and if a huge organization like the American Hospital felt threatened then I could hardly ask a French businesswoman to help. She might be jeopardizing her livelihood (and perhaps even her personal safety) if she sheltered me. I was completely alone.

  I thought of my parents. They must be sick from worrying about me. I had sent them a couple of letters from Paris but I doubted whether they had reached them in the confusion of these past weeks. Hopefully they had received my last letter from Avignon, posted nearly a month before in early June. But even that would scarcely have been of comfort to them: I had written that I was going home via Paris of all places! I sat at the table for what seemed like hours. There were tears in my eyes. The doctor who had taken me to the victory parade came over and asked me what was wrong. I explained my predicament. He listened carefully then squeezed my hand.

  ‘Look, Pat, I’ll see what I can do. You hang on here.’

  He hurried off. I sat for a long while. The silence was finally broken by a loud, American voice from across the canteen.

  ‘Where is she?’

  I looked up to see a formidable sight striding towards me. Here was a thick-set woman of late middle age; raddled, I suppose you might say. A cigar drooped from her lips. She was dressed in an immaculate American Ambulance Corps uniform. She beamed at me and took off her cap to reveal a large head of closely cropped hair. On her wrist she was wearing a bulky, man’s watch.

  ‘I’m Hoytie Wiborg. Dr Murray told me all about you. Don’t worry, kid, we’ll get you out of here.’

  She gave me a firm handshake and sat down heavily at my table. She explained rapidly that she was one of a team of drivers allowed by the Germans to bring seriously wounded French prisoners to the American Hospital for treatment. She was full of enthusiasm for my case.

  ‘Why don’t we bandage you from head to toe and take you in the ambulance away from Paris? Or you could pretend to be an American and join the unit! Or pose as my daughter.’

  I shook my head. I was quite overwhelmed by this barrage of ideas. Even the most ridiculous seemed plausible in that mood of despair.

  ‘I asked the ambulance drivers a few days ago if they could take me. But it’s too risky for them.’

  ‘There are loads of things that we can do for you,’ she said as she got up. ‘Let’s go.’

  I had no choice but to trust this woman. I followed her in a daze. We drove off in her white ambulance into the centre of Paris. She left me at a cafe and came back a couple of hours later with a wide grin on her face. She had found me work in a police canteen near by. We walked over to see it. She introduced me to the supervisor, bade me a quick farewell and hurried off.

  That was the one and only time I was to see Hoytie in Paris. I had been too bewildered by the force of her personality and by the sheer misery of my situation to show any curiosity about her. She had arrived out of the blue to organize my life and then simply disappeared.

  It wasn’t until I met her again very briefly in Marseille at the beginning of 1942 that I discovered that Mary Hoyt Wiborg was an heiress whose money came from the long-established and distinguished American firm of Wiborg and Ault, ‘Makers of Fine Printing and Lithographic Inks’. It was an enlightened firm that had commissioned posters by Toulouse-Lautrec and other painters. Hoytie had lived in France for many years and had been a well-known lesbian in pre-war Parisian artistic circles, socializing with the likes of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Picasso and Cocteau. She had fallen in love with the formidable arts patron, Polish-born Misia Sert. Hoytie tried unsuccessfully to seduce her in the sleeping compartment of a train to Venice and was content after that to be one of the gang as long as she had a place in Misia’s life. She was accepted as a good-hearted joke by her friends when not too irritating for words. She was a real character who had never fulfilled her ambition of achieving a place in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. In the autumn of 1939 she had opted for war work, doing her bit for the country that had looked after her for so long.

  I didn’t know any of this at the time, of course. Looking back on her now, she seems like a caricature lesbian, masculine and hard-drinking. But at the time I simply thought that she was a rather fearsome old lady and quite reminiscent of one of my great aunts. She fulfilled her mission to help me that afternoon in July without behaving in any more personal a way to me than that of a caring aunt. I suspect now that she had to give the police canteen a good subsidy to take me. I always remember her with gratitude and affection.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Police Canteen

  The police canteen operated from a closed-down primary school on the rue du Bac, a long, winding street in the elegant Fème arrondissement just behind the Chamber of Deputies. Such canteens had been installed all over Paris to feed the policemen whose families had left for the countryside to escape the German occupation of the city.

  Once again I was swept into a strict routine of work that started early and went on into the night. I lived with the concierge and worked like a slave. I expected no wages but money was not a problem, given that the British Interests Section at the US Embassy allotted me 300 francs a month (about £70 in today’s money). I worked a fifteen-hour day, spending long hours at a smelly sink washing up greasy plates. I had two afternoons off per week. The local commissaire made sure that the Germans were duly informed of my existence and I signed my name as an enemy alien every day at the Kommandantur.

  For much of my time at the canteen my main worry was the chef. He was a tall, muscular and fearsome character straight out of a Zola novel who would usually be drunk by noon. He would curse la sale petite anglaise who had once again refused to gouge out the eyes and tongues in the calves’ heads before they were cooked. He tried to attack me one afternoon when he was particularly drunk. It took two policemen to drag him off, leaving him with a couple of teeth missing and a determined grudge against me.

  The real compensation for all this hard work and aggravation was that there was plenty to eat and drink. After all, no one was going to let the police starve. We also received extra supplies of country food sent by the police families who had fled to regions such as Normandy and Brittany. Usually, by seven in the morning I would already have eaten sausage and bread, swilled down with red wine. I would sit down to meat and vegetables piled high on my plate at three in the afternoon (when the last of the police were back on duty) and again at about midnight.

  The canteen quickly divided into pro-German and pro-English groups. The latter were certainly more numerous, perhaps reflecting the fact that the police were treated by their new German masters as a necessary labour force of degenerates and were under strict military discipline. Many bridled with resentment at this state of affairs and every day someone would have a new story of German insolence.

  There were fierce arguments and even fights. The pro-German police would curse the English as I served them at the table, repeating propaganda stories from Dunkirk: how the English had refused to let the French get into the boats and had bayoneted them in the water. Everyone was predicting victory for their
own side. One particularly obnoxious policeman goaded me relentlessly for a few days with the ‘news’ of a successful German landing at Dover and the taking of hostages.

  Over the summer I got to know the Septième well. But (as at the hospital) I had neither the time nor the inclination to go further afield. The little I knew of what was happening in the outside world came mainly from the rumours brought to the canteen. This was perhaps why I got so easily rattled by the pro-German police. They knew of my worry about my family in England and loved goading la sale petite anglaise.

  Now that I was based in the centre of Paris I saw on the walls the propaganda posters aimed against the British: John Bull the killer; Churchill as a menacing octopus, his tentacles crushing screaming victims; and one showing a drowning sailor holding a French flag with the caption ‘Remember Oran’. This last poster totally perplexed me at first, given my lack of information or news about the war, until someone explained that the British had sunk most of the French navy at Oran in North Africa, so as to prevent it from falling into German hands. It didn’t take long for some of the police at the canteen to start complaining loudly at how the Royal Navy had murdered hundreds of French sailors.

  The Place de la Concorde was bannered with bright yellow instructions and directions signed by the German Kommandant of Paris. The civilian population (unlike the police) generally found their conquerors to be courteous and correct in those early months. German soldiers were allowed to gorge themselves on chocolate and butter, take local girls out to dances and wander round the city calling out ‘Spazierengehen, Fräulein?’ in the hope of getting a date. It was all very disturbing to me, to say the least. At night, in the concierge’s little spare room, I would hear the drunken singing of songs such as ‘Wir Fliegen nach England’ from the bar below.

  One of the policemen at the canteen gave me a bicycle that had been left behind in the exodus. Naturally it had a crossbar and was so large that I could not put both my feet on the ground when I wanted to stop. As in Avignon, I became a source of great amusement to those who watched from the cafe tables as I struggled to control this massive machine. Luckily there was little traffic. Even the Champs-Elysées was often deserted, as few people had permits for private cars. I soon learnt which of the police on duty on the roads were anti-English, as they were the ones who made me wait at the empty crossroads so that I toppled off my bike!

  I had two male protectors that summer. One was Mr Edward Sutton, the Deputy British Consul who was in charge of the British Interests Section at the US Embassy. I met him when I went to the embassy after I had been at the canteen for a few days. Perhaps I am being unfair, but it seems that Mr Sutton was one of the very few British consular officials who did not pack up and run as soon as the sound of German guns approached. He was a hardworking man from Guildford, in his early forties and with his thinning hair carefully drawn across his scalp. His face seemed to have a perpetual look of worry. Maybe this resulted from his being continually shouted and screamed at by irate English people who could not believe that the brave words ‘without let or hindrance’ on their passports did not, in reality, mean much.

  As I sat in his office for the first time, he chided me gently for not having notified him immediately upon leaving the American Hospital. He also took over the responsibility of allotting me my small monthly allowance of 300 francs.

  ‘Now, what about your parents?’ he said in his quiet, measured way. He looked down at the paper on his desk. ‘Commander and Mrs Say. I don’t suppose that you’ve managed to contact them?’

  ‘I’ve written to them a couple of times but I’ve no idea if the letters have got through.’

  ‘Probably not,’ he said with a resigned smile.

  ‘I was rather hoping you could help me.’

  ‘Of course. Try and get something to me tomorrow if you can.’

  As I returned to the canteen for my evening shift, I realized that I was hiding from this mild-mannered official the desperate concern that I felt for my family in London. I had recently witnessed the chaotic fall of Paris and was convinced that London was about to experience a similar fate.

  My real worries on this point show up clearly in my first letter home from the American Hospital. Amazingly, my parents received it many months after it had been sent. Written just days after I had witnessed the German army entering Paris, its tone is quite breathless, almost hysterical:

  It is just sheer bad luck that I should have got everything fixed and arranged on the very day that I should have kept away from Paris – I got in like a lamb … if only I can feel that you … above all are making arrangements in case of emergency to get out … do believe me that you will be in a terrible position without a car … I must feel that you will not stay in such imminent danger. I wouldn’t try and write to me. I think of you all practically without ceasing and have learnt to be brave … please get somewhere as safe as possible … remember go quickly or it will be impossible. My love – my love – Baba.

  The day after my first meeting with Mr Sutton, I arrived back at his office with a letter in a similar vein. It would have both terrified and alarmed my poor parents if it had ever reached them, particularly at that time when Britain seemed to be on the brink of invasion. Mr Sutton read my words, paused thoughtfully and began to make amendments with a pencil.

  ‘Try to sound confident, Miss Say,’ he advised. ‘Not frightened. Your parents would not get much relief if they received this letter.’

  ‘But aren’t the Germans going to attack us any day? Look how quickly France collapsed. Won’t we go the same way? I want my parents to leave London now!’

  I looked at him imploringly. I was near to tears and almost hysterical with fear. Apart from Ben in the hospital, Mr Sutton was the only English person that I had had a conversation with since the German army had arrived in Paris a month before. I had been subjected to a barrage of victorious German propaganda over the previous few weeks and found it difficult to believe that England could hold out for long against the expected German onslaught.

  ‘We can only hope for the best,’ he said quietly, handing me his draft. ‘Look, try something along the lines I’ve suggested here. You may use the room next door. But please hurry. I need to get this off by noon.’

  I went into the little room beside his office and wrote a much jollier letter. In it I lied that the people at the canteen were ‘extremely kind’ and exaggerated somewhat that the concierge looked after me as though I were her daughter. I reassured my family that having got myself into this mess I had landed on my feet and was in no danger. I ended:

  Have confidence in me above all – this is a wonderful experience and I am in no danger. I may be home any time, any day – you won’t worry any more will you? God keep you safely dearest M and Pappa … remember I have good, influential friends and will not run any risks.

  I kept up this brisk, almost matter-of-fact tone in the next letter that I was able to send in early August via Mr Sutton. I even claimed that this sudden change of existence was doing me a lot of good. I was in the safest possible spot, I wrote: ‘I shall probably come home bristling with efficiency!’

  Mr Sutton took a fatherly interest in me. On my afternoons off I would go with him to Chantilly, to the Bois de Boulogne or in a bateau mouche along the Seine. We seemed to talk mainly about how to get out of Paris. One day I went to meet him at the embassy to be told that he was no longer there. I discovered that he had gone with the first batch of British men to an internment camp in Germany. I never saw him again.

  My other male protector that summer was a policeman at the canteen called André Boinet. He was a tall, good-looking young man who had recently got married. He was very pro-English and saw to it that I was protected from the numerous hostile policemen who patronized the place.

  On a couple of occasions André took me to drink coffee with friends of his at the Paris Mosque near the Botanical Gardens. This was a wonderful treat: the total peace and quiet inside the lovely building, the bea
uty of the colours, the breath of an ancient civilization not yet in chaos. All this calmed and soothed me. I remember sitting with him on the steps leading to the Tuileries Gardens one hot afternoon, watching the horses of the little roundabout going quietly round with no children to ride them. I did not feel isolated or alone when André was near. He helped me to settle down to my canteen life without bothering too much about the outside world.

  Yet even in the most determined isolation the outside world has a strange way of impinging. One memorable afternoon I was finishing lunch in a deserted canteen when André came in looking very worried.

  ‘Mam’zelle Rose,’ he whispered.

  ‘What is it? There’s no one here, you can speak up.’ I immediately began to panic.

  ‘I have something to ask you. Some old friends of mine have been hiding two English soldiers in their home. They have fed them and given them French clothes to make their getaway. My friends are frightened now. The soldiers have stayed too long. They should leave before anyone notices. Could you speak to them?’

  ‘Of course’, I said. ‘Give me a few minutes to clear things away.’

  We drove in silence in his police car to the south of Paris. I was worried. Of course, I wanted to help André who had been so good to me over these past few weeks. But for the first time I was coming into contact with people on the run. If we were caught the consequences could be severe. A decree had recently gone out that anyone found harbouring British nationals without registering their names at the local police station would be en peine de mort.

  We arrived at the small house. The elderly owners ushered us silently up to the attic where the soldiers were hidden. I received a shock. In front of me were two vast Scotsmen fast asleep in their makeshift beds, with empty wine bottles, dirty plates and playing cards strewn over the floor. They were complete with sporrans and kilts. One of them had flaming red hair. It was as if they had come straight from a casting agency looking for stereotypical Scotsmen! I burst out laughing, much to the surprise and annoyance of André and his friends.