by Noel Coward
The ubiquitous Richard Casey, now stationed in Egypt, summed up the tour when he wrote: “You did a splendid job and—to coin a phrase— you've improved the morale if not the morals of the Middle East.”
•
ON HIS “bed and breakfast” wartime stopovers, Noël found himself writing many a “Bread and Butter” letter himself, frequently in verse. After a visit to Malta:
BREAD AND BUTTER
Dear Admiral, a Bread and Butter letter
To writer and receiver is a curse
And so this time I feel it would be better
To write to you in lilting, lyric verse.
Permit me to express appreciation
Of all your charming hospitality,
Allow me, with poetic inspiration,
To further your remembrance of me.
Remember me not as a sharp annoyance,
Not as an irritating, nagging pest,
Rather recall the swift, gay, verbal buoyance
Of your departed and distinguished guest.
Try to forget my frequent interference
When you saw fit to reprimand your staff,
Rather recall my exquisite appearance
Wearing a spotted Yugo-Slavian scarf.
Try to forgive your clumsy Flag Lieutenant,
Try not to spill the vials of your hate,
When inadvertently he hoists your pennant
Upside down and very much too late.
Try to remember when that bleating heifer,
Jasper, appears to have a morning chat
That it invariably makes him deafer
When unexpectedly he's shouted at!
When your domestic staff have disobeyed you,
Try, in conclusion, to remember, please,
God, who with such terrific wisdom made you
Made, with less wisdom also the Maltese.
And thus admitting that we're all God's creatures,
Gently look back in sweet humility.
Try to recapture my elusive features
And when I'm far away, remember me.
Yours in affectionate adieu—NC
On those wartime travels there was another endangered species— though, fortunately, it was blissfully unaware of the fact. Many a military or other matron must have dined out on stories of how they had recently had the good fortune to meet “that charming Mr. Coward.” Little did they realize how his sharp pen had pinned them down like butterflies on his private page:
REFLECTIONS
Ioften wonder why Commander F——
Chose such a noisy, unattractive wife.
It seems quite inconceivable to me
That such a man of such fine quality
Should, out of all the world, have fixed his choice
On anyone with such a rasping voice,
The thickest ankles and the smallest eyes
And, when undressed, wide corrugated thighs,
Who quite consistently wrecks every party
By being so abominably hearty.
Whose hearty, hoydenish idea of fun
Is so embarrassing to everyone,
Whose loud determination to impress
Meets with such very very small success,
Whose prowess on the tennis courts or links
Is so much less effective than she thinks,
Whose only contribution to a dance
Is, if her hostess gives her half a chance,
To keep suggesting in a piercing squeal
That everyone should do a Scottish Reel.
I cannot quite forgive Comander F
For choosing such a really horrid wife.
Oh, why did Captain H.___, R.N.
Display so little acumen
In picking for his better half
A girl with such a silly laugh
While Noël was relaxing with the Caseys at their Mena home, outside Cairo, he was introduced to a high-ranking officer in the South African army, General Frank Theron, who repeated the invitation to visit South Africa. It was a project that had been talked about for the last two years but had been put on the back burner. With Noël's agreement, Casey cabled the South African prime minister, General Smuts, and shortly afterward came the official invitation. Noël was happy to accept it after a rest in England and the United States.
•
ON OCTOBER io he was back home and two months later found himself once more in New York—but a very different New York from his last visit two years earlier. The attack on Pearl Harbor, the day that, in Roosevelt's words, would “live in infamy” had changed a number of things. But not everything:
December 15, 1943
Darling, darling Lornie:
I won't go into any details about the trip out as that would be nonchalant talk. Sufficient to say that it was highly enjoyable. I arrived to find that Auntie had been installed in a hat-box at the St. Regis; this was changed to a suite the following day and now all is the height of luxury.
Dab [Jack Wilson] and Natasha, who you will want to know about first, of course, are sweeter than ever. The Baybay has a slightly larger face than of yore and is as wicked (if not wickeder) than ever. Everything has been more than satisfactorily discussed and it is so very lovely being with him again. Natasha is unchanged and as funny as she ever was.
On the night of my arrival I went to the first night of John Van Druten's new play [The Voice of the Turtle]. It was a very fashionable first night and a very pretty little play—all about a very pretty little actress who had to choose between love and a career. Judging by the way Miss Margaret Sullivan [Sullavan] overplayed it I think she was right to choose love. Everybody in New York was there and I had quite a reception. I must say that neither the play nor the audience exactly brought home the urgency of war to me, but one can't have everything.
The second night I went to Oklahoma with Edwina, which is quite one of the loveliest and most enchanting things I have ever seen in the theatre. Everything about it is perfect, and as for the ballets, even you would have loved them, because they were really witty …
I got the flu and was in bed for a couple of days, which was a great relief, as it got me out of appearing at the opening of the Civic Theatre. Gertie, apparently, ate up the scenery. I haven't seen her yet but I have talked to her on the telephone and she is quite, quite dotty.
None of these people have been in the least irritating about anything, but there are others. I went to an Orphanage Committee meeting.
Personally and privately, I was madly irritated by the whole setup. When I get back from Washington I am going to talk to the four rebellious girls who seem to be making fair bitches of themselves. The Gould Foundation have obviously been wonderful to the children and I suspect have spoiled them forever. We are hoping that Prudence Coop will improve in character on account of the fact that she is beginning to lean emotionally in the direction of the Catholic Church. Personally, I feel that this will merely mean that she will be able to confess having stolen June Bevise's drawers, receive absolution, and make an immediate pounce for Myra McKenzie's brooch, but I may be cynical.
I will talk to May about the whole business and write you more fully later. Brian [Aherne] announced unwisely that he had always thought it was a bad plan for the children to be sent over here, because, after all, his brother's children had stayed in England through all the blitzes, to which I replied sweetly that it was very fine of him to have come over himself in order to represent the family. He then said that he had always understood that the Orphanage Fund was vastly rich in any case, to which I replied that, as far as I could remember, everything he had understood all his life has been invariably inaccurate. It was, on the whole, an exciting little meeting.
Upon breaking the seals that the censorship office had put on my Middle East Diary I discovered that they have cut it to shreds and made it virtually unintelligible. From the point of view of security their deletions were idiotic; it was one of the most maddening examples of bureaucratic red tape nonsen
se that I have ever encountered. I am writing Brendan [Bracken] about it at once.
It is quite extraordinary to see all the lights of Broadway again and to be able to eat the sort of food that one always used to be able to eat.
That's all the news for the moment, my darlings. Kindly circulate this letter among the disciples … Be assured, dear Mrs. Loraine, that I still think that you are the prettiest, cutest little fairy that ever stepped out of a whacking great bluebell.
Love, love, love, love, love
BELLEVUE JAMAICA
January 9th
Darling Lornie:
Just imagine me writing you all a letter in my own pudgy hand. There is no typewriter and, at long last, I have a little time and so here goes. I had a wonderful time in New York but very exhausting and the “flu” left me with no voice at all. I dined with dear Mr. Mysterious [Little Bill] on Christmas night and he said it was idiotic of me to attempt a strenuous tour of S.A. [South Africa] without having a rest first and that one of his staff had a house in Jamaica and that he would make all arrangements which he did with paralysing efficiency.
On Sunday 2nd I gave a violent farewell cocktail party to which everybody came—it was a terrific success—all the Fighting French buried their mutual hatchets, all the Secret Cops came and brought their wives and everyone mingled like mad with everyone else. At 9:30 I was seen off by Natasha, Neysa (in whose apartment the party had been given) and Eleonora [von Mendelssohn].
I had a very rough flight and arrived in Miami the next morning. I spent two days with the Baybay who was intent on turning his vast face like a flower to the sun. On Wednesday the 5th I flew here— only four hours, popping down at Cuba for ten minutes en route. Here I was met by a Naval Commander who had had orders from the Chief that my visit was completely secret and so he whisked me out of the Airport and up to this house and here I am.
Oh dear, you'd better all prepare to weep bright green tears of envy. It is absolutely indescribably lovely. It's an old coffee plantation that used to be called “Admiral's House” because that funny little man that Winnie is so fond of lived there—the one that had that light flirtation with Emma Hamilton. His name escapes me for the moment [Horatio Nelson]. Anyhow here he lived 1500 feet up on the side of a mountain and he sat, as I am sitting now, looking over mountains, the town of Kingston in the valley and the sea. At night the lights will come up in the town and the Moon comes very soon after. The climate is perfect. I sit out at night on the terrace in my pyjamas sipping a rum punch and looking at this breath-taking view. I have a staff of ravishing coal black servants, a Chrysler car, a hammock slung between an orange tree and a palm. The garden blazes with poinsettias, hibiscus, Alamanda, Bourgainvilla, etc., etc. There are breadfruits, limes, bananas and all kinds of other tropical dainties. I eat my solitary meals on a flagged terrace. I have Jamaican curries, sweet breadfruit and yams and Yampees, which are wonderful— Coconut with everything, custard apples, cashew nuts. There is no telephone. There are no mosquitoes or snakes. The sun blazes down all day and it is just cool enough at night for one blanket! The house is fairly luxurious with masses of books and large sofas and chairs and a couple of bathrooms which don't work with great speed but after all! Macgregor, my black Major Domo, is a dream Prince and runs the whole place and calls me Dear Friend and Lord which is confusing and very, very sweet …
I am setting off tomorrow in the car for a two days tour of the Island. If I can find a beach with a shack on it I shall buy it. I've a feeling that this is the place I've been looking for. It's only 18 hours from New York by air and 4 from Miami. The climate varies only slightly. Everything flowers and burgeons all the year round and it's never cold. It reminds me of Honolulu except that it is more rich and luxuriant. I really think that as a race we must be dotty. Here is this divine place—one of the oldest British colonies and we none of us— thank God—know anything about it. That is except me and Nelson.
Now that I am out of American territory I can say what I really think. Individually, all our friends were fine but the ignorance about the War and the facts of life is abysmal. I only got really cross once, which was on New Year's Eve, when the streets were filled with drunken people celebrating, squealing and blowing squeakers. They couldn't have been more exultant if it had been Armistice Night. They're all steaming themselves up for the next election. Roosevelt is loathed among all the smarties. There's quite a lot of anti-British feeling about—mostly spread by the Hearst Press, the McCormick Press (Chicago) and the Luces, who have a lovely “down” on the British Empire, principally because Lord Linlithgow snubbed Clare in Delhi. On the other hand there are some first rate minds such as [Walter] Lippmann who see the situation a little more clearly. Our trouble is and has been all along that we are still too conciliatory. What our diplomats ought to do now is to wave the flag and keep on shouting the truth at them, which is that without the “lonely year” they would have been for ever in the consomme. We are continuing to be gentlemanly to the end and if I had not been hopping through on a transit visa I should have let it fly. As it was I restrained myself and bawled “Lie in the Dark” [his poem] at everyone I saw whenever I got the chance.
I think of you all so much, particularly here in this stolen Paradise where I really have time to think. It's no use sending love to you— all that is there already. If awful things happen in the next few months, and they might, cable me regularly. A Happy New Year, my darlings—the following are Tisses xxxxxxxxxx
MASTER
Grand Hotel
Khartoum
January 29th 1944
Darling Lornie,
I've had really a fascinating journey although fairly exhausting. After Jamaica I flew to Barranquilla in Columbia [sic]. Here I stopped for one night and had to take on the jaw a reception and dinner given for me by the British Colony. It was quite gay and rather touching really and very “outpost of the Empire”. I made a spirited speech half in English and half in Spanish on account of a bright green and pro-English Governor being present. The next day I took off and went beetling down the Venezuelan coast to Trinidad … On Friday the 22nd I took off in a very large, fast plane and flew to Belem near the mouth of the Amazon … We stayed there long enough for breakfast and then went on to Natal where we arrived in the evening for four hours only. During this bright interim I made an appearance at an American Airmen's dance, sang and recited “Lie in the Dark” and buggered off again. We arrived at Acension Island for breakfast, a strange, volcanic rock in the middle of the South Atlantic with purple and red mountains and peculiar rocks and very bad lighting for Lynn.
At 5 o'clock that afternoon we arrived at Accra … It was surprisingly cool and very White Man's Burden indeed. Lots of large gentlemen in shorts carrying golf clubs just having had a “bit of a go of Malaria”. From there I flew to Lagos in Nigeria which is the real school books tropics. Natives, coal black, in vivid colours, lush vegetation, palms, bananas, orchids, hibiscus, snakes, scorpions, Tze Tze flies, infantile paralysis, Blackwater Fever, Gumboils, crabs (imported naturally), moths as big as your titties, bugs, fleas and beetles. There was also Nelson Eddy but I missed him by a day. There was what is known as a “Hammatan” blowing which is a hot dusty wind from the Sahara—it must be a keen traveller for the Sahara is about two thousand miles away—anyhow it makes flying very tricky so, having dragged myself awake at five in the morning, the plane wouldn't take off. However, another much larger one thought that it would so off I went across Equatorial Africa. I spent the night at a place called Maidugeri which offers too obvious rhyming possibilities. There there were nothing but rather attractive mud houses and very, very black people indeed with very long things hanging down in front, if you know what I mean, and if you don't, Winnie is sure to. I stayed the night with the Resident and visited the English Club where there were some decent chaps and their wives who had just been exhausting themselves on the tennis courts. I must say I should have thought that the weather would have been stinking hot but not at all!
In the evening we had to have a wood fire. I was most deeply offended. After a convivial evening with some of the chaps already mentioned I got up at 3 o'clock and drove off under the stars to the airport. We took off at 4 o'clock and after a couple of stops arrived in Khartoum at 3:30 …
We leave tomorrow for Pretoria. We arrive there on Wednesday and after a few days rehearsal with Norman [Hackforth], I shall take the plunge. I am very well indeed in spite of all my strenuous jour-neyings. There is no doubt about it, travelling agrees with me. I take a lot of quinine and it makes my great big violet eyes shine like bloody great beacons. I am now taking Bert to the zoo to tell the animals all about you. I will finish this when I return.
My dear, the Toucans can't bear the sight of you! Isn't it curious? I argued with them and gave them some dry toast but it was no use— “Lorn's a pig,” “Lorn's a pig,” they kept on saying, so I came away. There were some rather large wart hogs with tusks who were much more friendly, “Lorn's one of us” they said. It is really a very sweet zoo because most of the animals walk about with you. There was one elderly gazelle who was really a grave bore. Bert was very funny with her because she kept on nuzzling our bag of goodies and when he said “Bugger off,” she butted him. Incidentally, he had a terrible voyage out, nineteen in a cabin for four. However the moment he arrived he bossed all the Arabs about, got himself driven from Suez to Cairo for four pounds, although the actual fare is five pounds ten. By the time he had been in Khartoum a week he knew everybody and was being taken off to Arab markets and shown the sights, in fact he is quite obviously a very good traveller, which is a great comfort. Will you kindly deliver the enclosed unused ticket to the redoubtable Mr. Jenkins and tell him to stuff it up his bottom and get the refund double quick chop, chop? I told the bloody fool that I wouldn't need it and that the services would fly me wherever I wanted to go but he laughed with gay communistic superiority and wouldn't believe me.
I have taken up an option on the housekeeper of his hotel especially for you. She is the most monstrous “excusez moi” imaginable. An evacuated Viennese Jewess of gigantic proportions who makes “Skulptur” and paints and writes modern poetry about the utterances of the soul. She is … quite, quite dotty.