Free Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

conductor.
    One morning on her way to the secretarial school Anna discovered a rusty car with no wheels and two broken bedsteads dumped in the middle of the grass of Russell Square. First she thought it was some kind of joke, but then the porter at the Hotel Continental explained to her that it was to stop German parachutists from landing.
    “Could they really land in Russell Square? There doesn’t seem room,” said Anna, startled.
    “There’s no knowing what they can’t do,” said the porter.
    Parachutists were an inexhaustible source of speculation. There were endless stories of people who claimed actually to have seen some, disguised as British soldiers, as farm workers or most often as nuns, in which case, according to the stories, they always gave themselves away by their carelessness in wearing army boots under their habits.
    Anna tried, as always, not to think about them, but sometimes in bed at night her guard slipped and then she saw them dropping down silently among the trees of Russell Square. They were never in disguise but in full uniform covered with black leather and swastikas which were clearly visible even though it was dark. They calledwhispered commands to each other, and then they set off down Bedford Terrace towards the Hotel Continental to look for Jews …
    One morning after she had been kept awake a long time by her imaginings, she came down late to find a stranger sitting at the breakfast table with Mama and Papa. She looked more closely and discovered that it was George.
    Mama was in a state of confusion between happiness and distress, and as soon as she saw Anna she jumped from her chair.
    “Letters from Max!” she cried.
    George waved an envelope. “I got one this morning, so I brought it round,” he said. “But I see you’ve got your own. They must all have been posted at the same time.”
    “Max is all right,” said Papa.
    She began quickly to read.
    There were four letters, all addressed to Mama and Papa. Max had written them at intervals of a week or so and their tone changed gradually from indignant surprise at being interned to a kind of despairing resignation. He had had a bad time, being pushed from one temporary camp to another, often without the simplest necessities. Now he had reached his permanent destination which was better organised, but he was not allowed to say where it was. (“On the Isle of Man!” said George impatiently. “Everyone knows that’s where they’ve been put – why can’t they be allowed to say so?”) The camp was full of students and professors from Cambridge – so many that it might even bepossible to continue with some of his studies. “So it’s not too bad,” wrote Max. But he clearly hated it. He hated being imprisoned and he hated being treated as an enemy, and most of all he hated being forced back into some kind of German identity which he had long discarded. If there was anything Mama and Papa could do …
    “We must!” cried Mama. “We must think of something!”
    “I’ll do anything to help, of course,” said George and got up to leave.
    Papa got up too. “Are you going backwards to Cambridge now?” he asked politely. His French was perfect, but he could never get his English right.
    George did not smile.
    “I’m no longer at Cambridge,” he said. “I got tired of fiddling with bits of Chaucer while Rome burns, as it were.” Then he said almost apologetically, “I’ve joined the army.” He caught Anna’s eye and added, “Ridiculous, isn’t it? English Youth Fights Nazi Hordes. D’you think I’ll be terribly, terribly brave?”
    A few days later it was Anna’s birthday.
    “What would you like to do?” asked Mama.
    Anna thought. She had already spent two full weeks at the Hotel Continental and did not see how they could afford to do anything, but Mama was looking at her expectantly, so she said, “Could we go to a film?” There was a cinema in Tottenham Court Road where you couldget in at half-price