Free Rosie's War by Rosemary Say Page A

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