Free Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys

it hard to believe that he had done it twenty-four times before, until I realized it was his way of getting facts into people’s heads.

    So many people rushed to administer First Aid...
    When we got to the Digestive System Charles displayed a fairly nauseating chart and Mrs Savernack fainted dead away.
    So many people rushed to administer First Aid I thought I should be killed in the crush.
    Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,
    HENRIETTA

    September 4, 1940
    M Y DEAR ROBERT
Hoping this doesn’t find you as it leaves me at present –
viz
., in prison. Well, as a matter of fact, not actually in prison, but definitely under the shadow of the Arm of the Law.
    It all came of Showing a Light, a mysterious Will-o’-the-Wisp radiance which apparently shone like a searchlight straight in at the police station windows, so that the policemen who were off duty couldn’t get a wink of sleep, and those who were on duty had to spend hours scouring the neighbourhood in order to locate it. But when our Nicest Policeman finally tracked it down to our house and came racing up the garden-path in full cry, it disappeared.
    â€˜You were showing a light,’ he said sternly to Charles, who went down to the door in his pyjamas.
    â€˜Where?’ said Charles.
    â€˜There,’ said the policeman, pointing at my bedroom window.
    â€˜I don’t see one,’ said Charles.
    â€˜It’s been put out now,’ said the policeman in a disappointed voice.
    The next night, just as I was doing my hair, there was another peal at the front-door bell.
    â€˜You
are
showing a light!’ said the policeman, as pleased as Punch.
    â€˜Where?’ said Charles.
    â€˜There,’ said the policeman; but it had gone.
    In the end it turned out to be the light over my dressing-table, reflecting in the glass every time I did my hair. The policeman was kind but stern about it. ‘This will have to be reported, you know,’ he said.
    â€˜They’re getting very strict about these black-out offences,’ said Mrs Savernack with relish when I told her about it. ‘You’ll probably have to go to Jug.’
    â€˜Darling Mother,’ said Bill, who was on leave at the time, ‘I will send you a doughnut, and inside will be a little file with which you will be able to saw through the bars of your cell.’
    â€˜She’d never manage it, Bill,’ said the Linnet seriously. ‘I shall send her some cheese crumbs so that she can make friends with a mouse.’
    â€˜The worst of going to prison,’ said Lady B, ‘is that you always have trouble with your passport afterwards.’
    â€˜We shall
all
be at the gates to meet you when you come out, dear,’ said Mrs Simpkins, squeezing my hand.
    I said I didn’t mind anything as long as I was allowed to have my hot-water bottle with me, but this remark was greeted with derisive laughter.
    A lot of people rang me up on the day of the trial and wished me luck. I dressed myself carefully in neat, quiet clothes, and wore clean wash-leather gloves. Charles and Bill and the Linnet said they had never seen such a respectable, law-abiding citizen. When we got to the Court they stood at the back, looking fierce and protective, and I sat myself down among the criminals.
    The criminal next to me was a rather nice baby of ten weeks with red hair. I asked its mother what it had done to break the Law, and she said it was an Angel. Then it got hiccoughs, and was turned over on to its front, and was sick on my skirt. We were busy cleaning ourselves up when the magistrates came in and everybody stood up. I looked anxiously to see what sort of an Ogre was in the Chair and found it was the Admiral, who refused to smile at me.

    The criminal next to me...
    When you have always regarded the police as your Friends and Protectors it is a little disconcerting suddenly to find that they have become Accusing Angels. Our Nicest Policeman said his