Free Octavia's War by Beryl Kingston Page B

German troops escorted their Führer through Vienna in a precision of jackboots, tanks and field guns, to what was described as tumultuous applause. There was newsreel footage of young girls in national dress throwing flowers into Hitler’s car and shots of young people waving and cheering. Austria was now part of the new German empire and all of it done without a shot being fired.
    Within a week the German newspapers were bragging that Austria was being given ‘a spring cleaning’. Jewish judges had all been dismissed before they could protest and Jews were now banned from all the professions. It was soon plainly obvious that another vicious pogrom had begun. The plebiscite that followed in April was a foregone conclusion. Ninety-nine per cent of the Austrian population, no less, voted in favour of Hitler’s annexation of their territory.
    â€˜Of course they have,’ Octavia said, giving her copy of The Times an angry shake. ‘Who would vote against him? They wouldn’t dare. Mr Chamberlain must take action now. He can’t go on appeasing the man for ever.’
    Mr Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was discussedwith more and more heat at every dinner party she and her father gave during the following winter. Tommy, playing the statesman, did his best to point out that their Prime Minister was doing everything he could to avoid another war and argued that his actions were understandable if not exactly admirable. Emmeline took his side every time, saying none of them wanted to see another bloodbath like they had last time. Frank Dimond, on the other hand, had no doubt at all that a war would come sooner or later, and said that the sooner it came the better.
    â€˜Jews are being rounded up all over Austria,’ he told them passionately. ‘Rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Are we to sit by and let it happen? We must take action. Or be branded moral cowards.’
    â€˜Better a moral coward than dead,’ Emmeline told him fiercely. ‘We lost enough young men in the Great War. A whole generation blown to pieces. Are we to go through all that again?’
    â€˜We must hope not,’ Elizabeth Meriton said gently. ‘If there is a peaceful and honourable way for these difficulties to be resolved, I’m sure Mr Chamberlain will find it.’ And she changed the subject in her usual deft way. ‘Have any of you been to the new cinema in Victoria? I’m told it’s very splendid.’
    Meantime, Octavia thought, we go on waiting and worrying and none of us getting anywhere. It’s dreadful to have to face it, especially for poor Em, but Frank is right. This war will come, sooner or later, no matter what we think about it.
    As it did.

Chapter Five
    Being Miss Smith’s secretary at the famous Roehampton School was a position of considerable responsibility. Maggie Henry, who’d held it for more than fifteen years, was totally devoted to it and never stopped bragging to her friends about her Miss Smith – she always spoke of Octavia as her Miss Smith – who was the most wonderful woman alive and an absolute inspiration, although she did occasionally add that there were times when she thought her heroine worked too hard. Take this last week as an example.
    It was all very well saying it couldn’t be helped because they were all waiting for this dratted war to be declared. She knew that. Everybody knew it and they had known it ever since Hitler started arresting Polish shipworkers in Danzig for some unaccountable reason and arguing about some place called the Polish corridor, that no one had ever heard of. Provocation, that’s all it was, although why he should want to provoke a war with Poland over a small port and a little bit of land was beyond her comprehension. But there you are, he did, and he’d done it. And now there were German storm troopers swarming into Poland and Mr Chamberlain had sent him an ultimatum about