Free Homing by Elswyth Thane Page B

the dramatic eleventh hour effort.
    The breakfast table party broke up reluctantly, and Virginia kissed her brother and Jeff good bye with a secret dread of what might happen in the interval before she saw them again. Telephone service to the country areas was curtailed and belated even now, and once down in Gloucestershire she would feel cut off and out of touch. Except for the children, she would have much preferred to stay in London.
    Putting the last overnight things into her bags for the drive to Farthingale, she felt the same uneasy finality—when would she see Upper Brook Street again? The uncertainty, the depression, the sudden preciousness of commonplace things and everyday people took her mind back again to 1918. October. There had been dozens of Americans, yes, and one of them was now in and out of Warsaw where the bombs would fall first. Intelligence work, if that was it, was no joke nowadays, even for a neutral. Worse than ever before, because bombs didn’t care about neutrals, for one thing, and much good Ambassador Biddle’s suburban villa would be once the Nazi planes began on Warsaw…. October…. Twenty-one years ago, less a month.
    Virginia stood by the window of her bedroom, looking out at the muggy, drizzling London day.
    What weather, she thought, trying not to think of the other thing. Beastly day for the drive home. But you don’t know if he is still alive, she thought. He went back into the Line that October. You don’t know if he was still alive when the Armistice came. But if he is—Intelligence is just about what you might expect Tracy Marsh to be doing…. Did they say my name last night, there at the Adlon or wherever it was? Camilla would hear, and wonder. Camilla was a kid V.A.D. in 1918, preoccupied with her own unhappy affairs, which had nothing to do with stray American wounded passing through the hospital where they both worked. Anyway, it couldn’t be…. But then why did Johnny say to ask me….
    In Dinah’s town Rolls, with the ageing chauffeur to drive it, Virginia and Mab and Noel the spaniel left London in the early afternoon, going round to pick up Basil and his nurse—who was fortunately a sensible woman, thought Virginia, and was doing her best to prevent him from growing up a self-satisfied prig like Ian.
    It was a mild day of clouds and sun, with showers, and except that they kept passing lorry loads of Air Territorials going somewhere in a hurry, England looked entirely peaceful and normal. Mab found Virginia a little absent-minded during the drive, and supposed that she was thinking of the people they had left behind them in London, for Mab hated that part of it too. Sylvia was grown up and Sylvia was brave and so Sylvia had the right to stay with Jeff. Dinah stayed with Bracken. Irene stayed with Ian. And in Berlin, Camilla stayed with Johnny. Children and grandmothers were spared the awful glory of sticking with a husband no matter what happened. You said good bye to Jeff, you felt his lips briefly on your cheeks, his coat was rough and warm under your hands, and then the door closed behind him and Bracken, off to Fleet Street and the tickers. But Sylvia would be there when he came home tonight. And when the bombs came? But Sylvia was brave.
    Virginia bought a local afternoon paper at the end of the journey to Gloucestershire. It said that Hitler had sent for the British Ambassador, which might be interpreted as a good sign. It said there was a feeling of relief, however faint, through the country. While negotiation existed, a chance remained. Anyway, the Echo concluded, the Nazis had miscalculated the effect of thedeal with Russia. Instead of caving in, Britain and France were more determined than ever to see the end of a situation full of unpleasant surprises, intolerable tension, and suspense. Everybody was sick of Hitler. One way or another, Hitler had to go.
    They arrived at Farthingale at sundown unreasonably tired, to find the elderly parlourmaid and the