The War Diaries of

Lensgrevinde Lucie-Marie Ludovika Anastasia Adelheid Karola Hedevig Reventlow

1940- 1945

Family Tree A

Christian-Einar Agnes M. Moltke F.L.E. Reventlow Divorced First Marriage

Curt l.H.G.M.E.E.Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow ___ Anna-Ermegård Abela Reventlow

John Patrick Boswell ____ Lucie C.C.J. Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow Annabella

(called Be) First marriage John

James

Patrick

Curt l.H.G.M.E.E.Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow is brother to Lucie-Marie L.A.A.K.H. Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow

B

Christian-Einar Lucie-Marie L.A.A.K.H. F.L.E. Reventlow Haugwitz-Hardenberg- Second Marriage Reventlow First marriage

Patrick H. Grinling ___ Benedicte C.H.S.E.M.M.A. Reventlow called Benika Christian

Gavin

Rupert (Gorm)

Christian D.E.P.F. Reventlow Anastasia (Anafia)

Erik Mourier ___ Naka Reventlow called Besa Ove

Alli

Steen

Suzanne

C

Bertram Walker Lucie-Marie L.A.A.K.H. called Bertie Haugwitz-Hardenberg- Reventlow, called Mum Second marriage

Christian-Einar died in 1929 and Lucie-Marie married Bertram in 1940

The journey from Brahetrolleborg, Fyn, Denmark, to England.

Isaiah: 35 As birds lying so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it.

England

Brahetrolleborg I am homesick for you – I see you in the night, peaceful and calm with dark spires standing clearly against the moonlit sky and the Great Bear just over the church with the North Star over the bell tower, and I see you in daytime, now in these October days when the chestnut avenue is golden and a smell of moist leaves hangs all around now when the leaves are falling all over the lawn. I am longing to sweep them up as I always do. Hans Peter will make tidy heaps around the trees, brown golden heaps out of which a few chestnuts peep like lovely gypsy eyes – the geese will be back from their autumn trip to the sea and hundreds of duck will take shelter on the lake from shooting parties and I pray that their sanctuary is safe. The old heron will sit like a tall immovable sentinel on the large Douglas ir and there will still be autumn crocus and the last oh so sweet honeysuckle and just a few white roses – why are the last roses always white, the yard will be empty except for a dog or two lying on the doorstep in the sun – perhaps a tradesman’s car will call and rouse them and the dead leaves will whirl in the wind in the corner near the kitchen, as they always do, and have done for centuries. Symbols of all those who have come to you Trolleborg, danced about, whirled in the wind and have gone. And the door to the archives will be closed with the red vine growing low over it. I wonder, will they cut it and notice how low it grows when I am away? My archives, where I spent so very many hours among all these volumes and volumes of letters – thoughts resting from the world and the turmoil of life, thoughts, stories written down and almost forgotten, never to be read again perhaps and their writers gone to where they no more need to see through a glass darkly, but face to face with all that is good – God. For you my archive I am writing this my story; not for publication, posterity or any other reason but that this little book may rest there with all the others written by those who have lived at Trolleborg and loved it and helped to build it to what it is, strong. I wonder, did any love you as I do and bear such longing, such homesickness? Oh to see your lovely lovely trees – every one of them I know like a friend. I long to put my head against you and say – “Home is the sailor, home from the sea” – or home is your child, home from the war. God bless you Trolleborg and you my children who will live there and love it and cherish it and plant their trees.

February 28 th 1940 When Besa my daughter wrote to me that she would like to get married I had a feeling I must go and get her settled before Hitler did anything to Denmark and I lew on February 28th. 1940, from London to Amsterdam - with Else Reventlow to Amsterdam. We spent many hours at the airport waiting for fog over Denmark to lift, no chance they said in the end, we should have to spend the night, so we went to a hotel – driven by Gunnar Larsen who, I am glad to say, I told what I thought of the Nazis. Amsterdam was a blaze of light, they put on every light available so as not to be bombed by mistake. After the London blackout this was dazzling and Else and I went sightseeing lights and could not see enough. We saw also quite international crowds and people speaking German which seemed queer, one felt ones enemies had got nearer somehow and on the other hand they were not enemies any longer because one need not fear them.

1 I wonder how much better off Europe would be now if one had feared these German “tourists” a little more, but then the 5th Column had not been invented nor the word Quisling and there was no Blitzkrieg only a Sitzkrieg.

We started early next morning. Elsa, our three torpedoed Danish seamen, who were so very shaken and nervous, and about 20 other Danes. We soon got off in a big Fokker, warm and comfy above the clouds, 4000 m high, which seemed to affect the hearing of the passengers. We lew from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. when we suddenly and slowly started to come down! More ear popping and then we were in winter, a snowstorm and Denmark!

We came down over a lake. All, every one of us, guessed where we were and all guessed different and all guessed wrong, for we had come to Copenhagen from the North and were over the Furesø. It got so bumpy that one could hardly keep sitting down and then there lashed the electric sign “put on your straps” and we were over Copenhagen. I saw Langelinie Pavilion, the irst known landmark and then the aerodrome and “is it real?” said Else “are we really home? Oh look a Dannebrog” and there it was, brave in the snow, and we had come home. Travelling with a Diplomat eases all the custom paraphernalia and then an oficial came and said to me, “there is a plane for Esbjerg and one for Aalborg if you like!” to which I said grandly: “Nej tak, jeg skal til Fyn”. Had I but known! The Big Belt had been icebound for months and they had a bus service over it from Korsør to Nyborg lit up by electric lamps all on the ice. I went to the hotel Phoenix and rang up home and heard all their voices and then talked to the porter who told me a boat, an icebreaker, was sailing that afternoon. So I had lunch with Malte Bruhn who wanted to know all about English friends I had never heard about and then got to the station, but it proved easier to get from London to Copenhagen than from Copenhagen to Fyn. When we got to Korsør all rushed and when we, who had been at the end of the train got to the icebreaker the captain said “no more, I can have 200 passengers and have already 250”, so 20 of us were left behind, and I felt terrible, still there might be a boat next day and there was the telephone. Korsør was crowded but I got a room and walked about and longed for it to be next day, and next day there was another icebreaker and more people, crowds and crowds and where you stood or sat down you had to stay, too full to move. Still we got across at dusk to Knudshoved, and there were Besa and Curt and Naka and a car and we drove home to Rocca as they said Trolleborg had to be warmed irst and Naka had arranged dinner for us at Obisch with Erik Mourier who was suddenly one of the family and very shy with me. And I was home. Then we got settled at Trolleborg, Besa and I, and started preparing for her trousseau and wedding. She ixed it for April 6th, a Saturday, as Erik could not ind time before, on account of the spring sowing, spring indeed! Although it was March it felt like January and I went every day into the yard and moved a little snow away to where it could melt easier. Much had been frozen, but the snow had saved much also. We went to Copenhagen, Besa and I for a week and had a lovely time buying clothes, curtains and all sorts of things. I think she got all she wanted and a lovely wedding gown by Balenciaga, she looked beautiful in it. Copenhagen seemed cheerful but apprehensive like a landscape in the sun with the thunderclouds coming up. In all the hotels you heard more German than Danish and nobody seemed to think that there was any danger in that. I remember wondering why so many Germans came to Denmark and hoping the blockade was taking effect. The Altmark episode had just happened and there were heated discussions about it, very heated, most people blamed the Norwegians for not controlling their waters better. But still, if anybody had asked any of us where we had thought the war, when it came, would really break out, not one of us would have said Norway.

2 Finland was on her last lap and like Quentin Reynolds later on said of America to England, the Scandinavian countries were giving Finland every aid short of help. I have always felt a little sick about Denmark, Norway and Sweden and their help for Finland, some ine volunteers went over and died as Mannerheim said of Erhardt Frijs “for Denmark's honour and Finland’s cause.” But oh so few, money, clothes, ambulances, but oh “we are neutrals!” When will Denmark learn that it is not possible to be neutral in this war. You need not hate, you need perhaps not even ight but neutral you cannot be, even if your own thinking will allow you to be so. Hitler will not for he says, like a greater man than he said “who is not for me is against me.”

We had a lovely wedding, a lovely day, a lovely bride. All was well and how we all enjoyed ourselves, we danced, we laughed, we dined and tried not to think of those mines in Norwegian waters and of the German broadcasts, which tried to make us think that England wanted to invade Norway. “What do you think of it?” somebody asked me. “I think they want to do it themselves” I said. “That is their way of preparing Germany for it.” Still we had a lovely wedding and the last happy day in Denmark. Besa and Erik left and all the guests left the next day April 7th. Only Margrethe stayed with me on her way to Jutland to see her aunt. I said when I heard the news “I should go home” but she did not believe me and had a terrible day going back to Laaland amongst German tanks, lorries and convoys, and had to spend the night in her car at the police station of Korsør for safety. On the 8th all papers had headlines inspired by German broadcast “England is ready to invade Norway” and I said to Naka “if they”, meaning the Germans – “do not come tomorrow they will not come.” Maddie and I worked all afternoon to put our silver away behind the books in the hidden room in the library and went to bed hoping against my own convictions. Morning of April 9th I turned on my wireless very early and learned on the short wave via London that there was a message from Washington that Germany had invaded Denmark. I sat up in bed horriied and at the same time, right across my window on the same level, the irst big German bomber! I saw the big black plane, with the big black cross and that horrible Swastika! One more and another and many, I waited for the bombs, none came, but the noise of hell seemed let loose. I pulled down my blinds and dressed with, I confess, shaking ingers and trembling knees. I was all alone in Trolleborg except for the servants in another wing. I put on the Danish wavelength but Kalundborg, as I heard later, was already German controlled and I was doing morning exercises just as usual and here all those bombers which didn't seem overhead but roundabout. I think I never dressed so quickly and went down to the kitchen where the servants were all huddled together in a corner, bewildered, frightened, “what has happened, have they come, what are we to do?” they asked me. I said “pray for Denmark and let's be calm.” There was nothing to do. I took my car and went to Naka and the Guides’ school, more white faces there, and everybody asking “are we ighting, oh surely we are ighting!” We were all, in our hearts, echoing that same prayer! “What do we do?” asked Naka. “I don't know” I said, ”let's wait but to take the girls out of their uniforms and keep them inside, don't let them into the street, I must go back to my house.” When I got into the courtyard there was a car, Kamma’s father, our grocer, had come to tell us the news and he brought one of those lealets the Germans had dropped over Denmark, a small green bit of paper, printed in Norwegian, telling us the Germans had come to protect us from the English and nothing would happen if we were quiet and did as we were told - it was signed Kaupisch, Commandant of Copenhagen. I stared at it, I could not believe my eyes, “what are we doing?” I asked “they are ighting on the border I hear” he said “the German leet have taken all Danish waters, all railway stations are in German hands, so are the Post Ofice, telephone exchange, everything”, and then the wireless started.

3 Kalundborg with the same proclamation from Kaupisch over and over again, every hour, we listened, all of us, and Kamma’s father, in my large kitchen with the sun streaming through the windows and the morning dew on every grass and bush, a lovely day that day we lost our honour. I kept thinking, oh why don't they bomb us we ought to be dead. I went out into the hall and looked at all the weapons hanging on the walls, all old, obsolete, like the defensive spirit of the nation. I went back to the kitchen and we all had breakfast there, also the grocer. We all felt we must keep together. At nine came the King's proclamation asking us to keep quiet and telling us Denmark, under protest, had accepted the invasion, and asking us not to ight. We later heard that he himself had come out of Amalienborg and had stopped the ighting. Stauning had come to him in the early morning hours, in one hand an order for general mobilisation, in the other hand the German conditions “you must sign the mobilisation order your Majesty” he said. “No” said the King –“if you had listened to me 20 years ago and we had a Navy and an Army, we could ight, but now it would be murder of the civilians only.” What the German conditions were, we were never told, but we heard them later, when we heard what Norway had refused to accept, and what we had to bear - German control of ports, railways and broadcasting, German control of all army material, censorship, blackout and much much more, we never stopped inding out more as the time went on. What we found out irst was rumours, they started with the invasions, and it became almost an art to discern between rumours and truth, they seemed to be dovetailed, the postman would come and say a thousand Germans had been killed on the border and several thousand wounded, and such rumours, which made us all shiver and wonder but generally boiled down to very small numbers. Bombing too but although the Germans dropped a few bombs the irst day all the bombing was done by the English and was welcomed. But to go back to April 9th, I was in my library walking up and down like a lion in a cage and waiting for the Germans when Curt arrived, he said “I have come to ask you not to say anything to them when they come.” I snorted, I think I must have spat like a cat, I felt like a tiger and said “I, not say anything, when all I am grateful about is that they are Germans and not Russians because in German anyhow I can tell them what I think of them”. “You will be shot”, he said sadly. “It will be an honour” I said. He sat down heavily in a chair. “I dare not leave you”, so there he sat for two or three hours, but no German came, only the bombers in the air, those were the only Germans we saw, day and night they lew transport - bombers - ighters all the time, we knew where they went, to Norway, where they were ighting hard and stubbornly, and all our hearts were with them praying that English help would come and save them and us. I was terribly worried about Besa and Erik on their honeymoon, all I knew was that they were somewhere in Jutland and I thought surely they will come home at once and I started expecting them every moment, hoping they would come home unhurt. About ive o'clock in the afternoon they had not come and I was getting very worried, then the agent arrived. Oh good I thought, he will bring some news, but he had only come to tell me that the Germans had ordered a complete blackout for that very night. I had not listened to the wireless any more knowing it was German controlled. Black out Trolleborg in two hours, impossible. I rushed upstairs and stared at the windows, so many and so big. I rang up Snedker Hanson, he was out, so I went to fetch Maddie and Mrs. Soun, and we fetched all the funeral paraphernalia from the attic and with this and most of the curtains available we contrived to black out kitchen, scullery and library. Next morning Snedker Hanson arrived with reams of black paper and lined the double windows with it. All this work brought me past dinnertime and still no children. At last about 11p.m. they arrived, very excited, very tired, having driven from Aarhus ever since 2 p.m. for hours and hours on the road meeting German columns, tanks, transports, guns etc. all the time.

4 They told me that they slept late on the 9th and at about 10 a.m. Erik awoke and saw a large plane, from his bed, thank God he thought at least we seem to have some decent ighter planes and went to sleep again - a little later another plane - he got up to have a look at it and saw the Swastika. “Really” he said to Besa “these Germans are too cheeky, here is one lying over Danish territory” then he went to sleep again. When they went down to lunch at about one they had a table near the window and suddenly saw a German dispatch rider - “what is he doing here” they asked the waiter, people at the other tables began to smile, they told them, we are invaded, you had better try to go home to Trolleborg if you can. Besa asked them how they knew they were from Trolleborg; they said they had seen their pictures in the papers. The manager came and told them all the news, he also told them that they probably would not be able to get across the Little Belt Bridge, as that was in German hands. Well they went and all the time as they went past German convoys, magniicently equipped they said, sometimes they were stopped, and Besa parlayed with them, they laughed at her German and let them pass. At the Belt more soldiers and guards – Besa showed her lovely little face and on they went to Fyn, apparently the only people to get across that day, showing that even German soldiers can succumb to a pretty smile. They were on their best behaviour those troops and all men had been told that Denmark had asked them to help and to come and defend them against an English invasion. Some of them were the same boys, grown up, that we had saved from starvation and nursed back to health here in Denmark after the last war. Two of them committed suicide when they went to see their foster parents and had learned the truth about the invasion. The German planes lew very low, so low that in two or three places they took off the top of the trees and every time a plane came I used to worry about the storks’ nest. The storks looked very frightened at irst, but got used to things eventually poor dears, we never got used to them. I did a lot of work in my garden and every plane I heard I turned my back upon, that seemed to make them angry, for whenever I did that they came a little lower down just to terrorise. I had a woodman working on the estate chopping down dead branches when one of these planes lew over him; he lifted his arm with the axe in his hand at them. A few days later the local policeman came to see him, Germans did everything through the Danish authorities. “You are ined”, he said to the woodman, “80 Kroner for insulting the German Luftwaffe.” “I never talked to them nor did anything”, the woodman said. “Nevertheless you have to pay” said the policeman, and out of his pocket he produced a photo taken from the air of the woodman raising his axe. Sowing was very late this cold spring and in April we were still ploughing and blasting stones we found in the ield. One day we did a specially big one and a few seconds after the blast was heard three German planes arrived and circled over the place, much to the horror of the ‘husmænd’. They were everywhere at all times. We lived on the wireless and the English news – Pastor Clausen who had no shortwave set used to ring me every day and ask what is the news, we thought that was a little dangerous so he said “what is the weather?” but even that was risky as all telephones were tapped, so I went to him daily with the reports. We were much cheered by the news that a B.E.F. had started from Norway, wonderfully equipped with the help of Arctic explorers they told us, and complete even to reindeer from the zoo I suppose! There were marvellous reports of German shipping losses, and then came all these Norwegian names Elverum – Bergen – Narvik – a.s.o., and all the time planes - planes - planes, carrying more men, more tanks, more guns to Norway, and we could do nothing to stop them. Day and night they went, backwards and forwards, bombers, ighters, Red Cross planes and these huge transport planes, all to Norway.

5 The rumours increased, thousands of dead German soldiers were washed ashore, thousands refused to go aboard German transport ships at Frederikshavn and were shot by their own people. Hamburg was in revolution, in Kiel they spat at the name of Hitler, oh to be able to know what was the truth, one felt like Pilate without power or responsibility. The Swedish broadcasts told us of great British and Norwegian progress in Norway - I wondered if they were German inspired - alas they were not true except round about Narvik. For eight days the Navy seemed supreme in the Norwegian waters, sinking many German ships, several on the Swedish news two or three times over, then we heard no more. It was some time in the middle of April that my son-in-law came to me. “Anyhow” he said “we need not worry any more about our butter and bacon, the Germans are buying it all, at the price we ask, so farming will do well under the invasion.” I just laughed at him and told him he would know better if he had been old enough to remember the last war. And I was right, the Germans bought all they could lay their hands upon and paid in Marks, these Marks the farmers could change at the National bank from Kroner, which was alright, not so alright was the fact that the National bank did not get their money back but this was put down as a forced loan which Denmark was giving Germany. In addition Germany was charging Denmark one million Kroner daily for the ‘protection’ alias invasion. Already in May an oficial of the National bank said to me “we are ruined.” One afternoon Curt came home having bicycled to Ove´s, the Germans had taken every drop of petrol that was in the country, and told us sad stories of betrayal and Quislingism in our own country. It seemed for example that all the oficers who were at Dragør and TreKroner had been given land leave, the night from the 8th to the 9th of April, and all such sad sad news. I went into a shop in Svenborg to buy a war map of Norway, the man said “I have an excellent one made in Germany” so I said “give me one not so good but made here” he nearly kissed me and then he started talking “and one thing I am sure” he said “after all this war is over we shall hang all our own people who have betrayed us.” There was much sabotage, two or three of our big ferries were sunk or severely damaged, so the Germans searched all our luggage when we crossed the Belt but they used our own Statspoliti to do it and they were not so very thorough. Trains were incredibly late, I never found out the reason for that and not only late but slow. I went to Odense one day and instead of the usual 40 minutes to get there it took me 5 hours each way. It took people nearly 24 hours to go to Copenhagen. One thing I want to make it clear and sure for all times and that is the fact that the bulk of the Germans never came to Denmark, they were there and had been there for months. It was all prepared to the very last detail. The morning of the 9th, out of every shop, every bank, every hotel and nearly every house in Copenhagen there walked German soldiers and took up their appointed positions, then they took every bicycle they could lay their hands on - and many there are in Copenhagen and piled them house high in the main thoroughfare, one at each end of Copenhagen, stopping all the trafic and keeping everybody away, until they had occupied all stations, Post Ofices, barracks and wireless stations. The manager of the Hotel d’Angleterre said that a very nice British oficer arrived in Copenhagen about Christmas 1939 and took rooms in the hotel, he was extremely nice and when the invasion came the manager thought I must not let him be caught – I must warn him, he went upstairs to his room and found him in German uniform. Somebody asked the German soldiers how it was that they could speak Danish and the answer was “oh we have learned Danish ever since September 39.” We were now at the end of April and there were rumours of large transports of German troops going south, things were going well for the Germans in Norway, B.E.F had left and only Narvik was still in English hands, The King and the Government were in England, and so I hope were the reindeer.

6 We wondered why all these troop transports were going south, I was vaguely and fearfully thinking of Belgium, and on May 10th we again heard all the familiar talk of England threatening to invade Holland and Belgium, while the Germans were bombing Rotterdam and had invaded both these countries themselves. Naka said to me, “have they already found the papers to prove that these countries are plotting with France and England?” I said “not yet, but as the Americans say, they sure will”, and so they did – somewhere in Belgium, I think in an empty train or somewhere like that. I remember wondering how it would ever have been possible for the English to get them there and the Reichstag was called together and the decisive proofs were given to the poor German sheep that England was again the only culprit planning to invade Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, the moon! And then suddenly the German armies became like lava, burning lava and went on and on, nothing seemed able to stop them, they were in Holland, they were in Luxembourg, they were getting near France, and oh horror one morning we were told of another B.E.F. going to Belgium. I could bear it no longer, I said “I must go back to England, I am still a warden, I might be needed, all is calm here and anyhow I can do nothing and if England is to be bombed I must be where Carl and Benika are. Poor Naka, it nearly broke my heart to see her, she was good to me, she made no objection, I shall always bless her for her unselishness. The Germans had put a penalty of death upon leaving the country without permission, so I had to see what I could do. I went to Copenhagen via Laaland as the Big Belt was closed owing to the ferries being sabotaged. I stayed one night with Margrethe Reventlow at Rudbjergaard and told her I was trying to get to England, impossible she said, utterly impossible. Well I said I can only try, but let me ring up Mrs Wessel at Christiansæde whose husband is in the RAF in England and see if I can take some messages. So I rang her up and learned she was at the Hotel Cecil in Copenhagen. Both the big Hotel Angleterre and Phoenix were taken over by the Germans. Kaupisch resided at the Angleterre and no Dane set foot into either. I passed them both many times, irst time I passed I saw the Swastika over it and never looked again, there were also German guards walking round it. Next morning I left Margrethe and went to Copenhagen. The Storstrøms Bridge was heavily guarded by Germans, with guns and many men, and there were notices in the railway carriages about sabotage. I longed to sabotage but it certainly would have been too early. In Copenhagen I went to the Foreign Ofice, our own, and saw a friend, to whom I said I was going to England. He laughed at me, impossible he said. Can I not go with the Dutch and Belgian Diplomats I asked? He said, heaven only knows when they are going, we don't know. I talked a long time with him and nearly lost all hope, then he said “let's have a look at your passport.” I showed it to him, issued in London and full of English registrations, “that will never do”, he said, “I will give you a Diplomatic one, will you bring me a photo”, and so began my endless being photographed for passport and visas, had I but known I would have had several dozen taken then and there. Next day I went back to the Foreign Ofice and got my lovely passport, and so back to the hotel where I was to meet Irma Wessel. She was going to Irene for lunch with her German son, who had lost his leg the irst half hour of the war in Poland. So I said well I shall go there too and rang up Irene. Irene was horriied “oh Aunt Lucy, any day but today, I am having some Germans.” “Yes Irene” I said, “I know, that's why I am coming, I want to meet them” and that is how Irma and I met and became friends, for life I hope. She was a German, married to a German. I think Stumm was the name with 3 sons, 2 in the army. When she became a widow she met Freddy Wessel somewhere and succumbed to the Wessel charm.

7 This Wessel is a British subject and in London with the R.A.F. She told me that a few days before, before 10th May, she had received a wire from Prince Bernhard, friends of whom they are, to say “husband ask you to join him if possible.” So she was in Copenhagen trying to get to England. “That's lovely” I said “let's try together.” She told me her son was going back to Germany next day and she was awaiting a friend she had at the German Legation to come back from Germany and help her get away. She also told me a moving story about her son, he was on board a German man-of-war, a member of a landing party. They were put ashore in Poland at the Westerplatte and told to wait for a signal, one gun was to be ired, and when they heard that shot, they were to attack. “I was there”, he told his mother, “on Polish soil and I knew that gun was the signal for a new war to start, and I went down on my knees and said, it is still peace, oh my God let it be still peace, don't let them ire that gun, oh my god it was still peace!!” Bang! went that gun, and he had to attack and lost his leg right away. He looked a nice boy, very sad, very young, one of so many I knew who prayed, let it be peace. After lunch I went to the German Consulate, to ask for a permit to leave the country. Mrs Eddy says “know that you have nothing but love to meet and nothing but love to meet it with”, I tried to realise that all the way. We were all in one large room and had to ill out a very long questionnaire with every detail about ourselves. Even to religion, I hesitated a moment, I did so want to get away, but am glad to say I wrote Christian Science! When we had delivered papers we had a long wait and after I think half an hour, I was ushered into a small room and given without any bother, a permit to leave Denmark for Sweden, but asked to come once more for some sort of conirmation in a week or so. That rather worried me, but I had my exit permit. With this, and my passport I went at once to Count Hamilton, the Swedish minister to ask him to give me a visa for Sweden, he was very nice, saw me himself, but said he was afraid that was impossible, no Dane could go to Sweden. Calamity, I was really bafled, but went to Princess Ingrid. She promised to help, and I went home. After two days Hamilton rang up to say my visa had come. Irma Wessel had come home with me for a day or so, and we had a nice weekend at home. When she left I got ready for departure, I took only what luggage I could manage myself as I thought I might get a plane from Sweden to England. Then I left Trolleborg with oh so many blessings and qualms, and messages, for England from all sorts of people. I had to learn them all by heart as ‘Svigermor’, who had gone to Sweden and come back, (which she could do being a Swedish subject) said the Swedish customs and security police looked at every paper she had, undressed her and even took the ink out of her fountain pen, to be sure there was no paper in it. Frightened people in a frightened world! Naka came with me and we went again to the Hotel Cecil, very comfy, we had 3 nice days together, also Irma; the Germans refused her her permit to leave the country, she was very sad, so was I, but afterwards I wondered if she would have been able to stand the sort of journey I had. She is a delicate little thing. The Germans in Copenhagen were increased, there seemed to be many civilians also, all the hotels were crowded and they were always eating. The Danes left a restaurant if German oficers entered it, they also all crossed over to the other side of the street if Germans came marching along on their side. I walked down Østergade one afternoon and I noticed in the shop window one article blue, one red, one white, it amused me and afterwards I saw that not one single window lacked these colours, always together. The blackout was terrible, much worse than in London, the Germans saw to it. Old ladies hired Boy Scouts to take them home from a theatre or cinema, after blackout no taxis were allowed to drive through the streets, you had to walk. They also made you wear a white band round your arm and ined you 2 pounds if you did not have it, many handkerchiefs were used in emergency. One policeman found two German soldiers drunk, he took them back to the barracks at Nyboder and to his horror an oficer appeared and shot them then and there in front of him.

8 He said “no matter how many drunk soldiers I ind I shall never take them there again.” The German soldiers looked sinister I thought, and depressed, and although I saw many in Copenhagen I never saw one who looked like a gentleman. I don't think there are any. They had a band playing every day, but I was told only children and bad girls went there. In several places girls who had been seen together with German soldiers found their hair shaved off by Danes later on. There was a German picture paper on sale in Copenhagen, which amused us very much, it showed the German invasion of Denmark, or rather on the day of the invasion, German soldiers and Danish girls on the road, very friendly with arms around each other. But all the girls wore light summer dresses and all the chestnut trees were lowering in that avenue, that gave the picture away as made in Germany, because after that very cold winter, on April 9th there was not a leaf out at home, and snow still in shady places and we wore furs. The Germans have an idea and everybody must believe what they want them to believe.

I had taken my wireless with me to Hotel Cecil and had listened, as always, to the English news at 9 a.m. After that I went down to breakfast and when I left my room, from each side one door was opened and out peeped a German oficer, but listening in was not forbidden in Denmark. The wireless also caused me to meet Mr Buckley and hear his weird story, later on my friend at the Foreign Ofice told me the Danish version, which really was much better.

Mr B. invited by the Danish Foreign Ofice, arrived in Copenhagen on April 8th and went to bed in his room in Hotel Phoenix. As he had a room on the street he was awakened by the invasion and saw German troops marching, German bombers overhead. His one thought was, I must get away to Sweden and left by a back door, got away somehow but missed the ferry to Sweden, or the ferry did not go. He went into the woods near Furesø and hid there for several days, while the Foreign Ofice, the Chamber of Commerce and the English Legation were searching frantically for him to put him on the special train with all the Corps Diplomatique which was leaving! When they could not ind him they supposed that he had got away and sent all his papers, his luggage, everything, to England via that train. Some days later he returned, very hungry, to the Foreign Ofice and learned the extent of his plight, no clothes, no papers, nothing. He was not interned when I met him, owing to the Foreign Ofice who had explained the situation, but he was very bored, and waiting impatiently for the special train, which by then was supposed to take the Dutch and Belgian Legations home. But as their home was in German hands the departure of that train was most problematic, in fact nobody seemed to think in the Foreign Ofice that it would ever leave. I offered to take him along with me, but he refused, he did not dare miss another train, and give me many messages for his wife in London. When I saw her there nearly 2 months later and delivered the messages, that train had not left.

I had to go to the German Consulate once more for a visa and something re. my permit and Naka went with me. We sat in a little room facing a large picture of Hitler. Naka, quite forgetting that German was the language of that place, said to me “I think he would look a little less like a criminal if they cut off his moustache” my knees felt very queer, I knew there were ears everywhere, but somehow those ears must have agreed for nothing happened and I was ushered into the presence of a Consul who gave me my permit and asked me where I was going. I felt awful, but as I had made up my mind not to tell a lie I said “I'm trying to get to England” - pause - then he got up from his chair across the table and I thought “now he will take my permit from me”, but he walked across, laid his hand in a fatherly way on my arm and said “don't do that, you know you can never get there, and besides the war will be over in a month.” “If you think that” I said “you don't know the British.”

9 “They are doomed” he said “nothing can save them now.” I said “America will come in like last time.” “Much too late now” he said “there is no hope.” Thinking of my permit I did not dare say any more, but left him, clutching it in my hand and wondering if I should ind my sister still here or would she have been arrested. Thank God she was there. That was the 27th May. Next day I went to see Sybille Reventlow to take any messages to her father and mother and at Amalienborg they told me about Belgium and the King surrendering. “What has happened?” everybody asked, “it is so unlike him.” I said I was sure the Nazis had captured him, doped him or mesmerised him and so had sent out the order to surrender, just a little trick they would love to play. I always think in England they do not realise the large role hypnotism and mesmerism play in the German plan of domination. One Nazi party member once, years ago, told me that every single member of the party had to learn how to use these evil powers, some of the soldiers in Copenhagen certainly had that queer dazed look some people get whose will is under control, and certainly it does explain why a nation like the Germans who love thinking have suddenly stopped doing so and follow Hitler like sheep their shepherd.

I left Copenhagen on May 29th - Naka came with me to Helsingør and to the ferry, there I had to leave her and go through the searching glances of the police, but they only gave one look at my passport, saluted and took my exit permit, they never asked about money or papers or anything, I could have taken all I wanted with me, and instead all I had was the sum permitted, I think 80 Kroner!! I went on the boat and we left, and there was Naka waving to me, there was home, there was all my life and I was leaving, it nearly broke my heart, specially to see Naka, and I felt like racing back, but I was a warden and England was in danger – and Benika and Bertie too, and Christian, no, I must go on, and pray that we shall win this war, and save Denmark too. There was a German transport ship lying in Helsingør harbour, camoulaged to look like waves, that and the soldiers guarding the quay was the last I saw of German occupation – and may I never see it again as long as I live, anywhere!

Sweden was like another world, no Germans, but soldiers everywhere, the customs were no bother, sweet Swedish smiles, stamps on the passport, and I was outside in Helsingborg, and went to the Post Ofice to send off 3 wires to Carl, Benika and Freddy Wessel. It took a long time and then I went and had a meal and waited for a train to Malmo were I was to try and ind Hansen from Steensgaard and try to get some money. It was a lovely spring day and my little train stopped at every station and everywhere there were soldiers, in many ields there were gun emplacements, A.A. guns, the Swedes were arming and armed to the teeth, and everybody said “we are ready if the invasion comes”, “it won't come” I said “Sweden won't be invaded, Goering had a Swedish wife.” They never seemed to like that, they would rather point out how good their defences were, perhaps that was so, I am no judge of such matters but I wonder how long they would have resisted the Germans, what had happened to ‘les braves Belges’ and the famous Dutch loods? One never heard of them when the German lava started spreading, I thought all that ever stops lava is water, and I wondered. We had got to the collapse of Belgium and heard of the B.E.F. retiring towards Dunkirk. I felt very worried and in a hurry to get on with my journey, however it seemed to take hours, even to get to Malmo and when I arrived there, I took a taxi, mentioned the name and address of Hansen - at least what I thought was the address, and was taken miles out of Malmo to a large, very large factory, no Hansen, nobody at all, as it was dusk. I began to worry, would I ind him before black out, and suddenly realised there would be no black out, lovely thought!

10 My driver had found a friend from nowhere who gave him Hansen's address and on we went to a nice villa, where he lived and thank God was at home, he was most kind and promised me all the money I wanted and gave me some at once, and I promised Rasmussen would pay his taxes in Denmark, so that was alright. He was amazed at my having got away and wanted to hear all about Denmark, but I caught the night train to Stockholm and travelled in great comfort in a lovely Swedish sleeper. I think Swedish trains are the best in Europe. In Stockholm I went to the Hotel Plaza which Countess Hamilton had recommended me and got a room and at once went to the Nordisca which is Sweden's Cooks to ind out how to get to London. I was rather optimistic, my cheerfulness was dampened when I got outside and saw the posters, the Swedes as true neutrals always posted up both the German and British news bulletins side-by-side. The German news was horrible, ‘The B.E.F. surrendered, cut off from all retreat, 40,000 prisoners, Belgium in German hands, Holland also and the Maginot line pierced and broken’. I stared, I read the British report, somehow it did not cheer me much either, it sounded so like Norway ‘retired into prepared positions’. My heart nearly failed me and what were the French doing? Hitler had ordered ringing of all church bells for a week ‘to celebrate the greatest victory of all times’, I nearly cursed him. But no good worrying, I had to get on with my journey, so I went to the Nordisk rejsebureau. An amiable young Swede attended to me, what could he do, I said “a lot, get me to London.” His face fell “that is very dificult” he said. “Can it be done?” I said, “not really” was his answer, but the only chance is to take a plane from here to Moscow, then either by plane or train to Bucharest, Belgrade, from Belgrade to Milan, Milan to Paris and Paris to London. I gasped, “how long will this take me?” “If you travel all the time” he said “it will take you six days.” I groaned, six days seemed a very long time with Hitler in the ofing, so I said “is there no plane?” None I was told, but you might go and see the British Consul, he has a plane for the evacuation of British subjects. So I thanked him and went to see the British Consul. He was charming and so was his secretary Miss S, they were very much overworked. Miss S told me they had about 500 British in Stockholm who had come from Finland and Norway and were trying to get home. There was going to be a boat which was to take them home from Narvik, which was still in British hands. The passengers were to take the train to ‘Rigsgrænsen’ and from there be brought by buses to Narvik. One could only take very little luggage and food for four days, as there was nothing to be got in Norway and it would take the buses four days to reach their destination. I was all for it – “will you take me?” I asked. She consulted the Consul who asked me to come and see him, gave me my visa and told me I could certainly go. I, on the other hand, told him all I thought England ought to know, in case I should not reach her myself, paid 150 Kroner, for which modest sum we were to be transported to England and asked when we were to leave. “Ah that is uncertain” I was told, “you may have to leave tomorrow, or next week.” So I left my address and telephone number and went to buy food for four days. Rather a problem if you have to have no more luggage than you can carry yourself, and tins are heavy. However I laid in a good supply and also bought a lovely little kettle to boil water, with solid spirit called Meta. This done I went to see Kruse, with a letter from Suzanne at the Danish Legation. He was not there so I left the letter and went to see Basse and the Swedish Girl Guides Headquarters and after that I went to see the C.S.R.R. (Christian Science Reading Room) – that R. R. proved to be my greatest blessing. I did some work and then went to hire a wireless, as I felt with Dunkirk and all that I could not be without it. And then I went home and listened and felt I was listening to a miracle, a fog had spread over the beaches, and they had all got away, had been going away for days, I danced around my little room, and sang hymns of praise until somebody next door knocked on the wall and said something in Swedish, which I did not understand but took to mean “quiet please.”

11 Next morning, very early, a C.S. practitioner I had met in the R.R., a Mrs Berg came, she had an English son-in-law who was a member of the B.E.F. in Belgium. She was so excited she could hardly keep still, “have you heard” she said, “they all got away, a fog came you know.” “And under the shadow of his wings shalt thou trust” I said. I think she was more happy than anybody I had ever seen, she radiated gratitude, and she asked me to come and have lunch in her home outside Stockholm. I went and enjoyed it; the outskirts of Stockholm are lovely and more lovely then because there were Lilies of the Valley in masses. The whole air was full of their scent, it was also in the streets of Stockholm as they were sold on every corner, wherever you looked there were Lilies and a little later Lilacs. Their house was in one of those lovely Swedish woods, which are all around Stockholm. They are made of birches and pines and smell lovely, among the trees are large rocks, rocks everywhere, small, large and very large, the whole countryside looks as if a giant had tried to make himself a rock garden. And everywhere the Lilies of the Valley. I loved it all, but dared not stay too long, thinking of the evacuation ship. When I got home no news, but a letter from Kruse, asking me to lunch next day. I rang up to say I would love to come if I was still there!!

Next day I went to the Consulate again early and saw Miss S. She said there was no news about our going and she also told me that they had been waiting for months or so to start, I thought of Mr B. and the train for the Diplomats and said would it be possible to hire a plane. Miss S. said there were reports of one of the Hambros having hired a plane to London, but it was all rumours, still I thought I would try and went to the British Legation to ind out anybody who would ly with me. There were people enough to ill a Zeppelin who wanted to come, but nobody thought it possible. I went to the lying people, I mean the Croydon of Stockholm, and was told that one could only ly via Iceland and there was no opportunity to refuel anywhere. Also they thought it too dangerous. I went and had lunch with Kruse whom I liked very much, he is a beau of Suzanne’s and still very faithful. He had taken Edward’s place when Edward went to London, coming from Rome. I asked what is Mussolini going to do. “Wait until he is sure who's going to win and then join the winner”, was the answer. It looked like it certainly. Next morning still no news of the Empress of Britain, I resolved to evacuate myself, I felt I was wasting the war. So off I went again to the travel bureau and my friend and said – “will you get me a ticket to London?” He looked amazed, have you got all the visas?” he said. I looked amazed – “why?” I said, “surely I can get them all today, how many do I want?” The answer was rather abashing, one for Estonia, one for Latvia, Russia, which she said took at least six weeks to get, Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy and France. I walked back to Kruse and told him the bother, adding miserably “and I am told the Russian one takes six weeks to get.” He did not seem distressed, he said, “I will telephone to them and ask them to help you, and as to Russia, you had better go and see Madame Colontaj”, (Editor’s note - Alexandra Kollontai) Madame C. was the Russian minister. I went to the Russian Legation and was met by a little man who had a head exactly like a pumpkin, all rather like Humpty Dumpty, he whispered to me what I wanted. I said I had come to see Madame C. He showed me into a large room where several members of the Salvation Army were waiting, they were English and had volunteered for Finland and now like myself had tried to get a Russian visa. While I was still talking Humpty Dumpty came back and whispered to the leader that they were not granted a visa. I felt awfully sorry for them but H.D. led me away to see Madame C. who was charming, we had a long talk and I felt afterwards that female diplomats seemed to be what the world needs, men seemed to have made rather a mess of that business. Madame C. and I talked about the world and the war and felt rather like Omar: ‘Oh love could’st thou and I with fate conspire, would not we scatter it to bits and then remould it, nearer to the heart’s desire’.

12 When I left her Humpty Dumpty took down all my particulars and said my visa would be ready next day. So I went to the French Legation, a lovely building illed with lovely old French furniture. The minister, very French, amiable and willing to help me, but had to wire to Paris for my visa, as troops were being transported all over France, and the news was bad. Another delay, so I was sent on to the military attaché who took all my particulars, wrote a telegram which cost 40 Kroner and said I should have an answer next day. As this was my last visa I went back to the Nordisca and reserved my seat in the plane to Moscow, then I went to the British Legation to ask if by chance anybody was leaving that day by the same plane. I did so want some company, there was a Mr Stewart, going to the British Legation in Bucharest, they promised to put me in touch with him. I also went to tell Kruse, who asked “where are you going to spend the night in Moscow?” “Oh there will be some hotel I suppose” I said. “Impossible” he said “you cannot spend the night alone in a Russian hotel”, I was amazed, how was I going to get all through Russia and some more wild countries all by myself if I could not even in the capital stay alone in a hotel, but Kruse was irm, he sent a wire to Kauffmann, our minister there, and asked him to meet me at the airport and to let me spend the night in the Legation. Also they told me to take food, as there would be nothing in the trains and plenty of insect powder, it did not sound too good. And if I was to spend the night in the train I must get a bug proof garment made, this must be all silk, cover you entirely and have a hood over your hair. It rather worried me especially as there was no time to get all this down. I went back to the R.R. and thought on all these things and on the words ‘he maketh my way perfect’.

When I got to Hotel Plaza there was Mr Stewart on the phone, and asked me to dinner the next day, the evening before we were to start together. I accepted and asked, how will I know you, the answer came “I am fat, fair and 40.” Next day I again went to the French Legation for my visa, it had come, two of them, and two more photographs required, that took me most of the afternoon. At 8 p.m. I went to the Hotel Carlton to ind Mr Stewart and instead of fat, fair and 40 found a very tall, very dark young man, exceedingly slim, who gave me a very good dinner and told me he was going to take me to the British Legation in Bucharest, where his friend Joan Hoare would love to have me. I pricked up my ears, née Joany Cavendish Bentink I asked, it is her - little Joany, we met in Davos, but as I was eating my excellent ice, a disturbing revelation was making itself felt to me, I knew I must act on it, as it kept coming to my mind with the words: ‘thou makest my way perfect’, I said – “I am awfully sorry, and I am so grateful for all your kindness but I cannot come tomorrow.” “Why?” he asked “have you not your ticket?” I had it all and felt miserably ashamed to have given all that bother, but I had to do it even if I was giving that delightful young man a very queer impression of Danish womanhood. As it turned out I had been wonderfully protected, for had I gone on that plane I would have arrived in Paris the same day as the Germans, or perhaps I would not have got there at all. So now what, again back to my friend in the travel agency who was amazed and slightly offended, but later on quite understood when the Germans arrived in Paris. When I had waited some days and all that had happened and I had recovered from my own bewilderment, I went and asked “what do I do now?” The answer was, you go from Bucharest to Rome and from Rome to Lisbon! This meant a couple of new visas, back to Kruse, and to the Portuguese minister (I got to know all the Corps Diplomatique in Sweden) and very kind they were to me. So again some wires, some visits to the ‘diplomatbyen’, as the diplomatic corner in Stockholm is called, and I got my visa to ly to Lisbon. So again I bought my ticket, and my reservations, again we wired to Kauffmann and Moscow, and I went to the Girl Guides to say goodbye to Basse and Ludde.

13 There was a Countess Bernadotte there, one of the king's daughters-in-law, she was interested in the guides and in uniform and asked me where I was going, to England was my answer. “What” she said “to those people who have betrayed the Norwegians, do you know that the English left Namsos and did not even tell the Norwegian generals that they were going?” “This” I said “sounds to me unmistakably like German propaganda, and if the English left Norway secretly, how is it that they took with them so many politicians and other Norwegians and the King?” she would not answer me but I went again to Mallet in the British Legation and told him all that, and asked him if he could not do anything. He said that there are about 500 English here in Stockholm and 5000 Germans, all propaganda experts. It seemed to me time some British experts were sent to Stockholm. Still I had no time to argue, I went to say goodbye to Kruse, who was listening to a speech by Mussolini on the wireless, what is he saying: it was very atmospheric, but from what we could hear there was no doubt he was declaring war! Kruse said he thought Mussolini the king of the gangsters, I thought he was a good second to his master gangster, and we raged and swore and said nasty things and suddenly I groaned long and fervently and said I was lying to Rome tomorrow. “Just like him” said Kruse “I loathed that man when I was in Rome.” So we had a very good dinner together and I went back to Hotel Plaza wondering what in all the world I was going to do now, and sick of heart with Italy, stab in the back indeed.

Next morning I went again to my kind friend in the travel agency. He evidently had already been thinking over my case, because he said: “I have cancelled your reservation in the Moscow plane and I have thought what way you can go to England now, and there really is only one way left to you, you must go to Moscow as usual, take there the Trans Siberian railway to Vladivostok, from Vladivostok take a boat to Tokyo, from Tokyo to San Francisco, San Francisco to New York, and from New York to Lisbon.” “How long will this take me?” I asked. “Two months” was the answer, two months - and there we were in the middle of June, with Hitler so to speak anti-portas (like Hannibal) to Great Britain. “One more question” I said “can I pay my way to London across the world here, because you know I may not take any money with me?” “You can pay for everything except drinks and tips” was the answer, and it will cost about 6000 Kroner (about £3200) what a sum! I had to send friend Hansen a wire if he would and could inance me, the answer was yes and so back to Bureau to ask my friend what visas I wanted; it seemed all I needed was the Japanese and American visas, so back I went to Kruse to get my introduction to the Japanese and American ministers. Kruse seemed to think it a very, very long journey, so did I, but there was no other way out. I went to the Japanese Legation and got a lovely visa in Japanese and then to the American Legation, there I also got a visa, without much bother, and when I asked for a transit visa to go to England the minister said: “I think there are Finnish boats that go from Petsamo to America, wouldn't that be quicker for you?” delightedly I said much quicker, and went to the Finns, they were very, very doubtful, told me Petsamo bay was full of Russian mines, but still they gave me the address of a shipping agent and off I went. The shipping agent said there was a boat, there were two in fact, going to New York, one had already 60 passengers, when she was supposed to carry 20, and 140 Canadian and American volunteers going back from Finland. The other one - Brita - could have one passenger and had 14, and really it was not it for passenger transport, she carried coal and had no accommodation, “I don't mind” I said – “I don't want anything just let me sit anywhere” – “there is no anywhere” he said, “she is not a boat for a lady, and besides she’s going to call at Iceland because she is taking the Postmaster General of Iceland back. He was at a conference in Norway when the Germans came and we have promised to call at Iceland to take him back.” My heart sang. Iceland is much nearer England and occupied by British troops. “I shall be terribly, most terribly grateful to you if you would let me go as far as Iceland.”

14 He seemed doubtful “will you come back tomorrow?” he said – “I must have instructions”, so I went to Kruse and asked him to do a little pulling of strings for me and also to give me a letter to the Postmaster General and then I went to the R.R.

Next morning, with trepidation I again presented myself at the agents who lived also on Stureplads (Editor’s note: Stureplan) like myself. He had a German agent, who was persuading him to take 18 Hamburg Germans to America, he said the English bombing was so bad, they were nervous wrecks, and he had to take them in the name of humanity. The Finn laughed and said, “no Germans on our boats” but he said “I have permission for you to go”. I nearly fell around his neck “when do I go?” I said. Tomorrow was the answer, “you must go by train to Rovaniemi and then by bus on the Arctic Road to Petsamo and Liinahamari, where the boats are”, but he added, “don't expect any comfort.” I did not mind, I rushed to my travel agency and asked for a ticket to Rovaniemi, I could get that, I could even get a sleeper as far as Boden it seemed! But I had to get permission from the Swedish military authorities to travel through Boden, as that was a fortress. I got it all and really started next day at 1.40 from Stockholm. Basse came to see me off and I felt that really now I was on my way. It was more than hot and we travelled all day and all night, I looked at every passenger wondering if perhaps he was my Postmaster General, whose name was Hliddal, but I was not sure of any so looked at the landscape, and had my meals in the restaurant car and at last went to bed and to sleep. Next morning we arrived at Boden where we changed trains and had breakfast in the little railway restaurant. We were only three of us going on to Finland, a Swedish journalist from one of the big Stockholm papers, a Norwegian engineer and I. The journalist was also going to Iceland and England, the engineer was going to America. We were about to enter our train when the journalist was handed a wire. He came to me and said “my paper has recalled me, I don't know why, but will you please take this letter to England for me?” I promised as far as possible and he left so we were only two. When we arrived in Tornio, the Finnish border, we left the train but Finnish oficials rushed at us, put us back into the train, our luggage ditto and sent us back to Haparanda. As we did not understand a word they said we were most bewildered and indignant, it was late in the afternoon, we tried to ind a Consul or anybody who would tell us anything, but there seemed to be nobody, so went to the police station and there they told us that Russia had invaded Estonia that day and Finland had closed her borders. However they promised to phone and arrange things for us, and there was nothing to do but go to the hotel, get a room and go to bed, after a dinner which took about two hours to be served. After dark the doors of the hotel were locked and bolted because so many Finns came and wanted drinks.

Next day we got a message from the police to say everything was all right for us to go to Tornio, which we did by the next train. No more bother with the oficials and all clear. We changed into a funny little Finnish train, they looked like toy trains and are stocked with wood, which although it makes them nice and clean does not add to the speed, and at every station you stop and get a little wood which is stacked in logs cut to the proper size all along the platforms. We had to change trains at a place called Laurilan and had to wait some time for the next train. As it was very hot I walked into the woods and met my irst Finnish mosquitoes - no more woods for me. How hot it was, and nothing to eat or drink anywhere. At last our little train came pufing along, we got in and looked for a dining car, I don't think such a thing is known in Finland. Eventually we stopped at a station where there was a buffet, everybody got out and rushed, but before most of us had got anything the engine driver blew his whistle long and persistently and we were off again.

15 About 4 p.m. we arrived in Rovaniemi there seemed to be nothing but a station, some huts and quantities of buses, all painted snow white, camoulaged for the war. I hired one and drove to my hotel which name I never could say, and as it was the only one it did not matter. It was on the river, a large modern house of the type you look for on a skiing holiday in Switzerland. Outside more buses, many more buses, they were not white and on them were names – Namsus - Oslo - Elverum - Narvik - Bergen. I rubbed my eyes, had I got to Norway by mistake? But I had to go inside and ind the porter who said “very sorry no room, absolutely no room.” “But I have a reservation from Stockholm” I said. That helped, there was a room, and when I got my keys I went upstairs in a grand lift all of glass. When I got to my room I thought it was blacked out but when I went to pull the curtains I saw the window was covered with small black lies, millions, I got to work but just as quick as I got them away they came again, there was no hope. I rang the bell and a man appeared and told me there was nothing to do, all windows were like that, it was all the fault of the Russians. I wondered why and how, but nobody ever explained this mystery to me, and most people had got resigned to them, they stayed on the windows and never went anywhere else much. All that was wrong in Rovaniemi was blamed on the Russians. You could drink no water because they had thrown their dead into the rivers, you could never leave a main road because there were Russian mines everywhere and dead horses and Russians, and you had no window panes because all the glass had been broken by the bombs. In fact, our lift was the only item of glass alive, so to speak, in Rovaniemi, in the streets, or rather in the street, for there was only one, you walked on glass, I wore out my shoes completely in three days and I didn't walk much. All the windows were boarded, but although there were very many holes from bombs on and in the houses, there seemed to be no real damage done to buildings in Rovaniemi. The Lottas, the Finnish ATS, kept watch all the time, and when they heard a plane approach they rang the church bells and everyone took shelter. Rovaniemi had 89 raids in one week and nobody was hurt except one woman who had not heard the bells and got bombed. The shelters were mostly dugouts in the woods.

I went downstairs and delivered Kruse’s letter to the Postmaster General, at least I left it with the porter from whom I learned to my great delight that he had arrived. I also asked when my boat was leaving and was told nobody knew, some people had been waiting for over a month there for it to sail. Not too good! I wanted to get away from the lies. Still there was nothing to be done but wait and I went for a walk, outside crowds of people all sunbathing, I supposed they were the Canadian volunteers as they were all male. Suddenly I heard Danish, two small girls and a nanny, I made for them and learned they were Axel Kauffmann’s who had been with his wife and family in Norway when the Germans arrived, they had hired a bus, and got across the border to Finland, that explained all the Norwegian buses, as they were not the only ones who had done that, in fact there were French, Swedish, Danish, American, all sorts of people, all trying to get away. I went to look for the Kauffmanns and found them and also with them my Postmaster, what a relief and what a joy to ind friends. We talked and talked, they were anxious to hear all about Denmark, and when I had answered all their questions they told me that they had been with a friend, Höst, who was also there on a holiday in Norway, and skied to their hearts content. When the Germans arrived they hired a bus and got to Rovaniemi where they had been six weeks. They dared not go back to Denmark because of Hendrik Kauffmann, the minister in Washington, who had declared that he would take no orders from a German controlled government. So they were trying to get to New York on the Mathilda, one of the Thorden Line ships, I think there were several which sailed from Petsamo to New York. “When do we sail”, I asked, they laughed at me – “we have all been asking this every day for three weeks, but we go every day to see the agent.”

16 I did not mind waiting a day or so now I had friends, in fact we were quite a party, there was also a very nice Norwegian girl, a Miss Collet, who was going to America to get married. Also there appeared a Mr Martins from Hambros Bank in London, who, oh joy, wanted to go to England. He, the Postmaster and I were going to Iceland and also a very nice quiet little MP from the Faroe Islands who wanted to go home also. Every day we were told the buses were leaving for Petsamo, and then the agent would come and tell us the boats were not ready yet, we were getting fed up, specially as the Canadians, and also the Finnish volunteers every evening got so drunk that we had to leave the public rooms to them after 7 p.m. We had dinner at six and sat outside, one never wanted to go to bed, as it never got dark all night. Rovaniemi is one mile south of the Arctic Circle, and there was the midnight sun crawling around the horizon all night long, and always getting into one's eyes. I got awfully tired of that midnight sun. One evening there was a colossal row, men shouted, dogs barked, women shrieked, we asked what had happened and were told that the Black Eagle of Harlem had joined the volunteers. The Black Eagle always seemed to be drinking and ighting, he had volunteered to ight for Finland and got there after the Armistice, but undaunted had gone to Helsinki and had a good time and arrived at Petsamo to join the other volunteers on their homeward way, plus two lovely little Spaniel puppies he had bought somewhere en route. He told me he was a Major in Finland and a Colonel in Abyssinia, it seems he volunteered for that war also. I was longing to ask him what he was in Harlem. My Postmaster took me to tea, or rather coffee, with the Postmaster of Rovaniemi, they had a very nice house, with a shell hole that had come in on one wall and gone out through the other doing no damage whatsoever, they had framed both holes nicely to keep them as souvenirs. Mrs Postmaster did all the booking for the buses and told me 10,000 tons of goods were transported every day up and down the Arctic Highway. All the planes and all the war material from America came that way. They also told us that my Postmaster was going to be provided with a private car to go to Petsamo and so were the Kauffmanns, the buses take 38 hours! They also told us that all our luggage had to be packed in brown paper, as the dust was so terrible on the road that everything would be spoiled otherwise. They were going to get it all done for us, it seemed we were going the next day. Will I see many reindeer I asked and was told the Russians had taken them all, about 80,000 of them and the poor Lapps were in a dismal state about it.

Next day, with our luggage neatly packed in brown paper bags we started, on the Arctic Road, which has been generously bombed by the Russians. Our driver, a demobilised Finn, had been driving a tank, and he drove us as if we were a tank, only faster, bomb holes, corners, ups or downs, water or dust, we never slackened the pace, until Hliddal said, I can bear it no longer, and went and sat next to him and put his hand on his arm whenever we met one of those large lorries or went around a very narrow bend. I breathed again and began to look at the scenery, the birds and the lowers. The scenery was all woods, heather and some lovely white lowers I didn't know, I wanted to stop and gather some but was told ‘Russian mines’ so on we went through clouds of dust. About midday we stopped in a village and got some bread, milk and potatoes, and after half an hour's stop, when I had a look at a Finish home of the people, and found they all sleep in one bed, we went on. But we had one more stop and that was on a mountain with the most heavenly view, it was about 6 p.m., we having driven since 9 a.m. and a storm was coming up. We welcomed those storm clouds as they would lay the dust and they did, it poured and poured. We had to stop driving for a while as one could not see for water. At dinner time we arrived at Ivalo, on a lovely lake, in a lovely little wooden hotel where we had a warm, very welcome meal, and found the Faroe MP waiting for us.

17 We offered to take him along with us but he was coming by bus, which was as well as Hliddal’s luggage was large and numerous. After dinner we went on and on till at last, about two o'clock at night, after 18 hours of Arctic Road we got to Petsamo. At least we got to what had been Petsamo as there was not one house left, absolutely nothing. We went on to Liinahamari, the port where there was one wooden shed, and the road, if one could call it a road, and on the road were three boats, two smallish ones and one very small behind the others. Needless to say the smallest one was Brita. We got out, rather stiff and grateful to have arrived - not a soul in sight to direct us, we had to walk a plank to get to the irst ship – a wet plank, and over a wet and dirty ship, full of coal, another plank and to our little boat, more coal and nobody anywhere. Hliddal went below and appeared with the irst mate who said we could not possibly stay, there was no room anywhere, and no beds at all. But the good kind man gave us some warm coffee and cheese and counselled us to try the Mathilda. The Mathilda was white and a real passenger boat, and when we had walked over several more planks we got aboard her and found somebody who told us there was no room but we might spend the night in the smoking room. I suggested the Kauffmann’s cabins, as I knew they were not coming until the next day, but was told 15 people were asleep there - so I sat gratefully down in a chair in the smoking room and tried to sleep. Suddenly Hliddal arrived very amazed and said “all our luggage is lost!” – “Oh” I said, “it cannot get far here unless our driver has gone with it, let's look”, and look we did over all the planks, into all the boats, all along the road quay, nowhere was there any sign of luggage, car, or driver. We walked everywhere up and down, no hope and there we were, nobody to help us, nobody to love us, no place to wash, no privacy, no cabin after 18 hours driving on that Arctic Highway. Hliddal told me it was a very good road compared to the roads in Iceland and I found myself seriously hoping that I should not have to do much driving there, when we arrived. Well we had to give up looking for our luggage, at least I did. Hliddal said he was going to rouse the oficer on one of the boats and phone the police. I, who had very little luggage anyhow went back to my smoking room and tried to sleep, but then it was 5:00 a.m. I must have dozed for suddenly I opened my eyes and found that the police had arrived, and not only one or two but ive of them, very smart, very clean and only talking Finnish. I did my best, but that is only yksi kaksi which means 1 2, and do not much good until one of them went away and reappeared with no lesser person than the Captain of the boat who had been roused at 6 a.m. to tell me that the luggage was found. It seemed that the driver was tired and went to the house of some friends and slept there, lucky man. He came later with our luggage, quite unconcerned. After having thanked the police and offered them drinks or coffee I gave up all thoughts of sleep and found a bathroom, and had a much-needed bath, oh that Arctic dust! Hliddal also appeared and more and more people, crowds of them. We had breakfast in relays. I have never seen so many people and so many different nationalities on such a comparatively small boat. We went to ind the captain and tried to persuade him to take us to Iceland on the Mathilda, who was three times as big as the Brita, and it did not carry coal, but he was irm, he was not going anywhere except to New York. So back we went, over all the planks. I got quite an expert at this in the end, and found the Captain of the Brita. He greeted us with the words “I have already 10 more passengers than I can manage, who has sent you?” We succeeded in convincing him, by our tickets and other devices that we were quite legitimate passengers, but even then he said, try the Mathilda I have no cabins, no food, no beds – nothing. We told him we had tried the Mathilda with no luck, he scratched his head, “ you” he said to Hliddal “ can sleep in my cabin, but what in all the world do I do with a lady?”

18 The lady said anywhere would do, was there no dining room, he said there was and three Poles were sleeping in it -one on the sofa and two on the loor, but he said, you could sleep in the navigation room on top if you do not mind me going in and out. I said I am minded nothing and we went to look at it, it had one table full of charts and one sofa- about half as long as myself. Then the wireless operator said I could have his cabin, that was, the captain explained over the engine and next to the windlass but I didn't mind such things, I was grateful to have a place to myself, and fetched a bucket full of hot water and soap and washed my new home. Then I fetched my luggage and settled down in my new home. There was no mattress, only a wooden kind of box to sleep in, but it was my own. The Captain said the company was sending some bedding and mattresses, also some blankets, it sounded lovely, and meanwhile we had to go to the Mathilda for food, as nothing had come for the Brita yet. “When do we sail?” everybody asked, he shrugged his shoulders, “when we're ready”, “and how long will it take us to get to Iceland?” “Oh 4 or 6 or 8 days, it depends on how far north we must go to escape Germans and Russians!” And also at best we did only 8 knots per hour. “ Will there be time for me to go for a walk?” I asked. “Oh yes all the time you want, but you cannot go, there are unexploded mines everywhere.” So back to the Mathilda where oh joy, the Kauffmanns had arrived and had got a lovely big cabin for 5, and 1 for 2 for Alex K. and his friend Höst. Also the dear people had bribed the steward to give us a table for the third lunch, which we had and then I took Mrs K. to have a look at my cabin. She gasped “ but you cannot live here” she said “you must come with us” – “but I am going to Iceland” I said, I shall manage, I'm glad to be alone, “well” she said, “ I wonder how anybody else could be there besides you.” But it was clean and mine, and I kept it as clean as possible for the coal was everywhere. Mrs K. went back to the Mathilda and returned with a pillow, a towel and a pot, which she had stolen for me, and many, many times have I blessed her for all these articles. She also bought a blanket and I felt in luxury. The evening came and still no supplies, we went to bed, no sleep possible, I tried to lie on my back, my side, my front, my bed got harder every minute. I got up and sat on the, sofa is a rather exalted word for it, and I laid on it, I laid on the loor, but it was not possible to sleep, so I hoped I should get used to it and went back to bed. But not possible to sleep. I only got used to the boards after 3 nights when I was so sleepy I could have slept on nails.

Next day large and numerous buses arrived with the Canadians and also the Black Eagle complete with puppies! No more peace, they were everywhere, demanding drinks. The Captain had the drinks and the bar locked up, but they broke into it and drank all there was. The Captain told me he would have them all go down to the crew's quarters where 300 mattresses and hammocks had been provided and close the hatches. I heard later that he had done so but they had broken out and raided the bar, drinking all there was on the ship. Most of the passengers stayed in their cabins throughout all the voyage.

Next day our provisions arrived, plenty of them, but no mattresses nor blankets. There arrived also for me a letter from the British Consul in Stockholm saying ‘do not go, the Germans take all ships leaving Petsamo into Kirkenes and search them and they will surely inter you’. Oh horror, but it was too late now, I had a look at the ship's chart to see where Kirkenes was, it seemed very near. The Captain explained to me that he was not going to sail around the Norwegian coast via the North Cape as was usual but he was sailing due north, way up into the Bering Sea, towards Spitsbergen, and then would sail south towards Iceland and set us ashore, not at Iceland but on the Westman Islands from where a boat would take us to Iceland. Hliddal said that was quite all right, it would take us only six hours to sail to Iceland in a ishing boat. Somehow I never fancied the idea of that ishing boat.

19 Miss Collett and Martins had arrived, and also Petersen M.P. so our party were complete. We had also a nice Swedish doctor who was going to New York. We six had a kind of sitting room in the Captain's cabin, on the top deck, there also Hliddal, Petersen and Martins slept, Hliddal in the Captain's bed, and the other two on the loor. Where the Captain slept I never found out poor man. Miss Collett had a cabin together with a Polish woman, a Jewish refugee, there was another Polish family, husband, wife and baby, all refugees who had been through terrible times in Poland and were longing to get to a country where there was no war! Miss Collett had bought a wedding present for her future husband in Rovaniemi, two beautifully carved knives, it seems that all Norwegians wear knives. Martins at once brought his out to compare with the Finnish makes. I was amused at this uncommon, to me, wedding present. This afternoon our mattresses arrived and one blanket for each of us and we were off – Brita irst and Mathilda after us, we sailed slowly out of the little bay, into the Arctic Sea. It was calm and lovely and we all stood on deck, which had no railings, and waved to our friends on the Mathilda. And I wish I knew that the Kauffmans had safely arrived with all their little girls. And really we were off, it seemed incredible after all delays. I went to my cabin to do some work and when I came on deck again we were off the Norwegian coast, sailing due north and the Captain grumbling that there was no fog to hide us from Russians or Germans. Next day was very rough, when it was rough we only did 4 to 6 knots sometimes 3, and sometimes the engine stopped altogether. Being in a cabin just above it I could hear frantic repairs going on under me, the Brita was no modern boat, but very good in a rough sea. The Poles got very seasick, so did the four people who slept in our dining room, that was very awkward, as we had to sit on them when we had a meal, and bad as it was for us it must have been quite terrible for them. We had a cabin boy, who was really an elderly man called Oscar, he was cook-steward-purser, everything on that boat, and very good he was. He used to put a dish of food on the table in front of the Captain and take a seasick passenger by the arm and out. Oscar was always cheerful, always content and very overworked, he did the cabins, except mine, which I did myself. He waited on the Captain and the crew and did everything that has to be done on a boat except the actual sailing, and always smiling and willing. And his own bunk was occupied by somebody who again had given his bunk to a passenger, so Oscar slept outside the Captain's cabin, on the loor. And he slept well too, for many a time did I have to step over his sleeping body when leaving the cabin at night to go to bed. That Captain's cabin was our home and refuge, after the three men who slept in it had got up, and when it was rough, even before! Miss Collett and the doctor and I would go there and except for meals we never left it, if we did not go on the bridge with the Captain, but the irst days it was so rough and wet we just stayed inside and tried to keep warm. Martins and I played patience, many patience we played before we got to England. The Captain had a wireless set which sometimes worked, but not always, although we persistently kept trying. One evening I got England and heard Churchill speaking - but only for a few moments, all we heard were the words ‘we will ight on, and if needs be we will ight alone’, there was a dramatic silence in that little cabin, while we all anxiously pondered what it might mean, fearing the worst, and next day we heard via Stockholm of the collapse of France. And I started wondering if I should get to England before Hitler. Everybody seemed to think that it would only be a matter of days. And we were not even in Iceland and that day doing no more than 4 knots, it was maddening. Also whenever I did not do a great deal of mental work, the engine seemed to go slower or stop altogether, and we were still going north, away from everything. On the 4th day at last we turned and started going south. We were then 7° North, about south of Spitsbergen, and in spite of summer it felt very cold at night, so cold that I slept in my clothes and only wished I had bought a fur coat, and had more than one blanket a very thin one at that.

20 However one can stand much more than one thinks and really I never felt ill or worried about my body, but dirty we were, from all that coal, and a bath seemed a luxury of the past. The ship had one bath but it could only be illed with cold salt water, and nobody had one. We had no anti-aircraft or mine protection. All we had was a large Finnish lag painted all over the top deck for planes. It had been painted long ago, and wind and weather, and most of all the coal dust, had washed all the colours away. I thought it ought to be redone but the crew were all too busy and the passengers too sick, so I spent 3 days on my hands and knees, tied to the mast, painting the Finnish lag and felt more secure. All around the bridge and on deck were large slabs of concrete stuck around to protect the ship from machine-gunning, which the Germans liked to do. The Captain told me that the Finnish sailors called that ‘culture protection’. When we had sailed 3 days south the Captain told me that we were, so to speak, within reach of submarines, so there was more work to do. Another 3 days quite uneventful voyage and then Hliddal told me tomorrow we shall see the coast of Iceland, “oh” I said hopefully, “shall we reach the Westman islands tomorrow evening?” “Oh no” he said “we sail 3 days around Iceland until we get south”. In the evening we could pick up the Reykjavik wireless which cheered Hliddal very much, we of course could not understand a word, and the news, when he told us, seemed to be mostly local. That day also I saw the irst big skua, I had never seen one before, and all along they followed the boat, hunting the gulls and taking their food from them. There were also kittiwakes and Icelandic gulls, which are wonderfully white. But best I liked the kittiwakes, they looked gentle, ladylike little birds. Next evening in the distance we saw the glaciers of Iceland and felt we had almost arrived. We got much nearer land and soon could see them plainly, it seemed there was nothing but rocks and glaciers, all running down into the sea. It did not look very inviting I thought, but the colours were quite wonderful, all blue and mauve. That evening when listening to Reykjavik radio Hliddal got very pale – “they have sunk a ship” he said “there is a submarine, U-boat, they have saved most of the crew by Icelandic trawlers.” “Where?” we all asked “well, as far as I can make out just about here where we are.” We all rushed on deck outside, nothing to be seen, no ship anywhere. I saw Martins making for the bridge, “where are you going?” I asked. “I'm going to see the Captain” he said “this is too dangerous, we'll change our course, we're going to New York all of us.” I gasped, now when we are here and almost at our islands.” I irmly held on to him, and Hliddal also came and we did not change our course. Next day Hliddal sent a wireless message to the Icelandic government to ask for Martins, me and Petersen's permission to go ashore, also to ask for a boat to take us from the Westman Islands to Reykjavik. We were due to arrive there in the afternoon. He had an answer very soon, welcoming him home and giving us permission. All seemed all right and plain sailing, but we had not taken the Nordic climate into account. In the morning it was lovely and sunny and in the afternoon it blew a hurricane such as I have never known, we were getting near the W. I. and everywhere there were rocks out of the water. I was on the bridge and asked the Captain, “where are we?” “I'm not quite sure” he said “you know I haven't got a chart of Iceland.” This seemed to me to be a bit alarming so I went to ind my Postmaster and asked him “what is your coastline like?” “Oh” he said proudly “the most dangerous one in the world studded with rocks just hereabouts.” I could see that myself, so down I went to do a little work. When we got near the islands I went up again, we could see them plainly, they seemed little more than large rocks, one of them a real bird island such as I had only seen in pictures. On every nook and ledge of the rock there were birds, guillemots, pufins, gulls, terns, petrels and gannets, they all lew up as we approached and I longed for a pair of glasses. I was so busy bird watching that I never noticed that we were outside a little bay near a village and that a small boat, a ishing craft, was making its way towards us. ”That is our boat” said Hliddal “we shall get wet”.

21 Indeed we should have, Martins came and very nicely offered me a woollen combination, we were to have 12 hours in that little boat. I thought it very dangerous in that rough sea, even in the shelter of the land it was getting the seas all over it, and how in all the world were we going to get aboard her? Thank heaven they had a message for us, there was a wireless from Reykjavik coming to us, meanwhile I rejoiced, and we got underway slowly against a 120 miles gale. When the wireless came it said ‘Admiral sending armed trawler to collect you’ - how lovely, so we went back to W.I. and waited and eventually the armed trawler Ayrshire arrived. In view of the gale it was not possible to get aboard her, so she signalled follow me, and we followed. This little ship seemed to me like the column of smoke that went ahead the children of Israel, all we could see in the gale was some smoke, and we slowly sailed after her in the gale. The Poles were very upset about this, it meant their arriving 3 days later in New York. I was also sorry, but there was nothing to do, most sorry was the Captain, who feared he would have to pay harbour duties. Still we promised to ask the authorities to let him off, and so we spent our last night on board the Brita. It was the 14th night, counting those in Liinahamari and we had sailed 12 days. Next morning the gale still persisted and we were slowly following the Ayrshire. After breakfast Hliddal joyfully saw the houses of Reykjavik, but we did not sail into port, the gale was too strong, so strong that the great aircraft carrier there had been blown ashore. We went past her further into the bay, and there we anchored and a launch from the customs came along. The swell even there was heavy and we wondered how we were going to board her, we should soon know, a rope ladder, like the one pilots use was ixed on the backboard and we were asked to get into the launch that way. I had always wondered how pilots did it, my men looked a bit worried, so I volunteered and got down easily, into the arms of some hefty Icelanders. Soon Martins had come and when he was in the boat they pushed off and took us two to the Ayrshire where we did the same rope trick but up and into the arms of the British Navy, and delighted we were. We went into the Oficers’ Mess and were warmly and charmingly received, and told all the news, news not too good, but the morale splendid. The Ayrshire was the only one of 4 armed trawlers which had come back from Norway. But the real reason why they had fetched us aboard was that when the British Army occupied Iceland they did it so quickly and so secretly that the German Consul did not have time to destroy his papers, and they found a list of all the pro-Germans in Iceland, and heading it was Hliddal’s name and it said ‘Germany has no better friend in this island’. Martins and I were aghast, never had he said anything to us to make us think that he was a friend of the Nazis, he had been a student in a German university for a year and liked Germany, but that was before the last war, and whenever we had talked about the Nazis and condemned their everything, he had agreed. We said we could not vouch for him, as we both did not know him well and long enough, but we were pretty sure he was no Nazi. So we went back to Brita, and said goodbye to everybody all over again, Oscar nearly in tears to see us depart (we had tipped him royally, and well did he deserve it) and collected Hliddal and Petersen and steamed towards Reykjavik, on the quay was Hliddal’s car, but his wife had gone to a funeral. Funerals in Iceland I learned are serious functions, they take from 2 to 8 hours and the more important the departed, the more sermons they have in church, that was, I suppose, why Hliddal found it quite natural that his wife should not meet him after 5 months separation. He took us to the customs where nothing was looked at and then we went to Hotel Borg, there Captain Wise M.P came to meet us, bless him, for me he changed my whole outlook, pro forma he had come to look at our papers and passports but I don't think he looked, he said to me, “poor Denmark, but never mind everything will be alright when we have won the war.” Words cannot describe how I felt cheered, there I had been in countries where nobody hardly believed in a British victory, and the irst Englishman I met, did not doubt it.

22 I felt a different being, I could have hugged him, but instead I just thanked him and told him all I thought might be useful. I also gave him my letters for England to censor and post, and a wire for Bertie, Benika and Kruse, who had promised me to send it home to the Foreign Ofice. Then I made for the reception desk and asked for a double, bath and bed. The hotel was very full, the Admiral was on the irst loor, the General in command seemed to have the second, but I got a room and a bathroom on the third, and so did Martins and Petersen also. I went for my bath but horror, it was so dirty that I irst had to get some Vim or what is Vim in Iceland and do it out, before I could soak myself, for hours. Lunch afterwards, a lovely lunch with a chair to sit on, and no rolling and Captain Wise to talk to. While we were having it, up rushed an excited American who said “I am the American Consul, how many Americans were there on your boat?” I said “none, but I think there will be hell by now on the Mathilda caused by all the volunteers led by the Black Eagle.” But he was not interested in their doings, he was only interested in their numbers. And those I could not give him, I only knew there were many and wild ones.

After lunch I went to have a look at Reykjavik, it was certainly disappointing, small houses, one square on which was our hotel and the Ting and 2 or 3 streets, that was all. Mostly ishers and isheries it seemed, but everywhere there were greenhouses and wonderful grapes and fruit and tomatoes. All these greenhouses were heated by the hot springs. There are hot springs everywhere in Iceland and a marvellous plan of central heating the whole town was in progress, all the streets were up and ready for pipes which were coming from Copenhagen but owing to the invasion had not arrived. All the time I was there, there were rumours of ships having sailed from Copenhagen. Knowing the conditions there I was pretty sure these ships were not sailing but I didn't like to disappoint them. I went to one of the dry cod factories in the town, or rather I passed it and found out what it was by the smell. Many, many large cod were spread out on large lava stones to dry, these seemed to have been salted before, but of this I was not sure and I could not very well understand Icelandic. I got to know it a little better afterwards. There were British soldiers everywhere, cheerful but bored, they were all in tents, as the billeting capacities of the town seemed to be very limited, most houses had only one storey - few more than 2. I longed to get into the country to see what that was like, instead I found a hairdresser to have a shampoo, much needed and a haircut which proved disastrous because she cut almost all my hair at the back off while I was not looking. Icelandic women have either long plaits, or shingles, most of them still wear the national headdress and costume, especially the older ones. When I came home Martins had been about to ind out when we could get a boat to England, it did not look as if there were any going at all, still Captain Wise and the Admiral promised to do their best and said there might be something in a couple of days. We were hopeful and arranged with Hliddal to go and see the geyser the next day, in case we had to be off soon. He called for us next morning and we drove out of Reykjavik. First we had to pass the British guards stationed all around the town, they had one look at us, grinned, saluted and let us pass. Roads reminded me of Finland but Hliddal’s chauffeur certainly was not used to a tank, he drove like a gentleman. First we drove over very arid scenery - lava and heather and everywhere were curlews and golden plovers, which is Iceland’s national bird, and never have I seen so many curlews, and everywhere are also that little Icelandic tern, which hovers like a lark over the grass ields, or what the Icelanders call grass ields, it's mostly buttercups and ields of Dryas Octopetala, quite lovely the latter. When they have made their haystacks they tie them up with sacking and cords as the winds would blow them away, also the roofs of the farmhouses have large slabs of grass and stones on top. No trees are in Iceland at least not what we would ever call trees. They grow, carefully tended to about 6 ft. at the utmost. We went to see a lovely waterfall, a foss they call it, a real one, in the midst of wild nature.

23 There we had our lunch in the heather and spray and surrounded by curlews, golden plovers, and overhead golden eagles, a paradise for birdwatchers. Then we drove on to the geyser, the geyser was not geysering. Hliddal had a friend there, the innkeeper, who came with us to coax it into action, to do this he carried a box of soft soap which he emptied into the boiling water and after 15 minutes’ wait the geyser did rise, about 40 feet and gave us a display. Our host afterwards showed us his greenhouse where he had the most lovely tomatoes, red and ripe all grown by the geyser’s hot water. He was going to try pineapples next year. Hot springs seem most useful and must be a boon in winter. They had in Reykjavik, the most ideal swimming pool I have ever seen, an indoor one and an outdoor one, all supplied by the hot springs with water and open, even the outdoor one, all the year round. Altogether Iceland is a most attractive island and would be ideal if it could grow some trees. The Icelanders don't miss them and if they come to Denmark in spring and see the new green leaves of the beeches they and also people from Greenland, think the colours loud and vulgar, they are only used to pastel shades. The people of the island are delightful and were more hospitable than any other nation I have ever known, with no exception. I think Martins and I hardly ever had a meal in the hotel, we were always invited to lunch or dinner with the Icelandic wonderful salmon de rigeur. They also eat the eggs of their little tern as a delicacy; they are rather like plovers eggs only much smaller. Howard Smith was in Reykjavik, an old friend from Copenhagen, and there was a delightful British Consul Mr Shepherd with his cousin who was hostess to both H.S. and him, they were charming to me and I spent many happy hours in their home. I was longing all the time for someone who is an expert on Icelandic birds, and one evening at the Legation I met the General in command, General Curtis, who, besides being charming, also was a bird lover, and told me where to ind all sorts of birds, including raven. We all had dinner and listened to the news that evening, which told us of the Oran episode. I think the British authorities were charming and the tact and sympathy with which they treated the inhabitants were delightful. The Icelanders have never been invaded or at war in all their existence and Mrs de Fontenay, the very charming and lovely Icelandic wife of our Minister told me she had never seen a gun, or a soldier. All Icelanders say they are the descendants of either Irish Princes or Norwegian Kings; they are certainly a ine race. I found that they had no great love for Denmark and want to be on their own. But they liked the Danes and were most friendly to me. Bjönson was the only Icelander I knew from Copenhagen and was very pleased to meet again. The attitude of the British to the natives was most understanding and considerate. One day Captain Wise and I were walking home from some dinner party when suddenly a igure of a man stood before us, barring our way and said in a threatening voice “I am a Nazi.” Captain Wise clapped him on the shoulder and said kindly “yes I know my man, we all make mistakes, come and have a cup of tea with me and we can talk it over.” The man went away, but I hear he really turned up and had a talk; he also had what I always believe to myself, his irst cup of tea.

A little further on we met two soldiers, rather the worse for drink. I thought of those German soldiers and the policeman in Copenhagen and wondered, they accosted us and were very loud and friendly. Captain Wise just seemed to take no notice of them and skilfully piloted me past them, but when we had got a little further he stopped another soldier we met and asked him to see these two got safely home, what a difference!! Oh what a difference.

Most days when I got home I found a note from the Admiral saying that or that boat was sailing for England, every day Martins and I rushed down to the harbour and never did any boat sail for England.

24 I was getting rather desperate and kept annoying Captain Wise, he was most patient and told me he was asking for permission for us to go home on a man-of-war. Martins could go but there had to be a special permit from London for a woman. Captain W. one day said he had got the permission but the only boat available was an aircraft carrier and that he was not sure when it was due to sail. Martins and I went to have a look at her and thought that she was a very large target for a bomber. Martins then was enjoying himself very much, he was going salmon ishing up some river with his friends he had made, and I felt sure that there would be no boat before he returned, still I went to see Captain W. and asked him if he didn't have something a little smaller than an aircraft carrier, he promised to do his best. News from abroad was bad, France was all in and there was much talk of invading England. On Sunday I went to the little Icelandic church where every Sunday there was a church parade and an English service for the troops. The little church was full of soldiers, we sang all the war hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers, and Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, and when the Padre started to preach I thought ‘how he will tell us to strain every nerve, make every effort, do our level best to help win this war’. Several people I am sure must have had the same thought, there was a dead silence in that little church packed with Tommies and all eyes were on the Padre. He said, very simply “I hear the grass is very green in England.” I looked up with my eyes full of tears, all the men had tears in their eyes, and all looked resolute, conident and homesick, and I said to myself, nothing that man could have said would have been a better incentive, rouse more energy and a greater will to win than those simple words. I don't know what the rest of the sermon was about, I wonder if anybody listened, I thought of the green ields of England, above the white cliffs of Dover and of that lovely countryside, the Garden of England now getting ready to defend this very green grass against invasion, perhaps bombing, I didn't know what. All I knew was that her walls were safe and could not fall. Safe and very green with hope and faith in a righteous cause. When I came out of church, Hliddal and his car and wife came to fetch me to see the old, the oldest in the world, Ting, or Parliament. We drove for hours and came to a lovely green lake and then walked to the Ting place, which is just a wonderful natural wall of rocks. Until not many years ago, every year a parliament was held there and the Icelanders came from all over the island and camped underneath that large, long rock wall and held their parliament. They say that whatever you think about you can see the shape of in the rock, I saw many things – a plane, a throne, a reindeer. It was a lovely place and what a setting for a mass meeting.

While we were having tea inside a little restaurant we met some Danish people – Bruhn and his wife née Dreyer, who had been away on a tour and were coming home to Reykjavik. He is the Secretary of the Legation. Of all the places in the world they said they would never have thought of meeting me there and they squeezed me like a lemon about Denmark and the invasion. I could not leave until I had promised to go to lunch with them next day and tell them more. When I came home Martins had arrived and we went our usual walk to the port to look for ships. He had caught 5 salmon and was eager to ind a boat soon to take them home. There was a lovely new boat called something ...Foss, as all Icelandic boats do. She was quite new and very comfortable and we walked all over her and hoped she would go to England but when we found somebody we were told she was due to sail north. Petersen went on her and from a northern port sailed in a trawler to the Faroe Islands. We took tender leave of him, and heard later that he had arrived safely, dear little man. He looked just like Happy, Walt Disney’s Happy, and he had a happy disposition. Kind and gentle and clever.

25 Every morning I went bird watching, mostly the ravens, their young ones were growing fast, and here we were, and no ship. Always I ended my walks at the little harbour. Oh, a very big ship had arrived and was lying outside the harbour. I rushed to fetch Martins but although thrilling she was no good to us, she was the Empress of Britain who had arrived with Canadian troops, not the Empress of Britain one knew from happier days in Southampton waters, but a sinister all-black ship, with one large yellow cross on her bow (that cross meant she had been demagnetised against magnetic mines).

All that day Canadians were disembarked and I was most amused when I walked in the street and saw a Canadian in a kilt and behind him half of the population of Reykjavik, they had never seen anything like it, and wanted to know if he was a man or woman.

We had been 15 days in Reykjavik when Martins came and said Asgegerson had told him he had a ship sailing for England with ish, “Oh joy” I said “when?” “Any day” he said, we went to have a look at her. She was ine, she had real cabins for passengers, a dining room, a smoking room and a deck with railings. She was only 1500 tons but that was much better for our purpose than the aircraft carrier. We were told she might sail in a day. We rushed to reserve our cabins but they laughed at us in the ofice and told us we could pick and choose, as we were the only passengers. Martins and I went into every cabin, there were eight of them and chose ours, little knowing that we should sleep only one night in it.

Next day we went to say goodbye to all friends, and quite sad I felt at leaving them, especially the Shepherds and the Legation, also the Bruhns and Fontenays, packed our things, which was quickly done and left the hotel. We were to sail about midnight. Consul Shepherd had given me a letter to see somebody at the Foreign Ofice and came on board to say goodbye and give it to me, also Captain Wise who had to give us a formal permit to leave the island, and then we went to bed in our ine cabins.

Next morning I woke and thought - how calm the sea is - I looked out, we were still in Reykjavik harbour. I dressed and went on board, there was a disappointed Martins. “What’s happened?” I said “our papers have not come from the Admiral” he said. We could not leave the ship as the papers might come any moment and we got very bored waiting. Martins got very gloomy, “do you realise that this is a very dangerous voyage” he said. I said I thought our last one had not been without risks either, “no” he said, “but now we have also to face planes.” I was aware of that in a rather uncomfortable manner but I kept thinking ‘under the shadow of His wings shall thou trust’. Next evening we were still in Reykjavik and only sailed about 11 p.m., at last. We were given lifebelts and asked to wear them; all the crew and the Captain wore them night and day. I carried mine about but did not put it on. To my great joy we were to pass again the Westman Islands, but this time, besides the Captain who was an Icelander we had also a pilot until we got there, and the Captain Justinussen told me that more ships had been wrecked round those islands than anywhere else in the whole Atlantic.

Our Captain was very delightful, his wife was in Copenhagen and he was very worried about her, as he had no news (later I was able to get news from her and only hope he got my wire). He did not seem too happy about this trip, he kept saying “if we get to England.” He was very good to Martins and me, allowing us on the bridge all the time, which we enjoyed.

26 When we had passed the Westman Islands he asked us not to undress, and said he would like us to sleep in the little smoking room on the top deck, which we did of course. The voyage was dull except for the birds, plenty of gannets, guillemots and skuas, also pufins and all the northern gulls. The third day we saw a ship in the distance, what was she, we were hoping she had not seen us, but in a quarter of an hour we knew that she was making for us, was she German or British? We prayed hard. When she got a little nearer she signalled us to stop, we stopped instantly and the Captain asked us to leave the bridge and go to our cabins as he would say he had no passengers if she was German. She got nearer still and put a boat down and I saw, thank God, they were English, oh what a relief. They came on board, looked at our papers and let us go on. We did go on, very gratefully. None of us liked to think what would have happened to us if she had been German.

Next day we were sitting on deck enjoying a day of sunshine, when suddenly we changed our course, very suddenly, and went towards a little boat which one of the sailors had seen in the distance. It was an empty lifeboat, half full of water; we cruised around quite a long time, trying to ind survivors but could see nothing. We all felt miserable, a little later we came across another one, no name anywhere, no sign of human handling or occupation. Tragic and uncanny. We were very quiet that day.

Next day there was a gale, and not just a gale but it was so windy and the boat rolled so that I had to hold on to the table or anything there was, so as not to be thrown about. So did Martins who on top of it did not feel too well.

I was near a porthole and could watch the stern of the ship, when I saw a sailor coming along and do something to one of the lifeboats, it lashed through my mind ‘if we should be torpedoed now, it would be absolutely impossible for us to take to the boats in that gale.’ I thought I ought to do some work about this, but it was too rough for me to hold a book so I started thinking about Jesus calming the waves and about that bit in Isaiah, I think where God was not in the ire, and God was not in the wind, and I thought if God was not in the wind we need not be in the wind, He has not made it, and I felt it grow calm, not slowly and bit by bit, but at once, and I really felt ‘on holy ground’. I said to Martins “you can let go of your table we are not rolling any more”, “nonsense” he said but he had to admit it. And we never had a storm again on that voyage. I would love to thank Mrs Eddy, who through her understanding has made it possible for us to, as she says, ‘defend ourselves not only from sin but from bodily suffering’.

Next day we got to the north of the Hebrides and very northern and bleak they looked, but they were England and we felt we had almost arrived. As we were now in British waters we could only sail in daytime and had to lie still at night, if we were within 3 miles of shores and we certainly kept near the shore all the time, specially after we had come across the wreck of a largish ship, we sailed all along the Hebrides and between them, and I was sitting on deck as usual watching the birds, when the Captain came and said “I have got a queer message and can't make head or tail of it.” It said something like ‘Blenheim missing between 11 and 12 - please advise if any trace’, I knew what that meant but we saw nothing. Later we got a message that a U-boat was about, and that was when really I felt a little worried, but not for long. We were north of Ireland and began meeting a number of ships, coming and going, we felt happy and interested, especially in the convoys.

27 Next evening we reached the Mersey, and stopped to take a pilot on board. I felt really arrived, but the pilot told us we had to go to Belfast or Holyhead to have the ship searched, consternation, the Captain was furious, he said “I had all my papers and instructions from the Admiral in Reykjavik and he did not say a word about this”, but the authorities were irm, I tried to soften him by saying “surely you cannot send us out again when we know that there is a submarine about?” but he said he could not help it. Just then I heard two queer sounds “what is this?” I asked “depth charges” was the answer. I really did not like it at all, it would take us 7 or 8 hours to reach Holyhead, it looked terribly far away, and to say that we had just that day passed Belfast so close that we had been able to see the houses, it was maddening, and besides there was a fog coming and those depth charges. I thought of all those notes from the Admiral to me about ships that never sailed and felt this was the last and worst trick on us. But there was nothing to be done and we steamed slowly out of the Mersey again and into the fog. The Captain was nervous and angry “this” he said ”will cost the company £1000.” I did not mind that as much as the 24 hours it would cost me. We sailed along the coast and once nearly got on the rock in all-grim reality, one big fellow suddenly was so near I could almost have touched him. Still, eventually we reached Holyhead, a dark little port where the Irish boat had just come in. When she had been cleared the oficer came aboard us, said “you are all right, carry on,” it took about ive minutes the whole formality and I felt mad, I wanted the whole ship and myself and everybody to be searched after all this fuss. We turned towards Liverpool again and as the fog had gone we went to bed. Next morning, July 15th, we were again at the mouth of the Mersey where we had been before. This time the pilot was satisied and took us along up the river, we met minesweepers at work which was most interesting, but this time minesweepers and depth charges did not worry me, I felt beautifully safe.

We got to Liverpool and I looked all along the quay if by any chance B.J.W. (Bertie Walker) should have found out about my arrival and have come but there was nobody. Only one man who signalled to us that there was no room for us in the docks (we, on account of all our ish, needed docks with refrigerators) and so back we went into the middle of the river and waited. We had arrived about 10 a.m. and about 12 we were told we might berth by sunset. Well it was a lovely day and we sat in the sun and talked and watched a big convoy get ready and leave and I asked the pilot, who was still with us to ring up B.J. and tell him I had come because he said the passport oficers went home at six and would not come until the next morning. We were not allowed to send any wires or letters. We all had lunch together and listened to the news on the wireless, after the news there was a repeat of a talk a journalist had given of a dogight over the straits of Dover, it sounded like the report of a football match and was very vivid. “Awfully good recording” I said “I can hear the sirens very loudly.” That moment the Captain put his head into the room and said, “there is an air raid.” We all rushed on the bridge, not a human soul in sight, but we saw the German plane, and saw him drop some bombs. The Captain said “I have wanted to see this when I came to England.” I did not want to see this at all, the pilot said “ought the lady to be here on the bridge?” and just while I was wondering where on a boat one could take any shelter the Captain said “do you think this lady would be here if she was afraid of bombs?” I was horribly afraid of bombs, I still am, but I was glad, oh so glad and grateful to be there, at least if we were ever going ashore which did seem very dificult. A long, long afternoon passed, and at last, after dinner we got a message to dock and dock in a kind of large swimming pool with sheds around it, there we were and there we stayed. We could not go ashore before the immigration oficers turned up, and they did not come that evening.

28 Next morning early no oficers. At last after breakfast they turned up, and when they saw my papers they said, promise us to go to the Foreign Ofice soon, I promised, and that was all. They never looked at my books and papers, which I had all ready for them. Just as I had inished and was wondering what to do next I heard a voice “is there a Countess Reventlow on board?” Bertie, Oh joy, he had travelled all night from London, after getting the pilot's message at N. Post, and I don't know how had found me, just the right moment. I was bliss.

We got ashore and to a hotel and a good talk and walk, and we all had lunch together and took a train to London, arriving at Euston with the water pouring out of Martins boxes with salmon which had melted. London and N. Post all welcoming me, and on the 19th we were married, with Jetta and Victor as witnesses and Tony and Margaret. They all came to number 11 Westbourne Terrace and then we drove to Water End, dear Water End lovely and mellow and peaceful. And we had a lovely week of peace and gardening, before going back to London and N. post. And every weekend we had Water End. I also went to Scotland to Benika and Be, and Christian who warmed my heart. All this made it worthwhile to come back to.

August 18th 1940 - came motoring back to Water End on a lovely warm summer's day. We had a warning, we were always having warnings now, we were having tea on the terrace, when suddenly we heard most terriic plane noise just overhead. A dogight was going on, Spitires and Messerschmitts, quantities of them. Suddenly I saw two parachutes come down, near Nomansland, one plane was circling round and round it. We got busy telephoning, but alas it was one of ours bailing out.

August 20th 1940 - heard planes in the night and ive bombs, irst bombs I have heard dropped, nasty sound. The Deelys, our couple, got so nervous they went to sleep downstairs, I think underneath the kitchen table. Next day we went to see the bomb craters, all in open ields. One was in a ield, unexploded, guarded by two policemen. Bertie asked one of them “do you know where that bomb is?” he laughed and said “I do and so would you if it went off.”

September 7th 1940 - went to Westbourne Terrace in the afternoon because we were both on night duty at N. post. When we got to Westbourne Terrace dogights were going on over London and they dropped quantities of incendiaries and set the docks on ire, a very big ire. We were hoping very much that they might get it under control before the blackout, but before 8, when we went to take on our post, the ire was worse than ever. We had hardly got to our post when we got the message, air raid warning yellow and red, and the sirens, altogether, and very shortly afterwards the bombers, quantities of them, the air seemed full of them, and down came the bombs, all around us, everywhere, it was like hell, every moment one wondered if one would be hit by the next one. Outside all was lit up like daylight by the ires; two of our messenger boys rushed down to us, white and trembling, a bomb had fallen quite near them. Of all the nights of the bombing, to me that was much the worst one, because there was no anti- aircraft defence and every bang one heard was a bomb. Later on one always hoped that the bangs had been guns, anyhow there was an element of doubt which was a blessing. But that night of September 7th there was no doubt, every bump was a bomb, my knees felt very queer and I felt cold, and there we sat from 8 till dawn, about 6.30, and heard the bombs dropping, the ire engines and ambulances rushing to their destinations and reports of damages coming in! Never in my life have I welcomed dawn more, not even in a night of sickness, and in the morning the docks were still on ire and all London smelt of smoke and burnt sugar (from Tate & Lyle’s depot).

29 There was only one moment when I forgot my fears and laughed, that was about 10 p.m. when my telephone bell rang. I stretched out a trembling hand and wondered where the bomb had fallen, when I heard a voice, “this is the Head Warden’s post speaking, will you please tell the wardens that the exercises for tonight are off.” Exercises, so conscientious, when the wardens, most of them, were putting out incendiaries and doing all those things the exercises had trained them to do.

I'm afraid casualties were bad that night and the East End got the worst attack. Paddington did not suffer so much that night. We went home, and never have I been so grateful to get home. A night of horror. When I came from N. Post I was wondering what people would be like after that night, and there was the milkman delivering milk, and the paper man and the police and the taxis, all behaving like every day and as if bombing was natural.

September 15th 1940 - warnings in quantities and many in the night, also bombs and a great number of incendiaries all around and those horrible lares. Fire engines arrived but all incendiaries were out, nasty smelly items. But I hate the lares worst, one feels so very illuminated.

September 16th 1940 - not much sleep now, air raids go on all night and planes about, rums rums rums overhead.

September 17th 1940 - bombs dropped nearby, I was all alone in the house as Bertie was in London on duty. A policeman came in a car and we proceeded to look for the bombs. Pretty dificult in the dark, and not without an element of risk, not so much on account of bombs but of policemen driving across country in the dark. We did not ind them of course; only next morning when they saw one had fallen into the river and had made a most wonderful swimming pool. The worst is that every time bombs fall nearby one has to do a kind of spring cleaning of the whole house, the plaster comes down so, also the house always seems irst to go down and then come up again as if it was making a bob, it cannot be good for it, also it is a most unpleasant sensation.

October 6th 1940 - nights are drawing in and raids start earlier and last longer, London begins to look rather like a mouth with teeth missing here and there. We went up today and I saw a nasty hole in one house, and the bath hanging down, disagreeable to be in it when that happens.

October 10th 1940 - Sussex Court was bombed last night and Hodget’s, that's one of our wardens, wife was in it, he climbed an iron girder to get up to their lat in the dark and when he got up he trod on something soft and that was her, quite unhurt.

October 11th 1940 - got enrolled as a warden here, as I spend most of my nights here anyway and there is no warden near, oh why were bombs ever invented?

October 24th 1940 - got large bunch of violets, with a card, Besa and Tata thinking of you, tears and longing. I suppose it's really Benika. Bertie presented me with 12 pairs of silk stockings, quelle largesse.

30 November 2nd 1940 - was having my bath at 7 p.m. when the warning went, also I heard a plane and thinking of that bathtub in London I hastily got out of my bath and at the same time I heard the whistle of bombs. I ducked and all the doors burst open, but thank God that was all, after that I had my bath in the daylight time.

November 8th 1940 - raids all night and many guns all around, they give you conidence, something is being done, but they do not bring down very many bombers, yet.

November 14th 1940 - terrible night, two land mines one in Brocket and one on the Digswell nurseries, never was such noise heard, colossal, all the house shook. Bertie and I looked at each other bewildered because we heard no planes; it takes them about 10 minutes to come down! We tried to think they were some great guns had come, but they could hardly blow the lock off our front door. Quite soon we got very cold and found the windows blasted, all over the house, and the ceilings come down on the top loor.

But our damage was nothing to Brocket's garden where every pane of glass had been broken, and the gardener’s house all blasted to bits; two people had been inside and had been quite unhurt. One lovely old cedar tree also had been ruined and the crater was immense, we kept inding pieces of silk and metal and all sorts of queer bits of chord. Souvenirs, but we would rather do without them.

November 16th 1940 - gone for a week to Kippford near Dalbeattie to Benika. Slept all night, no warning, they don't even have a siren, it was wonderful. I never thought I could enjoy sleeping so. Benika is in a funny little house, I think a smugglers den, it feels like it, and I am sure smelt like it, all damp and sooty. But a lovely bird life there. And Benika, Pat and Christian quite all right. We also went to Bennan, which was hardly blacked out even, at least not after a warden's idea. No planes, but that night we had the raid on Coventry and I felt I must go back to the London area, I could not spend the war sleeping.

November 24th 1940 - travelled all day from Dumfries and got no further than Nuneaton, there no room in the hotel and no train till next morning at 6 a.m. Nuneaton full of people from Coventry, I spent a most uncomfortable night between the hotel and the station, very cold. Next morning 6 a.m. no train and no food, at last 8 a.m. train to London, but no food, arrived Kings Cross just in time to catch train to Hatield and got home at about 1 p.m., ravenous. Travelling in wartime is no child's play.

December, raids and raids and raids. I wonder the Germans don't get tired of these dropping of bombs at random. I heard a German broadcast saying ‘das wichtige industrielle Centrum von Random wurde schwer mit Bomben belagt’. The BBC had said Germany’s planes dropped all their bombs at random. The people are taking it splendidly, no hysteria and no self complaints, wonderful; they deserve all admiration and all help.

Christmas: very, very homesick, I wonder what they are doing at home, altogether I think, and thinking of us. Benika and Be are together at Kippford. English people don't understand Christmas, it seems to me to be all presents and eating, and what do I care for turkey, I want my goose and my ‘risengrød’ and my schoolchildren and all the old songs and Christmas trees and the ‘kimer nu til julefest’ and afterwards the ‘funktionære’, and all eating my plate, and home, oh home.

31 1941 - and oh God let it be peace.

March 1941 - Benika and Christian here, joy oh joy, he is so sweet, just like Benika when she was his age, I enjoy every moment of them.

March 23rd 1941 - wire came, Besa ine boy, it came over the phone and I could not stand but just sank on my knees, and have been crying ever since, I don’t know if for joy or from longing and I did not even know that he was coming. Oh my baby, with a baby. God bless them both, the wire says she had an easy time. I sent 3 wires, one via Isabel; via Basse and Eduard, and hope, oh hope she got one. It's cruel times we are living in. And separation is I think what all suffer most under, oh my baby, my baby.

March 24th 1941 - another wire to say the stork and the baby came the same day, so like us!! I think of Besa and her baby night and day, and long. Can't stop crying.

March 29th 1941 - another wire that Besa and baby are well, oh for a glimpse of them. Cannot write about this, heart too full. Every day long more for them.

April 1941 - Spring again, the coldest spring I have ever known, but spring all the same.

April 1941 - Letter from Isabel, baby to be christened on Besa's birthday.

April 9th 1941 - had to go to Benika and we celebrated Besa's birthday and christening.

April 25th 1941 - news that the baby was not christened - wonder why.

May 1941 - no news of baby or Besa.

May 10th 1941 - Hess has come, in a night of terrible raids on London. Everybody terribly excited and all ask ‘what is your Hess guess’, that's all we can do, guess. My guess is some peace offer.

June 1941 - Besa and baby have gone to the seaside bless them, I would give much for a glimpse of them. Still not possible to write about it.

November 9th 1941 - Just back from Armistice Sunday church parade and afterwards duty at Aid post. The little church was full of people, most in uniforms and medals. Lord Lytton preached a lovely preach on ‘we thank God for every remembrance of thee’. Felt myself wondering who the ‘Thee’ will be in this war. Many names of them were already read out, Beech Thomas, and I thought of Mrs Boyd and her little daughter-in-law sitting there listening to all those names and wondering about her own boy, missing since Dunkerque. That terrible word missing, and still I suppose they would rather have that little hope left. I wonder where Christian would be; perhaps also by now missing, darling, your mother is missing you, now 12 years, always, always. News is good today, the Russkies seem to be holding the Germans everywhere.

32 Think so much of home, sometimes I feel aching to hear Naka call ‘fpum fpum’, all over the house. But ‘I thank God for every remembrance of thee’.

November 10th 1941- we issued pink point ration books all over the place, and then First Aid Posts all the afternoon, easy and uneventful thank God. I would know how to bind up a broken heart but not a broken leg. Delightful lunch with Miss Robbins who has a bomb crater very near her house. Destroyer Cossack sunk, sorry, I hate ships to sink, especially this gallant one which boarded the Altmark. 10 Italian ships in convoy 'annihilated'. I don't like that word, it’s Hitler's, like so much evil, try not to personalise evil.

November 11th 1941 - Armistice Day and Churchill said at a lunch at the Guildhall yesterday, which was not at the Guildhall because that is bombed, that we now have air parity with Germany. At last, how we all have been waiting for that report.

November 13th 1941 - nice little bit in the papers which I cut out and enclose. It looks most familiar. 100 ships in convoy have arrived safely.

Also this poem in Christian Science Monitor

Britain's greatness. By Sgt G.S.H. Fry.

Judge Britons not, O Lord, when we are winning When fortune smiles and all our plans go well. When facile plaudits in our ears are dinning And each new hour has glowing deeds to tell. Judge us, Thy sons, when steadfastly retreating, When losing ground yet never losing heart, We raise a smile and as we take a beating Each man resolves to do his further part. Then say of us O Lord, when grim and battered We turn at last and ind new strength in Thee, When all the hosts of wickedness are scattered, ‘They proved their son-ship in adversity’ May Thy ways be the ways our feet have trod, Not proud ‘Great Britain’, Britain great through God.

33

November 22nd 1941 - dificult situation, Augustine, our most excellent French cook is called up to the Free French WAAFS, and will be what B.J. calls a hermaphrodite under Madame Tabouis. Benika who is here and I giggled for an hour over this description, but it is terrible all the same. I consoled myself with reading ‘White Cliffs’ to Benika.

November 23rd 1941 - we are advancing in Africa, I suppose back the old way, Tobruk – Salum Bardia. I get muddled with all these names from last time, but oh thank God we have an offensive, OFFENSIVE, glory, glory.

November 24th 1941 - feel the war is nearly over, we have air superiority in the Middle East. ‘Musik in Tante Aurelias kranken mohsen’.

November 26th 1941 - we still have the battle of the tanks in Libya, ‘Oh God hold up the arms of Thy people like the arms of Moses in the battle of the children of Israel’. It's Thanksgiving Day today and much, much we have to be grateful for. More than ever – ‘my soul magnify Thy name’. Ribbentrop has made a speech, just heard a résumé on the Deutschland's sender. It is the usual combination of bombastic shouting, lies, and vituperation of Churchill, how they hate him, the Germans always hate whom they fear. It’s a good sign. I wonder if the Germans really believe all these lies, or do they begin to wonder, I wonder. Anyhow the Germans always brag most when things are going badly. I listened also to Kalundborg, not a word about the battle in Libya, that's a very good sign. My evacuee women today at Wheathampstead were full of what they call ‘the gorilla war’ in Russia (Guerrilla) everyone wants to knit Balaclava helmets for the ‘gorillas’.

34 White Win, Girvan, Scotland. After Benika had told me that they were going to Scotland by car, with six chicken, one canary, one dog, one baby, and no nanny or maid and after she had said that she felt just like ‘foundation stones’, I spent a sleepless night wondering what to do and next day I went to London, walked into the Kensington employment agency, found one cook and daughter, who had been with an eficient nanny, engaged them and took the night train to Scotland. Arrived in Girvan where I found Be and Mrs Russ busy doing the house. As Lus is having Annabelle I watched that she didn't carry furniture and we worked hard for 24 hours to get all ready and warm, and it looked nice when Benika and Pat arrived, very pleased to see us. Next day but one, Mrs Maxwell and Gladys came and I now feel happy about Benika, very happy. Thank God. It's lovely here; if the house were any nearer the sea it would be in it. There are some nice hills and in front Ailsa Craig, which looks just like a huge Dundee cake. We see also the Isle of Arran and perhaps Ireland, and there are ducks, oystercatchers, redshanks and curlews, also Spitires, what more can one want.

December 2nd 1941 - today Eduard Reventlow has declared himself a free Dane like Kauffmann, thank God, I have always felt a little ashamed of the Danish Legation taking orders from Scavenius, and have prayed for this to happen. It's brave of Eduard and Denmark will have another standing in England and we can all lift our heads a little bit higher and feel not so ‘poor little Denmark if only she had listened to Churchill a little sooner’ etc. How often I have heard that and ‘why does not your minister behave like your minister in Washington?’ I really feel quite different today and shall at once become a free Dane which I have not done before so as not to make things more dificult for Eduard. Oh praise be, now we are alright here. I wonder whom we have to thank for this, as surely Eduard is not the man to take a decision that way alone. I feel ‘Pistolen for Brystet’. But in whose hands was that pistol?

35 This was sent Monday, December 1st 1941 - the Danish Government only published the news in March 1942.

December 7th 1941 - Japan, alias Hitler, for the system is the usual, attacks USA and us, horrible little ‘yellow perils’. War everywhere now. ‘All the lights in the world going out’.

December 9th 1941 - Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk. Very black day.

December 11th 1941 - Russians quiet, ok.

December 12th 1941 - ditto.

December 13th 1941 - long wire from Stockholm, glory ‘Besa and her boy very well. He big, lovely, teeth coming. She has 2 small Pekinese, Kalle loves dogs, has nice young nurse. Besa happy, always much to do, Obisch alright, John growing, new nurse this month, he had happy birthday, many gifts, Naka thought of Be whole day. Curt and Ermegaard satisied 34 girls at ‘skolen’, Trolleborg as you would like. ‘Jordbmorer’ Marie 100 years, Kammerherre Sehestedt dead, Axel Ahlefeldt’s engagement broken a week before wedding. Besa going Copenhagen soon to Irene and Niels marriage. Lots of thoughts and love, God bless you all’. Liliecreutz. I think this must be my Christmas present from home, bless Naka.

Sunday December 14th 1941 - everybody is beginning to feel a little better, or rather the shock of Repulse and Prince of Wales is wearing off. Also the Russians are doing so very wonderfully and have the Germans on the run!! We went to church at Harpenden and to lunch with the Pattersons. Met a nice Mr Lindsay who knows Tony. Had a letter from Benika who says she heard Kalundborg and Volney on the new radio, she is so pleased, poor thing she has not had a wireless for months and how one can live without one now is a marvel in these days of general listening in. A dog, like Pilat, came and stays here and is hungry poor thing, remember Naka how Pilat came to us in San Remo and you and Lillie looked after him. He is one like Pilat, is a mongrel and Bertie is making a bit of a fuss about it.

December 17th 1941 - we went to London to do some Christmas shopping, saw nobody and had no adventures. Yellow peril getting on in the East, but I am certain it won't be long. Germans are retreating fast in Russia; they say they ind ‘Der Stürmer’ is a good paper to put into their shoes to help keep their feet warm. Somebody suggested that they had put the Stürmer in the wrong way, as they are now stürming home.

December 20th 1941 - all good in Russia and Libya and not at all good in the Far East, where all forces in Hong Kong, Penang and Malaya are retreating. I sometimes wonder how it can be that a nation which has such a wonderful, and beyond praise Navy and such a very good Air Force has such a bad Army? Wherever they go, they retreat. B.E.F. = Back Every Fortnight. It's sad.

December 28th 1941 - Christmas over once again, my third xmas away from home, thank God it is over, this one was especially sad with Benika and Be all in Girvan and me here and longing to be with them. We had Tony and Margaret and a Canadian cousin of M. Bob Templeton, in a kilt, nice boy, we had turkey and pudding and all the things that make a British Christmas. We also had a small tree – ‘pynted’ by Meaden and me. Churchill made a ine speech in Washington and the Russians are still going on everywhere and we have got Benghazi and lost Hong Kong.

36 Still I feel nothing matters much that happens in the Orient, it’s Russia that will beat the Nazis and afterwards I suppose we should be ruled by Communism, poor Europe. Russia and America will dictate the peace; up to now we have not won the war, we have endured it! Wonderfully and bravely, but still endured it, all except the Navy and Air Force and even they would be nowhere without American help, bless America ‘i lere afdelinger’.

December 31st 1941 - last day, and no “End Siege” as promised by Hitler, and the Russians have retaken Kerch and Winston has made another lovely speech at Ottawa and somehow I have been thinking all day of those March days when Germany marched into Austria, singing a song ‘huite gehört mus Deutschland a morgen die ganze welt’, and I think today all the world hates the Nazi aggressor! Poor misguided and betrayed nation! And what misery there will be in store for them before they rebel against Hitler! And we, how much we have to be grateful for, no bombs, no raids, peace in our homes, and all plentiful, if only we could hear a little more from home and see them all, I know what the words mean “da fühe ich leise – wei ich krank vor sehnen bin” oh how I love you all, my darlings at home! And now another year, and oh may it bring us all together and help us win the peace – anyhow ‘keep right on to the end of the road’.

1942

January 2nd 1942 - we have got Bardia again and the Japs have entered Manila, but I feel (still) that all this Japanese business does not matter, somehow Russia seems to beat the Nazis back and have retaken Kerch, Stalino and heaven knows how many more towns, I feel Germany beaten, all the Axis will collapse and wonder when the German people will have enough of it and fear that then shall we see a revolution as the world has never known so terrible, inside Germany. Today the BBC broadcast that they had learned ‘from a reliable source’ that before he got the sack Braunchitsch had told Hitler Germany could not win the war now.

Had a letter from Benika with enclosed from Bumbaum, who can, in a way write tot and pot. Also I have today picked 27 violets in our garden where Meaden, like Nehemiah, goes on building his wall. It will be ine when inished.

January 4th 1942 - we are no more alone ighting by ourselves, we are now ‘United Nations’. 26 of us, 4/5ths of the world, how different it feels from the time of Dunkerque. U.N. as ‘un’, which is one, one I hope now to end this war and win the peace. Eden was speaking tonight of his journey to Moscow via Murmansk, the Arctic Circle, 52° of frost and he saw Germans, dejected, depressed he said with only a thin poor material coat – thin tunic, no gloves, no balaclava! What a crime, what a horrible crime to send an army into Russia like that, and there was Haw Haw jeering about ‘General Winter’ who ‘England was hoping would come to the aid of Russia’. How they all must curse Hitler. Eden said that the S.S., or Hitler's own troops were better equipped than the others; I hope they'll take some of that equipment from them. I wonder what Germany thought when Hitler broadcast an appeal for old clothes for the Russian army! ‘The best, the most wonderful army in the world’, he always boasted, what a pity he did not stay a paper hanger!

Sunday, January 11th 1942 - the Japs are still progressing in Malaya and Russians do in their country and it looks as if ‘Field Marshal’ Hitler is going for Malta.

37 They had up to 6 air raid warnings yesterday, well we had 14 here last year, one day, nobody paid any attention to the sirens unless you got the ‘raiders overhead’ signal when some people went to the shelters and some into the street to watch the ight, all according to temperament. I hope the Maltese have the same kind of stubbornness as the British, which Noel Coward so well expressed in his song

‘London Pride’

Every ‘Blitz’ your resistance stiffening from the Ritz to the Anchor and Crown nothing ever can override the pride of London town.

A lovely day today, cold but ine, we went for a walk and put up 3 herons in a ield. A ine frosty day but the days are longer and there is quite a deinite promise of spring in the air and a feeling of cheer, which even Madame Tabouis weekly dole cannot subdue. I feel the worst is over.

January 22nd 1942 - Russians have Moszaisk and Japs are moving towards Singapore and everybody is, by propaganda, trying to convince their enemy that what he has got does not matter. I should hate to be propaganda chief, chief of lies. My long letter to Isabel has been sent back by the Censor, because I sent her Basse’s address and have asked her to write to her, sad. I feel there goes my last letter link home; as to Basse I seem only to get wires through. ‘Da fühe ich leise, wei ich krank vor Sehnen bin’.

January 27th 1942 - I am getting worried about this country, they have started quarrelling in Westminster, Churchill has asked for a vote of conidence in the government, he would get 100% vote of conidence if he asked one for himself, but the government, never! How can one vote for those Labour members, who, before Winston came into power never helped at all with the (oh so necessary) production of arms, because they did not like Chamberlain. I should call them worse traitors even than Quisling! And Churchill himself, he talks as never a man has been able to speak I think, grand, but are his capabilities to conduct the war, equal to his great gift of speech. And certainly this country is now like Italy in that way that all is Churchill and the King is nowhere, and he does not deserve this after the way he and the Queen stayed in London and stuck to the Blitz. Are we not getting rather like the people we are ighting against, we are under a dictator and it makes no bones whether it is voluntary or involuntary dictatorship, it sounds better but the effect is the same. I love to listen to Churchill, but I never quite absolutely feel that I believe all he says and I know he only says what he wants us to think. I'm afraid I learned too much in the last war where I found that no nation told the whole truth. Time always told the truth by showing it and the same is now. I'm sure Churchill will get his vote all the same and we shall hear less and less what happens, it is always like that. And here Canadians, Australians, Americans, come and ight like heroes for this country and England sits back like a fat old ballerina in an armchair and says ‘why have they waited so long before they came?’ to have the privilege to die for the mother country!

38 February 18th 1942 - Great ‘Staahejo’. The Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen have escaped from Brest, sailing through the Channel, past Dover, right under our very noses. The British spirit is boiling, gale and wormwood, Churchill is trying to pacify, but he will never get the English people to swallow that pill without fuss. Everybody is depressed and worried and that Singapore is fallen seems not at all so important. I wonder how this is, but wherever I go I hear about Sch. G. and P.E. but nobody has yet spoken to me of Singapore. We are camoulaging the Home Guards, much work but rather interesting. I shall make myself a garment like that to go bird watching when better times arrive. Colder than ever, oh that east wind, I could bear the war better if only it were a little warmer. Isabel sent a very happy letter from Besa, it is balm, bless her, oh God bless her and keep her happy, and Naka and all, O God.

February 22nd 1942 - Thinking day 1942 Went to St. Albans to tell Guides something about our Guides. They had made a three clover with little lights, each country had a light, Denmark too. I told them about our ‘Jubileumslejre’, O home, home, all my thinking is of you. A very nice Scout, Mr Greene, told me a lot about Baden P., and one of the Guides had been to Lithuania and asked about Fatla. I loved to be with them, it felt so homelike and I stayed until all was over, even Guides own, where we sang that hymn I love so, ‘Jerusalem’, ‘till I have built Jerusalem in England’s green and happy land’. Words and music are music. Not one of the Wheathampstead Guides turned up and Mrs Greene talked to me about them rather worriedly. It is always the same, not enough Guides, and especially so now. I came home after 7 and thought gratefully of last year, where I would have been driving through the Blitz by that time, with shells bursting like stars all over the sky, it is really much more frightening now than it was when one did it, it seemed quite natural.

March 1st 1942 - Japs have arrived in Java in spite of heroic resistance of the Dutch. And Churchill has a new war cabinet with Sir Stafford Cripps as new blood otherwise it is ‘Tordenskiolds soldater’ or rather like the French before the war, the same men in new places. When will the English learn that this war is not one where all that matters is ‘to win the last battle’. The last battle may be any day and may be lost, without their ever realising that it is the last battle. Oh God, you know how I want us to win this war, but will it be possible with such a disastrously incompetent Army? And with only getting on the defensive all the time, and whenever one says anything it is ‘we have not enough equipment’. Did the Greeks wait for equipment, and will there be more equipment when we get invaded? As it was 73,000 men surrendered in Singapore. Surrendered. I remember the answer of one of my ancestors, who held a besieged city against the Swedes in the 30 years War. Tilly said he would burn and sack the whole town. Pappenheim's answer was ‘one can rebuild walls, but one cannot rebuild honour’. B.J. has not generations like that behind him and he cannot understand how I feel, he thinks I criticise the English. I have admired and loved them so, and now, I think the women are marvels and the men are decadent, no getting away from it. ‘We retire into prepared positions’. In war men don't prepare lines of retreat, they die if need be, if they are men.

39 March 21st 1942 - irst oficial spring day, thank God it's over, I thought the winter of 1941 with all the bombing had been the worst one in my life, but this one was worse, what with Pearl Harbour, Hong Kong, Singapore, and all the horrible atrocities in Norway, bombing seems mild compared to it, and oh for some news from home, my baby – meine nylpe – oh nylpe, nylpe.

March 24th 1942 - long letter from Trix who is busy digging her garden and looking after Jersey cows, wonderful, she must be 80 soon. Lovely spring day, I have been digging all day, much handicapped by an invasion of manoeuvres, all Guards, Irish, Welsh, Coldstream, very posh, armoured cars, trucks, cycles, all so nice mannered and not at all as usual, so I produced cigarettes and tea, Colonel and Oficers most polite, so much so that I did not even dare to ask them not to walk on the aubrietias, which they were doing. Mr and Mrs Bonser arrived with a broody hen and the news of a hut, perhaps we shall start the British Restaurant - perhaps we shall all eat there in times to come! I certainly shall have all my lunches there when we get going. I’ll have to.

Easter Sunday, April 5th 1942 - telegram from Sweden (Svigermor) All well, Naka, Besa and Ebi has a son, well, well!! It's heaven to get some news, oh that longing for home. And nothing but horrors from all over the world, and in Greece adults and children are dying in hundreds of hunger, and Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia. The world is in misery and want, and Easter, if only, only we knew better that Christ is all, and God the only ruler of the world. When oh when shall we be governed by the golden rule ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’. Meaden’s son is missing from Singapore and 12 other young men from Wheathampstead, Westwood another one of them – ‘how long O Lord how long?’ will this be allowed to last. In Burma we are retreating and even the Russians do not seem to get forward so well, and everybody is waiting for the ‘spring offensive’ where will Hitler strike this year, there is not much left in the world. We found 2 snipe and a woodcock and the swallows have come, I wonder has the stork come at home, besides the one that came to Ebi?

April 7th 1942 - Christian has a slight touch of scarlet fever and the Japs have bombed India for the irst time, perhaps that will hasten a little the decisions of Gandhi and the bandit Nero! Poor India, poor everybody just now, we have had 6 months of solid bad news every day and even I am beginning to ind it a little dificult to think that the war may, might end any time, as I have done until now. Still there are daffodils and violets (vor allen Dinger) and Benika says Christian not ill at all and most dificult to keep in bed. Still I spent another one of my sleepless nights, I am getting quite used to them. We are having the Equinox storms now, and the daffodils don't like it, no more do I. The weather is all against us, it makes me sometimes think of Agnes, who in May 1940 came to me with a very serious face and said ‘Jeg er engang imellem bange for at Vorherre holder med de Onde’.

April 10th 1942 - I went to London yesterday April 9th, a day no Dane will ever forget, and had a very nice lunch with Capt. Bagliss at the Army and Navy Club. After lunch went to the meeting of the Free Danes at the Rembrandt Hotel, there must have been 1000 people or more. I saw Alette and husband and the Frigast girl who is married to an Englishman whose name I don't know and I sat with them, programmes were Danebrogs, Eduard spoke nicely and so did everybody and then came a Merchant Seaman with a real Copenhagen accent and stole all our hearts with his speech, rather like Lasky.

40 We sang and we prayed and we felt most Danish and it ended with a terrible ilm showing the invasion of Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland, bombs, burning houses, refugees, all the horrors all over again. Harald - Alette’s boy aged 8, who had been brought to see this ilm with little sister Dagmar - because they, his adoring parents thought it was, as usual, the King's birthday ilm, said: ‘what a horrible ilm Mummy’. It was, but oh all the rest was so nice, and so was Winston's speech, read aloud to us, and pray God he may be right.

I saw Else and Eduard – Else had had a letter from Sybille – who poor dear has had a fausse couche, but says Besa was well and happy, and Christian had a very little ‘Nyresteen’. Else was cheerful and looked well, Eduard looked as usual as if ‘the government is on his shoulders’ – Bertie came also – latish. I've found him and Jonna Bülow, who has come back to London, last year she slept in a shelter with King Zog, now she has a lat. Vicker is in Portugal; I wonder how she managed that – Niels and Irene ‘vente sig’. We have lost two cruisers; Japs bombed them, Cornwall and Dorsetshire of Bismarck fame.

Aircraft carrier Hermes sunk by Japs. It is time we had some ‘fair weather’, since November we have had bad news every day. Bertie is getting desperate. I feel it will soon be over – the darkest hour precedes the dawn. Lady Brocket had tea here on Wednesday and asked me if we had our ‘invasion rations’. She said invasion was again expected, as Lord Croft is her brother she knows what is expected. All I say is – if we must have it, let’s get it over – but I feel we shall not have it now. If Hitler had invaded us in July 1940 it would have been a walkover for him, now would be different and he knows it surely.

April 26th 1942 - Hitler talked an hour to the Reichstag and the world seemed rather subdued – and made himself supreme ‘Law Lord’, poor Germany. Acton said ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Vidi the Reichs Adolf. He must have more opposition inside Germany then we know of. Otherwise just the usual – Versailles, Jews and gloriication of Hitler ‘Eigenlob Stinkt’. What an atmosphere there must be around him! Bath has been bombed. We did Rostock where there seems to be ‘Heinkelwerke’, to me Rostock is ‘Blitzkuchen’ bought at the station every time we passed through it.

April 27th 1942 - the Russians, whose propaganda is always excellent say ‘the German Spring offensive is started by Hitler against the German people, they think he made himself Law Lord to purge. Germany is now in the hands of Himmler and the Gestapo, poor people. Bluebells are out but not yet ‘over the white cliffs of Dover’. How long oh Lord, how long?

May 1st 1942 - Funny how some dates give one ideas. May 1st always gives me the ‘Wanderlust’, I suppose because of the song ‘der mai ist gekommen’, but the only place I feel I want to go to is home and I would walk there if I could. I wonder if the woods are going green and anemones everywhere, and if the trees have been hurt much by this winter, oh what a winter, not only trees have been hurt. We have a new kind of Blitz, the so-called Baedeker Blitz, especially cathedral towns as a retribution for Lubeck and Rostock, up to now they have bombed Bath, Essex, Norwich, York, but as to now the cathedrals are safe. England will be as full of historical ruins after this war as Italy, but nobody seems to mind so much now, Hitler's speech has cheered everybody so, all are of the opinion that there is tension in Germany. Gauleiter Mussolini seems also worried.

41 Altogether there is more hope than ever that there will be an end to this war, we seem to see daylight and oh God let it be true.

May 22nd 1942 - Oh why cannot May last several months and come more than once a year? Birds are singing like drunks, and everything smells and I wonder if any lilacs are out on ‘Nøgne Bjerg’ and my meconopsis and if this war will ever end. May seems always to bring us somebody. Last year Hess, this year Christmas Møller who is now a ‘Free Dane’. I’m also a Free Dane but don’t feel very free. The world’s biggest battle is raging near Kharkov. We have had many ‘biggest battles’ but this one seems really important and ierce, one never knows what is really happening ‘Cum granum salis’ has become Lott’s wife.

May 27th 1942 - Benika’s birthday and I am here in Girvan, came comfortably up by train and sleeper and arrived at White Win where I spend my time at the window watching the sea and all that happens on it, bomb practice, and all sorts of ships, American and English. Be came, all alone from Auchinlech to lunch, she looks very well but I did not like to see her drive home all alone, she says her baby is coming in a month, I wonder, she looks as if it might come any moment. A very cold wind and we all walked on the golf course, Christian is a joy! Be said Aunt Peggy had written to Bobby and he wrote back to say her letter had almost entirely been blacked out by the Censor. “What did you write?” said Be. “Oh nothing at all” said Aunt Peggy, “I only told him about our young airmen who ferry planes from America to Prestwick, and I told him about the Commandos stationed at Ayr, and about the Americans here! Now I wonder Be darling, who do you think blacked out my letter, the English or the American censor?”

May 28th 1942 - there came a young American pilot to see Benika, he told her he had taken his wristwatch to Ayr to get mended, the man told him he could not possibly do it in under 3 weeks, so he took it away again. After 4 days he went to the watchmaker and showed him the watch, “all right, where did you get it done?” he asked and the answer was in New York. Ships and ships here all the time, all the convoys come that way now and go that way.

May 29th 1942 - went to tea with Mrs Peterson of Ogdam, her husband lies a bomber, she comes from Fredericia. ‘Saa hyggelig’, she had made a cake and we had coffee and one felt almost at home.

May 31st 1942 - what a day. We were going to see Elisabeth Knox who is called something else now, we were all ready and I was just buttoning Christian’s coat when John rang up to say Be’s baby had started coming and could I come at once. So with Pat’s last petrol we started and via Moniaive arrived in Tynron where Be was - with a Mrs Young, the wife of the Duke of Buccleugh’s Factor. Helen Ralston was there also, and they bundled me up to Be where the baby was just arriving – Be was under the anaesthetic and I heard her call “call Mum, call John, call Mum”. The baby arrived easily, in 3 hours and looked like they all do, badly packed. I shall never forget Be’s face when she saw me “Oh Mum” she said “how lovely you are here.” She is almost indecently well, no pains, but she said “oh Mum, I have got a Negro baby, looks like a black wrinkled Curt.” Debton is a nice place, Mrs Young has 4 girls, the last twins and that is why Be is there – because Be has nothing.

42 I stayed with the Ralstons at Holmhill, Mr Ralston has been the Duke’s Factor, as they call it in Scotland (we call it Agent) 40 years, and was retired, but when Major Young was called up he went into harness again, he is absolutely like Mr Chips and just as sweet, they have one daughter here, Elizabeth, Be’s friend who is engaged to a Norwegian whom they all call Ragna, I suppose it's Ragnar. We all had sherry and drank to the health of Miss Boswell.

June 1st 1942 - John and I went to Dumfries to try to equip Miss Boswell, very dificult in Dumfries. I'm afraid Miss Boswell will have to live in borrowed plumes a little longer. A nurse has arrived. Be had the District Nurse before, but Annabella, as they will call her is not a bit premature, so like Be to have nothing and to have so many friends to arrange all.

June 2nd 1942 - back to Girvan to fetch Benika to see Miss Boswell and Be for a day – Be, Benika and I very cosy together. Hegdrich is dead.

June 3rd 1942 - Benika back again, cannot stay away from Christian long. I sent more wires home via Jetta and Sweden, Basse, hope they will get the news.

June 4th 1942 - tea at Drumlanrig, nice pictures but horrible furniture, a nice Polish Count with unpronounceable name was there, he is the head of the Polish Red Cross here. Duke is very nice, Duchess also. ( of Buccleugh)

June 5th 1942 - Castle open and Peeps sister sharing a room told me about Monmouth that he was the illegitimate son of Louis XIV. I wanted to be taken all over the house by her, but had to have tea with the Dukes and Chips.

June 10th 1942 - back with Benika and Be back at Bennan, very well. Mrs Ross had found her a maid, I was sorry to leave such very nice people, we went to tea with Mrs Young, the Lady of the Manor at Girvan, it was her 80th birthday and she had a lovely cake which Christian ate with glee, later she took us over the house like a Scottish baronial hall in the ilms, heads all over the place, tigers, lions, stags, antelopes, bears, everything. Christian looked at it all silently and then turned to Mrs Young and said ‘I have also a Noah's Ark at home’. Mrs Claherty, Benika’s factotum, has gone to her brother who is ill and we cook, at least Benika cooks and I do what housework she lets me do. We have seen Molotoff's plane arrive, some plane. News from Libya not so good.

June 16th 1942 - Water End, home again where all has grown, but news very bad.

June 30th 1942 - Tobruk gone and Rommel in Mersa Matruh dash him, and again a non- conidence vote in the House, but what's the good with all that talking.

July 1st 1942 - Besa has another son, born June 16th in 3 hours, oh God if I could only be with her, here is the wire: Besa’s son born Tuesday 16th, easily in 3 hours. Mother and child very well, she happy, proud. 54 long, weight 7 pounds, strong voice. Besa’s love to everyone.

43 Kulle can walk, very astonished when saw brother. Besa now also trained nurse. Ebi’s boy named Curt Christian Erdman, 27 new girls for next year. Lileicreutz

I want to go home to my baby and her babies. Oh please let this war stop, please.

July 5th 1942 - another wire: love from all family stop Besa got a lovely son 16th June, very pretty and easy birth stop delighted about Annabella stop school is going ine stop all very well stop answer Stjernsvoerd Hafgaard Andusloev Sweden Good old ‘Svigermor’, what a blessing the Girl Guides, and Benika writes ‘Krigen trækker sig ud som en gummisnor foran mit indre Øje’. But yesterday's news seems a little better, Rommel is held. I smelt a lime tree today and I was suddenly not here at all, not in a war but at home walking over the lawn and smelling the limes and hearing the bees, and saying as always to myself aloud ‘Und der Lindenduft der zeiht mir hinein, bis ins tiefste Gemüst’. Oh Trolleborg how much beloved you are. I wonder if the honeysuckle is out under the little wall by the church and sends its scent all over the house at night, and I wonder will Agnes water my hydrangea, I am sure she will, but who will weed the ground elder away from it when I am not there, and who looks after my rock garden – and Maddie, oh how I miss Maddie and Naka, my nylpe. What would I not give to hear you call pfum, pfum. My heart hungers for you all, and my baby.

July 13th 1942 - heard from Kalundborg that Tønder has been bombed and several people have been killed, amongst them Dyrlæge Jensen and his daughter. It is hard to think what military objectives can be in Tønder? It reminds me of the days of the winter in 1939 (before we were invaded) and Esbjerg was bombed by English planes, I went to the Danish Legation to ind out what had happened, and Hansen opened the door to me. I said “Hansen hvad I al verden er der sket, hvorfor har de bombed Esbjerg?” “Oh deres Naade ved” sagde Hansen “Englenderene har aldrig lært megen geographie”. Spent a day in Aid Post with Miss Robins and she told me much about Wheathampstead. I love to listen to her; she talks the ageless talk of matured intelligence and is wise and kind.

October 9th 1942 - much water has run down all the rivers of the world and much has happened, horrible mostly! A thousand bomber raids over Germany and tons and tons of bombs, many more than we ever had, and I lie in bed at night and listen to the planes and think of the mothers and wives, of the bombers, and I think of the women and children of Hamburg, Bremen, Koln, Dusseldorf, Munchen, Nuremburg and wish and pray it will all stop. And today Germany has put 2500 prisoners of war, from the raid on Dieppe, in chains and handcuffs, and if they are not released the same amount will be treated in the same way here, and heaven only knows where this madness will end. Most of the British prisoners are Canadians, I wonder how they will submit to the ‘cufing’. Stalingrad is making an epic stand and nothing but admiration can be felt for the way the Russians ight, no matter what one thinks about their leaders. Benika writes about a letter she had from the Middle East and Churchill's appearance there, it says: ‘the grand old man appeared in a Boston bowler, a purple tussore suit, with a tie put on like an afterthought outside the collar and carrying a pale blue umbrella. I think he does it to look as little like Hitler as possible’.

44 A heavenly letter from Naka. Oh what a joy to see her writing, and feel the love she has – ‘meine Nagg – mein Nagi’, how I miss you, and how I worry about you, the Nazis seem at last to be showing their real face to Denmark, dogs - curs, are much too honorary names for them, no self-respecting dog would like to be likened to a Nazi. 28 Norwegians killed today, 250 French and all French Jews deported and killed. Jetta told me a Jew in London came to see her and the Red Cross, almost out of his mind and he had a card from his daughter aged 12 from unoccupied France which said: ‘Daddy dear, the Germans have taken Mummy and Auntie away, please come and fetch me, I am all alone and so afraid’. The Germans, no, the Nazis, put the Jews into cattle trucks, take the train into the country and gas them all. An engine driver, who had taken several of these trains away could not stand it any more and escaped to Sweden. I myself heard a man lecture whom they had tortured in Norway, and pulled out all his nails. It's like in the Middle Ages only worse because it's not Middle Ages now. All these brutes are to be tried and judged after the war, but what does that help their thousands of victims? If they begin to behave like that in Denmark, I must go home, and Naka is so brave, she will say anything to them if goaded to anger. So would most decent people I suppose.

November 5th 1942 - we have a victory, a real one, one that will make all the difference. Last night Bertie had gone to bed, I had put rather a big log on the ire and was afraid it might fall out (it did) so I stayed, and when I had put the log back went to sleep, when I heard Carl, “I can't sleep, I can't sleep, I can't sleep”, oh dear I thought what has happened, and there he was, in his pyjamas, and so happy and excited. ‘3 years’ he said, ‘we have been waiting for this’, and then the wireless started at 12 p.m. ‘The axis forces are in full retreat’ and more and more lovely news from Cairo, oh let it be the beginning of the end!! And may it come before too many more people have to suffer, those Russians without food or fuel, the Poles, the Greeks, the French even, the Norwegians, the Czechs, will they feel a little ray of hope now, will they know that their hour of liberation will come, too late for too many, but still worthwhile dying for if that better world, which we plan and ight for, is to come. A world which shall be ‘illed with the glory of God, like the waters cover the sea’. And the King, Christian X is better and making a gallant ight for his life, and what would happen to Denmark if he were to go, nobody could think .… Yesterday I lectured the Women's Institute at Wheathampstead on Women and Girls of Denmark, and got so homesick that I could hardly bear it. And this is how I ended: “I wish I could describe Denmark to you. At this time of the year, all the woods, mostly beech woods, have turned russet brown and gold. We have large woods, you can walk for hours and hours in them and never meet a soul. There are lakes in the woods, deep quiet lakes with trees all around them and no human habitation near. You hear no sound of civilisation, only the song of the wind in the treetops and the quack of ducks and the honking of the wild geese, perhaps you will see a swan, lovely and lonely or put up a roe deer. Wherever you walk you walk on green moss and fallen leaves, you might see a buzzard lying his lovely majestic light over the lake. If you walk far enough you always get to the sea for the sea is everywhere and all around us and every road leads sooner or later to the shore. The sea is our friend and our joy, like it is yours, we love it and all our best china is the colour of the sea landscape. We hear gulls everywhere, like you have them.

The sea and the land feed us, we ish, we sail the seven seas with our farm produce. We are not a ighting nation and abhor war, that is why we made that fatal mistake of really disarming, not only materially, but mentally too.

45 To a young Dane, like to you, there is no glory in war, but when the Germans came they all wanted to ight, and the tragedy was there was nothing to ight with, no arms, no planes, no Man of War. We have been fools but I don't think it will ever happen again. But you remember, all our nation is not even half the population of London. If you say your prayer tonight, say a little prayer for us, that we may be free and have a Denmark for ourselves again and not become a vassal state, and then think of our King who is making such a gallant ight for his life. He has been a splendid King for 30 years, good and just, and he has been very wise and irm with the invaders, and if he were to die at this critical moment Denmark would be swallowed up by Germany. He stands between us and utter destruction. And we love our home and our freedom; we have always been free, like you until now. Every man, woman and child is never quite happy away from home and always feels a great longing for our shores, our woods and our golden ields. We love the land and the land returns us our love by feeding us and giving us our work and all our interests are centred round these islands, 500 of them, called in Denmark ‘the ield of the Danes’.

November 9th 1942 - Americans go to land in Casablanca, Algiers and Oran. Rommel in rout, oh hallelujah,

November 10th 1942 - Press conference at G.G. Headquarters with shattering results, as here: Americans enter Oran, Darlan guest of them in Algiers, Churchill speaks and says, “it is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning”.

November 12th 1942 - we have got Bardia, we have got Tobruk, and the Americans announce all hostilities have ceased in North Africa, and Hitler has marched into non-occupied France with the usual announcements and just as always.

46 But he has not marched into Toulon, as the French Navy have announced that they will ight anybody who attacks Toulon, great things are happening and we listen always with one ear to the radio, perhaps this is really as Churchill said, ‘the end of the beginning’, oh may it be so. And this victory really a victory, we have twice already marched to Benghazi but this looks more real, and before there were no Americans to come and advance from the other side. Hitler has sent a note to Turkey that he means to strictly respect Turkish neutrality, so Turkey is now arming and mobilising the Army. ‘Nylfe’ mine can you still listen to our news? Scavenius is Prime Minister in Denmark, he is one of the Danish Quislings, one of those to be hanged when we have won.

November 19th 1942 - I went to London to have my hair washed, it was full of cobwebs owing to my having had a good clear out under the stairs. I asked Mr Dennis “why does de Gaulle object so much to Admiral Darlan having been given command in Algiers?” “Ah Madame” was the answer, “you know one of them is paid with American money and the other in English money!!” So very French, and so like them, corrupt and rotten to the core, all the miseries and dificulties that have befallen England and America these last 3 years have the French at the bottom of them. Alexander is advancing from the East, Americans are advancing from the West and Rommel is in the middle. It must be most uncomfortable for Germany and Italy, but I shall not feel quite comfortable before we have got Rommel in safe custody. He is slimy as an eel.

November 25th 1942 - Benika just rang up to say that Annabelle died this morning – poor little Be, she had ‘slim paa lungerne’, but it must have been very sudden for today I had a letter from Benika saying she was going to Ayr, to the Aunts house for the christening. Poor, poor little Lus, and John, they were so happy. And baby John so far away. The new baby was such a comfort to them.

November 28th 1942 - Glory to the French Navy. Hitler, at dawn yesterday, occupied Toulon, in his usual way and meant to seize the French leet, but after an order of Admiral Laborde, they scuttled themselves, 70 Men of War there were, and all went down, with the Tricolour lying high. They engaged the Germans to give them time to sink the ships and vindicate the honour of France, never have the French won a greater victory and never one which causes such a feeling of ‘Crève Coeur’ for those splendid men, faithful unto the end, who went down with their ships, standing on the bridge. Salute to their glorious living memory. Be and John spent a week here, they came the day after they had buried Annabee, poor dears, both of them so brave and so miserable. I am glad they are here and away from Langlands, which they really only took for Annabee. I think war babies are not strong enough; their mothers have too much work to do. All women's war work seems to be mostly house work, I sometimes wonder how it is that one never seemed to worry about dust, or food, or mending before, kind people did all this for one and it seemed natural that all was done, now, when I look at my loors I look to see if I must polish them, and when I have a bath I carefully clean it, and as to making beds, I hate making beds, and if I have a say in the punishment of Hitler after the war, I shall condemn him to make beds while listening to gramophone records of his own speeches.

47 Christmas 1942 - 4th War Christmas. B.J. and I all alone with a very small tree, and the house full with Bessie’s people, not a word from home.

December 27th 1942 - Russians advanced as usual this time of the year, and we are in Sirte, and beyond pursuing Rommel’s remnants. One Frenchman, whose name we are not told, has murdered Admiral Darlan, in Algiers. As long as there are French they will kill each other and ight. I wish England were rid of France, English are honest and sincere and French are the reverse. A lovely Christmas card from Benika, there is a prophecy in Denmark that Danes will have to wear white armlets at night and will all after a war, live in peace in Birnbaum. Benika and I end all our letters to each other with the word Birnbaum, with variations such as Ribbeck – père Melba – poire Helene and so on. Will this diary outlast the war, somehow I know 1943 will be the end, it seems all so very like 1918. Even this last summer I always said and thought – it is like 1918 – a mad German advance and now we have air superiority, and tanks and guns and men, and we are advancing slowly to be sure but advancing on all fronts. Every day I watch the Fortresses and Liberators and Lightnings ly east, many more every month. Yesterday we counted 50 Fortresses with the American star, lovely they look, so strong and powerful, and our own Hatield planes, the Mosquitoes who are so graceful and swift. I should hate to be Hitler and have to feel like him having led a big and good nation to misery and destruction, what a fool, and worse because not a fool really. If only bombs could fall on the people who have caused this war, and not also on the innocents.

1943

January 1st 1943 - this morning came a wire from Malmö, ‘love from all family Naka, Besa, Erik and children all well. Happy Christmas to you, Benika and Be, loving and longing letter follows Stjernswoerd Hafgaard’. Lovely, I was getting so worried about them all but why not a word about Knopp and his? One more year of the war begun and we all pray hard that it may be the last, and if the Russians go on the way they do now there is hope – every day they advance into more places nobody can pronounce except the announcers and I am sure even they can do it only just for the news. The Eighth Army is getting nearer Misrata (we have never been so far – in fact the 3 other goes never got further than El Agaill) and everywhere we are attacking and it looks more and more as if the Home Guard have not to go into action. When I see them crawl about our ields, I feel a little doubtful about the outcome of an attack on them, they are sure to do their best and to stand their ground, but all the same better not get down to that. However things go, we have much reason to be grateful, we have no more Blitz anyhow, nothing to worry about and we sleep all night and every night in our beds and London is resuming its normal nightlife, a bit handicapped by the blackout but quite cheerful. London is more like an international town than ever – one hears all the languages of the globe – German included and I think there are more American soldiers than British, very cheerful they are and entirely unharmed, they never carry a rile, nor a gas mask or a tin hat. The Tommies look overloaded beside them. Bertie saw an American in Piccadilly with a bottle of whisky which he was drinking and Be found a sailor at the bottom of the stairs in the Ritz. He was supported by 2 small Page Boys, one on each side and when he saw Be he said ‘my name is…. I’m afraid I cannot move, can you get past me?’ Be said ‘can I assist you?’

48 And he said ‘yes please, can you get my ticket out of my pocket?’ Which she did. And a bottle of whisky is £3 now in a restaurant.

January 7th 1943 - we have just listened to a beautiful speech of President Roosevelt’s to the opening of the 78th Congress. What a big man he is, if Wilson had had his wisdom, combined with the idealism of the former, the 18 points would still exist and we should not be ighting a Second World War, bigger and more horrible than the last one. Roosevelt was optimistic, very. I feel he thinks the war will end this year. The Russians have taken Belliki, Luki, Masdock, and are advancing rapidly, poor people who have suffered so much from German occupation, how happy they must be to be free again. I wish it was Denmark but that day will come again and we shall go home and I feel I shall burst with joy – oh my people, darlings.

January 16th 1943 - letters from home and photos of Besa and the children and I feel as if I was carrying a ton of homesickness, just to see their handwritings and the babies, but lovely to have them. Went to London to one of my committees, (Allied National Days) we have had about 120 Poles at Girl Guides Headquarters, all in British uniforms, with Poland on their sleeves. I feel almost as if I was in Scotland. We had a lovely ilm from Poland, but I was wondering how homesick it would make the poor dears. Madame Malkowska told us a lot about life in Poland. I think they all enjoyed it. They don’t speak much English or French, and they won’t speak German, so conversation is sometimes a little limited.

From the Christian Science Monitor Arrived here January 1943

Thanksgiving 1942 - by Marjorie Mansield

Dear God, again our harvests are not scant, Though they must stretch for feeding many lands. We thank you we may give. For that will be the reddest sweetest apple in our hands. Be with our own, wherever they may camp. Their absence is what dearth is at our board. Grant they may ind it not too hard to thank. Let them and us always remember, Lord, The meagre ish and loaves you blessed one day, and multitudes discovering they had more than they had ever had before. The miracle of gratitude is such That it can stretch a little into much.

January 22nd 1943 - mild like spring and the black birds are singing as if it was March. Polyanthus, violets, viburnum fragrance, anemones, are all out and the almonds are showing pink. Such a winter is a real blessing and even the fuel target can be kept. We are having some raids again, nothing much, 25-30 Luftwaffe came over, and 11 were shot down, the barrage was terriic, even here all the windows shook and the noise was terrible. I should hate to have to be in the air with it and in London it rained shrapnel. We are in Misrata and almost in Tripoli – and the Russians have raised the siege of Leningrad and taken Voroshilov and many more towns I can neither pronounce nor spell.

49 It feels more and more like 1918 to me. Oh what shall we do when it is over, we shall go mad with joy, and I shall see Naka and Besa and the babies, and home. Oh my so dearly loved Trolleborg.

January 23rd 1943 - we have got Tripoli and Castel Benito, not so Benito for Mussolini. I think that airield will prove of even greater beneit to the UN than Tripoli. Here endeth the Italian Imperio and all because that day in June 1940 when I listened to him with a sinking heart, on the eve of my departure to Rome, Mussolini thought England and France were beaten and he wanted his part of the loot. Also the Russians have taken Salsk and more towns – I cannot spell them nor pronounce them but it’s all right. And we at Water End have had another spring day, a lovely day for good news with a Scilla out and Snowdrops, Polyanthus and Spirea Arguta, and oh joy 6 lovely fat bullinches in the trees, what a winter, one month of the 3, the worst one, gone – and hardly any cold – I think we have deserved it after the last 3 winters – uha – but it’s lovely and so very much to be grateful for. ‘Oh God make us humble in our victory as we were steadfast thine in our troubles!’ The Eighth Army was really wonderful, 1600 km in 3 months, as far as Stalingrad is from Breslau!! And most of the way no water in the desert – and mines everywhere!

January 26th 1943 - we had a woman yesterday at the W.V.S. Billeting ofice in Wheathampstead, she was in the London suburbs near the school where 34 children were bombed. She was walking with another woman, a child and a baby, when suddenly they looked up and saw a very big German plane, so low that they could see the pilot quite plainly. He came down even a little lower and started to machine gun the street, a Warden rushed out and threw our woman and the child down on the ground of a nearby churchyard, the other woman and the baby were killed and most of the people in the street were dead or wounded. When they were all down the pilot saluted and lew away. I could bear it all but not the salute. We heard today records of the Eighth Army marching into Tripoli, pipes of all things! I wonder what the natives thought of them, and there were all the high oficers and the Mayor of Tripoli in their best uniforms, with wonderful decorations and Montgomery in his jumper and beret, most unassuming, and the Union Jack was broken on a high mast over Tripoli. So endeth the Impero Italiano. I hope the war will end with this book; I do not want to start another. I have been planting in the garden, this funny spring-like winter and the bullinches are still there, 6 of them, fat and lovely, not looking at all like ‘Mr Bullinch’. Berlin says he is in America, they generally know. I hope he sacks Eisenhower and puts Alexander into command in Tunisia. Eisenhower seems to have no tact.

January 29th 1943 - Copenhagen has been bombed, by our own Hatield Mosquitoes too. I heard the news at 8 a.m. today and my heart sank, it sank fathoms deep. They were after Burmeister and Wain. I hope they got them or else they will go again. Kalundborg said 7 people killed and 73 injured and the sugar factory at Amager hit. Motala says B&W lat. Oh I hope it wasn’t too bad. The Mosquitoes bombed in daytime, that I think is always a little better; it’s more terrifying at night. I could not eat or rest from worrying and thinking of all the people I love over there, God keep and preserve them, they and all. Rommel’s ‘advance westwards’ continues –

January 31st 1943 - yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Hitler’s ‘Machtergreifung’. Goering was to speak at 11 a.m. to the Wehrmacht and I was going to listen to what poor Germany was going to be allowed to know.

50 At 11 a.m., I turned on my wireless and the announcer was describing the scene in the Air Ministry in Berlin. All the Generals and Admirals, and then he said Goering was there and to speak and Goering said something like ‘Meine’ when somebody yelled ‘Achtung, Achtung’ and there was shooting and one thud like a bomb, and no more, then a march was put on and an announcer said the Field Marshall was detained a few minutes, then more music. This lasted until nearly 12 o’clock or more. Later we heard our Mosquitoes had bombed Berlin at 11 a.m. and Goering and all the Admirals, Generals and Air Force led into shelters, and were kept there an hour or more by the RAF while all the world waited at their microphones! Some sporting pilots, it was what Churchill would call ‘grim and gay’. They went over Berlin again at 4 p.m. when Goebbels was due to speak – and all but one came back. The Russians celebrated the day by taking Maicop and the oilields and advancing everywhere else and the Eighth Army entered into Tunisia. So I think it must have been quite the worst anniversary Hitler ever had. He dared not face the Germans but sent a long proclamation which Goebbels read. It started as usual with Versailles and enumerated all he had done for Germany in his own eyes. A good month this January on all fronts and the weather front best of all. It’s still like spring and violets are out and all sorts of lowers, and may we soon hope for peace! Tripoli is ours and I feel never will Italy get it back again!

February 4th 1943 - Stalingrad Army, with the newly made Field Marshal Paulus, is as Hitler always says of us ‘annihilated’ and Germany has announced 4 days mourning, with ‘Ich haben einen kameraden’. And why was this necessary Herr ex. Corporal Hitler, only because you said ‘Stalingrad wird fallen, darauf kommen sie sich verlassen’ and now 350,000 Germans have had to die because Hitler would not avow that he has made a fatal mistake, what a man! And the tragedy is that they are proud to die for him. Poor misguided nation!

These are the people who fall down on their knees, kiss the soil and swear never to retreat from where they kneel. And they don’t!

February 5th 1943 - I hope this book will last the war out, and that it may do so I will only record important facts, and start another book for gossip.

51 Austerity fact: Nazis close down all shops in Germany except food stores and shops important to war.

February 14th 1943 - Girvan Rostov on Don taken, also Varoskilovgrad and other small towns.

May 7th 1943 - English, American and French armies are now ighting in the outskirts of Tunis and Bizerta and slowly pushing the enemy into the sea, and mare nostrum will be mare vostrum.

July 7th 1943 - we invade Sicily from south side and in 15 days take 9/10ths of Island. Inhabitants delighted to get rid of Germans who resist strongly around Etna, their lava home!

July 26th 1943 - MUSSOLINI SACKED! One of them liquidated. All Fascism over in Italy it seems. And now I’m sure we shall soon have them ighting on our side.

August 23rd 1943 - Paris libre, Marseilles libre, and Romanians at peace with us, what a day! ‘Le jour de gloire est arrive’.

Now 3 more books of my diary for you my darlings and my Trolleborg.

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58 February 15th 1943 - Girvan. White Win. Arrived here Feb. 10th by sleeper and am having a lovely time with Pat, Benika and Christian, and Be is coming tomorrow. The only drawback is the weather. It has been blowing a gale ever since I arrived, and such a gale that the house shakes and the waves are all outside the front door. We’ve had no sleep and yesterday Pat came home and said, hopefully, “I think it is easing down to a gale!” I should not like to live here if that is common. Christian is sweet, he’s not a pretty child but most amusing. Yesterday Benika asked him to fetch her something, he went and came back with the required article, saying ‘this is the BBC Home Service, Rostov is free!! Free I mean of the Boche’.

February 20th 1943 - Christian’s evening prayer is a joy; he is learning the Lord’s Prayer ‘And lead us not into imitation, But deliver us from Eagle’. The Americans have lost much ground and 3 airields in Tunisia. It will do them good and I hope they will put General Eisenhower out of the command, and Alexander into it; as it is the Eighth Army is racing to help them and have captured a place called Poom Tatavin or some lovely name like that near the Mareth Line. I wish we had got away from the Mareth Line, I don’t like Lines, they cause a sense of false security. I think if the Maginot Line had not lulled the French into false complacency they might have fought. I am reading a book by Hans Habe who was an Austrian in the French Foreign Legion, it’s an eye opener about the French, they retreated even before they had got into touch with the German troops! And he was always ashamed. No good having allies like that, they won’t ight with their back to the wall and they always and ever put their comfort irst. Yesterday we went to see a mill where they make the famous Girvan tweed. They get the wool there just as it comes off the sheep, and when it leaves the mill it’s ready for the tailor. The looms are old ones and have been used for 200 years, and the women using them look almost as old. They work with their hands and feet; almost it looks as if one was playing an organ. I cannot see how they can keep it up for a whole day. They do it in generations, it takes almost 2 years before they can do it at all and they never inish learning. We were most interested, also Christian, who took it all in, because he told Pat all about it in the evening, specially the spinning of the wool had appealed to him. What I liked very much was the dyeing of the wool, in big wooden troughs, all done by steam, and so nice and warm in there. We bought a length for a coat and skirt for me, Benika has one already. Souvenir from Girvan. The aircraft carrier is about again, it is camoulaged to look like a small ship and does so when it is on the water, afar off, but when she comes a little nearer she is colossal and when she ires her guns the whole house shakes.

March 5th 1943 - home again after a very uncomfortable journey but at last I got a seat in Carlisle, I went irst to stay with Lus at Langlands where we had a dinner party for the Grenadier Guards at Auchinlech, house full of them, having baths – I Vim the bath every hour – and the Marquee of Hamilton and I shared a bedroom, at least when he is out and I am in! Benika, Be and I cook the dinner, asparagus soup, mutton, as always, and Novaks chocolate cream, a great do, Colonel Prescott and many delighted with our efforts. Lus very well but slightly over worked, no maids as usual, but we are all getting much better at housework. I can carry coal easily now and think nothing of it. Be and I went to Thornhill to stay with the Ralstons and also to Moniaive, where I acquired 2 baskets full of rock wort, lovely, but rather dificult later when travelling and changing. The RAF have bombed Berlin and the Luftwaffe have tried to bomb London with very little success.

59 We had 2 alerts and the Ack Ack fairly shook the house. People are beginning to be more afraid of our own shells than of the Luftwaffe.

Saturday March 7th 1943 - we went to London to help open the Wings for Victory week for Paddington, great do in the Town Hall, opening speech by Lord Mottiston, speeches by Mayor, ex Mayor and ex. ex. Mayor, and march past of all civil and military defence of Paddington, also for some unknown reason, a band of pipes!! Great to do also in Trafalgar Square where a Lancaster bomber is a ‘sitting bird’. We all feel that nothing, and absolutely nothing, is too good for the RAF. ‘Bless them all’.

March 8th 1943 - A.R. warning in the middle of the night, but when I had dressed, in 5 minutes (as I always leave everything ready) and got outside, the all clear sent out its welcome sounds, must have been a single plane. Rommel is attacking the Eighth Army near the Mareth Line and lost many tanks and men. I hope it is the last and inal offence effort and that we shall get them out of Tunisia and out of everywhere soon! Had a lovely letter from Naka saying ‘Theo Tucker har det ikke godt jeg tror ikke han, kommer sig igen’. Theo Tucker is the name for the Hun! Naka darling, when you read this perhaps you will realise how I love you and long for you, and what a joy and comfort you are to me. God bless you my darling. Christian is learning the Lord’s Prayer – ‘And Lead us not into imitation, but deliver us from Eagles’ They have to move again, this time to Renfrew, Be doubts they will ind a home. Since April 1940 Benika has moved irst to her mother-in-law at Cranleigh, then to Kippford nr. Dalbeattie, Greenbanks, one house they had to evacuate at once after that, and Whim Cottage with the WC and bath through the kitchen, from these to a cottage near Mortimer which is now no more owing to incendiaries. (but it did not happen while Benika was there). May Cottage, Mortimer, from there away from Nanny to White Win, Girvan and now Renfrew. And no storks here! To see in light. This move will be more dificult as they have no car now, at least no petrol. We still have petrol to go to the station. Rolcut is doing ine.

March 11th 1943 - had Girl Guides meeting from 11 to 6 on Tuesday and a Quaker Mr Brooks came and told us the Germans have imported 7 million people into Germany for war work, Grand bieu leurs passes. 50 million refugees in China and 13 million ditto in Western Europe. After the war our rations here will have to go down considerably as food will have to come from this country and we are already using our stores because ships have to be used for troop transports. He said ‘be prepared to be a public opinion, behind and in support of the public authorities, treat Europe as a unit, don’t divide it into nations, and shape your famine relief to combat malnutrition’. We shall probably get one country to do he thought. We are now having classes in Greek and Polish, he told us also that 70% of active help must go with food stores, I suppose he means human help. France has asked the Guides for help. ‘Luft alarm’ over Denmark yesterday, how I hate it, and I can now imagine what you, my darlings, must have gone through while we were being bombed. But the RAF bombing is so different. They do it all in half an hour or so, our bombing here by the Germans started at dawn and ended at dusk. I mean vice versa, and was entirely at random!! And we get so used to carrying on that bombers or no bombers overhead, you went on with your usual life. I am sure they don’t do that in Germany. I remember in winter 1940-41 Carl and me starting out by car going to a dinner party with shells being ired and bombs being dropped all around and Carl saying “nobody but utter fools would go out to a dinner in this.”

60 But we went and came home in this too, and so did everybody, none of the other guests stayed behind or away. One could not let it upset one’s life, it was too continuous. Russians have had to give up 8 towns in the Donitz area and Rommel has attacked the Eighth Army and has had no success. I hope the Russians won’t collapse now. Heaven help us. Goebbels has called this Island ‘an unsinkable aircraft carrier’ and we are becoming more and more so, increasingly, but even so!! Naka writes on February 6th 1943 using our secret name for the Germans ‘Theo Tucker, har det ikke godt, jeg tror ikke han kommer sig igen’. Benika writes Pat has been put into the ofice at Girvan for 3 weeks and they don’t know where they are going later on.

March 13th 1943 - endless talk about all that we must do after the war, I would call it millennium talk but no sign of an end of the war. Germans seem to be very near if not in Kharkov again and Russians have captured Vyazma, but all this news is overshadowed by the BBC with the news that Eden has arrived in Washington for talks. This war seems to be eminently a war of talks, and of golden dreams of what will happen afterwards. I wish I was not so old that I can remember it all from the last war. ‘The new world, it for democracy and for heroes’ and when the heroes came back they found no place, no world, no thought for them, and had to go selling soap or vacuum cleaners, or worse, with all their medals, or play bad music in the London streets. If this world, this man made world, is to get different, women must have more say, and more rule. Good women are more just than men, and ininitely more compassionate. After the last war they got the vote, will they get more after this? They and the world deserve it. I came across a poem of Rupert Brooke which shows so much alike, how parallel, were men’s thoughts - then – here it is:

Rupert Brooke, 1914. The Dead.

Blow out your bugles over the rich dead! There’s none of these so lonely and so poor of old, But dying has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene That man call age; and those who would have been Their sons, they gave their immortality. Blow bugles, blow! They brought us for our dearth Holiness lacked so long and love and pain. Honour has come back as a King to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage And nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into our heritage.

Oh my God, let me not have to think that heritage is only from one generation to another and that what this last one has won we now again are ighting for to possess and that this will have to be done again and again until there is no more marrying and birth, and death, and ‘that the world shall be illed with the Knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea’. Goethe says ‘Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, erwirb es um es zu besitzen’.

61 It seems to me, we are doing a terrible lot of material ‘erwerbing’ but losing sight of the one most important saying of our Master. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’. And if you do that, can you then bomb your neighbour? 30,000 people homeless in Essen, is this the way? Oh God, give us peace in our time.

March 18th 1943. ‘Liebe sulchen lase das Fragen sein Was sole der Frühling bringen Ein Bischen Glück und sonnenschein Und Veilchen vor allen Dingen’

There are plenty of Veilchen, lovely white ones under the wall and the wind carries their smell all over Hertfordshire. White violets must be a speciality here but there are plenty of the others also. March would not be March without them and spring not really spring. Like soup without salt. Germans are advancing again in the Donitz area, this war is like a game of snakes and ladders, we seem to have hit a snake just now. I heard such a terrible story on the wireless, of what the Germans have done to a poor young girl in Russia, that I cannot get over it. I sat stiff and cold on the loor, unable to move and the tears running down my face, this sort is hard to bear. ‘Oriamo per il profondo suffrir del mondo’. Shall we ever be normal again, and light hearted, my heart feels as heavy as the world.

I wonder if my ‘Easter egg’ is lowering at home! I have a cold and I want a warm room and my own bed, and Nylpe with violets and Maddie; oh home, I know what those Poles felt like who walked home to Poland from Siberia. Russians say they are near Petsamo; they are always near Petsamo since they have taken the Kola Peninsula.

April 2nd 1943 - we have the Mareth Line and Gabes and good old Momsy (Montgomery) is moving along and perhaps this time we shall get them out of Tunisia. I have been in London to a meeting of the ‘National Days’ Committee, and as all our meetings were, was very nice. We are having an International meeting at Hampton Court.

April 9th 1943 -3rd year of our invasion anniversary. I went to London, irst to the Danish Church where we had a very nice service, then to lunch at the Legation with Else and Eduard, and to the Danish meeting at the Dorchester where we sang all the old songs, and had Christmas Møller as the chief speaker, and Eduard to conduct the meeting. Christmas Møller’s speech, very Danish, and rather tasteless, but well meant, but when will Danes stop to feel that they can do things better than other people! But oh the songs, I felt very Danish and very homesick. Else has a nice ‘Styrmand’ with her whose ship has been torpedoed and only 18 survivors, 5 Danes lost their lives, among others. Many young people there today, all in the different forces, looking young and full of conidence of youth. And looking at them, thought of all those dreams, dreams of youth, of fame, great things to be done, and how, when age comes, there is so little done, and all the great dreams have turned into great sorrows, for some of youth they are fulilled, but how many? And we sit by our iresides, we old people, and carry the dreams on, for our children and grand children and wish in vain that we could help, that their youth might be enriched by our sufferings, but most things come too late in life, most of all wisdom and experience.

62 ‘Si jeunesse savait’. We have had a gale; ag. jeg mener en gale det har blæst et stort hul I vores Barn & ire elms ned, een over vores lane paa vej til Agot, ikke saa godt. Men Meaden & jeg glæder os over at vi er ikke nødt til at save dem i Stykker! Went to a Guides meeting at Hatield yesterday where Mrs Harker told them all about our work in a splendid lecture, it did me good to hear what splendid work we are doing! They certainly are splendid people in the Guide world doing it. I am grateful for the experience of working with them. So big hearted, not one of them could make a speech like Christmas Møller, who is a little man from a little country, trying to sound big. The truly great are always humble and modest. The Eighth Army and Americans have reached each other in Tunisia.

April 12th 1943 - Saturday and Sunday I spent entirely in Guide Headquarters where we had a Yugoslav training meeting. I thought it was excellent, we had only good speakers, specially a Miss Olive Lodge who has done much good relief work in Yugoslavia after the last war, where the Germans had so looted the country that sometimes 3 women had one set of clothing among them! What will it be like now!!?? Afterwards a Miss Murphy spoke, who for 12 years had been the Secretary of the Anglo Yugoslav Children’s Hospital. She was actually there when war was declared, and taken prisoner by the Italians. She said she never had a better time, they treated them wonderfully well and did nothing but tell them all the time, how they hated the Germans. They, Miss Murphy and co, were not allowed to listen to the BBC broadcasts, but were told they were the only people in Italy who did not do so. Miss M. said she only experienced real hardship and hunger, when she got to Spain. I only got home about 9.30 and travelled from Kings Cross, 18 people in one compartment, ‘the revenge of the sardine’. But when home I learned Rommel is running again so nobody minds a little discomfort. We all had a Yugoslav lunch, not bad and not good, but harmless. I was hoping for garlic and onions, which they love, but none available. Arrived home very hungry. Now we only have got a Greek training and shall be ready soon. I wonder if I shall have to go, I hope Greece anyhow, but oh home!!! Miss Christian promised to keep all Council iles for Naka.

From ‘Frit Danmark’ April 9th by Rodney Gallop

Yes, they were few in number. So they died. Not in the ire of onslaught, nor in strife To reach some goal that bold men might attain Or perish by the way, and by their death Cover themselves with glory sempiternal. Not thus they died but almost casually In two and threes, haphazard, here and there, Rubbing the dew of sleep from candid eyes, Bewildered, bafled, half incredulous, Yet turned they not and led but stood and died.

Yes they were few in number and their death So soon accomplished did not halt one hour The climbing sun not stemmed one single day The savage torrent loosed upon their land They had no time to ponder matters out To balance right against expediency And weigh them in the scales of polity,

63 To argue and discuss, to subtilise Thrash out the why and wherefore… and the worth No time and if indeed the truth be told No inclination. Were not they the sons Of men who through a thousand storied years Have stood and battled and for Denmark died?

Yes they were few in number, and their names The petty cash of Danish currency Light come light gone, as little jangling coins Needlessly squandered, nor as yet offset By any store of solid merchandise.

Yes they were few in number, but they loved Their smiling land, not chauvinistically With martial airs and patriotic din, But quietly and half unconsciously Just as on green and golden summer days Their scarlet lag loats over dreaming farms How may we measure then their gain or loss? And strike the balance of their sacriice? Mark well the answer. Let this epitaph Be unto them a deathless monument: No generous blood was ever shed in vain Nor love, nor life e’er to no purpose given.

April 20th 1943 - 11 p.m. air raid. Warning red. Always just now when I have just undressed, the Hun is in the air, generally not for long, but it is a nuisance all the same. Today it being the ‘Fureur’ as the French call him, birthday, I suppose the German people have to be told that there was a heavy raid on England. We have had a terrible frost last night after a day of summer heat, and all looks slightly burnt. The strawberry lowers are black and the sweet peas look slightly sorry for themselves, not to speak of the poor early potatoes. I wonder why it feels like doing that? Every year now we have had frosts when all was out and lovely.

April 23rd 1943 - rain at last and St. George’s Day and Rommel’s little strip of Tunisia is getting smaller. Chaston, our milkman, has no more petrol to deliver our milk, so now, at last Bertram has made up his mind to get a cow. I have dreamt of making butter for so long, Naka would say ‘eine Kuh, eine Kuh im Stalle’ only we have no stall just now as the gale has blown a large hole in our barn’s thatch so rain and sun come in freely! There are many goldinches here this spring; we see them all the time. I have had a dear letter from Isabel ‘Madame Chiang Kai-Shek is a wonder and an inspiration, her speech to Congress was grand’. She also says about O.C. Geibel ‘you have never mentioned Otto and Emmie so I am wondering if you ever got my letter telling you what they have been through, you know he was the German Consul in San Remo for many years; about 2 years ago now he resigned. This much Emmie wrote me before we were in the war. Now I hear indirectly that last winter he was arrested, kept 4 months in prison, she was never allowed to see him, and then sent to Germany for trial. He was acquitted entirely of whatever he had been accused of (I don’t know what it was) Emmie was trying to join him. This may be true or not’. Poor O.C. and poor Emmie. It is a sad fate to be a decent German. I had a letter from a ‘friend’ Quaker, a Mr Scattergood, about post-war relief activities, I shall certainly go and see him, I do so like his name, if only we could – scatter good.

64 We are allowed to have Church bells again, as before Dunquerque, as Churchill says: ‘I have a strong feeling that news of an important invasion would leak out’. In Wheathampstead it is dificult to ind people to ring, all the usual ringers are in the Army, Navy or Air Force. The bells are dificult, very old and rung from inside the Church, most alarming when one sees a young enthusiastic ringer suddenly go up with the rope into the air and church tower. All the congregation sees is a pair of legs, dangling and kicking violently. We have had some ‘air raid red’ just long enough for me to dress, go downstairs and hear the ‘all clear’. No bombs or other damage, no parachutists, I do so long to capture one. Our walllowers are a dream, both for the eye and nose. Sutton Seeds, grown by Meaden and watered by me (much) and heaven (little).

Saturday May 1st 1943 – Naka thought we should be home this month, and all we are is in view of the houses of Bizerta, but anyhow it’s progress and someday the end will come and peace! I wonder if ever there will be a ‘last war’. As long as men rule the world! I love the way nature goes on, quite unperturbed by the doings of men. The birds sing and nest, the grass grows, the apple blossoms come out and the weeds too. How silly we are, and how small, weeds on the face of time, if this can be - - -. There is bother with Poland and Russia, the latter has broken off diplomatic reports with Poland, they have fallen into a German trap, they – the Germans – say they found somewhere a mass grave full of Poles murdered by the Russians. In 1940 both Germans and Russians were murdering poor Poles in a wholesale way, but it’s the worst of all moments for Poland and Russia to disagree. Water on Goebbel’s mill. If I were Winston, or Eden, I should sit on Maisky and Sikorsky, till neither of them knows which is which. After the war they will probably have a bright little war of their own. A Pole said to me last year: ‘you know, when this war is over, the ighting will begin’. I expect Giraud and de Gaulle will also have their own battle. Not to speak of Hungary and neighbours. Saw Lady Clarendon, her son is one of the 6 who are alive of 30 Grenadier Guards Oficers in Tunisia.

May 3rd 1943 - I am going tomorrow to Little Benhams to Trix to learn all I can about cows.

May 7th 1943 - we are in the outskirts of Tunis and Bizerta on our last lap, I hope, in Africa, and the Germans are calling Tunis ‘ Tunkirk’. The war is really getting quite exciting for us. Such good news from all the fronts, so different from last year when one almost was afraid to turn on the wireless, and now it’s all success. Oh God, let us take victory with the same humbleness as we took defeat and bombing! Thine Oh Lord is the victory and the power and the glory. I learnt a lot about cows, and cream and butter, and was stuffed with cream and butter by Trix, so that I felt I might burst, but so good! I feel I can now meet our cow more intelligently! Trix is 84 and Pat 83, and all they regret about it is that they cannot do more for the war! Trix runs about like a 2 year old and has, on a wheelbarrow, brought in and stacked, 3 tons of irewood! Jutland has been bombed, they do not say where, but the Danish papers say no damage done, only one cow killed, this is German news but said Politiken ‘the cow burnt iercely for 3 days!’

May 9th 1943 – Min Snapper darling, and oh so many happy returns, I have been praying all day and have been imagining what they are doing and how they will celebrate her, no chocolate I am afraid, but perhaps a little dinner, and Naka is sure to get some present, perhaps from me also! I would send all I have if I only, only could.

65 Wonderful news from Tunis, and Bizerta, and Alexander, the last man to leave the beach at Dunquerke is the irst man to win a real great victory over that same Rommel who so ruthlessly dive bombed our men in Belgium, I shall never forget what my little Sergeant told me who was there for 5 days on those sands of Dunquerke, no water, no food, and dive bombers day and night. Much has been written and will be written still about that ‘miracle’ of protection, but can anybody ever guess the thoughts of that man, who sat there on the sand, letting it run through his ingers perhaps, and seeing that every single man had left or had died, before he also boarded the last of these little boats, for its last of many trips across the Channel. He has had a score to settle with that Rommel and now!! The Germans had a feature on their wireless: ‘Hier wird weiter Ge.Rommel’. It was off tonight, ‘Nun wird hier Ge.Alexander’. Ronnie appeared this afternoon full of cheer and departed saying next time he came he hoped the war would be over. Letter from Naka, lovely, I wrote to Benika to send it to her and Be, but found I could not part with it and copied it for them and then went to bed with it. Gale again ‘Ewiglich lässet man Winde gehen’ as Mrs. Halvorsen said to the Herr in Hardenberg, her German being like that.

May 13th 1943 - the war in Africa is over, Arnim is captured and 150,000 men with him and endless war material, tanks, guns and petrol. The Germans seem to have collapsed entirely in Tunisia and have surrendered wholesale, giving the V sign and driving in their own cars to the prison camps. Churchill is in Washington to talk over the next step with the President some say, others say he and Roosevelt are debating ‘unconditional surrender’. Anyhow one continent is clean from Nazis and that is a good start. Meaden’s son has been killed in action in Tunisia. Long Stop Hill, he was with the First Army, poor, poor people, there is so little one can say or do. They got a very nice letter from his Company Commander with some details, which were a little comfort, anyhow, to know that he was cared for and not alone. I have most of the day planted maize with Meaden so as not to leave him alone with his thoughts. All our committee was invited to the annual meeting of the ‘Executive’ with Princess Mary in the chair. She spoke a nice speech and then we had a lecture on ‘good health’ by Sir William Goodenough, deadly dull, really dull, but we bore it bravely and had a good tea afterwards. Princess Mary asked about Princess Ingrid, and Denmark. Guides Headquarters looked lovely, with lowers and tea quite pre war. Lady Clarendon was there, her son is in the Grenadier Guards, he is one of 6 survivors of 30 Oficers. Still our losses are, comparatively speaking, not too bad. Arnim was captured by Indian troops. He is a son of Elizabeth and her German gardener. The war in Africa has cost the Axis 600,000 men and innumerable guns, tanks and war material, and poor old Italy is being bombed, as if they did not have ruins enough, I do so hope they won’t hit the Greek temples in Sicily.

May 16th 1943 - Victory bells all over the country and victory broadcast and everybody going to Church, some like the Meadens with a very sad heart. Peter, our black cat, has been killed. I found him and another cat, hanging on a tree like a convict. Bertie is most upset and is taking steps. I shall miss him, he used to follow me like a dog and he never poached. General von Arnim has arrived in England today. All day long I hear planes, bombers, going to bomb some country, and all night too. The continent must be having a most awful time! Last night I heard Kong Christian speak and he made an appeal to the Danes to behave and not to do deeds that jeopardise the peace of the country, I could not believe it was him, it did not sound like his voice, so weak and old, but perhaps that is because he has been so ill.

66 I wonder if they will listen to him, and why does he ask them that, those people who did not even get the right to ight and die decently when the Germans came.

May 20th 1943 - 1 a.m. Air Raid red! Sirens going, 4th night in succession, I hope it is not becoming a habit, I heard guns and saw shells, and also a hedgehog on the lawn, so clear was the moonlight, a lovely night and never was England more lovely with all the mays covered with lowers. The whole country looks bridal, when will the bridegroom peace come. RAF have bombed 3 dams in Germany, Eder, Möhne and another one and the dam-age is terrible it seems. Bertie says the Götterdämmerung. I hope the people were able to get away in time and the animals, but I think there cannot be so many in the Ruhr. Churchill spoke in Congress today, not as good as usual I felt, he speaks better when things are bad, and I don’t like when he speaks of ‘Corporal Hitler’ who I feel, never has been a good soldier, and I do like so many Corporals, and now when I hear that word I shall always think of that mad criminal. Ostia has also been bombed and Civita Vecchia.

May 23rd 1943 - here is the King’s speech, made the day he took over again the Government. My heart bleeds for him to think that he has been forced, as he must have been, to that. Poor old man and poor old Denmark. Old Hamlet all over again.

67

‘Om alle de Drømme bristet Du har fra din Ungdom drømt Om Trængsel og Nød Dig fristet Jeg elsker Dig dobbelt Ømt’.

The cow has come, Lady Maurma of the ‘Island Strain’, she gives us 36 dl. of cream, even the milk she gives is like cream, and twice a day I skim a bowl full of the most lovely thick, thick cream. So satisfactory!! She is not a looker, having a dip in the back deep enough to put a small house into, but she is kind and quiet and used to being tethered, and behaves like a lady! We shall all get fat.

68 June 1st - see little blue book.

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82 Water End June 1st 1943

The very beautiful little book is too good for my scrappy writings, so I am going to ill it with pictures and use this one, which is so much more like me. We have had strawberries today, this I think must be a record, we are also having artichokes tonight (Globe) not the plebeian Jerusalem. And I have made 5 dl. of butter ex. Lady Maurma, bless her. So all is well. We had an alarm last night, but when I had dressed and walked downstairs, just as I opened the front door the all clear went! This is now the third time this has happened. It shows how weak the Luftwaffe must be getting, and all night long I hear planes and planes and planes, our own going to Germany and France and Holland. I cannot sleep from imagining what this intense aerial bombardment must be like, I know what London and here felt like, and that was child’s play to what the RAF are doing. It must be hell, and most always the innocent suffer, and the Germans still say ‘this war which has been forced upon us’. I can’t think who forced them to invade Poland, or Norway, or us, or to bomb Rotterdam and Belgrade and Warsaw, without even declaring war! I hope that there will soon be peace forced upon them. It looks like it to me. I wonder if Curt sometimes thinks of what I said to him in May 1940, when I proclaimed that this country would not be beaten and that USA would have to join in! It looked unlikely then, but he did not know Britain and I did, and really we were best here when we were alone. That summer 1940, when every day was history and every night horror, who can ever forget it? I thank God I was here, never, never shall I cease to remember that morning after the irst bombing of London, when early on Sunday morning September 8th I walked home from N. Post. London was burning, horror and destruction everywhere, and there was the milkman putting the milk on the doorsteps, there were the buses, the taxicabs, the newspaper sellers at their corners, everything normal and no sign, on anybody that we had not spent a night but a nightmare. Such people deserve to live on and to govern the world by democracy.

June 6th 1943 - I picked the irst strawberries and Bertie found a baby goldinch in the grass outside the house, ledged and later I found 3 baby wrens in the kitchen garden! If only I had a little more time to go bird watching, but this week, I shall be busy, looking after the cow, milk, butter etc., feed her, move her and tether her, look after 80 chicken, two pigs and do 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, stairs, ires, shoes and much more. Meadens are going on a holiday and have left me to work for 3 war weeks.

June 16th 1943 - since we have the cow I seem to have no time to write, or read! But we all enjoy the cream and butter! Pantelleria has been captured; also Lampedusa and Limosa and now we are busy on Sicily. The King is in North Africa. The chairman of our committee has been told: ‘Zero hour may be tomorrow and your girls ought to be ready to go abroad within three days notice’, lovely lovely, and we still have no uniforms!! And I am the one to get the patterns for them, and here I am, bowed down with work and austerity and nothing done, and so tired that I could yesterday not remember what Alli Christian Einar is called! Still today, I hope Meaden comes home, and next weekend we go to Virginia Water, which will be a lovely rest. Benika writes, a friend of theirs, with a 2 month old baby went shopping in Ayr, she left the baby in the pram outside the grocers, when she came out she found the baby lying on the pavement, no pram! Our neighbours the Claridges were burgled last Sunday, and Barker the policeman says ‘I am surprised, as all the crooks are in the Army’.

83 June 20th 1943 - Virginia Water We are here and being pampered and spoiled by Annette and fed pre war, and it is quite lovely to have people being so very good to one. Quite different from last Sunday when I was so busy that I did not know whether I was standing on my head or my legs. All the same I had a lovely moment when I went to feed the chicken before 8 a.m. and suddenly I heard a sound coming across the meadows from Wheathampstead. First I thought it was the sirens starting and then I realized it was church bells, it bought tears of gratitude to my eyes, not sirens but bells, and how thankful I felt, that meant that all the danger of invasion is over and that we can give up all that fear, 3 years old, which has been daily and hourly with us, now we are invading and attacking, and 3 years ago this time, I was on the sea, with submarines all around, wondering if Hitler or I would get irst to England. On Monday, when I cycled to Wheathampstead all the signposts were out again, another wonderful event, and all the stations have their names up again which will make travelling so very much easier.

July 4th 1943 - we have had a new cook who seemed so very nice when I saw her in London and when she irst came here, but I had to do most of the housework, she seemed too slow to do anything but very little cooking. So I gave her her notice and she went hysterical, laughing and crying and shouting, so Meaden heard her in the kitchen garden. Later she chased me with a carving knife and rolling pin, yelling ‘murder, murder I am assaulted’. Luckily Sheriff came along and I ran! Later Barker, the Constable, got her away. What a woman! Poor thing she ought to be in an asylum not in a situation. But such an experience. I wonder what Mrs Soun would say? She said I had starved her, well she had what we have and as she cooked it, or was supposed to, it was up to her, but whenever I went into the kitchen she was eating. Mad, poor thing.

July 18th 1943 - Meine Nylpe, God bless you, if all my wishes for you came true you would have a rich harvest, darling I am aching to be with you. I thought of you so much yesterday when all the Hertfordshire Guides made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Albans, 1400 we were, and it was quite, quite wonderful. All the colours looked beautiful going up towards the altar behind the Bishop and the clergy in full ornate. Everything was done so well and went without a hitch. Lady Davidson the MP for Wheathampstead and I were given some seats on the balcony and had a most glorious view of it all and in the middle of it I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that we were able to assemble 1400 children safely for prayers and Thanksgiving in the middle of the most terrible war that has ever been. We were given this prayer:

‘Oh Lord for these three things I pray: To see Thee more clearly To love Thee more dearly To follow Thee more nearly every day.

We have invaded Sicily and are doing nicely, taking more ground daily, the Sicilians seem glad to be ‘liberated’. Today we have taken Girgenti; I pray that the temples are safe. A great manifesto from Roosevelt and Churchill trying to get the Italians to surrender and save destruction, I am sure they would love to do so if they would be allowed to do so. The Russians have repulsed all German attacks, heavy ones, and are advancing towards Orel. I feel this is the beginning of the end.

84 July 26th 1943 - Mussolini has resigned and Badoglio has taken over his place and the King Vittorio Emanuele the Supreme Commander of the Forces. The war is to continue, this was announced by Rome radio at 11 p.m. last night and made me nearly jump out of bed. After the announcement they played the Marcia Reale, but no Giovinezza. Now, I wonder, is this a ruse Hitler and Mussolini have hatched out at their last meeting in Verona or is it the collapse of fascism, both possible and more beginning of end, anyhow. A wire from Besa to say ‘all very well’ that is all that matters to me. We are in Palermo, Trapani, Marsala, Enna, only Catania and Etna are holding out, German Hermann Goering troops there, I suppose to stop us as long as possible from nibbling at the top toe of the boot. But that moment can only be put off a little, Rome has been bombed very well by the Americans without much damage to old buildings, of all Rome’s 400 churches one was hit but not badly, the Basilica di San Lorenzo Fuori le Mure, Vatican broadcast joyful that the tomb of Pio IX was undamaged, what is the tomb of a Pope when thousands of living people, young men are dying? The Italians think of evacuating South and Middle Italy up to the Po - also they think Hitler’s ideas. Anyhow Garibaldi’s curse on the man who would ight Great Britain seems to have come home, what a fall for Musso! Yetta (Miss Warner) came yesterday to tea and supper, most cosy, she is the head of all the Red Cross Foreign Relations Department and a very important person she is with a staff of 300 under her. She says it’s very, very dificult to get any news from the prisoners of war in Japan; the Japanese just don’t bother to arrange anything. Yetta told me a lovely story about Churchill, which a friend of hers, an MP, told her. He was sitting quite near Churchill in 1940 when he made that famous speech about ighting the Germans alone: ‘we will ight on the beaches, on the hills, and in the streets etc etc’ and when he sat down again he said, sotto voce to himself ‘and we will ight them with bottles, because that is damn all we’ve got’. That was before the Battle of Britain. They say that when the Germans gave up their daylight air attacks we had about 15 Spitires left. ‘As birds lying so shall the Lord deliver Jerusalem’. This word always comes to me in conjunction with the RAF, even before the Battle of Britain. I told it to Pastor Clausen and it cheered him, and also the words of Ecclesiastes. ‘Their spirit shall maintain the fabric of the world’.

July 28th 1943 - Jerusalem is being built faster among those ‘dark satanic mills’, the miners have all sorts of concessions now and London has a lovely rebuilding plan on show in London, 120 slums, evermore no slums. In Italy they are divesting themselves of all traces of fascism calling Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Corso Matteotti. As usual all the revolution started in Turin and Milan. I have seldom been in Milano without a revolution going on in some part of the city. Now that Musso is gone it all starts again. I wonder if Hitler sees the writing on the wall. Will it be long before his turn comes, and all poor Europe’s turn to live again and be free?

August 4th 1943 - Hamburg has been more terribly bombed than any other town in this horrible war. 8 times since July 24th, everybody is leaving including 10,000 Danes, most of them arriving at the border in their pyjamas and with 120 papers, and when one knows what the Germans are with visas and passports in wartime that is very revealing. Poor people in Hamburg, they were really never Nazis. Again one asks, ‘how long oh Lord, how long?’

85 Augustine was here Sunday with a friend; she is cooking for French Oficers who are secret agents! They are dropped in France by planes and parachute and return here. I don’t know how! Augustine says they always tell her what is happening and they are right and they say all this European war will be over by Christmas. ‘Oh may they be right’. The Russians are advancing towards Orel, they seem to have advanced miles and somehow are not very much nearer, they have been 11 miles near the town for ages. I cannot sleep, I lie awake and listen to the bombers going over and think of the horrors we went through in 1940, and which it appears were nothing to what Hamburg, Essen, Cologne are suffering now. 200,000 people killed in Hamburg in 10 days. And Badoglio is becoming more and more like Petain in 1940. And that ‘Benito inito’ seems to bring Italy no nearer the peace they long for.

We had a nest of goldinches in a wisteria on the house and loved to watch the lovely little birds ly to and fro to their nest and get more and more tame all the time. We never heard the young ones, but one day Carl looked via a ladder and saw 4 nearly ledged little birds, in fact two of them left the nest and lew away when they saw him, one we found and put back, the other one disappeared. We were much irritated by some hen sparrows near the nest and tried to shoo them away, but they always returned while the old greeninches were never seen by us near their nest any more.

Then came a great gale, and blew the wisteria nearly down and turned the little nest over and one of the inmates of it was killed, one disappeared and one hung grimly on to the wisteria, at last also he was blown down into the lower border, he was quite alright and I watched him sitting on a Larkspur and being blown with his lower, gently to and fro, he did not mind but went to sleep. I tried to feed him but he would not eat the thistle I found. I was worried and went to ind something else when I saw the hen sparrow arrive and feed him! That she did all the day and the next and the little goldinch grew stronger and stronger. Today I saw him on top of our house and in the highest trees, still fed by the faithful hen sparrow.

August 10th 1943 - Oh dear I am so tired of heroes.

August 20th 1943 - arrived at Langlands, no sleeper in London. Army had booked them all but somehow it got about that Barbara Hutton was on the train and I got a sleeper without trouble or even effort, but had to give a Barbara tip afterwards! Found Benika and John at the station of Mauchline to welcome me, and the car to take us to Langlands, very cosy, and in the afternoon I saw Benika and Pat’s new cottage, ‘The Limit’. It’s a workman’s cottage, 3 rooms, including kitchen and Christian to have a little place in the bathroom! They, Benika and Be, made it very nice and it will not be much trouble to keep clean. The garden on the other hand will be much trouble to keep clean!! They also have put in electric light. John and Be seem very well although very much overworked like everybody! Auchinlech is full of Sherman tanks, very big ones and very bad for the roads, altogether too much for them. Pops Boswell arrived here this evening, John and Be at Bennan, plus a lobster for Be, I have never seen Auchinlech look so nice. All the heather in bloom and harebells, lovely, we worked in The Limit all day. I think it (Editorial note: page missing).

August 26th 1943 - Langlands. Sabotage and revolt in Denmark and the worst of it is in our little Fyn; Odense and Svendborg declared in a state of siege and I am more and more than worried, can’t sleep at night because I think of what is happening at home.

86 We went to Dumfries and had lunch there and John bartered me some sheep dip for 12 dl of honey. I met a friend of Be’s who said ‘tell me what relation are you to Mum?’ Afterwards we went to tea at Holmhill where the Ralstons welcomed us warmly. The Duchess also appeared and told us Elizabeth Scott was going overseas on a ship, she is a Wren and decodes. Girls are lucky in this war, such interesting work.

August 30th 1943 - Denmark is headline news, a state of siege all over the country, no telephone, post or telegraphs permitted to the inhabitants, and the Navy has been scuttled, what there was of it. I wish I was at home; it is almost unbearable to be here and not to know what is happening to them all. I am glued to the wireless, but little news comes out of the country, I feel more than ever that I ought to be at home! And Naka, how will she manage her school in times like this!! ‘Oh my God, my God help little Denmark’, ‘Værn om vort elskede, vort ældgamle Dan’. John says ‘I am proud of Denmark’ and so am I, at last, but if only I were home.

September 1st 1943 - rumours, rumours and rumours, it’s just like April 1940 in Denmark. Benika’s paper says the iercest ights were in Svendborg and that there Prince Gorm fought his brother-in-law, Prince Schaumburg Lippe who led a tank attack, but why and how in Svendborg? Also it says the Germans are ighting the Danes who attacked them with their bare ists. I am sure they will never stop sabotage and ighting now in Denmark and I feel so proud, proud and worried. Kai Munch (Kaj Munk) they say is arrested, also Eiler Jensen (Fagforeningernes formand) and 20 ships are scuttled and 11 escaped to Sweden. I did not know we had so many. Wedel said ‘escape to Sweden if you can, scuttle if you cannot, God bless Denmark and the King’. Yesterday Kalundborg started the news with the words – ‘a bumper crop of berries is to be picked here, especially in Ribe’, funny way to start the news, a day of ighting, we wondered what it meant!

September 2nd 1943 - this morning’s papers are full of Denmark, and our hearts swelled with pride at what they say – ‘no Quislings in Denmark’ and how hard they fought, oh God bless and keep them all. This evening in the series ‘Into battle, or Marching on’ on the wireless, the theme was Denmark, and Be and I listened delighted and with tears in our eyes! Benika has moved into the ‘Limit’, the smallest house she can be in.

Christian Kitchen

Bath Bed Sitting

It’s a dolls house but they have made it cosy and comfortable, but still no light, but that is to come. We had dinner by McGarver, the Foreman’s, cycle lamp! I am so glad I am here with Be and Benika in this Danish crisis. We all worry together. If only one knew a few more facts. Kruse in Stockholm has also become a ‘Free Dane’. We all hope so much that we invade Denmark and help them get free. But that would be terrible also, oh only to be home. Russians are getting on like wildire and only 50 km from Smolensk.

87 September 3rd 1943 - 4 years of war today. ‘Oh God our help in ages past!!’ It seems so long ago since we, very tired after a night in ‘N. Post’ came home, still hoping against hope, and heard Mr Chamberlain’s voice saying ‘Britain is now at war with Germany, it is evil things we are ighting!!’ The Times brought a speech that day by Mr Greenwood, who said: ‘Right is might and right must win in the end’ – that article was lying open and Bertie and I read it when Chamberlain started speaking and when he had inished Carl said ‘Darling we will have to do it all over again, but even worse powers are against us’. And then the sirens went and Hilda, Carl’s German maid, went mad with fear, I saw her knees actually knocking together with fright, and I remember saying to myself: ‘I hope all Germans will feel like that’. And all that is 4 years ago, and by God’s grace and sheer desperate pluck and determination this country, alone, stood against ‘a world of troubles’ bravely and always with a smile, even in the worst time of the ‘Blitz’ as London called aerial bombardment. And today, the Eighth Army and Canadians have landed in Italy, and Russia is on the go on the whole long front and the Germans retreating everywhere. Right is might Mr Greenwood and this war we can ight with a clean conscience.

And Denmark! When I went to see Pastor Clausen in Korinth on April 9th 1940, his calendar on the wall had a black pencil ring marked around the day’s date and under it he had written ‘this day Denmark lost her honour’ and I had nothing to say to him except the words ‘as birds lying so shall the Lord defend Jerusalem’. Oh dear Pastor Clausen, could we then have seen into the future and could you have heard yesterday’s British Broadcasting Corporation’s broadcast about Denmark in ‘Marching On’ you would have felt no shame or dishonour, Denmark has arisen and found her soul and has given the Germans, to quote the daily paper ‘a worse time of ighting than any other of the occupied nations’. 200 sailors lost their lives while the Navy kept the Germans away from the port to let the other sailors scuttle the ships, or sail them to Sweden and all that because Denmark could not ind it in her to allow the Germans to take troop transports through to Norway! O beloved little Denmark, I am so proud of you, proud though in fear and trembling for you. I would not have it otherwise. ‘Om Trængsel og nåd Dig fristet Jeg elsker Dig dobbelt ømt’. And now there’s a National Day of prayer here, and in the prayers for the ‘Allied Nations’ for the irst time today we shall oficially also pray for Denmark, as one of them, and all of us Danes can now rise our heads again when the name of Denmark is mentioned, and feel the awful time of shame is over and Denmark herself, fearlessly and grandly, has fought for a place for herself among the crusaders of the world, and we pray our time old prayer ‘Kongernes Kong ene Der Kan Værne vort elskede Fædreneland’. Oh God our help in ages past.

September 8th 1943 - Italy has surrendered unconditionally and England is deeply thankful the axis is broken and this is the beginning of the end and may it not be too long now. Open rejoicing everywhere and national anthems whenever one turns on the wireless. Bertie says he is sure the Italians are even more pleased than we are. I am so glad we need not bomb Rome or any of the Italian towns any more. The Red Army has cleaned all the Donetz basin of Germans, what a day!! Allied ground forces are closing in on the Japanese bases of Lai!

88 And may all this not be too late for little Denmark; they, the Germans, today have executed a man for sabotage, Poul Sørensen! I tremble to think what the Danes will do now! They will never take that quietly and the next step will be hostages. Oh my God save Denmark, save us all.

September 13th 1943 - the Germans have occupied Italy, the North, and Rome and the Pope is a hostage!!! And most of the Italian ships, 30 of them, have arrived in Malta, and Mussolini is in Germany. ‘Der grösste Lump sitzt abendrauf’ never mind we shall get them both together now! But I’m afraid my joy about the not bombing of Italian towns was a little premature.

September 23rd 1943 - still no news from home and Kalundborg radio is silent. I have put clean sheets in the spare room, towels, ink and soap, and every day I dust it and hope that Nylpe will arrive here, or one of them, but I think Besa will not leave Erik, only Naka can. I tremble for Denmark, I tremble and am proud, but fear the Germans are so ruthless. They are now looting and sacking Naples, while we are on the Salerno Peninsula. Sag, Sorrento, Amali, Massa and all those places which I so very dearly love, places of my childhood, the happiest days of my childhood, how we roamed there, Curt and I specially. I remember one day, it was the day of the local patron saint of Sorrento, St Antonio, which began always at an unearthly hour of the morning with gun salvos and went on with processions through the town, much eating and drinking and in the afternoon a lottery, where everybody gambled, the banco lotto. The numbers were all put into a large wheel and turned around in the presence of the Sindaco, the Mayor, and all the dignitaries of Sorrento. That special day, which I remember well, was very windy and the boat from Naples, which was to bring the two orphans, had not arrived at the house appointed for the draw. There was a large crowd in the Piazza getting very impatient so I approached the Sindaco, and volunteered with my brother to be the orphans. We were clothed in the light blue overalls ready for them and put in front of the urn, I had just drawn the irst number, with my eyes bandaged, the bandage was removed and when I opened my eyes I saw my mother, half amused she looked, half angry, incredulous and supremely delightful. Later she told me how very surprised and very amused she was, her orphans, but she never said a word and the draw went on. What years these were, we lived on oranges and igs, wore shoes only when compelled to do so, talked Neapolitan as well as the natives and knew the Sorrento peninsula as well as our pocket. We had a bet with our father that we could hide and not be found anywhere, and we did hide, amid the myrtle bushes and ig trees, and though my father, in the end even alarmed the police. Nobody could ind us for 24 hours, when we returned because we were very hungry. I hate to think of guns and bombs in all those lovely, lovely and beloved places, and ‘gorillas’ hiding in our haunts.

September 26th 1943 - Civil Defence Sunday and we have (dressed by our country) to go on parade to celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. That battle which, like most history, we did not even know was on while it was in the making. I remember London that day on September 7th when we had dogights, as the RAF called them, all over London and all we saw were little white clouds in the sky, shells exploding and occasionally heard the sound of guns and of bombs, and Churchill’s words broadcast then the irst time ‘never have so many owed so much to so few’. The Russians celebrate the day by taking Smolensk and Raslava, their greatest victory yet.

89 October 11th 1943 - The Times: At Goldsmiths’ Hall

I saw the sword of Stalingrad Filled all my visions with the art of it, Appraising each separate part of it Blade tip to quillon, scabbard served with gold.

I saw the sword of Stalingrad Light on the shining crystal haft of it The beauty, the skill and the craft of it. Passing, surpassing that my mind could hold.

I saw the sword of Stalingrad Then bowed down my head from the light of it Spirit to my spirit, the might of it Silently whispered – Oh mortal, behold

I am the soul of Stalingrad, The hope and the courage and fears of it, The blood and the sweat and the tears of it Young though my form may be ageless and old.

I am the life of Stalingrad, You and its peoples shall unite in me Men yet unborn, in the great light of me Triumphs shall sing when my story is told.

F. Willis Abbott.

The King presented a sword of honour to Stalingrad which is on show in London.

October 15th 1943 - Italy has declared war on Germany, it sounds more like a musical comedy than serious politics, they are not our allies, but a ‘co-belligerent nation’. They have always been and will always be, children. Anyhow they are having now a terrible time in their own country and the Germans have burnt the library in Naples before they left. Priceless treasures of civilisation. They make the old vandals of the Middle Ages look like amateurs.

I have been wondering yesterday what one can possibly do with Germany. Europe is like a great body and Germany is the stomach, and a badly upset one at almost all times, but that vital organ must be kept right and under control, and cannot be amputated. I wish we could get it right.

Poor old Denmark, I lie awake for hours worrying, they are bravely going on with sabotage and the Jews are persecuted and deported. I long to be a ‘gorilla’ and would give the world to be at home and know how things are with them all. And my Besa and my Nylpe – Naka.

90 ‘May God watch between us while we are absent from another’. Would I have gone if I had known it would last so long?

October 20th 1943 - ‘These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conlict the more glorious the triumph’. Words written in America in the War of Independence and could have been written for today, and is just as true. And just as heartbreaking, the harder the conlict the more glorious the victory; these are men’s words, men who know the thrill of battle, the uplift of patriotism, the urge of freedom, men will say these same words again in our days and die bravely for those ideals, and women? Women see, in their minds eyes, all the horrors of battle. Hear the hum of the bombers at night, the lash of shells, the desolation of the countries under the oppressors’ yolk. Hungry children, the blind, the wounded, the dead, is any patriotism worth that? Would it not be a higher, a braver aim not to have the barriers of ‘nations’ but to be one country, one brotherhood of man? And Jerusalem, four square, this nation’s only city. All this wonderful courage, all this great effort, all this bravery of individuals, all this immense human work and plan, only for destruction! We have not willed it, it had to be, but O Adolph Hitler, what will you have to answer for if and when your day of judgment comes!! Not only to the world but even to Germany. Not hated you are, you are despised. What a fate. We have had 4 alerts for 4 nights running and the guns of our Ak Ak are something terriic, they simply shake the house and all the pheasants give loud cries every time a specially loud salvo is let loose. I looked around yesterday and the most lovely lares were all over the sky like huge stars, stationary, beautiful, but still I can do without them. I also like my nights without sirens. We have been spoilt these last 2 years. Still we are advancing on every front and are masters of the Volturno and Capua, where I hope our troops won’t be left too long, if the Generals know anything of Roman history. The Russians are marvellous and have cut the German retreat off from the Crimea, and Hitler has had another ‘crisis meeting’ and there is a 3 power conference in Moscow to inish the war as soon as possible. I hope we will, but doubt if by conference. Molotov, Cordell, Hull and Eden are the representatives of the different Allies. I wonder what language they will talk. Interpreters all over the place, how tempted they must feel sometimes to ‘interpret’ a little in their own way, not just verbatim, or would they be under oath?

October 21st 1943 - another raid last night, about 12.30. They are trying to get Luton. I have got out of the habit of being bombed, I am no more so indifferent but hate it all intensely. Last night about 1.00 the sirens went and I got out into the most violent thunderstorm. All clear at 2 and I went to sleep. At 4, I was again awakened by what I thought was guns. I hurried into my Wardens equipment but when I got out, lo and behold it was just another thunderstorm! No sirens, so I laughed at myself and went to bed. Again, that is now 5 nights running we have been alerted, they are making a habit of it. Just while writing this I heard many planes and when I looked there were B1 Fortresses and Lightning Fighter escort coming home. It looked grand. So strong they looked, really Flying Fortresses.

October 25th 1943 - have had alerts now 7 nights running, my birthday included and Saturday a Lancaster was shot down near Hatield, 6 men killed. In it was a 2000 lb. bomb, not exploded.

91 I wonder it does not happen more often. The Russians are over the Dniper in many places, Germany seems well beaten, I wonder when they will realise it? And I wonder when we shall reach Rome? It is more on the principle of ‘chi va piano va sano!’ (who goes slowly goes safely) I mean our advance. Bertie and everybody disgusted with the slow progress. I suppose it’s very dificult terrain and as Alexander said ‘all roads lead to Rome, but all roads are heavily mined’.

October 27th 1943 - a letter from Mrs. Stjirnsvoerd saying all are well at home and longing for news. She had several letters from her daughter, some of them 6 weeks old, but oh the balm of knowing they are well, I could sing aloud, have sent the letter on to Benika and Be who will be just as relieved. Yesterday I spent my day at Selfridges, where we, G.I.S., have a window and a table with information about us. Our committee take it in turn to be there and answer questions but most of them are American soldiers who want tobacco, or under clothing, they all seem to wander around Selfridges. Lady Clarendon says her husband was with Smuts and Smuts is sure the war with Germany will be over in the spring. Almost all American soldiers have 3 medals, one for joining the army before Pearl Harbour, one for crossing the Atlantic and one says London, for having been to Dover. In reality it is for doing 5 sorties over Germany. Michael Baird Smith has been in 82 raids over Germany, is a Wing Commander and has won the DFC. Mrs. Harker and I went to Norman Hartnell’s exhibition of South American National costumes. They were lovely, a pageant of gorgeous colours and in the middle, next to our Lady of Lima, the G.I.S. uniforms, lovat mixture, we were most amused. Russians have taken Dniepropetrovak and all is going ine on that front, Germany is beaten, and well beaten. When will she acknowledge it? Madame Malkowska, the Polish Guide, told me yesterday that all the Poles think their country will soon again be the battleield, poor poor Poland, poor Europe. I heard on the wireless that the Germans are requisitioning Danish houses for bombed out Germans and I wonder about Trolleborg, my Trolleborg.

October 31st 1943 - we are rapidly getting nearer and nearer to November 11th and wondering and hoping Germany will collapse. She’s just as beaten as in 1918, more so as there was no bombing of Germany then. They would be wise to surrender before the Russians get into Silesia but they are never wise, people like Hitler seem only to think about themselves, and pay no attention to the horrible sufferings of the soldiers and people. It’s like a nightmare to think of it.

November 7th 1943 - Kiev taken by Russians, and advance 40 miles beyond. The Moscow guns have sounded the salute of 24 salvos, and the German retreat is almost a rout; perhaps, oh perhaps this will end sooner now the war.

November 8th 1943 - telegram from Stockholm: ‘Naka says no news since July stop has 22 girls stop everything very well always thinking of you, please tell me something Liliecreutz’.

22 girls, Naka can never get away and I can shut away my room again ready for her, even to cigarettes and lowers. Darling how I miss you.

November 14th 1943 - today is the 21st anniversary of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and where would Europe be without the BBC? A continent without the truth!

92 I wonder how many millions get comfort, news and encouragement from the BBC. That we shall know later on, but we ourselves here in this island thought where would we be without our daily News. Where would we have been in 1940 when some days even the papers could not be printed, owing to ‘enemy action’ and all Churchill’s inspiring and encouraging speeches, not to speak of Tommy Handley, who I am sure helped Bertram more over the bad days of 1940-1942 then anybody else. To me the ‘European service’ has been the greatest comfort.

The Russians have taken Leitomir and are now 90 km from the old Polish border, when oh when will the Germans know that they are beaten! At present they kill all people in Germany who voice any doubt in Germany’s victory. There seem to be very many now.

November 15th 1943 All nature is but art unknown to thee All chance direction, which thou canst not see All discord harmony not understood All of partial evil, universal good; And bite of pride, in erring reasons spite One truth is clear, what ever is, is right. Pope.

November 17th 1943 - we have lost Leros and the Russians gain and gain. I was wondering, my darlings for whom I am writing all this, all these great events you will know. You surely will have heard that the Vatican has been bombed, and that there is trouble in the Lebanon, (always the French when we have trouble) but I would like to give you some intimate daily news of our war days, like the weekly sugar ration, never enough for this house, all the housework, the planning to grow food, the struggle to be economical with light and food, the things you can get and the things you cannot get, funny things like Cerebos salt, or potato lour, the clothes rationing, 20 coupons for 4 months or 6 - stockings take 3 coupons for 1 pair and are no good! The endless washing of socks, and mending, the inexperienced struggle with the lat iron, the W.V.S., the lag days, as endless as the mending, the bicycling or walking from place to place, the excitement, a thrill daily ‘how many eggs?’ The food for the cows, oh, the milking, the reading and planting, the mowing without petrol, the evacuees, who have time to look around and buy all the extras, and above all, the eternal, everlasting daily blackout.

Oh that blackout, it wants a chapter to itself, it is so perennial, such a worry. Is it alright? You walk outside, there is a chink of light from the dining room, you remedy that, another look, you are alright. But your neighbour is showing a light, you feel a warden and your duty to go and tell them, you do so, they don’t like it at all ‘they were so sure the new curtains were absolutely right’ you take them outside and point to the light, they say ‘Germans couldn’t see that from 20,000 feet above’, you quite agree but mumble something about dive bombers and low lying enemy crafts. They pull the curtain a little further, it is better but not alright, you walk home and ind the pantry a blaze of light owing to the kitchen door left open. You walk into the kitchen and complain, but get no sympathy ‘there is no raid on’. The blackout is, I am sure, responsible for many wardens’ white hairs. When this war is over, I shall never, never pull a curtain again, how lovely it will be, no more torches, no more opening the doors of your train and groping for the platform with a tentative foot, and above all no more driving about in the dark, afraid all the time and oh so afraid to run over a pedestrian. Surely the blackout is the curse of this war, to civilians and soldiers alike. And we shall all go half mad with joy when it is over. May it be soon.

93 November 29th 1943 - Oh the bombing, I don’t know how many million tonnes the RAF have dropped on Berlin, and I know, how well I know, how the Germans started, without even a declaration of war, to bomb Warschau, Rotterdam, Belgrade and London, but knowing how terrible it was, what hell Berlin must be! Whatever Germany has done to us, and will do, I shall never be able to gloat! Nobody really does but some people say ‘go on bombing and bombing Germany. They have brought it on themselves’. They certainly have, but it always seems to hit the innocent. Hitler was in Berlin when the irst bad night was begun, he hid in a shelter and I hope was frightened and felt some remorse at what he and he alone had done to Germany.

I wish I could go home and see how things really are! Odense again has a curfew and State of Siege and so have Aarhus, Aalborg and Copenhagen. I went to see Eduard but he knows nothing. Else was in bed with a cold but obviously not bad, so pre-war to go to bed with a cold. How feeble Eduard is, afraid of everything! I wish we had a man like Kaufmann here.

December 5th 1943 - they have executed any number of Danes at home, for sabotage, giving no names. And I listened to Kalundborg with a beating heart and horror-struck, the war at home goes like the saying about the winter ‘Dagene længes, vinteren strænges’. Days go, when will it end.

Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt have had a meeting in Teheran, and certainly have discussed new methods of war. We have a new ighter here, very hush hush, and much faster even than the Mosquito, it has no propeller and people who understand that sort of thing say it will revolutionise lying. I watched it have a race with a Mosquito and the Mosquito was nowhere.

December 8th 1943 - I was in London yesterday on GIS (Guide International Service) which is now under, UNRRA (United Nations Relief And Rehabilitation Administration) and we are really getting on, and all we need is an armistice. We have also been asked to help with something so hush-hush that I dare not to write a word about it. Today I have been selling toys all morning for W.V.S. and Red Cross, some very nice things all produced in Wheathampstead, much better than what you can get at Harrods which is very, very poor. All that is left of Harrods former Christmas is Father Christmas, all in one small room and that nearly only half full!! “Sic transit Gloria Harrodia”. I am longing for the time when shopkeepers again will smile at you, now they glare and scowl and say ‘I am sorry no……….’ whatever you may want, and most shops have notices ‘no cakes, no whiskey’, no oh so many no’s, I would not mind if I did not have that dreadful feeling of being absolutely unwanted in shops, specially at counters where they ‘not’ sell biscuits!! As to scent, I am longing to say to Coty ‘no thank you, I want absolutely no scent’ and no ish from a ishmonger! Oh where are the grocers who said: ‘we have some lovely chocolate or cheese or dates’, dates are now only something in the calendar, and today we had a lemon, to rafle at sixpence a ticket. We had a lemon last month and did not at all know what to do with it, I rather felt it ought to be in a glass case.

December 10th 1943 - we are having more talk of the New World we are going to make, or have, after the war, personally I feel that the old one, with quite a few improvements would do! Anyhow for me, who so well now remembers that sort of talk in the last war, not much was the result. But perhaps this will be all different. But certainly it will be a world for the masses, nobody seems to bother about the upper classes, if there are any left by now! It would be an object and aim to have all classes cease, and really be a people of “brethren” in spirit and in truth.

94 Christmas 1943 - Auchinleck I came up here the 21st, in a very very crowded train with 2 hours delay, but it was worth it. Benika met me, having to wait all that time and took me to The Limit, where I slept in Christian’s room, special, also bathroom and WC. It is a bit small but beautifully arranged by her. I slept very well, but next day caught a touch of lu, not so good - still we hoped for the best, but the 24th felt so rotten that I came here after the Christmas tree at the Limit which was lovely. Christian got so excited that he nearly boiled over. We also had the Royal Suffolk Fusiliers Oficers which are in charge at the house and had no home leave. And Be and John, many presents and all so loving and the Christmas tree with hearts and red and white candles, and we all, Benika, Be and I thought of home and longed. Afterwards we came here and had a Christmas dinner and another tree and we were 9, a large party these days!

Next morning Benika and I went to the house where they had a Christmas service for the soldiers. They have no Christmas in Scotland, and I thought in some way so much of Reykjavik where I had been to a very similar service, and it was summer then, and what a long way we have travelled since, and how much better things look for us now!! There is a little poem in the paper today which Montgomery’s brother has quoted in Dumfries. It was found in Africa and is surely written by some man of the Eighth Army. It luttered into the hands of an oficer lying in a trench during the terrible ighting between Agheila and Tripoli. It might well be said that it had fallen for the hands of a dying man.

The irst verse is - Stay with me God, that night is dark The night is cool. My little spark Of courage dies. The night is long Be with me God and make me strong.

December 25th 1943 - The Scharnhorst has been sunk near the North Cape.

So that’s who I remind me of.

By Ogden Nash

When I consider men of golden talents I am delighted in my introvert way To discover as I am drawing up the balance How much we have in common I and they.

Like Burns I have a weakness for the bottle Like Shakespeare Little Latin and less Greek I bite my ingernails like Aristotle Like Thackeray I have a snobbish streak

I am aflicted with the vanity of Byron I’ve inherited the spitefulness of Pope Like Petrarch I am a sucker for a siren Like Milton I’ve a tendency to mope

95 My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer Like Johnson, well I do not wish to die I also drink my coffee from a source And if Goldsmith was a parrot so am I

Like Villon have I debts by the cartload Like Swinburn I’m afraid I need a nurse By my dicing is Christopher out Marlowled And I dream as much as Coleridge only worse

In comparison with men of golden talents I am all a man of talent ought to be I resemble every genius in his vice however hideous Till I write so much like me

That’s what I have always said, I have inherited from all my gifted forbears all the artistic temperament but the genius was forgotten!!

December 30th 1943 - A wire from home, ‘All well and best wishes from Trolleborg’. Great, great joy all over Auchinleck.

I was going home today, but the lu is still too much for me.

January 1st 1944 - still here listening to all that 1944 promises, or rather what everybody says it promises, I am all for it but most of all peace. I wish I did not remember 1918 so well, when Wilson’s 18 points made my heart swell with joy and gratitude, and Wilson was considered a loony afterwards.

May 1944 allow us to live up to what the world expects of us, and what we expect of ourselves, good God give us not only a great victory but give us a great peace. Thy peace. And no points or plans which we cannot keep, but just thy golden rule, and that ‘the world shall be illed with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea’. And may the peace be like the waters that cover the sea, deep, generous and wide.

Be is having a party, a supper party for the Suffolk Fusiliers, a ham, a duck salad, two tarts, Gooseberry fool and orange salad. It sounds pre-war, and all made by little Be. She and John came last night and we all listened to the wireless and sat up till 1 or more. Very cosy and homelike. The Russians have retaken Lhitomor and all that the Germans had captured in their last counter attack.

January 3rd 1944 - party a great success, everybody had a lovely time and everybody has got over the ‘cocktails’ at the house. Be had one and rushed home to take an aspirin. Lord Glennarthur, a staff oficer of the Eighth Army cheered us immensely. He said all the ‘Desert rats’ ( VIII A.) are home, and ready at Newmarket, for the second front. He said that they had hardly any troops at all in Italy, just enough to keep going slowly and that the campaign there was entirely a sideline. That will comfort Bertram. I am feeling more like a human being today and we are now going to buy a ‘Scottie’ for Be.

96 February 19th 1944 - we are ighting near Castell Gandolfo Albano - Rocca di Papa – in short all my ‘neiges d’Antare’, lovely lovely country, but from the point of view of a war it seems to me that one could hardly ind any place worse for ighting over! We had a bad raid last night about 1 am, lares all over the place. I could see where I went as well as in daytime. While I was walking along towards the colleges I saw a terrible lash, followed by the most terrible explosion, I was really frightened, it seemed so near. When I got back to Waterend being carried back by blast, B. had come out, he told me he saw the lash through the blackout and it shook his bed. It had also blown the front door open and several windows. Later Mrs Mitchell, my head warden’s wife, told me a plane, fully laden, had come down near Welwyn! (This proved afterwards to be the irst V1) it was a terrible raid, but not long. I am afraid ires over London. I have not much time to write, am all alone to do all the work, cooking etc etc.

March 11th 1944 - no time for a diary, no servants at Waterend, and I dust, I scrub, I cook and am a Dairymaid, from 5.30 a.m. to 11 p.m., war work would be child’s play. Had two letters from Naka and one from Besa, they got our photographs. Last night Lithgow Osborne rang up, he is in London, he is Deputy Director General of the European section of ‘UNRRA’ – (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). G.I.S.. are under Unrra, so that will be a great help. Dear Lithgow, I want him to come and live here.

April 10th 1944 - Easter Much has happened since I last wrote, but we are still in Castel Gandolfo or rather still not there. But the Russians today have taken Odessa and are in Czechoslovakia, and the war still goes on. I still have no servants and no time. Lithgow came here for a long weekend and is coming again, he does not mind having his meals in the kitchen and helps washing-up. We went for a long walk, and I said to him “Lithgow do you remember after the irst days of the armistice 1918 you sent me, before they were really published, Wilsons points, and how we all thought what a lovely new world we were going to have, will it be the same this time?” Lithgow thought a little and then he said “it will all depend on how our boys come home! Last war they came home disappointed, they did not like the French at all, and they could not get on very well with the English, and those who had occupied the Rhine liked the Germans and wondered why they had to ight them, and they wanted to have nothing ever to do with Europe again.” And here I am worrying about a peace that has not come yet. Instead we are all keyed up and ready to explosion point, for the invasion of Europe. Somebody, Sir William Beech Thomas, told us when we started we shall have an air umbrella of 6-7000 planes. I wish I was not so tired, but all I write and do is dull, because I am too tired to think much. I think going to Italy with the G.I.S. would be a lovely rest!

June 20th 1944 - we have invaded Normandy, old 1066 reversed, and Monty not so very like William. Thank God it’s over, D-Day was June 6th. We all felt the tension before most awfully, like machines, (those tag machines) which have been wound and wound up all the time. Now it has gone off, and gone off well, and the casualties have been comparatively slight, thanks to some wonderful organising of all the people in charge. We woke up on the morning of June 6th and we were in France, in great force, and the Atlantic Wall was just another Maginot –Siegfried – etc. etc. Line. The day before we had taken Rome without any bother, or more ruins to the old ruins. Today the allies are in Perugia and Assisi, and Cherbourg is cut off, and the Russians have taken Viberg. We all feel it cannot last too long now.

97 The Germans have launched their famous secret weapon, the Wuwa (Wunderwaffe) much boasted. It is a horrible thing, a pilotless plane which goes alone and crashes, anywhere. It is launched from the Pas de Calais and a great nuisance. But it is not going to have any other affect here other than make us very angry, and it’s nothing like the bombing in 1940 and does only damage to civilian objects, falling very much at random. It can only go 150 miles but it keeps us wardens up all night and is tiring, still we all feel it will soon be mastered.

We don’t mind much anyhow, we have expected something like it once the invasion started. Jimmy Boyd is in Normandy and many, many men we know and the sky is never empty, Lancasters, Fortresses, Marauders, Spitires and Lightnings, hundreds of them. I should hate to have them over me as enemies. Miss Robbins says she can never hear the nightingales sing now. Benika, Pat and Christian were here, irst night for the invasion, and thrilled. I went to London that day, and while walking through Sackville Street, heard a loudspeaker, from wardens post, talking Norwegian. I recognised the Danish Norwegian of King Haakon who was talking to his people about the invasion. I walked in and found the place empty, and went down on my knees, and prayed for the invasion, the soldiers, all the little boats, the sailors and for all our people at home. London was hushed, quiet, waiting with bated breath for the news. And the news was wonderful, beyond all our expectations, a foothold and a beachhead the very irst day, thank God, Oh thank God.

June 26th 1944 - Americans are in Cherbourg and the Russians in Vitebisk, and the 5th is advancing towards Livorno. War is going wonderfully well, we have had a few more doodlebugs (Wuwa) but nobody was hurt, all the windows in Hatield House smashed by blast and the wall of Sheriff’s Mill cracked and down. That is all, and nobody seems to mind or worry, nobody English, the Americans do not like it at all. I had Lithgow Osborne down here for two nights to have a good sleep, and one night he joined me outside because doodlebugs were over. Last night we had only half an hour’s alert, but just now I heard one crashed again, I wonder where. I do hope Naka will not worry about us; the German propaganda makes so much of it. I heard about an old lady who had her house destroyed by a pilotless plane. She had gone to a shelter when she came out and saw the damage, all she said was: ‘thank heaven I did not wash up last night’.

Washing up is a great item in our life just now with no servants to get. Kauffman came here with Gabriele Rohde, and had their meals in the kitchen. Most people eat in the kitchen when they cook, but I found it has its disadvantages, as the table has to be laid, and there is little room to prepare food! Now I have Emmy and a charwoman and I feel my life is worth living again. Housework is most unproductive. Bertram says the war may last another 7 years. I think I shall learn parachuting and get them to drop me over Fyn! I wonder if it would make things dificult for them at home! People are beginning to come home from France on leave already, and all the wounded are brought home in planes, not Red Cross planes, just ordinary transport planes, so strong is the Air Force. The sky is never empty of planes, like starlings they look sometimes, so many of them; beautiful and terrible to look at. I wonder what they will become, when again ‘swords are beaten into ploughshares’. Montgomery is doing ine, in 3 weeks he has established himself irmly in France, and scaled the Atlantic Wall which Germany proclaimed impregnable. The other day I was in London and had got a taxi, which generally only Americans can get.

98 I was driving down St James’s Street, when my driver went mad, he rushed past other cars, he nearly collided with some oncoming ones, he swerved and rushed, I got really frightened and yelled him “hey, hey I want to live a little longer”. All he answered was “there’s Monty in a car in front” and on we rushed, we passed him also, 3 times, he looks much younger than his photographs. I would never have thought that a man who does not drink, nor smoke, and who is deeply religious, could become the idol of the public the way he has done. Personally I admire Alexander almost more, but he is not so much in the limelight.

Field Marshal Lord Cavan came here this month to open Wheathampstead ‘salute the soldier’ week. He is a cousin of Olivia’s, Miss Robbins. She asked him what he thought of Eisenhower, rather anxiously, as the British are always a little worried about foreigners, it’s quite natural to them, and the answer was ‘he is irst class in every way, soldier, man and a irst class strategist, so now we are very happy’. One team of girl guides have left, at last, soon now the G.I.S. is launched, and may they be a blessing wherever they go, I am sure they will be. When will this war be over, and how can we teach Germany to keep, to desire, peace. In 1780 Mirabeau wrote “La guerre est l’industrie national de la Prusse”. Even then and ever since, near 300 years, how can they be cured?

Goebbels has proclaimed that the irst refugees from the “Wuwa” have arrived in France and better still “that the great port of Maidstone has been destroyed” he must be desperate. Life goes on in London as usual everybody hates the doodlebugs but nobody pays any attention to it and only some people take their children to the shelters.

June 27th 1944 - Cherbourg entirely in American hands and the Russians getting on quite splendidly. Also we have gone on near Caen and the Japs have lost some port. We have had a terrible night, a doodlebug crashed in Wheathampstead. It was raining and bad visibility, nobody was seriously hurt, thank God, but all the windows are blasted and Berry Farm in an awful state. The crash was horrible, and even Bertie came down, and as we could do nothing we sat in the kitchen and prepared strawberries for jam. I counted 14 or 15 crashes in the vicinity; I wonder where they all were. This is a quite horrible way of waging war, so entirely un-cricket, only against civilians. And our boys give their lives sometimes, even over Germany to hit only military objectives!! The warning was on from 1 – 5 and all the time these horrible bangs went off. I would love to stop it. And try to know ‘God is our shelter from the stormy blast’. But the war news overshadows all these things and keeps us cheerful and content.

July 11th 1944 - we have Caen, and the Russians have Vilna and Minsk and many more towns, and every day one or two or more German Generals surrender. Denmark has had a struggle with Germans and come out with all her colours lying, and I am so proud. They had a general strike and the Germans had to give in on every point, the Schalburg corpse is to go, I wonder what Trolleborg is feeling and how they all are. They are so far away from all this war and yet in it! But thank God no doodlebugs. Wheathampstead had one, and no windows left and the ceiling came down on Mrs Pearce. A farmhouse was hit but nobody seriously hurt. We have in three weeks had about 3000, and just about as many people killed. We have so many warnings and all clears that I cannot remember sometimes whether we are all clear or alert. I sent Naka a wire to say we are all well and hope she gets it.

July 21st 1944 - there has been an attempt on Hitler’s life, but as far as is known they did not get him, I’m glad.

99 I don’t want him to die until he has realized what he is, what he has done to the German people and the world. Anyhow here there is no great excitement, war must go on, perhaps it will shorten it, but what can the German people do?

July 22nd 1944 - it seems the German Generals made the attempt on Hitler, somebody called Falkenhorst, I think, what a brave man! Rumours are again active, only events will show what really happened.

July 25th 1944 - I have just been listening to a broadcast from Moscow, 17 German Generals, all made and signed a proclamation to the German people telling them what Hitler has let them in for, and that the war is lost. I wish it were over, another very doodle buggish night, and I am so sleepy. 3 big bangs from exploding bugs, one came bang over the house here, a sinister noise. But then I heard it stop and crash, and my ceiling crashed with it, luckily just not on top of me. I reported the incident and a constable came along, and he and I from 1 – 4 a.m. went to look for the bomb, it seems they it knives on the wing which cut the balloons and they have not got a specimen yet. So we walked the ields all around Goldsmith Farm (which is badly damaged) but we found nothing in the dark of course. The Lemsford wardens were busy too. When it got daylight the doodlebug was much nearer than we had been looking, what a night! It is now 6 weeks that I have not slept at night through, oh Adolf!!

July 26th 1944 - Besa has had another boy, and is well, thank God. A letter came from Naka bless her, 3 boys in 4 years, it’s a lot and she is so young! What would I not give to be home. My baby! This is the hardest part of these hard times.

July 27th 1944 - Jimmy Boyd has been killed in Normandy, poor Pearl, she is with Benika in Scotland, she and Pat’s mother evacuated from the doodlebugs. Five orders of the day from Stalin, Lwow, Byalistock, Dünaburg, Brest Lilovsk and Prymisl, taken by the Russians. They are getting near, where the daughter of Frederick VII prophesied that peace would be made. I have marked it on my map, it’s got “navnforandring” and is called Miedzychod. Our progress in France is very very slow.

July 30th 1944 - more alerts all night long, and the day long too. I am very sleepy, but feel it will not be long, if only we could get to Calais. I wonder how many more nights, I have no bed now, as my ceiling is being repaired, so I spend my nights on the sofa in the sitting room near the telephone. I think longingly of the child bearer!

August 14th 1944 - we are getting on ine in France and the Russians are almost in East Prussia. In Italy we have taken Florence and the moral here is high, Germans have hanged seven German Generals, Wilyleben among them and not only hung them but have also killed their wives and children. I had a young Austrian Jew here this weekend with his wife who is Czech. He was one of my ‘Wienerbørn’. He is a doctor of law and in the American forces and so now an American. She is still a Czech, funny world. He told me her mother was put in a gas chamber by the Nazis! And she, the girl, does not know it. Patrick came here this weekend, is now surface mining at Ashby de le Zouche, Benika is still at The Limit. Pat thinks she’s going to have another baby, I hope for her sake he is right. Doodlebugs still come, but not quite so many, but everybody who does not belong here has been re-evacuated because of the possibility of rocket bombs. I hope we shall get to their sites before they are ready.

100 General Eisenhower today has made a request to all the forces to win the victory now, in France. If all the forces ight like the Air Force all will be well. We are not one moment of the day or the night without planes and bombers going overhead. So many sometimes that is impossible to talk. Fortresses, Lancasters, Halifaxes, Typhoons and all Marauders, Havocs, Spitires, I don’t know how many. I should hate to be on the wrong side of them. I feel if they cannot win the war now, soon, it will go on for ever and we shall all break our hearts with longing to go home, we exiles! Benika reminded me that Schuchardt brought once a young Stauffenberg to Trolleborg, she thinks it might be the one who tried to kill Hitler, she says we called him ’Staufenbasse’. I wonder if it is him, a kind of male Charlotte Corday only it didn’t come off so well. Poor ‘Staufenbasse’, still I should be sorry to have Hitler killed before he has realized what he has done to Germany, and the world. Lovely summer weather, just right for our planes to go to France. The German Seventh Army retreat, if they can, the Germans by now are masters in retreat and always get away.

August 23rd 1944 – ‘Paris est libre’ wonderful news, and liberated mostly from the inside the F.F.I. (French Forces of the Interior) and now the Germans are again where they were in June 1940, only there are not so many of them. The Americans are on the Marne and we have heard nothing but the Marseillaise all day long on the wireless. We all feel the war may be over any day now. And Benika poor dear is “picky” but she has been wanting this for a long time. Last night the Thorntons had their third doodlebug, roof down again and nothing spoilt and nobody hurt. I went there in the morning, they were a bit shattered but quite alright, I feel now that we shall not have the beastly things much longer. Marseille is also free, and Romania has made peace with us, wonderful day!!!

August 24th 1944 - One letter from Naka and one from Svigermor, most interesting, she says: ‘Forholderne i Danmark er jo ikke hyggelige mere, men Danskerne er beundrings værdi. Det er en storarted maade de tager det hele paa, men desværre gaar det ud over mange gode Danske mænd. Jeg var i København under Generalstryken og det var ja lidt af en oplevelse, men af den uhyggelige slags, med kanoner og andet skyderi i gaderne. Man for hardt frem mod befolkningen, men de ellers saa skikkelige og gemytlige Københavnerne lod sig ikke skræmme eller kue. Det er blevet et andet folk i disse sidste aar’.

‘Our team’ has also written from Cairo, they are happy and I hope useful, and UNRRA is using them as a team, as far as I can make out, the only one to be used that way. I include the letters here (Editor’s note: letters missing). 5 years of war, today 5 years ago Poland was attacked, it seems 500 years now, and we are near the end now thank God. We are in Amiens, Sedan, Verdun, Dieppe; Rumania has surrendered, Bulgaria asks for Armistice terms.

September 4th 1944 - Auchinleck Brussels liberated today, also Namur, and best of all the lying bomb sites in the Pas de Calais. And the Germans are in full light everywhere, lovely. I wonder when Trolleborg will be liberated! And ‘no enemy air activity over London last night’. This I think is also the end of the doodlebugs. I only hope the war won’t be over until I get back to England, I don’t want to end it here in Scotland after having done all I could to help win it in England.

101 September 5th 1944 - we are in Holland, every day we go into another country and play a new national anthem. It’s a lovely War, just now, Dunkirk all over again, but, but with us on the winning side. All the papers bring pictures of Hitler doing a joy dance in June 1940. I suppose he does the “Valse triste” now. John has 4 Italians for farm work, some of those who would not collaborate and have come to Scotland for punishments. They are fascists and communists and think John is a capitalist. As the result of all that they work very badly, and told me how wonderful it would be if Italy could rule the world when the war was over. I said at present this country and America are winning the war and Italy would not get much chance to rule the world, I hoped. There I left them, but this has not improved their work. And yesterday they refused their lunch and came not back. I think we might have trouble with Italy if many think like that. The doodlebugs are over, how lovely!! They have been telling us all about them today. Also the blackout is to be only a ‘dim out’ from the 17th of this month. I almost wish they had waited until the time when it could really be ‘all the lights go on’.

September 22th 1944 - Waterend again. We are in Germany, at last. And British troops over the Rhine near Nijmegen in Holland, only they called the Rhine there the Waal. Two days we had nothing but gliders going over here, thousands of them, all ‘airborne’ troops to be dropped on the Netherlands, to capture the great Rhine bridge near Nijmegen, which they did, intact. One glider broke from its chain and came down at Sandridge, a village near here. Out came a Jeep and some Americans and guns and all started to ‘liberate’ Sandridge. They were very disappointed to ind no resistance and that they were not in Holland. We went to lunch to London today with Tony who is waiting to go to Germany as a kind of ‘Gauleiter'. Strikes in Copenhagen, the Germans have tried to kidnap the King, I suppose to take him away like the Belgian King, but the Danes fought them off, ighting all day, and the Germans said it was all a mistake. Lovely triumph. I spend a sleepless night worrying about Kong Christian and Dri Dri and all of them.

Jonna Bülow was here for the weekend with Claus. She told me that the King is very ill, the gangrene in his leg and is not supposed to live. Also she told me, more cheeringly, that Christmas Møller is out of it here, a good thing. I think if one looked all over the world one could not ind an individual more tactless. When I went to one of his lectures it made me shudder. Apart from being in very bad English it was just the worst you could say for Denmark in English ears, and I only prayed that they did not understand what he said. There is an epir of our airborne troops at Arnhem, and we are all waiting with bated breath to know if it will be a great victory or a great tragedy. They are so close sometimes, most times, and we can only wait and pray.

Doodlebugs every night, one night the Germans sent 6 and 5 landed in Hertfordshire, we seem to have become bomb alley. One killed 4 people at Hatield, very near the aerodrome. No news from home and I dare not write because of Gestapo spies everywhere. I worry, oh I worry so about them all. Had a letter from Besa’s friend Pen Hammersleg, now Pen Eckersleg, she has a new baby and wants Besa to be godmother and me to be her proxy. She said: “Dear Trolleborg is so ine and so enduring that it will be there, calm and above it all when you return.”

102 Pray God she may be right. I have no time to write much and ‘L’Homme n’ecrit rien sur le sable a l’heure au passé l’aquilou’. L’aquilou has passed in many ways, Aachen is no more, we are in Germany, the Russians in East Prussia and Bülow had to escape from the Gestapo in his under clothing. I tremble at the news from home, had a letter from Naka today - a very careful one but thank God it says they are all well. I wonder when we shall be liberated, and when it comes, will it be quick like France, or endless like Holland, giving the Germans time to ruin everything. ‘Kongerenes Kong, en Du kan, skærme vort elskede Fædreland’. Oh if I could only see Naka, I feel she is thinking of me, I am 60 tomorrow, and Naka says “Kriegsjahre zühlen doppelt”. I don’t feel very old, but I suppose I ought to be ‘æreværdig’, shall I ever? The Russians have taken Petsamo and are now on the Norwegian border and I suppose will walk down towards us. Oh if only, only I was at home. But I suppose I should be in a concentration camp anyhow. Keigwin has sent a book, Danish poems, translated by him most wonderfully well, and he has called it ‘The Jutland Wind’. He is clever and a poet.

November 7th 1944 - I have been in London today to a G.I.S. meeting, there still seems to be about a great sense of frustration after Arnhem, which comes to hinder us a lot in our work as UNRRA and Copra and Shef and Eisenhower, all don’t seem to know quite where they are by way of relief work. But it will be quite alright when we start advancing again. There are cheerful signs of the times also, such as a letter from Mme Morel, from Belgium. Miss Tennison has asked me to write an article for the guides about ‘Speiderskolen’. I hope it will do Naka good. I always think of her, and wonder how they are, but dare not write much. 5 Danish patriots have overpowered the crew of ‘Store Belt’, our biggest ferry boat and have sailed her to Sweden in spite of a German minesweeper who sailed after them. Well done patriots. There is a funny story about the Americans going to London. A ‘Doughboy’ was talking to a Tommy and said “I say you British do not really like us, why is that?” “Well” said the soldier “the fact if you want to know it is, that you are overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here.” It makes a good story, but as a matter of fact the Americans are very popular, and we are deeply grateful to them for all their help.

November 10th 1944 - Churchill and the Germans have told the world about V2, which we have been having since September, the most terriic bangs, about one or two a day. One came down at Luton near here the day before yesterday, and one today in the city. One only hears the bang when it’s all over, as they travel faster than sound. V1 and V2 will not make England love the Germans any more, especially Londoners, and they will not win the war for Germany. I suppose one gets used to anything but I certainly feel a little afraid of them, alas, now not nearly so much as in the beginning. I was in London yesterday, where there are some big holes in the streets, but the lights are to go up, at once it will feel queer to see again and see one’s way about. I think the blackout is the worst plague of the war, and the sirens.

November 25th 1944 - Thanksgiving day – this poem was recited at a great meeting ‘To you America’ at the Albert Hall today.

A Londoner in New England 1941 - By Jan Struther

I was a citizen, once, of a great city Its buildings were of mellowed brick and weathered stone. I woke up every morning to its sparrows chatter

103 And laid down every evening to its trafic’s drone.

It had its faults. It was shabby in parts and sooty; Its waterfront could have done with tidying up. It was shapeless and vast; but I loved it like a village. It was my home. It held my life like a cup.

Its sky-signs were my earliest constellations. My nursery rhymes were the legends of the town. I sang, ‘London’s burning, London’s burning’. I sang, ‘London Bridge is falling down’.

I learned to walk and talk there. By its times, its spaces, Are measured forever my thoughts of space and time. 100 yards is the length of the Square Garden; An hour is Big Ben’s chime to Big Ben’s chime.

Its seasons are my seasons. For me the winter Is the sound of a mufin bell through the gathering dark; And spring, for me is neither a lamb nor a primrose, But a crocus down by the lake in St James’s Park.

Summer’s the smell and the feel of hot asphalt, With Costers selling geraniums down the street; Autumn for me, is a bonire in Kensington Gardens, And the rustle of plane leaves over the children’s feet.

It is peaceful here. Yet here, where maple and sumach cut unfamiliar patterns on a moonlit sky, I am a citizen still of the same city; I feel its houses crumble and its people die!

Heavy at heart, I lie awake at midnight, And hear a voice, ive hours nearer the sun, Speaking across the ether, from a grim day break, Calmly reciting what the night has done.

I think ‘London’s burning, London’s burning’ I think ‘London Bridge is falling down’. Then something wiser than thought says, ‘Heart, take comfort; buildings and bridges do not make a town’.

‘A city is greater than its bricks and mortar; It is greater than tower or palace, church or hall: A city’s as great as the little people that live there. You know those people. How can London fall?’

104 December 6th 1944 - I dreamt last night that I came home, that is I arrived at a station I did not know and there was Naka, and I kept repeating ‘das uh das erlebe das eih das erlebe’ and words cannot describe the joy of it, and suddenly there was also my father, who hugged me, just as he always used to and then there was a German oficer who came and shook hands with me and I wanted to say ‘I am British’ but somehow said nothing and thought a lot, that dream stays with me, somehow. Gabriele Rohde came today and brought Captain Flemming Junker, from Overgaard who is a member of the Danish underground movement and has escaped and come here. He told me 10 Gestapo men were looking for him for 3 weeks, but he escaped. Dificult to hide as he is 6’6’’. He says things are not too bad at home and Trolleborg alright, please God it were true, and please God this little book here was resting in the archives there, peaceful, mildewed, and never read by anybody, like the rest of all the diaries there. I have tried to put all my love for the old place, and for my darlings there into it, and surely that will not mildew. Nor ever be unproductive and useless. Sometimes I feel that coming generations must feel it and that it will bless them. Love, real love is elastic, it stretches into eternity, it is eternal, part of that oneness to which we all belong. We are in Ravenna today, I do so hope Guidarello Guidarelli is safe, that statue we all love. I have a photo of it in my bedroom, and look at that peaceful, sorrowful face that so inspired my mother, and think of her, and him, and Italy, and wish and wish that peace can come to us all, out of that great sorrow called war. The German prisoners of war here, are now having their own broadcasting hour and the things they tell us do not bear writing down. What the Nazis have been doing to the Germans has haunted me, ever since I heard it, I can only think ‘they are mad’ but even that cannot help much, and I cannot understand that the man who told us these things, and had to help with the doing of them, has survived all that. I think I would have gone berserk and charged those S.S. people. I hope I would have anyhow. I know Naka would. We are in Saarlantern, Saarlouis and near Saarbrücken, I wonder if the Germans are now removing all the signposts from the roads and all the names from the houses and stations, it makes life dificult to get about, certainly.

105

January 9th 1945 - to think this is our 6th year of war! And last September we hoped we should be home for Christmas! Instead of that General Rundstedt is all over the Western front and nearly got as far as Liege, and also quite a bit into France and Luxembourg! We all felt pretty cheerless. How, with all our bombing, he managed to get all the tanks and war material to the front line, seems to puzzle everybody. And there was gloom in England and America all these weeks. Now things look a little better, but we dare not be optimistic any more.

106 I think there has been too much debating of what to do with Germany after the war and not enough concentration on the battle in hand, and so it got out of hand, so to speak. Also people are certainly a little war weary, and no wonder. They are also very, very V2 and V1 weary. Just now I heard an awful ‘bang’ quite near. Benika, Christian and Pat came for Christmas, which was lovely, and next month they are going back to Coneyhurst, if Pat can get a transfer. I am also going to Coneyhurst to look after Benika, she must not be allowed to do much just now. Not that I think she would try, she seems very quiet.

The Queen of Holland sent for me, just before Christmas and I went to Maidenhead to see her. I tried to interest her in the G.I.S. going to Holland, but she was much more interested in how I got out of Denmark. She was miserable about Holland! She showed me a piece of bread, not quite as large as the palm of my hand, and told me that was all a number of people over there had to eat for a whole day. She had tears in her eyes when she spoke of it. At the time when we were advancing rapidly in Belgium they had sent for Prinsesse Juliana to come here and be ready to go home, but as to yet they are here, and likely to stay sometime still. She seems nice and cheerful. The Queen wanted to know as much as possible about our King and Queen at home, but I had a little news. I dare not write home much. I am so afraid to make the Nazi realise that Naka has a sister in England. It is snowing, a white world, at last, after one of the coldest months I have known here or anywhere. It looks lovely, but we feel sorry for our troops and pilots, having to ight so hard in this cold and frost and misery. They are also having very heavy losses. Lithgow Osborne has been appointed Ambassador to the King of Norway and he and Lillia have come over here just before Christmas. A little premature I feel, just like poor Juliana. Now they are waiting to go to Oslo, which Lillia still calls Christiania! She is just the same inside, but outside looks both like her father and mother and like the Billes. They came here last weekend, most cosy. We all went to see the new Bishop of St Albans enthronement in that lovely Cathedral. It was a beautiful ceremony. I felt I had suddenly shed several centuries and was back in the middle ages, and I was enjoying this very much, when I heard the purr of a cinema machine, and came suddenly back into modern times, war and aeroplanes ahead! The singing was lovely and so were the costumes, but we all felt that it was very much like a Roman Catholic ceremony. At least Lillia and Lithgow and I did. There was no incense, but otherwise it seemed to me much the same. But I am used to a much more austere church and bishops in black and top hats. No mitres or whatever it is called.

January 12th 1945 - still snow and cold. There is a robin at Ayot in the stationmaster’s room. It lies in and out and feeds out of his hand. If we were to leave our windows open here I am sure the tits would come in also. They are very tame now. The war is a little better, we are getting the better of Rundstedt. Perhaps this is just as important a time of the war as the Battle of Britain was. We did not know it then, and it may be the same now. Time becomes only history when it is over. The Russians are getting on in Pest, or is it Buda, and there seems a little hope of peace in Athens. All around us Kings and Governments are declaring they will resign or have plebiscites as soon as their countries have been liberated. I don’t wonder. I should wonder if any people, except Holland and Norway would want their Kings or Governments back from here after having got free without them. Somehow it seems to me we are all further from real democracy than we have ever been and further, oh so much further from brotherly love, or any love. I am so afraid it may all again be like after the last war. When all the ideals ended in fear and ‘safety irst’.

107 I suppose it is human, but we ought to be bigger than that this time. Still there could hardly be anything better than Wilson’s 14 points, if we had kept them. There’s nothing sadder than ‘sic transit gloria mundi’. If only there were not so much ignorance about, ignorance which as usual thinks it knows everything and can do everything. The self-conidence of the half educated is something amazing. How sad one would be if one did not know that ‘the government is on God’s shoulders’. But somehow we always feel that we must ‘build Jerusalem’ instead of realising that it is all there and inished ‘foursquare’ and ours all.

January 13th 1945 - a truce has been signed in Athens this morning, may there be peace now. That is a horrible legacy the Germans leave behind, suspicion and distrust, which like poison they spread everywhere. And even this country is not quite immune. I think Roosevelt is going to be such a blessing to the world because he is not infected and is wise and Christian. And perhaps he will be more fortunate than Wilson with his people. We now are having trouble with the King of Yugoslavia, Peter, who will not do as they want to do. I think he will be one of many - rulers like ruling – why, heaven only knows. After this war it would seem to me that if I had a crown I should gladly put it into the hands of my people, to places where they would see it.

January 18th 1945 - The Russians have taken Warsaw!! At last and also Czenstckava and I heard a BBC commentator say: ‘the only serious obstacle between the Russians and Germany is the Oder’. Somehow it made my thoughts go to my father, and a sweet little box he once gave me, made in Oppeln. He was so proud of it, and always kept saying ‘don’t you think it’s quite good for a little town like Oppeln’, and now this little town will be frontline in a day or two, and I am grateful that my father is dead, and he has been spared the worst of all deals for a patriot, the one to be ashamed of one’s country. How he would have been miserable and furious, and most probably in a concentration camp, like almost all decent Germans. A letter from Naka, from December 23rd, they are all well, thank God, and she does not say a word about the Germans having Trolleborg, but she says Pits son is dead. I suppose killed in the war, and the aunts still alive. What must they feel like poor dears, I can only pray that Pappenheim may be spared the bombing. Poor Ljuta, her only son, I know what it is like. A letter from Naka is my greatest joy, and I carried it about with me for weeks and read and read it, Oh God keep her and bless her!

January 19th 1945 - the Russians are going on, like a steam roller! Kraków is taken and Lodz, and nearly all of Budapest! And they are going nearer and nearer to Germany. I am now, while writing, listening to a Danish Quisling on the Kalundborg radio saying Europe’s ‘culture’ is in the balance!! Nazi culture if it could be called that maybe. But real European ‘culture’ never. How awful it must be for the people at home to listen to such a broadcast or perhaps they do not listen. I hope they don’t.

January 22th 1945 - the Russians had taken Tannenberg, the place where Hindenberg defeated them in 1914 and where he lies buried, and surely has one of these horrible German monuments like Bismarck has in Denmark. I shall never forget Hitler’s funeral oration at Hindenberg’s burial, which ended ‘Alter Kampfer ziete ein in Walhall’. Walhall indeed! I wonder if Stalin makes Hitler think of Valhal now? Yesterday Mrs Thornton came to tea with a young Dane, Martin, already come from Denmark nine months ago.

108 I said to him, “det bliver vanskeligt naar vi kommer hjem at vide hvem der var Nazis og hvem der var Dansk?” “Ak nei” sagde han “til den tid vi kommer hjem er alle tyskvenlige enten ud af Landet eller I Zoologisk Have”.

January 24th 1945 - the Russians have become the old steam roller from 1914 and today Oppeln is frontline, also Breslau, Posen Königsberg. We, the West front are still taking St. Vit, we have been taking St. Vit for Vits, I mean weeks. A little gentle stream rolling in the West also would be a relief. I should hate it if we met the Russians in Cologne. All these Russian Generals are having a ‘Blitzkrieg’ now, Kalundborg said not a word about the East front today, except that the Germans have taken some ground near Budapest, they have lost most of the industrial part of Obershlesien, which is cut off. Gross Strelitz is in Russian hands, I wonder how Nowak feels, I wonder how Curt feels. I know how I feel, very, very grateful my father is not alive, as he would mind, and hoping they will soon get to Birnbaum and the war be over. There is an old Danish prophecy the war will be over when it gets to Birnbaum. Birnbaum is on the line from Posen to Berlin and is now called Miadzzchod. I hope we shall soon have an ‘order of the day’ from Stalin about it. They say Hitler himself is in command, that is a blessing!

January 24th 1945 - Oppeln is in Russian hands and they are 4 miles from Breslau and attacking Posen. Also Gleivitz and on the way to Königsberg. I wonder how much longer the Nazis will stand it! Colder here than ever. And we have to save electricity! Two very loud explosions from V2 very near. Horrible way of warfare, and I wonder why they think it helps them if they kill every man, woman and child around and in London. All the others will ight on until Nazism and all its evil is destroyed. That is the job we took upon us in 1938 and it will be completed. Mrs Anderson’s (my char) sister was in bed when a V2 fell in her back garden, her two houses are ‘lat’ but she was unhurt in bed, with the wall on her. It just shows what a good place bed is, always.

January 28th 1945 - the Russians have now become like the lava the Germans were in 1940 and cannot be stopped. They are today only 90 miles from Berlin and we all wonder how long they can keep it up. Their supply lines must be tremendous. They are also ighting in the outskirts of Breslau, Posen, Thorn and Königsberg. We, or rather Monty, have ironed out the Rundstedt bulge in the Ardennes and are now as we were before the German Christmas offensive. We had a G.I.S. exercise in London yesterday. It was supposed to take place in Switzerland and quantities of refugees were coming over the border, and the volunteers for our next G.I.S. team were to cope with them. All they had was an empty school and Mrs Harker and me. I was the Marcheas Chioggia di Sopramonte and Mrs Harker was the matron of my children’s hospital. She could only speak a little French and I only Italian and a very little German. We had a lovely time, Mrs Harker and I, we absolutely did not understand and talked and talked to them volubly. There was a lovely moment when Mrs Harker mixed up the ‘matelas’ with the ‘matelot’, how we managed not to laugh I don’t know! The girls were charming, so nice and patient and resourceful. But the Germans bombed our exercise house and that was that, but nobody was hurt. We have a lovely letter from our irst team in. I put it into this diary, it is, as Miss Ward says: ‘a dream come true. (Editor’s note: Letter missing)

January 29th 1945 - today for the irst time the BBC mentioned that the Russians are on the way to ‘Birnbaum’. Oh may your prophecy come true, Jomfru - whatever your name was.

109 It would be wonderful beyond expression, 6 years of this war almost and 5 years of exile. And 5 years where one never felt safe. Bombs, Doodlebugs, V2’s, always something coming over here. Some very near V2’s the day before yesterday! On Saturday I went from Finsbury Park by tube to Piccadilly, and had a long run and in the tube I suddenly realized that I was safe from V2’s, it felt very nice. Not that I think of them very much, except when I hear them, and somehow I never fear them or think we shall be hit. But it will be a lovely feeling when it is over. They are truly horrible and barbarous, and how they can ever be of any value in a military way beats me. They certainly will not terrorise the British people! It only makes them angry and will make peace conditions more dificult for the Germans. There is some bother with King Peter of Yugoslavia and Tito. The BBC mentions it, but nobody pays much attention, we are much too busy with the war news. Poland seems now to be cleared of Germans, and I feel like Benika “Ikke mere ‘natchtlockiges weib’”.

January 30th 1945 - January 30th! 12 years today since the “Machtergreifung” day as the German meaning is, Hitler seized the power. And so began the thousand years ‘Reich’ for Germany and it lasted just 12 years, and what has it done to Germany, to Europe, the world? Hitler has heaped shame on the name of every German, all the German youth corrupted, mad with insane self glory, and the word, and promise, the treaty of a German who will dare to believe in them for years and years to come. How can one ever look at the German without remembering Lidice, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London? And the endless suffering they have caused to endless peoples. ‘Hitler will not speak today’ says a German broadcast, and indeed what could you say, except ‘mea culpa mea maxima culpa’ and those poor duped, mad, mesmerised Germans who dared not disobey him, who became criminals at his bidding, laying aside all human feelings and decency, what must they think today of their thousand years reign of glory for the Germans and for the Germans only, no outsiders admitted. Twelve years are not much in a thousand, and today that ‘Reich’ is nearer destruction than any country has ever been in all the history of the world. I am sorry for the Germans leeing before the Russians in these icy cold winter days, I cannot help being sorry, even thinking how the German wireless gloated over the French, the Dutch, the Belgian, the Greek, the Polish, the Russian refugees and how the Luftwaffe lew low over the crowded roads bombing the civilians over and over again. I wonder do these Germans now remember those broadcasts and the mills of God. Nobody here is surprised that Hitler will not speak today. Our soldiers have made themselves banners with the words ‘Welcome Ivan’. They took some tiny German village yesterday on the West front, but all the Ivan banners were on the tanks. They take no chances of Ivan missing his welcome. I suppose if things keep moving the way they have done hitherto we shall probably meet Ivan on the Hohenzollern bridge in Cologne.

February 20th 1945 - We have been reclaiming Coneyhurst, Pat and I, and Benika, it was much more dirty then can be described, almost heartbreaking. I cannot think how a woman could have lived in such dirt, and give parties! I am glad I never had a meal in the house while she was there. Pat and I worked like niggers for ive days when we had made a little impression and could begin to see the shine on things again. I cannot understand how people can live like that, after all dirt is not an accident, but to me it is a real sadness, and so tiring. The war is racing to its end, like a mad bull round the arena. The arena now is Germany and the Germans will soon be unable to retreat from one end to another as they are attacked from both sides, East and West, and soon South and North also, like the sea at Skagen. And all this misery for one man, who is not even a German and, when I heard him speak irst could not even speak educated German.

110 I think of all the dictators the world has had to suffer this was the worst one because he knows no honour. I had lunch at the Ritz with the Dutch Minister of Transport, Mr da Bagel, I wish one could get some food to Holland, they seem worse off now than ever, and U.N.R.A. powerless to help, over-organised already. We have so many organisations. U.N.R.A. – C.U.P.R.R.A. – S.H.E.F. - and many more. Organisation is the death sentence to individual initiative, but they all think they will do wonders. I have spent today in bed with a cold, and all the afternoon I have been listening to the gliders going over, something is going on in the Western Front! Every time they go over I pray they may land safely and return safely, and not be afraid, what a resolution to jump from a plane!!

It was lovely to see Pat and Benika arrive at their home again, after 5 years in 11 houses, they looked so happy, tea was made and they sat down and Pat said “we are here Benika” and their faces shone! Christian rushed round and claimed everything. I wanted to get some lowers but they did not need them, their hearts were all in lower. I have had a lovely home all the time, and although my heart aches and aches for Trolleborg I have had a home, while the poor things have had the most awful houses and most horrifying furniture. Specially at ‘Trecarn’, Willersley Road, Ashby de la Zouch, where I would hate to have even my photograph live. I think it was the worst place of all. They, Benika, Christian and Pat arrived in the dark at Coneyhurst, with 2 cars and 30 hens. The hens were in 3 boxes, and the bottom had come out of one of them. Pat and I carried them to the chicken house, with Benika holding a torch, always in the wrong direction. We waded knee deep in mud and could see nothing, but got them all settled and watered. Next morning we saw that there was a good dry path going to the henhouse. I pointed out to Pat that these operations would have been easier by daylight, but he said the Vauxhall would not start! Anyhow we were all so happy, nothing mattered. When we were over the worst dirt I went to Guide Headquarters, where we had a goodbye party for Dr Ross’s team, off to Holland. We fed 78 people, on tea, sandwiches and cake. I left early to catch my train to Guildford and in my hurry fell down the stairs and badly sprained my ankle and arm, but I was alone, picked myself up and limped on, very painful, but got my train and back to Coneyhurst. Next day I could not walk, but got right quick, realising that I live in God, that was lovely, and a help ever since. That was 2 weeks ago, and except for a slight swelling all is well.

February 25th 1945 - Anette rang up early Wednesday morning to say Victor had passed on suddenly in the night. He came into her room and said his breathing was dificult and then Anette said “it is asthma darling, I’ll get you a cup of tea”, and then he collapsed and was dead. Lovely for him and horrible for her. Carl went off at once, he went as pale as a sheet, I have never seen him look like that. Later he rang up and asked me to come too and I went to Virginia Water and found Anette very brave and very sad. Somehow real grief is always so digniied. Carl was busy with all arrangements, the funeral was to be the next day, and we had a nerve racking time because the registrar was away on holiday and the locum tenens could not be traced by us. At 10 a.m. we were still at Egham trying to ind him, and the funeral was to be at 11. And without the burial permit no burial. Our knees wobbled when at last we found a woman secretary, a Mrs Hulk from Frimley Green, but had she come from heaven we could not have been more grateful for her or to her as she arranged for the Parson to bury Victor. Curt had got a choir from London, boys and men with lovely voices, what a difference they made, we were only 12 or 14 in the little church and our singing would have been very thin.

111 They have an original Sexton at Virginia Water, Bertie and I went to have a look at the grave he was digging and stopped, talking to him, he was just as cheerful as the Sexton in Hamlet was gloomy. I thought of that scene in the play, and how different it was in real life when people were not morbid, but of course we were not great poets or great thinkers in plays, just common every day people not worried to display brains, or talk aphorisms. Home again and grateful for our Waterend. War is going as is announced ‘according to plan’. Whose plan I don’t know but both fronts are attacking iercely and the air offensive goes on night and day. This morning I heard that Frauchtlingen had been bombed and prayed for the aunts and all at Pappenheim. I wish not so many innocent had to suffer for the Nazi crimes. They are going to punish all ‘war criminals’ but will they ever get them? I hope they will, but I don’t much care, when the war is over I want peace, in our hearts, not only in our homes, hatred is worse than all bombs or war weapons.

March 5th 1945 - today Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower, gave a special communiqué to Denmark. He praised the way the Danish patriot movements were helping the Allies, I’m sure something will soon now start in Norway and Denmark! If only I could help. The American and British and Canadian armies are ighting in the outskirts of what was once Cologne. Also Duisberg, Düsseldorf and many more towns are under our shell ire. The Russians have taken Köslin which makes me think of my childhood when my mother thought it would make my mouth smaller to say “Ein Küster Küssta seine kleine Tochter welche auf einer Kiste, - an der Astseeküste unweit Köslin sass.” I said it faithfully but my mouth remained large. I never thought I should recall it in that way. The Russians are pushing towards Stettin and Berlin, we are moving on towards the Ruhr and the Germans are like a lemon in a press, squeezed from both sides, and why they ight on they alone know, or do they? They even have sent a few Doodlebugs and a few piloted planes over here. Nobody here is much worried about it. I suppose it is propaganda for Germany. The only thing that would bother us here would be the renewal of the blackout, which most people have made into other things, myself included! I was busy polishing the dining room table, when I heard a Doodlebug, it roared and rattled and shook the house and burst the doors open. I rushed outside, it is always a breathlessly anxious moment ‘will it land on your house’ but thank God it landed in a ield and did no harm. Horrible invention and more horrible that people say ‘the next war will be fought with that sort of weapon only’. The next war, and we are not over this one, and somebody said to me, I think it was the Swedish Ambassador ‘it will take at least 50 years to get over this war’. Pat told me today that Benika says her little girl is coming on the 25th. I would like her to come on 1st April, my mother’s birthday, and be like my mother. The twins next door look like frogs and are always crying. I suppose all babies that are not one’s own look like frogs, or worse, but do they always cry? Bertie says with the house shortage there should be a ban of 10 years on all babies!! It would help of course. But babies are lovely when they are grown up, nobody really does enjoy looking after them until they can see and talk and walk, but when they are grown it is a blessing to have them. But perhaps not quite so many would be peaceful. Specially here at Waterend where they are very noisy all summer. Other people’s children are no blessing.

March 6th 1945 - I am learning and studying about America, it is so common sense like and so vast. Big countries ought to make big people, many more than they seem to have. All their big men mostly seem to have become presidents, Lincoln was vast and Roosevelt has the same kind of patient wisdom. It is good for us Europeans to learn a little more about that big vast warm hearted generous people.

112 To know there are antecedents and ind out that Henry Clay was more than a cigar and that Plymouth Rock not only a breed of fowls. Perhaps we shall learn true democracy from them, and they will take home from us some traditions. Never, never will I cease to be grateful to America for what they did for us in 1940. We stood for what was right here, in this little island, but we had the right backing. The Russians have taken Stargard and Nargard and are all over Pommern and have cut off Danzig. We are ighting our way to the Rhine, and it is now not at all ‘Lieb Vaterland maget rulieg sein, fest steht undt trau die wacht am Rhein’. The ‘Lieb Vaterland’ must be having the most ‘unrulieg’ nights. Berlin has now been bombed 14 nights in succession, almost like London in the autumn of 1940, only the bombing is so much worse now. I am very busy trying to get Sweden to help Holland. I have written to the Guides and have offered to go and tell them all about what we did in Denmark after the last war. I don’t know how I can get to Sweden, but I suppose I can manage. There is always a way if you really want to help.

March 22nd 1945 - I have been to a lovely dinner party at the Dorchester, with Underground Danes, it was given by two men, Svend Treulsen and Fleming Junker. There were all the Danes who are not Legation. Princesse Margrethe (René), Vicker, Ingagerd in Wardens’ trousers and high spirits, a very nice Miss Graae who has just arrived from home and was suffering from jaundice and Gabriele Rhode. Men were, besides the hosts, Kialberg, Anke Petersen, Terkelsen, a nice Mr. Jacobsen from Aabenraa, Mr. Gallop and General Ewing. We settled that we want no quarrels in Denmark. I spent the night at the Dorchester, much disturbed by V.2’s. Now I am at Coneyhurst, waiting for the baby, lovely here, spring and Benika very well. Also she has got a nanny, a quite wonderful cook and a nice daily. So we do nothing at all. You walk on primroses here and no V’s, and the war news could not be better, we are very much on our last lap I should say. I am sure Naka would say “die Arbeiter auf dem Gotehardt Tunnel reichen sieb die Händ”, which means we and the Russians are getting nearer and nearer to each other. Somebody told me Monty was going to Denmark. I pray it’s true and that he gets there quickly and before there is time for much ighting. Personally I should think he would make for a Hamburg and cut off the Germans in Holland. And the V. bombs too. Pearl’s baby was blown over by a V.2 yesterday, but it is alright.

March 26th 1945 - no baby born yet, and the White Ensign is lying over the Rhine for the irst time in history. The Navy is in this last ight too. So is Churchill who is also over the Rhine, and nearly got killed by a shell. Montgomery says battle is going beyond all expectations. Darmstadt is taken and Patton is over the Main. I wonder what will come irst, peace in Europe, or our baby! I had a letter from Naka, bless her, she says all is well, but she would always say that. I know, from the Underground that Trolleborg is alright. Junker said I might not ind them when I get home. I pray, I may ind Curt, very worried.

March 28th 1945 - Benika has started the baby, at least they say so but she has no pains and came down to lunch. Dr Pollock brought a ciné machine and showed us some lovely ilms and all the time we thought the baby might arrive during it all. The nurse says it’s a ‘painless labour’ but it does not seem much labour to me at all.

March 29th 1945 - still no baby, and poor Pat had to depart for Stourbridge this morning. Benika had a splendid night, better than the rest of us, nobody slept a wink, but thank God everything is alright, only a very ‘slow motion’ birth. I wonder what will come irst, victory or the baby.

113 March 30th 1945 - we are in Frankfurt, Duisberg, Wiesbaden and on the road to Münster, and the German retreat is becoming a rout. Monty is having another ‘security blackout’ so we shall hear great things soon. The Russians are not idle either, they have taken Gydinia and are in Austria. They have also taken Krappitz. Patriots at home have mined and burst up Langebro, trapping several German ships in the inside port. It must be horrible to be in Germany and feel like in an iron grip of war material. We are taking 1000 prisoners an hour, they seem to surrender wholesale, so should I, if I were there. Still no baby, it is Good Friday and I think Benika is keeping it back, until Easter. Good Friday is the day Christian died, perhaps that is why. To me there is never any special day, and he is not dead. But how I long for him. I sometimes wonder why people call the Virgin Mary, mater dolorosa, when her son was only dead 3 days, or rather in the tomb for 3 days. And she could never have thought that he was dead, with all he must have taught her, and saying ‘he who believeth in me shall never see death’. I wish the world would look upon death more as the ‘last enemy’, not to be submitted to, but like an enemy to be overcome and fought. And Good Friday would be a Good Friday indeed and Jesus the way shown.

April 1st 1945 - Easter Day and April 1st and I do so wish the baby would come today, as it is Easter Sunday and my mother’s, my dearly beloved mother’s birthday. And if the baby comes today and is a girl I feel she would be like her. Benika has a very nice old cook, by name Mrs Theissen, she is really Miss Theissen, but in England all cooks are Mrs. It makes a lovely sentence in Danish ‘Benika er hun gift eller er hun Mrs. fordi hun er Jomfru?’ She says ‘I suppose the baby will have to be called Averil’. I heard her yesterday open the door to ‘Mrs Mop’ and whispering to her ‘another blank’. She looks exactly like a picture in a card game we had as children. ‘Ente mit Pantoffeln’ and wears slippers too. Her food is unbelievably good for wartime, no war in Mrs T’s cooking. I wonder how she does it! The Sunday papers today talk as if the war in Europe was over. Monty is, heaven knows where. I think racing to meet Korsiew. Benika has a very nice nanny, she is married and her husband is Monty’s chauffeur. She told us that he was driving him in Germany when they drove over a mine, both the hind wheels of the car, a Jeep, were blown off. Monty never looked back but said: ‘carry on Hall’. Hall said: ‘I cannot Sir, we have no back to the Jeep’. The Russians have taken Danzig and the Polish lag lies over the old town. If one thinks that nearly 6 years ago Germany started the war because that same lag was in that same place, it seems so horrible to think how unnecessary it has all been.

April 8th 1945 - No V bombs, 1 or 2, for 10 days – It seems unbelievable. Monty is outside Bremen and I suppose Holland is cut off from the V weapon supply. What we all feel like is best expressed by A.P. Herbert in today’s Sunday paper.

“Southern Counties” No bombs at night? No terror in the air? No neighbours dead, or buried, in the dawn? No quaking vigils underneath the stair, (forgive us, Western counties, if you yawn) It is ive years since we were sure of sleep, Or dared to swear we’d see another day. Five years of fears and houses in a heap. This is a thing no other place can say.

114

April 9th 1945 - we have been in Westminster Abbey today for ‘A solemn service of intercession for the suffering peoples of Norway and Denmark’. It lasted one and a half hours and was beautiful. I shall never forget the sight of the Dannebrog being carried up the aisle and laid on the altar by the Dean of Westminster together with the Norwegian lag. We also had a beautiful sermon by the Bishop Arne Fjillbu, who said that this war had really made us brother nations. I was terribly sad, I had just heard that the Germans had murdered Lennert Ahlefeldt and Ludwig Reventlow. Lense, poor poor Lense. Last time I saw him was when I was going from Laaland to Copenhagen, which in May 1940 took about 10 hours. He got into my carriage at Næstved in his uniform, he was stationed Næstved. We talked a little while and then he went out and returned in mufti, “why have you changed Lennert?” I asked “oh aunt Lucie” he replied “I am so ashamed of wearing my uniform”. I could understand him, but he need not be ashamed now. I hardly dared tell Benika when I came back, but she said, what I felt also: “I am glad some of us also are being murdered for Denmark and not only Petersens and Hansens.

115 We had a reception at the Dorchester after the service, but I cannot bear Christmas Møller’s ‘selvglade’ speeches any more, so I did not go.

April 11th 1945 - G.I.S. committee meeting and we were all electriied by the sudden arrival by plane from Holland of Dr Ross on 48 hours leave. She had come to tell us that she had been given charge of the greatest experimental hospital for Europe, in a place not yet liberated, some honour for her and G.I.S. When I said goodbye to her she said: “Will you come with me as interpreter?” Now I don’t know what to do. Will the Danish partisans really use me to go home, as arranged, or shall I go to Shaef, or stay with Bertie? It will all have to be decided pretty quick. But Denmark comes irst, as all I am and have belongs to ighting Denmark. General Scoby has written about our Guides in Greece ‘your Guides are doing excellent work, can you send some more?’ Their address is now only ‘Guides International Service, Greece’. We are bursting with pride, but we know what ine women they were.

Roosevelt is dead. I heard the news on the Norwegian broadcast this morning and felt petriied. I don’t think America will ever have a more wise and farseeing statesman, a more warmhearted, generous ally. The world is mourning the biggest man of this war, how big even now few people realise, but history will give him the fame and honour he so richly deserves. What this country owes him is also history, and what every free, Nazi free, human being owes him, will be told from one generation to another and free men all over the world will bless him.

Tragic that he should have to go just as complete victory seems within our grasp. But he is beyond war and peace and patriotism now.

‘He has outsourced the shadow of our night Envy and calumny and hate and pain And that unrest, which man miscall delight Can touch him not and torture not again. He has awakened from the dream of life. Dust to the dust, but the pure spirit shall low Back to the burning fountain whence it came A portion of the eternal. Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot’.

April 17th 1945 - Benika has had a boy this morning early, just as easy, but not so comfortable as Christian who was a C.S. baby, without fuss. I shall never forget the doctor then, who said to me: ‘your daughter feels no pain’. This time they expected her to have some pain and she had ive pains. New baby is lovely, called Gavin Preben, I still have not quite forgiven him for not being a girl, but almost, he looks so intelligent! He weighs 8¾ lbs. and is well made and fat. He is my grandson number eight. Quite a record since 1937. I think that is enough now somebody told me that if people kept on breeding the way they are doing now, there will in 150 years only be standing room for all of us. There won’t be houses for them certainly, not even ‘prefabricated ones’.

April 29th 1945 - Himmler has offered unconditional surrender to America and G.B. Of course this has been rejected, but it is a beginning. Anyhow it will not be long now.

116 The Russians have got 4/5 of Berlin and the Russian lag is over the Reichstag. Himmler said Hitler would not live 48 hours after the surrender.

Mussolini is dead, he tried to escape to Switzerland, and was killed by patriots, his body was publicly exposed in one big square of Milan where he had caused 12 guerrillas to be shot earlier in the year. We are in Verona, Venice, Milano, Genoa, Corino and Padua. The Italian army is crumbling and disintegrated. Monty has Bremen and is advancing towards Lübeck. Denmark? Oh my God, let the Germans surrender before there is any ighting at home.

What soldiers ind of horrors in the German concentration camps is beyond all description. How could all Germany know this, and do nothing, how could the world? Thank God these horrors manifest that our ight has not being in vain. History will tell these atrocities to posterity, I cannot write about them, I cannot sleep nor eat thinking about them.

May 1st 1945 - Count Bernadotte has had a conference with Himmler again, and we are all waiting, with bated breath, for the result. If the Germans want any towns left, they should surrender now, otherwise the destruction goes on! The Americans have got Munich, and on the war maps, very little of Germany is left unoccupied.

We have no more blackout, oh so lovely! And I hardly know whether I am still a warden or not! It is bitterly cold, frost every night but nothing matters now that the war is drawing to a close. Lithgow and Lillie have been here for a weekend, very cosy, they still have not found Anders or Frants. Eduard knows where they are but he is mysterious about it.

May 2nd 1945 - Hitler is dead, at least they say so, and Admiral Doenitz is his successor. Everybody wonders if this is true or a ruse, if he is dead, or hidden, or has died ages ago. Anyhow the war is lost and Nazism dead and all the horrors of Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwalde etc, will condemn and judge the ‘party’. As to us, it is “Judge not”. If we ever are going to be Christians we had better begin at once and now.

Doenitz said: ‘the war is to go on’. I suppose until all Germany is conquered. I pity the poor people who knew nothing, were told nothing, ruled with an iron rod, worked like niggers - suffer the destruction of their country and are a debased nation because of the cruelties of that man in whom they put a much misplaced trust. Papers say: ‘Nazis quitting Denmark’ but the papers say so much. I pray that it may be true.

Teach me the way. This moving poem, expressing the innermost thoughts of a Canadian pilot, killed in a lying accident, was found in his billet after his death.

He was lying Oficer E.R. Davey. This poem was in his own handwriting and bore his signature.

Almighty and all present power, Short is the prayer I make to Thee I do not ask, in battle hour For any shield to cover me.

117 The vast, unalterable way, From which the stars do not depart, May not be turned aside to stay The bullet lying to my heart.

I ask no help to strike my foe I seek no petty victory here The enemy I hate, I know To Thee is dear.

But this I pray, be at my side When death is drawing through the sky Almighty Lord, who also died Teach me the way that I should die.

May 4th 1945 - The Germans in Denmark and Holland have surrendered unconditionally at 6 p.m. today.

I have listened to this news on my knees, and I am writing this on my knees. ‘When our perils are past shall our gratitude sleep? No, here’s to the pilot that weathered the storm!’ I am thinking of all them that died that Denmark may live – ‘the lads that died in their glory and will never be old’. And my soul doth magnify the Lord.

Germany has surrendered, all over, and the war in Europe is all over. One can hardly believe it yet, or realise, V.E. day is Tuesday or Wednesday. I went to bed Monday night and there was so much shooting and illumination that I sat up in bed and was just going to don my warden’s suit and go out, when I realized it was celebrations and thanked God. My telephone has been going all day and long into the night with people saying how glad they are about Denmark. And a wire from Be and John ‘Hope to see you soon in Denmark’. We have all our lags out. One Dannebrog and two Jacks and there are lags everywhere and bonires and people wild with joy, and some with heavy hearts also. London has let itself go at celebrations and so it seems has New York. We stayed quietly and thankfully at home, and saw nothing but listened in a lot, so glad and grateful. I also heard Kong Christian speak, and our Monty in Copenhagen. He had a great welcome. Fleming Junker and Gabriele Rhode are married. I went to London and took them a little present, he wants me to get to København as soon as possible. He went Tuesday with messages to Naka and a letter to the authorities, and now I hope General D. Ewing will ask for me. I’m getting a G.I.S. uniform and have been vaccinated and inoculated all over. I have offered Trolleborg to the army, speak Monty and they have accepted it. I have written a letter to Paul Leo and taken it myself to the Foreign Ofice the day before Germany surrendered. I wonder if they are there already, and I wonder if I can stay there, it is like a dream the thought of home now. I asked the Post Ofice if I can send a wire to Denmark but ‘not yet’.

May 13th 1945 - we had ‘Thanksgiving Sunday’ today and all went on our last wardens’ parade. I went feeling rather bad with my inoculations, but I went. The little church was more than full, and such joyful singing.

118 Editor’s note. A loose leaf in the diary.

I sat next to General D. Ewing and he told me that he was going to Denmark, ‘if the Russians did not arrive there irst’. I was horriied and said “the Russians must not arrive there irst”. He could not see why, but I was so irm and constant, that he gave me his word to do all in his power not to let the Russians go to Denmark. To make quite sure I took him to a map of the world hung in the hotel, and showed him exactly where Denmark was, he gave me his word in the end. I felt I had done something for Denmark.

I hear Ditlev Reventlow has arrived in London. He has been ‘Underground press’. I am glad, oh I am glad and hope there will be more! Had lunch with Lillie who told me Anders Lassen was killed just before the end of the war in Italy, poor Suzanne, it’s so hard just when it’s all over. Always when one rejoices one remembers all the sadness and horrors, shall we ever be able to build that ‘new Jerusalem, in every green and pleasant land’. God help us do it, it is His.

End of war in Europe. May 1945

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