THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 8, 1941.
CHINA MAIL
WINDSOR HOUSE
SPRING: 1941
For most people in this world Spring has tender associations. For Adolf Hitler it is otherwise. To him, when the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces, when the Red Gods make their medicine
anew, another sort of im- pulse comes. The sap of empire rises in him. He must break another pro- mise, commit another treachery, destroy Some nation's liberty.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that he has in- vaded Greece and Yugo- slavia-two small coun tries that have given him no offence, unless it is the unforgivable offence of re- fusing meek submission to dishonour and slavery. Men, women and children in both countries will die because of what Spring, the time of blossoming, the season of tenderness and hope, means to Hitler and what he has made it mean to the German tion.
Yat
Our
children
ITALT
spent
Yesterday the fourteen hours in their ar ruid
na-shelter a deep dug-out in the bank where the primroses come up each year, fitted with wooden bunks. Poor brats, it's demoralis ing for them. Five o'clock has
THE
BALKANS
Fage 71
A sufficient quantity of MILK daily is
necessary for maintenance health & energy
of
DAIRY
FARM
MILK
the
NAZIS
is milk, in its most
BULL AT THE GATE
Sheltered
Lives
their
kle the cabbage bed, and. work done, they slip away, spades over their shoulders waving aside our thanks. Violet and I feel elated at having pit out nine We bombs between us and then think of our own house and rush
100m
But Hitler has not con- quered Spring. No Fifthecome the peak period of our it isn't until hours later when I'm upstairs to find a top floor Column betrays the inex-day. orable processes of Nat- Evening and the day's work
ure. There will be a sea- son for Hitler upon which he cannot trample. It has 'happened before in the Balkans that when the snows melted liberty flam- ed and when the last gun has been fired, the event may show that even at this moment Hitler has begun something he can- not finish, that he has set in motion the plough- share that will turn his evil system under.
|
is
Relax. Draw the curtains
yesterday.
in my bath that I am able to cry out triumphantly "custard"!
the
burning furiously.
Now it's conie and we aren't doing anything. nothing that the patient Government has been
in the dark for all the electric lights have fused and the telephone has gone too. We have nothing ready (so silly, because, of course, they won't come here) no candles or matches handy, the batteries have all run down in the torches, whera are the gas masks? and this is the first night we didn't fill the bath, just in case.
and I bump into each other
In the early days of the Blitz Stoke up the fire. Pass the but the frequent alerts affected me telling us to do for months. Violet tered toast No, no. That belongs odd ways, tom. I'd begin franti- To-day. hark!cally to pick up matches, empty There's Meaning Minnie cartier¦ash-trays, re-arrange furniture, than usual Has everyone reput cushions straight while an membered that black-out time xious faces would peer from gets carher unch day, too? Get doorway of the dug-out and fin- the children into the shelter. Mind gers beckon wildiy the light when you open the door. mendiary bomb came woullen sen suits over pyjamas" snoods? tell them we'll have tea in the dug-out for a treat if there's any methylated spirit left for the stove. Over you go. How are we to make their sheltered lives
Got your torrhes" rubber boo's"
endurable?
make
All day I've worked the dug-out "homey." Books. A picture or two. A little rug. A
When one
clown
By Phillida Hughes
Violet,
turns
the
We go out into the din, because by this time hell is let loose over- head, and cry fire! fire! until an elderly neighbour appears and hurries down the steps and up the stairs and is soon tackling the fire with soda water syphons be- cause Violet and I are incapable portable radio. I call Violet to mile away, and sent the roofs of of finding jugs or even knowing see the improvements but Violet, workmen's cottages flying, I was where they are kept. By this On all sides in the Bal-who's been depressed because her to be seen running upstairs rag time a diminutive lady air-raid sniffs in hand to clean the bath. But Warden has arrived with the kans, he is surrounded Christmas mail was late,
and says it's just another room to that has passed, and now when Auxiliary Fire Fighting Service at either by subjugated and keep tidy, isn't it, and younger the Blitz begins, and the man of her heels. Go to it, lads", she
approving hostile nations who wait daughter, while
the the the house has got into his Home cries and they plunge into emergency supplies of candy and Guard uniform and slipped out smoke. Have you a ladder? get only for a favourable mo- biscuits upon which they make into the dark, we join the child- ús some flour then. The fire fight- ment to shake the neo- an immediate assault directly the ren in the shelter and have singers look about eight teet tall in anti-aircraft guns start firing songs. We're all uncomfortable | their Gary Cooper boots and faces slavery from their should- says, "Won't it be lovely when we, and would rather be back in the gray with smoke. I keep running ers and restore their in-can go upstairs to bed?"
house and take a chance but it out through the barrage to see if Isn't fair to the children to keep the children are alright. They are. dependent existence, or All this week the guns have by countries like Soviet been affecting me strangely. Find them in the dug-out if we're not Oh, God! they are.
The children
When I come back the fire is it impossible to say certain words. there ourselves.
has Russia and Turkey, who Violet is no help whatever and blink through the smoke, A burly out and the lady Warden
The if they have not yet mov-only stares helplessly when I ask Canadian soldier passes and puts dashed away to the next. tallest fire fighter, who her to put the "you know what" his head round the door. ed in support of stricken on for tea, Am quite able to get wearing her tin hat rather fetch out to be a middle-aged business Yugoslavia, are undis-out words like "spout" and "lid" ngly on the back of her head, man, says he only got off
business train at 7.45 and was in guisedly sympathetic and kettle before she jumps to it. The the barrage and the falling shrap- that he has spoilt his best suit by but am obliged to draw picture of goes backwards and forwards to
the house through the din and his uniform by eight o'clock and may yet provide Adolf patient
family
The Can-falling flat in our garden as a Hitler with a sharp shock. trades-people think I'm playing adian leans against the wall which high explosive whistled overhead ΠΟ allowance for Moreover, if Hitler has some new kind of game. "Wouff, is still damp (far more danger and he gets
ous inside the dug-out that out-clothes, not even for his tin hat struck, he has this time wouft," goes our little pet
side says Violet who is rheumat which he had to buy himself. I down the road which sounds as
and sings the raise my eyebrows and click my been unable to develop de- though it is hidden in the winter ism-conscious) ception and intrigue to jasmine outside the drawing-room songs of the last war which his tongue sympathetically talk and
window, and I hear myself asking father taught him before he came it's still too noisy to
amidst the smell of charred wood, the stage where invasion the butcher for two pounds of er... over. We make merry..
flour. Crack! There's a noise like an and the mess of water and finds his intended victims little red and white things. But-
cher stares. Violet stares, mouth express train coming towards us and the thick gray powder the unprepared. Not only are open. Try again. Little er and then the sound of falling bombs give out we offer them our
A Molotov Breadbasket,last drop of gin which they re Greece and Yugoslavia red, moist things, you know, cut coals.
lets! Whoops! Burr! goes our Incendiary bombs! We run out fuse. So we make coffee and sit- fully mobilised, but a big gun, pride of the neighbour into the garden and that and the on the stairs drinking it powerful British army is hood, echoing over the hills like roadway beyond are dazzling with laughing like mad because already on Balkan soil. a summer storm and I find it im- green and orange light. The childhome is safe.
possible to either say or pantom-rens' faces appear at the dug-out I tiptoe over to the dug-out. Hitler may achieve his ime the word "custard". Violet door. May they help? We have "Mind the light," says my elder younger. early successes, but the stands and gazes at me, head on them back. We bang hard at the daughter kindly. The
-one side. Can only cry bleakly fire bombs which glow flercer and child turns a page of her book, completion of the task that it's thick, yellow stuff brighter as we bang them. There looks up and smiles, and returns
eat with is a firework display all over the to her book. may well try him beyond pour from a jug
We give up and garden. Two perfect strangers I go over again. apple pie. his worst expectations. have our ple without custard and come in to help and silently tac- They are fast asleep.
attention of my only makes me worse, and the
gun
nel to fetch hot cocoa.
because
beneficial, form
THE
It's Fresh from the Farm. It s still Fresh when you get it.
Pasteuriset
Cenified 1. B. Free. Every book inchvidual- ly sealed.
THESE FACTS MAKE.
DAIRY FARM
MILK
WHAT IT IS
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andl
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