THE DAY WAR BROKE OUT . .
William Deedes remembers
the easy-going, if chaotic period of the Phoney War
UNLIKE many people of the war genera- tion, I do not remember precisely where I was or what I was doing on Sunday morning, 3 September 1939, when the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, told us on the wireless that we were at war. This is probably because I had already moved out of a familiar environment, where one remembers these things, into an unfamiliar one. The Territorial Army had been called upon to join the colours a few days earlier.
What I do recall vividly is the sudden awareness that the strands of my life had been taken out of my grasp and handed over, like reins, to somebody else. The army is designed to convey that impression to its initiates. And years later, when the war in Europe had been won, I recall just the same sensation but, far more alarming- ly, in reverse.
But on that morning we must all have been in or around Buckingham Gate, off Victoria Street, where the Queen's West- minsters and the London Rifle Brigade and others kept their headquarters and their drill halls. We had been living there uneasily, in a sort of no man's time between peace and war, during the last days of August.
Everyone except the Orderly Officer was free to push off in the evening to his club, a cinema or a night spot. On one of those late August evenings I suggested to a brother officer that we walk across St James's Park to my club in Pall Mall for a meal. Outside the front entrance we en- countered Sir Thomas Inskip, who was then Minister for War and whom I had known when I was a lobby correspondent. 'It all depends on one man,' he said gravely. We went into the Junior Carlton for dinner feeling very well informed.
The only other familiar face I saw from the old days was that of A. G. Macdon- nell, author of the classic, England, Their England. We had become acquainted at Westminster after the Guardian had re- cruited him to write a parliamentary sketch for them in the mid-1930s---- the first thing of its kind — which had created a sensation in the House of Commons. Now he was emerging for duty in an air raid warden's hat from his flat just behind our headquar-
ters. He told me he thought it was all too much; and so, alas, it proved to be for him.
Neville Chamberlain's broadcast ended that short phase of our lives. Now the talk was of VPs, otherwise vulnerable points, and of their protection. It cannot have been long after Chamberlain had spoken that I was called upon to take my platoon to a west London railway bridge and defy the enemy from there.
We were tremendously ill-equipped. There was a problem about greatcoats, which were not available. Sentries in the chilly hours eventually wore stuff made for London bus drivers. We were also, it goes without saying, singularly ill-disciplined. One of my Fleet Street friends, Lord Killanin, had hit on the bright idea earlier that year of forming a rifle company for the new 2nd Battalion Queen's Westminsters out of journalists and actors. Because most of us worked in the evening, our company drills were in the morning. For that reason we had to be kept together.
One of my riflemen was Guy Middleton, who had recently been a great success in Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears. One evening, while inspecting the guard under the railway bridge, I found Middle- ton, rifle clutched between his knees, steel helmet on the back of his head, signing autographs. 'All in the line of duty, sir,' he said cheerily when I reproached him. What could you do with a man like that? You could hardly put him on a charge. There was also Hugh Williams, who had been appearing in another successful play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street. I was told that his debts to the Inland Revenue exceeded four figures. On the first Friday 'Patten has put a price on our heads.' at our bridge we had pay day. The Colour Sergeant produced the cash from some- where, and I had to dole it out. Perversely, the Army had contrived to enter a wide range of deductions that particular week. Nobody got much above ten shillings. Williams, I recall, received, incredulously, about 8s 6d. Later that evening 1 yvas inspecting the guard, not under the bridge but on the railway line itself. Williams was one of them. With that sad, grey smile that must have wrung countless women s hearts, he fished into his pocket and brought out his pay. He had placed all the coins on the railway line and let trains pass over them, so that they were larger, thinner — and of course valueless.
It followed that some of my platoon had very attractive wives or girl friends, who soon discovered where we were and would join us sociably on sunny afternoons, when they assumed that we would be free to relax and join them in a little sunbathing. My Colonel arrived, with the Adjutant, on just such an afternoon. He took me aside. 'Bill, these women . ."Yes, Colonel, I have a difficulty. . .
Discipline worried me in those opening days of the war more than the greatcoats or the rations or even Hitler. Either just before or just after Mr Chamberlain had given our marching orders, I was filling sandbags at battalion headquarters along with half a dozen riflemen. The Adjutant suddenly appeared and led me aside. 'Bill, the Colonel does not wish his officers to be seen doing fatigues with the riflemen. Bad for discipline.' What am I supposed to be doing?' You are in charge of the task and there to see that it is properly carried out.'
This was not the message we were to get in post-war years from the shopfloor, where bosses were enjoined to mix more freely with their men. On the other hand, I was called upon to examine my men's weapons, clothing, cots, kit, meals and, after marching, feet. I had to read their intimate letters home, the envelopes marked on the back with acronyms like SWALK - 'sealed with a loving kiss' — or BOLTOP - 'better on lips than on paper'.
All this took a bit of getting into, particularly in the regiment which Lord Killanin had persuaded me to join. Rifle- men pride themselves on being less formal — and far less dressy — than their brothers in the Brigade of Guards. Furthermore, having been granted a commission in the bad old pre-war days of privilege, I had had none of the training which, from then onwards, all prospective officers had to undergo at Officer Cadet Training Units. Within a very short time, that is where most of my platoon from stage, screen and the Street of Shame finished up, one or two of them early enough to be caught up in the epic battle for Calais nine months later. They were replaced by earnest, intelligent and conscientious riflemen who offered fewer disciplinary problems. Life became a degree easier — and far, far duller.
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