I continue this record of our daily lives at Totland Bay on August 12th.
Before it appears in _Mr. Punch's_ columns great and decisive events may
have happened, but at present, except for such slight distractions as I
shall relate, we are still calm and peaceful. When we think or speak of
Belgium our faces glow, and we are all resolved, should the need arise,
to do as Belgium has done, and to do it in the same resolute and
unconquerable spirit. In the meantime we rush for the newspapers with a
constantly increasing eagerness. At about 11 A.M. the whole of Totland
Bay is filled with people reading their papers in the open air.
Everybody bumps into everybody else, but nobody minds. A gentleman the
other day set out in a canoe and read the morning's news to a party of
swimmers, who appeared to be much invigorated by what they heard.
On Sunday night, just as we had finished dinner, we suddenly heard the
report of a great gun from the fort at the Needles. The explosion was
followed by three plaintive answering notes from a fog-horn. "They're
firing at a ship," said someone, and out we all rushed to the nearest
vantage-point, and even as we ran another gun went off and again the
fog-horn answered with its bleat. The searchlights were striking great
shafts of light along the Solent, and far away their beams outlined the
shape of a big ship. She was still advancing on her course, when--Bang!
another violent explosion shattered the night. This time it came from
the fort just over the pier of Totland Bay. The echoes reverberated and
rumbled, and the shot tore past close to the ship. Now she took the
warning. There were no more appeals from the fog-horn. Slowly she turned
and disappeared into the darkness. Possibly she had been at sea for a
long time and knew nothing of the war. How she must have marvelled at
this strange and dreadful welcome from the Isle of Wight. We went to our
beds that night with a feeling of perfect security.
On land, too, we have had our excitements. Yesterday afternoon, when the
heather-clad slopes of Headon Hill were crowded with picnickers, there
was a sudden alarm of spies. Some men, reported to have been conversing
in German, were said to have been peering into cracks in the ground and
otherwise behaving in a most suspicious manner. The alarm was given, and
almost instantly, springing as it were from the very bowels of the
earth, came some half-dozen soldiers running with rifles and fixed
bayonets. Amid the shouts of the children they spread about the heather
in their hunt, but nothing came of it, for the "spies," though they were
caught, turned out to be some Italians resident in Totland Bay and
fervently British in their sympathies.
I mentioned last week that we had a children's maid, a German, in our
household. Since then, in obedience to the Act, she has been registered
as an "alien enemy." I took her by train to Newport for that purpose. On
arriving at the station I hailed a fly. "Where to, Sir?" said the
driver. "To the police-station," I answered, and the man broke out into
a grin. "It isn't a serious offence," I added, but I doubt if he
believed me. At the police-station, however, they were quite prepared
for us, and in a very few minutes Maria Hasewitz--that is her eminently
German name--had had all the particulars of her birth-place, her age,
her height, and her personal appearance entered on a blue form by a
jocose and affable sergeant. "Brown eyes, I _think_," said the sergeant;
"height, five feet four inches; no beard _or_ moustache, ha-ha. Now sign
here and make a mark with your left thumb in this space. That'll pin you
down; no escape after that, ha-ha." He produced a board covered with
some black sticky substance, dabbed her thumb in it, dabbed it hard on
the paper, and, lo, Maria Hasewitz had been registered and had
undertaken not to move five miles from Totland Bay without a special
permit.
At present this particular alien enemy is engaged, together with all the
other available female members of the household, in making pyjamas for
our soldiers. Wonderful deeds are being done all round me with scissors
and needle and thread. A sewing-machine has been requisitioned.
Button-holes are being manufactured with immense expedition. A good deal
of "basting" is being got through. In my illimitable ignorance I had
hitherto imagined that basting was something that you did to a joint of
meat with a big ladle and some gravy. If you did it sufficiently the
joint came out succulent, if not it became dry and you abused the
butcher. However, we live and learn. Part, at any rate, of three suits
of pyjamas that are to go to the Red Cross to-day has been severely and
completely basted without either gravy or a ladle.