A wartime conversation from La’s Orchestra Saves the World

Original full-length version published by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd, London Condensed version © Reader’s Digest Australia

It was two days before Tim came to see her. He came unannounced, at a time convenient for afternoon tea, which they drank in the ­sitting room, where La had treated herself to a small coal fire.

Tim looked tired. ‘We’ve had a beastly time of it,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost more air crews than we can afford. Far more. And I’m having difficulty getting supplies. There’s some chap in the Air Ministry who seems determined to thwart me. I think it’s personal.’

La looked sympathetic. ‘Wish for his promotion. Then he can go and make somebody else’s life difficult.’

Tim smiled. ‘A nice tactic, La. One wishes for the promotion of one’s enemies and feels good about one’s charitable thoughts.’

His face was drawn, and there was a pallor about him that she had not seen before.

La said, ‘You’re really tired, aren’t you?’

He rubbed his forehead. ‘Yes. But I’m alive. When I look at the list of names—the list of chaps we’ve lost—that brings it home to me.’

She reached across and poured him a cup of tea. ‘You need a break. Can’t you get some leave? Even a few days.’

He shook his head. He told her that he had applied for a long weekend to visit his wife in Cardiff, but his request had been turned down. ‘So I’m stuck. But . . . I suppose I can take a few hours to practise for the Christmas concert.’

La hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began, ‘and . . . well, I feel that I’ve done everything I can with the orchestra. I thought I might stop.’

He stared at her. He was aghast. ‘Stop the orchestra?’

I have the right to do this, she thought. ‘Yes. We’ve been going for quite some time now. And I feel there’s not much point to our carrying on. Struggling through our somewhat limited repertoire. Not playing all that well. It’s been fun, but . . . I don’t know. You can’t carry on indefinitely doing the same old thing, can you?’

He picked up his teacup and drank from it, watching her over the rim. Then, putting down the cup, he leaned forward. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, La. We have to do the same old thing. We have to.’ He leaned forward even further and took her hand. ‘Your orchestra stands for everything that we’re doing. We meet once a month and play because that’s what we do. It shows anybody who cares to look that we are not giving up. And none of us can give up, can we? If we give up what we’re doing, everything’s lost.’

She looked down at the floor. He was still holding her hand.

‘Believe me, La,’ he went on, ‘your little orchestra means a lot to every one of those people playing in it. It means a lot to the chaps from the base. You are one of the things that are keeping us all going. Don’t you see that?’

He let go of her hand and sat back. Their eyes were upon one another. She saw a tired man who sent other men to their deaths in lumbering planes; he saw a woman who was lonely and dispirited.

He transferred his gaze out of the window. There was sunlight on the few lavender bushes. The grey-green foliage was briefly touched with gold. ‘Oh my God, La,’ he said. ‘It’s so damned hard. It really is. I know I shouldn’t be defeatist, but we’re on our absolute uppers.’

She closed her eyes and the thought came to her: defeat. She had heard about the exode in France over that terrible June. A Frenchwoman whom she had met in Bury had told her about the families aimlessly wandering along the roads of rural France, fleeing the Germans; of the young men being rounded up and taken off in trains; of the abandoned harvests and the empty towns. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We have no alternative but to carry on. We—you and I—can sit here and have our doubts about everything, but we can’t let people see that. If the orchestra grinds to a halt, then people will know that we’re giving up. They could think that, couldn’t they?’

He smiled. ‘It could get back to Churchill. Somebody could whisper to him, “Bad news, sir. We’ve lost La’s Orchestra.”’

They both laughed.

‘More tea, then?’

He accepted the offer and she poured the tea into his cup.