Part 16

Neither do I, nevertheless it will be my mournful duty to try and impress on him and all the other Harrys who are making the lives of their helpmeets a burden over this food conservation business, that the true patriot is the man who eats his imitation steak with a smile, assuring the woman who has laboured over its preparation that it is quite equal to the real thing.

Nobody would be deceived, but life would be easier.

I never before realised that bread is really the staple food of our working folks. It is rather humiliating to discover how scanty are the reserves we are now able to call up. When you speak to the average cottage woman about soup and explain how nourishing it is for the children and how cheaply it can be prepared out of bones, if only the necessary care is bestowed on it, she has a way of putting her hands on her hips and looking you very haughtily in the face with the air of a person receiving a personal insult. "Feed me chillen on bones! Good Lord! 'as it come to that? Not me, thank you, ma'am. I'll get me bit o' meat and bread and butter as long as I can get 'em and wen they ain't to be got, will do without."

How are you to combat that sort of argument which is everywhere, like sorrow--"not in single spies, but in battalions"!

I shall have to think hard. These people have got to be educated. The whole process of teaching them the alphabet has to be entered on now, when we are in the thick of the testing fight.

Oh, it is so very, very English, so tremendously, unutterably stupid, and maddening! I shall have to stop off or I shall be writing down things that the admirable George, with his exclusive command of strong language, will not permit you to read.

As usual, when one arrives at the end of one's tether, something happens, and there, right in front at the end of what looked like a blind alley, stood the open door.

The Administration, having fully tested the value of the Communal Kitchen, has sent out advices to the country to establish them wherever possible. As Chairman of our Kitchen Committee, I went to London with another member--a delightful, practical, breezy person, to inspect the working of the big experimental Kitchen on Westminster Bridge Road. It was thoroughly interesting and for the first time hope of solutions of many problems dawned on our weary spirits.

We returned home to report and got authority to act. I will explain the Communal Kitchen to you, though it is incredible to imagine your great, rich and inexhaustible country ever coming even within long-distance range of such a contingency.

The Communal or Central Kitchen is established and run by experts for the cooking of a large number of meals at the lowest possible cost. A first-class plant is necessary, the most up-to-date ovens, steamers, utensils of every kind. The cook must not only be an expert, but an artist, as she has to disguise many inferior ingredients and make them appetising for her consumers. Stores are purchased, wherever possible, in large quantities, special permits, of course, being afforded by the vigilant Food Administrators. Thus considerable saving is effected.

The cook and her immediate assistant or assistants are highly paid workers, but those who apportion and handle the food, over the counters, are volunteers, giving about four hours' service every day.

No food is consumed on the premises. The customers bring their own utensils in which they carry their portions away. There is a very complete and clever system of tickets issued at a little box office near the door, so that no money is tendered at the counter.

The menu cards are hung in the windows so that customers may make their choice before they come inside.

We went early, watched the cooking in process, got stuffed up with unheard-of knowledge of every kind, and then waited for the customers.

They interested me beyond everything; although it is a very poor neighbourhood, it was not the very poor who came. Some quite well dressed people, with baskets nicely covered and lined, appeared and were more than satisfied. One bank clerk's wife assured me that it was the greatest Godsend to her, because she was working, too, and they were both now assured of one good warm, substantial meal every day, and nothing else mattered.

A mother of seven, "steps and stairs," clinging to her skirts had tears in her eyes as she spoke of the salvation the Kitchen had brought to her family.

When I saw the quarts of soup disappearing in jugs and pails through the swing doors, I took fresh heart and decided to make another onslaught on the Amazonian mother who would let her offspring "go without" instead of "demeaning 'erself" to any truck with bones.

Have you ever noticed how a little thing can change the whole outlook; how you can be transported by a lift of the brows, the glimpse of some unexpected object, miles from your base?

As I sat there behind the counter of the Communal Kitchen in the Westminster Bridge Road, I was suddenly transported to South Germany, to that little Bavarian university town we both know so well. What do you think transported me? Why, the sight of a student-like person, German, surely, carrying the little arrangement of dishes in a stand (I've forgotten its German name and glory in the lapse), which used to bring my greasy dinner from the hotel Drei Mohren.

Did these days really exist? Do you remember my landlady with the sweet, deprecating smile, her painful humility, her awe and worship of the temporal powers that ruled her destiny? How we distrusted it all, sure that it was a false foundation for life, and that freedom is the heritage of the human soul!

Even then, we were both conscious of hidden fires--of smouldering hates. They were deferential to us; yet inwardly loathing, perhaps fearing us. They have not changed at all, Cornelia, the little river which watered German sentiment in that horrid mediaeval place, has only broadened and widened into a vast and overwhelming sea. They were getting ready even then. I could see it in the jealous eyes of the women, their veiled and laboured politeness at the coffee parties had nothing convincing about it. It did not warmly enfold you like the gracious hospitality of kindred peoples. They were bidden to hate, and they knew how to do it, and could veil their fine accomplishment in the art.

Oh, Cornelia, where am I now?

The Food Expert has got out of bounds. Call her back, discipline her; make her toe the line.

The outcome of that interesting morning is that we have a Communal Kitchen and it is going to be a tremendous success.

Some doubts had to be dispelled. People have to be convinced that it is not a charity, bearing the brand of the soup kitchen, or the Penny Dinner scheme. We have tried to explain that it is merely co-ordinating the forces; co-operation on a large scale.

We have gotten the cook, the machinery, the volunteers, and I think we are going to sleep more soundly "o' nights" because of it.

At least the children will be better fed. Some of them are getting to look so peaky, for milk has been very scarce all winter, and butter a thing of the past.

We just simply daren't sit down to think of the children. It must seem so strange and cruel to them. What have they to do with the quarrels of Emperors and Kings and Diplomatists? They are heirs of all the ages and have the right to live in peace and comfort, none daring to make them afraid. Sometimes I have a nightmare of the first indictment this young generation will bring up at the Day of Judgment--the children who have known naught but terror--the sons who have had to die before they lived--the widowed girls and the girls who never will taste the joy of wifehood or motherhood, but must go unmated to their graves.