Laughing Torso

WAR
He did not remember me but did when I reminded
him of the air raid. The cafe was in an uproar and
everyone drank to celebrate their escape. Edgar
and I saw the daylight air raid from our attic
windows. It was a fine sight, and they were in
wonderful formation, like a flock of birds surrounded
by the little white puffs of smoke of the British guns.
One day I became so ill that I went home to my
Father and Mother, who, although they disapproved
of me, still liked to see me. My family lived at
Acton and during the night I had a dream. I
dreamt of noises which tapped and tapped. Sud-
denly I woke up and looked out of the window. I
saw what I thought were fireworks, a big golden pen-
cil diving to the earth. I came into my Father and
Mother's room and said, " Please wake up, I think
there must be a Zeppelin falling down." My
Father said, " Go to sleep and don't disturb me/'
I said, " You must wake up and come into the
garden," and he did and we saw it break in half
and come down in a rain of golden showers. This
was the Cuffley Zeppelin.
We visited the poetess, Anna Wickham, some-
times. She lived in a beautiful old house in Hamp-
stead. It had an apple orchard and Dick Turpin
had lived there once. There we met Richard
Aldington and his wife. They were Imagist poets.
Richard had known Henri very well and had some
of his work.
In 19.13 j when I first met Anna Wickham, I had
influenza very badly. I was living alone and did
not want to go home to my family. She was kind
' "