Sixteen days later, after many delays, Bill Lang and I docked in Liverpool on a Sunday morning. It was early afternoon by the time we got to London, and there we parted. Bill took off to the very best hotel, and I took the train to Maidenhead.
It was a Sunday once more, and the Yardleys’ place looked just as it did six months before. But this time, when I knocked on the door, I was a bit more anxious. Mr. Yardley opened it. “You’re just in time for tea!”
The fire was lit in the living room. They had a house guest, but she was not pink. They asked me how it was in North Africa. I told them that the war there was boring. They answered politely that the war in England was very boring too. I edged slowly toward the gramophone. Mrs. Yardley watched me without turning her head. Casually, she asked me, “Did your rumba technique improve while you were in North Africa?”
“I may need a few more lessons,” I answered lightly.
“I have an idea you’ll get them.”
The subject was dropped, but I felt much better. We talked about the weather and the food rations. During a pause in the conversation, I picked up a Tino Rossi record. I turned to Yardley. “By the way,” I asked, “what happened to that blondish girl who used to like these awful records?”
“Elaine Parker? As a matter of fact, she hasn’t been playing them lately. She would be here today, but this is the Sunday when she has night duty over at the Ministry of Information. That’s where she works, you know.”
After dinner, I said that I had to return to London. Nobody tried to detain me. The trip from Maidenhead to London was longer than North Africa to England.
I called the Ministry of Information from the station and was informed that Miss Parker was in the American Division and would come on duty at midnight. Two more hours....
I found Bill at Claridge’s, where he had got two bedrooms and a living room for us. His girl’s telephone hadn’t answered all day. He presumed I hadn’t been any luckier and offered to share his decanter of whisky. Then he looked at me again.
“I have a date at midnight,” I said.
And then I started to clean myself of six months of North African dirt. At midnight I picked up the telephone, asked for the proper extension, and listened.
“American Division—Miss Parker speaking.”
“What color is your hair, Miss Parker?”
“Who is speaking?”
“What’s your favorite song, Miss Parker?”
“Where are you?”
“I think I’m slightly in love.”
“Does it hurt?”
“I’ll meet you over at your canteen in fifteen minutes.”
When she came into the canteen, I was standing at the bar, resting my head on my elbows, staring at the bottles in front of me. She walked directly to the bar, put her elbows on it, and said:
“Hello.”
“Your hair is still pink.”
“If you’d made me wait much longer, you’d have found it all gray.”
“Were you waiting?”
“No, I got married and had six children.”
“I hope they will like me.”
We turned around and walked out of the bar without touching our drinks. We walked around the building, and when she broke away, she said:
“Be at the entrance at eight in the morning.” Then she ran away.
The streets of London are gray and empty at eight in the morning. We found a teashop and she ordered bacon, tomatoes, tea, and toast. By now both of us were very serious.
“Did you come back because I was waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to stay?”
“No.”
“Do you like bacon and tomatoes?”
“I’d like to stay.”
I told her I had to return to war, but then I’d be back. I explained that besides what might happen in war, my own situation was so uncertain that I never knew what might happen the following day.
“I am very pretty.”
“Who told you so?”
“People who drop in.”
“Why were you waiting for me?”
“I made up my mind the first minute I saw you.”
“Still not teasing?”
“Please pay the bill.”
It was 9:00 A.M. and I had to go over to the Collier’s office to check in and tell them I was taking a seven-day vacation. Pinky thought she could arrange to take her vacation at the same time. We started for the Savoy together.
Collier’s was still at the Savoy, but Quent was no longer there and the man who replaced him said he had a cable for me from the New York office. It was addressed to me and read:
“YOUR NORTH AFRICAN PICTURES WONDERFUL STOP WAR DEPARTMENT INSISTING ON POOL REGULATIONS STOP THEREFORE AVAILABLE TO ALL PAPERS STOP YOUR PICTURES USED BY EVERYONE BEFORE WE COULD PRINT THEM STOP REGRET HAVE TO RECALL YOU TO NEW YORK STOP WILL PAY TRAVELING EXPENSES PLUS THREE WEEKS ADDITIONAL SALARY”—COLLIERS NEW YORK
I read it over three times, and then gave it to Pinky. I asked the Collier’s man when he had received it. That same morning, he told me. I asked him whether anyone else knew about it yet. He said no, and I had to think fast. If I lost my job I would also lose my accreditation as a war correspondent. I would have to go back to the States, and with my papers what they were, I would never get out again. I just had to get a new job before the Army found out I’d been fired. I explained my situation to the Collier’s man. He said he was sorry but he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it. I asked him to wait until noon to give me time to go around to some of the other magazines and see what my chances were. He was reluctant, but he didn’t say no.
“You go ahead,” said Pinky. “I’ll wait for you here.”
I took a taxi to Life magazine.
My relations with Life were far from excellent. During the six years I had worked for them, they had fired me twice and I had quit once. But my relations with Crocky, who was in charge of the London office, were of long standing and more than good. She was pleased to see me again, and was not too surprised to hear that I was in trouble. She said that my chances of getting a job straight away were very poor, and she thought that the New York office, hearing that I was out of a job again, would just think that I ought to be used to it by now. However, she had information that big things would be brewing pretty soon along the Mediterranean, and thought that if I could get back to North Africa before the Army learned I had been fired, and if I could somehow pull a fast one and scoop the rest of the photographers, then the thing might be wangled somehow. It all seemed perfectly simple—just this side of impossible—but I had to give it a try.
Crocky cabled Life in New York that she had heard that Capa was extremely dissatisfied with Collier’s and could be persuaded to quit.
I took a taxi back to the Savoy. When I entered the Collier’s office, Pinky was sitting on the bureau right beside the telephone. Over in a corner of the room was the poor Collier’s representative, close to a nervous breakdown.
I said it was all fixed, and if he didn’t tell the Army I’d been fired for forty-eight hours, he could be godfather to my children. If we would just get out of his office, he answered, it would be at least seventy-two hours before he could think or mention our names again.
Close to the Savoy is the best restaurant in London, the Boulestin. I had to talk to Pinky, so we went there for lunch. Boulestin still had very good French champagne, and I proposed a toast to my getting away.
“How soon?”
“Tonight. It has to be.”
Her eyes filled up with champagne. I told her about my scheme with Life and that I thought I might be able to swing the air reservation through my friend Chris Scott over at the air force P.R.O. As soon as lunch was over, I called the P.R.O. Chris Scott had been transferred somewhere in North Africa!
Pinky put her little finger in her mouth and chewed on it twice.
“I think I know how to fix it.”
She told me to go ahead and get my exit permit and meet her at 5:30 at the Mayfair Club.
The security officer at the Passport Office was highly suspicious about my arriving in England on Sunday and wanting to leave on Monday. I told him I couldn’t give him any details which concerned military operations. He was quite impressed, and I had no more trouble.
Pinky arrived at the Mayfair Club at six o’clock, ordered a drink and said:
“You can go now. I have your reservation.”
I had to be at the air terminal at 6:30. I told her I would come back to England soon.
“Well, you’d better.”
I asked her what she was going to do tonight after I left.
“You black-hearted Hungarian dope! I’m having dinner with the officer who gave you that air priority—to make my evening free!”
She kissed me lightly, and ran away.
In the dark airplane, flying from England to North Africa, I was very sure that I was very much in love with Pinky. And this time I knew her name and address. I even had her picture.