Consequently, when I was wakened one night shortly after 3 A.M. by the ringing of my telephone, my immediate thought was; Something has happened to Gertrude.
But it was her voice that came over the wire. "Are you all right?"
I demanded."Of course! It isn't me ... It's the children. Richard, you've got to do something."

I asked what children.

"Noel's," she wId me. "Of course they're mine too .. ."
I sat down on the edge of the bed and took a noner grip of the receiver. My wife's voice was going on in a rush of quick phrases: 'We're so distressed ... Noel has been here with me this evening

· .. We don't know what to do ... Those babies can't stay in England, with the blitz ... We had planned. to evacuate them ... our arrangements were made, or we thought they were till YOUR govemment stopped it and now everything's tangled in yards of red tape and ... "
"GERTRUDEI"
I had to shout to stem the flow. And I continued to bellow:
"What is all this? Your children and Noel CoWard'SI How many children?"
"Fifry-eight No, wait, only fifty-seven. But, Richard, those helpless babies and the bombs ... We've got to save them. I told Noel that you would surely think of a way .. ."
The thought Bashed through my half-wakened mind that Mr.
Coward's children, however numerous, could hardly be considered. my problem. I had Dever met the gifted Mr. Coward but his name figured so often and so intimately in Gertrude's conversation that I had developed toward him the instinctive jealousy that every hus· band feels for a man his wife knew before she met him.

I repeated my query: 'What do you mean-your children and Noel's? I want a straight answex."
Ultimately I got it. Though it took a long time, punctuated at regular intervals by a bored voice reminding us that our time was up. To each of these interruptions Gertrude and I chorused &om opposite sides of the continent, "No, no, don't cut us off, operator. We want more time, please ... »
The children-by Gnal count fifty-seven-were inmates of the Actors' Orphanage in Britain at Chertsey in Surrey. For a nwnber of years, Noel G:lwatd had been president of the British Actors' Orphanage, which maintained the Home. Gertrude was a director and a vice-president. She had never mentioned this to me. Nor had she told me that a committee of British actors in Hollywood, headed by Dame May \Vhi.tty, was trying to arrange for the evacuation of the children, as a group, to this country. No doubt this lapse was due to the hasty circumstances of om marriage and Gertrude's subsequent departure on tour. This therefore was the first knowledge I had that my wife was plumping into my lap 6fty-seven orphans, for whom the United. States Department of State, through our

London consul, had refused entry permits. Gertrude felt that she-and inferentially I, as her husband-would be personally reiponsible if the chiidTen were not evacuated before a bomb was dropped on the orphanage.

"Richard dearest, promise me you will umvind all that red tape in Waihington. Didn't you tell me you were a Son of the American Revolution? That ought to help."
'1t will help more if you will stop getting hysterical and let me think," I replied. A glance at my watch told me it was nearly 3:30 1I.M. I dismissed the hope of any more ,leep, and, having enjoined Gertrude to leave the orphans to me, and to get some rest herself, I hung up and faced the problem.
Through the ensuing weeks Gertrude's "babies," as she insisted on calling them, though the youngest was a child of five and many of the others were entering on a lanky adolescence, figured prominently in my life. I set to work trying to live up to the reputation my wife had given me as someone who gets things done. I was de· termined on one thing: this was a British Actors' enterprise; I, as an American and without professional standing, did not wish to figuTe in it publicly. I would act in an adviSory capacity, but "Keep me out of it" I wId both Gertrude and Fanny BOitzmann,1 who was acting as Noel's lawyer as well as Gertrude's.
The children were to be sponsored by various persons, many of them British subjects. The State Department's ruling against granting them individual entry permits was based on the fact that they were institutional children. This eliminated the plan of the English colony in Hollywood, which had been to place the children in private homes, at least until an estate could be secured large enough to house them all under one roof. It had been suggested that the entire orphanage be enrolled in a California private school, but this promised to be so costly, what with the prospect of the war continuing for years, that it had to be abandoned.
Meanwhile, though we had as yet no roof to cover the children, the necessity of their Temoval from England grew daily more imperative. The hourly radio reports of the blitz kept Gertrude in a state of acute anxiety. Every night she telephoned. What was IdOing? When could the children be put on a convoy? When? When? When?

It was useless to remind hex that every port in England was jammed with would-be emigres waiting for places on the ships. Or that the convoys put out into a sea infested with U-boats.
Finally I was able to report that her "babies," shepherded by a represenlative of the British Actors' Orphanage, were all at an unspecified British port of embarkation. There the American consul had promised to see the orphans board the S.S. American Legion sailing in the next convoy.
Meanwhile the West Coast newspapers had learned of the enterprise and of the celebrated stars who were sponsoring the chil· dren. The story of the orphans was played. up in all its tear.jeiker aspects. It appeared inevitable thaI the children would be publicized, photographed and exploited-something which I knew Gertrude and Noel Coward would dislike and which I, as a parent, knew was bad for them and for their education in America.
We had been notified that the convoy was expected to dock at Montreal. The cost of transporting the orphans and their guardians from that city to Los Angeles was not negligible; not to speak of the difficulty of procuring transportation on already overcrowded trains.
r mentioned this to Gertrude.
"Oh, I've arranged. for that," she told me. She had remembered that an old friend of hers in Chicago was the ownex of a celebrated motor transport company. She had written him and had secured from him the offer of private buses to convey the orphanage across the continent.
I! was now September and I had moved from the Cape to New York, oe<:upying Gertrude's apartment. I felt like a trespasser in that satin setting. She may have sensed this, because she sent daily wires from the stops on her tour with instructions for my comfort:
"Order blue coal for apartment .. ." "See that Claire does the Bowers ... She knows how. One low bowl in the living room and one on the desk in the library, because unless the apartment looks and feels homey you might as well be at your dub. I want your friends to think you are being taken care of and not neglected."
One day I dropped in on Uncle Jim, at his office at The Christian

Advocate, and took him to lunch. He looked me over as if seeking signs of deterioration since my marriage outside the family pale. 'What do you do with yourself while your wife is away?" he asked.
The orphans' plight could not fail to stir him. I told him about them. He asked what would become of them after they arrived in the United States. I explained that the plan was to move them on to Hollywood, where there was a large colony of British actors.
"You can't let those children go to Hollywood," Uncle Jim protested. "That's no place for them among motion·picture people and motion-picture standards and morals. We must find a home for them where they can have proper Christian training. I shall start making inquiries."
My uncle's inquiries resulted in the discovery that the Gould Foundation owned a large estate on Pelham Parkway, in New York, dedicated to the use of needy children, but at that time had no children to house in it. Fanny Boltzmann' immediately took the matter up with the State Child Welfare Committee, and also with Noel Coward and his committee. The fact that the foundation offered to house, feed, clothe, educate, supply medical and dental care to the refugees ror eight dollars a week per child, and would do this for as long as needed, was an advantage which the British Actors hailed with relief. The expense was well within their means.
Just as I was thinking that the evacuation of the orphans was successfully under way, came the shocking news that the convoy in which they were traveling had been attacked. Two ships had been sunk. Whether one was the American Legion was still unknown.
Gertrude was then playing in the Northwest. Her tour of many one-night stands had exhausted even her apparently inexhaustible strength. All her letters spoke of being tired: "Some tour, niue states in nine days ... I must be running for office Or something ... A million thanks for the beautiful roses. Please order the casket to match for the end of this tour ... "
I realized at once that she must be spared additional anxiety. The news must be kept from her at least until we had definite information of the children's fate.
I wired that I would jOin her in Denver, where she was schOO-

uled. to arrive in a few days. I would bring the architect's plans of the house we proposed building on the Cape and about which she was now writing in every letter.
I Hew out to Colorado and we spent a happy week-end studying the plans the architect had drawn, and on which Gertrude immediately drew additions, until I reminded. her that she had said she wanted a simple country house, a cross between a Danish farmhouse and a Cape Cod cottage.
On Sunday we drove up to Central City, whose theatrical festival I had managed for several seasons and which I wanted her w see. I said nothing of the reported attack on the convoy. Gettrude was delighted with the plan for placing the children at the Gould Foundation in New York.
That evening, as we came iuto the Brown Palace after our trip to Central City, I was handed a telegram. Gertrude stood at my elbow.
'When I attempted to stuff it into my pocket, she demanded:
"Why don't you open it?"
With a Sinking heart I tore open the yellow envelope and read;
CHILUI\EN SAFE THANK GOD FANNY

'When I returned to New York I met Noel Coward for the first time. He was busily engaged in preparations for the children's reception. Gertrude appeared exceedingly eager that Noel and I should become friends. And even more eager that he should be impressed that ours was a love match.
I had expected that Noel would meet the American. Legion in Montreal. But this he Tefused to do. His reason revealed a side of his co~plex character which only his closest friends know; he was resolute against doing anything which might throw the spotlight of publicity on him in connection with his work fur the orphanage. Fanny, anned with the required. papers and funds, had gone to Canada to bring the orphans to their new shelter in New YOlk. Back in town, she telephoned me "mission accomplished."
Later, talking to Noel, I observed that I did not know how I could have faced Gertrude if things bad been different.