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Babies were born in shelters, in busses, in cellars, on streets. Although there were 370,000 children still in London, only 350 registered for evacuation last week. As yet there was no wholesale evacuation of the world's largest city.
Nor had war's most dreaded scourge, pestilence, yet appeared. Germany claimed that influenza raged in London, that millions of rats swarmed the centre of the city. But the colds that came from sleeping underground were not influenza, and the rats had been there always. Most feared epidemic was typhoid, from water contamination after bombing of water mains and reservoirs, but the germination period of typhoid is almost two weeks, and London had been steadily bombed for only nine days at week's end.
Night after night the bombers came, morning after morning London went to work redeyed. But London remained on the whole good-natured. The Times's bridge correspondent complained a bit that the raids were "having a serious effect on bridge." But a taxicab driver inserted an advertisement in the Times's personal column apologizing for losing his temper during a raid.
There were even a few laughs. Joke of the week: "Hug the wall," said a man when the bombs began to fall. Said a second man: "I'm practically a mural now."
Unconsciously the German propaganda broadcasters provided the biggest laugh of the week. They frequently rehash British Air Ministry communiques for German consumption, and Air Ministry communiques sometimes end with the sentence: "Last night bombs were dropped at random." Last week the Deutschlandsender was heard telling its German listeners: "In the suburb of Random damage has been caused by our bombers."
Beyond either laughter or tears, and incredibly British, was a notice posted at a golf course outside London: Emergency Rule: Players may pick out of any bomb crater, dropping ball not nearer hole without penalty. Ground littered with debris may be treated as ground under repair.