September 28: Grass reported near Aberdeen. Panic in Scotland. No more train service.
September 29: Day of fasting, humiliation and prayer proclaimed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Grass south of the Dee. All mines shut down.
September 30: Every seaworthy vessel, and many not seaworthy, now under charter. I have ordered all remaining stores of concentrates loaded on our own hulls, to be manned by skeleton crews. They will stand by the Sisyphus on her voyage. Lack of railway transportation making things difficult.
October 1: They have actually broken ground at Stonehenge for Burlet's fantastic city.
October 2: Wrote on my book for nearly twelve solid hours. The postal service has been stopped.
October 3: Hearing the royal family had made no plans for departure, the London office ventured to offer them accommodations on one of our ships. I had always heard the House of Windsor was meticulous in its politeness, but I cannot characterize their rejection of our wellmeant aid as anything but rude.
October 4: Mrs H asks, Are we to live solely on concentrates now the shops are shut? My query as to whether this seemed objectionable to her was evaded.
October 5: Grass in Inverness and Perthshire.
October 6: F announces she is ready for another test. Under present conditions, the journey to Scotland being out of the question, we decided to use the Sisyphus again and the French coast. Leaving tomorrow.
October 11: This constant series of frustrations is beyond endurance. In spite of F's noncommittal pessimism anticipating success only after the Grass has covered England, I feel she is merely making some sort of propitiatory gesture when she looks on the darkest side of the picture that way. As for myself I'm convinced the Grass will be stopped in a week or so. But in the meantime F's work advances by the inch, only to be set back again and again.