The Bravest

A Times obituary called her "a London stray," but a memorial plaque on the wall of the little Church of St. Augustine-with-St. Faith-under-St. Pau's-Cathedral, flanked by citations from two continents, testified that she was more than that. The plaque told of a night when Faith, a gentle grey and white cat, had "endured horrors and perils beyond the power of words to tell" and through them all "stayed calm and steadfast." Even the Times paid tribute to this heroine who "stuck, while the bombs fell, to her kitten."

There was a time some twelve years ago when Faith's only friend in all the world was Henry Ross, rector of St. Augustine's. Three times his own verger had turned away the cat that wandered unannounced from the turmoil of Watling Street to make her home in his church. At the fourth try the rector interceded. "The cat must stay," he said. "She has chosen our church, and she must remain." Faith took up residence in his rectory. Years of halcyon days followed when Faith would recline in proprietary ease in St. Augustine's carpeted pews, rubbing languorously against the ankles of parishioners dropping in for midday prayer. At services she would sit in quiet dignity at the rector's feet.*

In September 1940 Faith, who was rearing a kitten, grew restless and decided to leave her niche upstairs in the rectory and move to a downstairs recess used for storing music. Three days later German bombers roared over Whitechapel. "Roofs and masonry exploded," runs the legend on Faith's plaque, "the whole house blazed, four floors fell through in front of her. Fire and water all around . . ." Attracted by a glow in the sky, Rector Ross came hurrying back from a trip to Westminster. "The cat and kitten are both dead," said the firemen.

When the firemen turned their backs, Ross climbed to a parapet from which he could see Faith's recess. There, surrounded by smoldering ruins, sat Faith--serenely nursing her kitten* and "singing," said the rector, "such a song of praise and thanksgiving as I had never heard . . . ' '

That was Faith's story. In time her "steadfast courage in the Battle of Britain" was formally recognized by citations from London's People's Dispensary for Sick Animals and New York City's Greenwich Village Humane League, but Faith herself went right on being a simple church cat and mother. She still curled in dignity at the rector's feet as he conducted service in a makeshift chapel at the foot of the old church tower. Last week Rector Ross posted on the church tower a notice that "the bravest cat in the world"/- was gone at last.

*The aboriginal British attitude toward animals was also demonstrated last week at Hereford, where a Church of England clergyman, the Rev. L. J. B. Snell, invited the children of his parish to bring their animals to church on the eve of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, famed for his love of animals. Ducks, chickens, cats and guinea pigs by the score turned up at Hereford's Holy Trinity Church. One youngster brought a tiddler (British for sunfish) in a jar. There was a lamb (owner's name: Mary) with its fleece (according to the Associated Press) only slightly soiled, and a pet mouse called Angela. Twenty horses, glossily groomed, but too big for the pews, waited outside.

"Animals and birds are a part of God's Creation," said Vicar Snell. With daring definiteness, he added: "There are animals and birds in Heaven as well as human beings and angels." But animals, like men, he said, would have to be good to attain eternal life. On the way out, a mastiff lunged at a basket of kittens. As it turned out, he only wanted to lick them, not bite them.

*Now a sleek black torn roaming the Herne Hill Nursing School under the name Panda.

/- Unnoticed by the Times two years ago was the death of an even more famous cat and mother: Sally, a sleek, green-eyed Persian owned by pawky Sunday Express Columnist Nat Gubbins. The proud mother of 126 kittens produced at the rate of 2 1/2 kittens a throw, Sally always treated Gubbins' ribald remarks about her fertility with cold disdain. During the war she conducted a long and frosty correspondence in her master's columns with a Russian cat who advocated scientific speedups in kitten production. At the ripe age of 14, Sally died giving birth to one final litter in her good old hit-or-miss way.

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