Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall — Read

That winter the nations settled in grimly to their struggle of life and death; while at home, in familiar, foggy old London -- grown oddly unfamiliar somehow in those days -- men and women struggled fiercely and almost as grimly to keep the business flag flying.

Millo, in his office, sat long into the night scheming, calculating, foreseeing. How to maintain the prestige of the Doric at a time when his world was falling to pieces, that was Millo's great problem. He sent for the heads of departments and addressed them as a field-marshal might address his generals.