Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly Ranfurly: To War with Whitaker [1995] paperback

In September 1939, the young Lord and Lady Ranfurly's idyllic holiday in Scotland was brought to a premature end when war broke out. Dan Ranfurly, with his faithful valet Whitaker, were sent to North Africa. When her husband was taken prisoner, his wife bluffed her way to the Middle East and stayed there, against all the rules, until her husband escaped. Meanwhile she gained a foothold in officialdom and rose from one confidential position to the next, with her only ally the indomitable Whitaker. Countess Ranfurly's diaries of this time give a witty, charming and compulsive insight into the problems of a young woman at war.