Churchill's Hour (21 page)

The front door closed quietly behind them. ‘You go on ahead, Sawyers,' she said. ‘You'll have to be up again in a few hours.'

‘Thank you, miss. I'll just put yer case in yer room. Goodnight.' He climbed the stairs and made his way along the bedroom corridor. His progress was entirely silent; he seemed to know which floorboards creaked. She wished Averell had such skill.

She followed him slowly up the stairs, passing Winston's bedroom. A light was shining from beneath the door. She hesitated, then knocked gently. She found him sitting up in his four-poster bed, clad in white silk pyjamas, staring at nothing. Papers lay strewn around him but gave the impression of being untouched. A cold cigar was in his hand. His whisky glass was empty.

‘Papa?'

His eyes flickered briefly in her direction, but he said nothing. Perhaps she was still an outcast in his camp.

‘Papa?' she said once more. ‘Is there anything I can get you?'

Stiffly he shook his head.

She couldn't decide whether to withdraw or to stay. He looked hostile, wanting to be alone, the lower jaw jutting forward, but some instinct—and
Sawyers' warning—forced her to make one last effort.

‘How did it go, Papa? With the President?'

His words came slowly. ‘I am no longer sure,' he mumbled, almost inaudibly.

‘Did you like him?'

‘I thought it went well. Thought he liked me. There was a bond, it seemed, a coming together. But I was stupid, had forgotten we'd met before. I think that might have hurt him. First impressions, so important.' At last his eyes came up to meet her. ‘I failed.'

‘Why do you think that?' She stepped forward and nestled on the end of his bed.

‘We dined together, discussed together, drank together. Even prayed together. Oh, but I gave him such a mighty service on the deck of the
Prince of Wales.
Chose the hymns myself. Two mighty flags draped from the bridge, the fighting men of both our nations joined in prayer and in song.'

‘I've seen the photographs. I think the whole world has.'

‘I was so sure I couldn't fail. Onward Christian soldiers! Churchill and Roosevelt, centre stage, with God himself waiting to walk on from the wings. But…' He shook his head in sorrow. ‘I was wrong. I saw the President as a mighty buffalo, stamping with impatience and ready to charge forth across the plains of duty.' His voice grew firmer. ‘Turns out he's
not a buffalo but a jack rabbit. Never know which bloody hole he's going to pop out of next.'

‘I'm not sure I understand.'

Suddenly red anger was burning through the exhaustion in his eyes. ‘I went there for war, Pamela. Sailed halfway round the globe so I could hear him say that he would take up arms until all our enemies are swept to the darkest corners of Hell. But instead…' He waved his cold cigar in scorn. ‘At our very first meeting he suggests we talk about the terms for peace. His wretched Atlantic Charter.'

‘But I thought…'

Suddenly the dead cigar went flying across the room. ‘I didn't go there for peace, Pamela. I went for war!'

‘The Charter talks about those things we are fighting for.'

‘But he's not bloody fighting, is he? And have you read that piece of paper? Do you understand it? I've read it a hundred times, but I don't. Pious nonsense about peace and love and affirming the right of all peoples'—he spat out the words—‘to choose the form of Government under which they will live.'

‘Not an excellent idea?' she enquired cautiously.

‘What? We're fighting this war to save the British Empire, not to have it torn limb from limb, woman! Give democracy to natives who still worship witchdoctors? You might as well feed them gin.'

‘But you agreed, you signed.'

His hands had become fists, shaking with frustration above the blanket, wanting to lash out but unable to find a target. Then the strings that held his fury together were cut, and he slumped back helpless on his pillow.

‘I had to sign it, Pamela, had to. We need him. But he hates the Empire. And I think he may hate me.'

‘Averell says not. In his letter he says the President is intrigued by you, likes you enormously. Thinks you're wonderfully crusty and cutely old-fashioned.'

‘Ah, Averell.'

‘He did warn you, Papa. That you were setting your sights too high.'

‘Good advice. I need more of it. I could do with him here right now.'

‘So could I, Papa.'

Churchill coloured and fumbled for a new cigar.

‘Do you know when he will be coming back, Papa?'

‘We're sending him to Moscow, Pamela, with Max Beaverbrook. To see how we can help our Bolshevist brethren and make sure they stay in the fight.'

‘Not just to keep him away?'

‘I admit that part of me wishes he had never come.'

‘Part of me, too, Papa. Please understand that. But we don't control these things.'

‘I do so wish…' His voice trailed away.

‘Me, too, Papa,' she said, knowing what he was thinking.

‘Bloody Americans!' he sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for peace, but it was futile. ‘They will never join this war, Pamela. Roosevelt keeps looking over his shoulder, saying he needs more time. But time won't wait for his caution to turn to courage. Already the panzers are pointing at the door of the Kremlin, while every evening the sparks from the campfires of Nippon glow more fiercely in the east. Our enemies have no intention of holding back while the President gets his wheelchair out of the mud.'

‘That's cruel.'

‘These are cruel times. They show no mercy. Soon we shall be fighting not only in Europe and upon the Atlantic and in the air above our own hearths, but across great swathes of Asia, too. That is a war we cannot survive, Pamela, not on our own. And what use will it be if President Roosevelt and his beloved public opinion then decide to join the war, when we are left paralysed and choking on our own blood? No. We need him now. We need the might of his America, and we cannot wait.'

Pamela rose and went to the decanter of whisky that stood beside his bed.

‘You have a knack of knowing what I want,' he said.

She poured, a good two fingers' worth, but as he reached for it she drank it herself.

‘Right now, Papa, I think my need is every bit as great as yours.' She swallowed the last drops, spluttering as the harsh alcohol fought its way down her throat. ‘I've never known you even to think about the possibility of defeat.'

‘And no one else shall. For the others I will carry on as long as I have strength, shouting defiance and making pretence, reassuring them all that we are still masters of our own fate. Masters of our own fate!' He mocked his own words. ‘That's what I told the House of Commons. But it is an illusion. Our fate has been placed in the hands of others.'

‘Why do you tell me this?'

‘Because I have to tell someone. And because I think you understand me, perhaps better at times than I understand myself.'

She leant across to squeeze his hand, and he kept hold of it.

‘We need a miracle, Pamela. That, or the Americans. And I confess I have not spoken to God nearly as much as perhaps I should have done.' He shrugged. ‘Which leaves the Americans.'

‘But they don't seem to be in a mood to be swayed.'

‘I shall continue to woo her, try to seduce her. I must have her. No matter how coyly she plays or how harshly she protests. She has no right to stay out of this war!'

‘So what will you do?'

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently, like a chivalrous knight, but she could see the dread in his eyes.

‘Everything. Anything. Whatever it takes,' he whispered.

Sawyers stood in the sunshine that was flooding across the cobbles of the rear courtyard of Chequers, perspiring gently as he worked. His coat was hanging on the stable door, his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his unbuttoned waistcoat flapped freely across his round stomach as he worked apples into a cider press. He already had a bucket filled with the thick, sweet juice and another was well on its way. Beside him, Héloise sat on a stool, slicing away the worst parts of mould and rot that were already eating into the fruit.

‘Not too much,' Sawyers warned, as her knife dug deep into the pale flesh. ‘Think of ‘em like French cheese. Nowt wrong wi' a bit o' character.'

It was proving a bumper harvest. Cider wasn't often called for around the Churchill table, but the demand below stairs had proved an enduring tribute to Sawyers' skills. Behind him stood a row of wooden kegs that were dark with age and reeked of fermentation. Once filled, they would be stored at the back of the stables until next summer.

‘Wonder if we'll still be here then?' he muttered
idly, wiping his brow before giving the press another forceful twist.

Héloise swiped idly at the flies hovering above her head.

‘When is “then”, Mr Sawyers?'

‘When this lot's all ripe and ready. Next year.'

‘You think…?'

‘I don't think, missy. Not me job. But he were going on about how yer got to be specially careful wi' the sheets after guests've left. You know what he's like, always having a bit of a go. But we're to count ‘em, he says, to mekk sure the Chiefs of Staff aren't pinching ‘em.'

‘He always seems to be shouting at them.'

More juice flowed into the bucket and Sawyers grunted in satisfaction. ‘Wonder what Jerries drink? Hope they never get a liking fer this stuff. Be such a waste.'

‘Is this better?' She held up an apple for his inspection, licking the stickiness from her fingers.

He nodded.

‘But I don't understand. Why would the generals take the sheets, Mr Sawyers? Don't they have sheets of their own?'

‘He says they kepp wanting to hang ‘em out o' ruddy window, like. That they don't seem to want to fight. I dunno. He keeps going on about how they reckon they can't fight in Middle East and won't fight in Far East.'

‘But we are not fighting in the Far East.'

‘And Heaven help us if we ever do, so he says.' His face was glowing red in the sun. ‘Come on, lass, bring some more o' them apples over here. Let's be getting done wi' this.'

‘I shall count the sheets very carefully,' she said, tumbling more apples into the press.

‘Oh, I don't suppose he were being serious, like.' He stuck his finger into the flowing juice in order to taste it. ‘But you never know wi' him.'

Even Sawyers hadn't known if the old man was being serious. ‘Make sure she knows about the sheets,' he had instructed. He didn't explain why. Sawyers wondered if perhaps the whispers were right, that the old man was losing it.

‘Anyways,' Sawyers concluded, ‘let's be finished. We got gooseberry bushes to pluck after this.'

The first week of September. The anniversary of the day the war began. And a week of gathering storms.

Two years earlier, Neville Chamberlain had informed the country in a thin, tremulous voice that they were at war with Germany. He had also told them of his certainty that right would prevail. Yet now German radio announced to the world that their troops were within fifteen miles of Leningrad, pissing into Stalin's cooking pots.

The following evening Churchill attended a dinner
at the Dorchester. It was being given in honour of his youngest daughter, Mary, who was about to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service, but inevitably he would be the star, and as soon as he stepped into the crowded foyer, the hotel guests turned to him and began to offer cries of welcome.

‘Look,' the excited doorman cried, ‘the old dears love you.'

‘Some of the younger dears, too, I trust,' he said, offering the doorman a mischievous wink.

His progress through the hotel was accompanied by applause at every step. Men bowed in greeting, women reached out to touch him as though he were a medieval cardinal carrying holy relics. It lifted his spirits to be surrounded by so many people yet not to have a critic in sight.

The dining room was filled to capacity, as it had been almost every night of the war. So much had happened in the past two years, yet so little in here had changed—except for the absence of Italian waiters, most of whom had been interned. The world outside may have fallen into darkness, but life at the Dorchester went on, with diners competing in their determination to ensure that no oyster remained unshucked and no cork undisturbed. The chandeliers shone, the music was gay, his daughter looked radiant and, for the moment, the world outside was forgotten.

But only for a few steps more. It was a night when no one would leave him alone.

The maitre d' guided him towards his table but it was a slow progress; as they saw him, the diners rose, forcing him to shake hands on all sides and exchange a few words.

Then, in front of him, was Leslie Hore-Belisha—a man of such misguided ambition that he could carp even while the synagogues burned.

‘Good evening, Winston.' Hore-Belisha smiled courteously, extending his hand.

‘Leslie.'

‘Pleasure to see you here—although I'm also looking forward to your presence in the House when Parliament returns. We miss you there.'

Insufferable bastard. What he missed was the chance to mock in public. ‘Wars are not won on the floor of the House, Leslie, but on the field of battle.'

‘And in the air.' Hore-Belisha drew closer, lowered his voice. ‘Yet I understand that the raid last week on Rotterdam was something of a disaster.'

Damn his eyes! Seventeen Blenheims had flown on the mission, seven hadn't made it back. How dare he dance on the unmarked graves of brave young men?

‘What does that make it—almost a thousand bombers lost this year already?' Hore-Belisha continued, shaking his head. ‘It's all very well charging like the Light Brigade every once in a while, but not on a daily basis. We can't go on like that.'