Churchill's Hour (24 page)

‘You shall have fire!' he declared. He poked his head into the hallway and bellowed: ‘Sawyers!'

But Sawyers was nowhere to be found. And the maid had a day off, while Mrs Landemare was sweating over dinner, so Churchill decided there was only one thing for it. He got down on his knees before the grate, screwed up large twists of paper, covered them with kindling and began hurling matches into the middle of it all. Soon smoke began curling its way up the chimney.

It was while he was leaning in triumph on one of the desks that his eye encountered a piece of paper that, in ordinary circumstances, would probably never have come to him. A civil servant would have intercepted it and decided it was not of sufficient significance or interest to engage the Prime Minister's mind. It was nothing more than a note reporting that the factories of the United States were producing a record number of cars and refrigerators.

More cars, more refrigerators. Suddenly the smile was gone, the rage was upon him. ‘Do they expect
to choke the damned Fuehrer on ice cream?' he roared at the hapless secretaries before storming out.

It was a mood he carried with him to the dinner table. He showed no indication of joining in the discussions of his guests. His head was down, he was slurping, picking up food in his fingers, spilling his wine in impatience, paying others no heed. They carried on without him. He seemed to have time only for Nelson the cat, who sat on his lap throughout the meal and was paid for his loyalty with a puddle of cream that Churchill poured onto the polished table top beside him.

His performance was not so exceptional, little more than the exhibitionism of age and authority covered in a generous smearing of exhaustion. His humour had been blowing as unpredictably as the winds of autumn, and they no longer knew what to expect. They were finishing off the last of the summer pudding when someone mentioned the stories that were emerging of wholesale executions in Czechoslovakia, and the new Nazi edict that all Jews should be marked by wearing the yellow Star of David on their clothes.

‘You feel so helpless,' Winant ventured, ‘watching this all from a distance.'

Suddenly Churchill's fists pounded on the table for attention.

‘Then how long will it be, pray, before Americans
stop feeling so bloody helpless, cease watching from a great distance and get stuck in?'

‘Ladies,' Clementine instructed, demurely but firmly. As one, they rose and followed her off to the Long Gallery for coffee. Nelson had also deserted his post.

‘Winston,' Winant eventually responded, in a tone that implied his total lack of eagerness to get involved in a shoot-out.

‘Don't “Winston” me, Mr Ambassador. We've danced around this one too long. I apologize for asking a diplomat a straight question, but there it is. How long will it be?' His tone was curt, the formality suggested he had put aside their friendship in order to pursue the matter.

At the far end of the table, Winant's shoulders sagged. ‘Prime Minister,' he said, reluctantly taking up the challenge as the other guests sat back in their chairs to give them a clear line of fire. ‘I wish I could tell you. But what with the state of public opinion…'

‘Yes, I understand the President likes to keep his ear to the ground.'

‘He does.'

‘Bloody undignified, arse in the air. Ripe for kicking.' Churchill threw back the last of his claret and reached for his glass of brandy.

‘As you well know, the opposition to war amongst the public remains intense and inside the Senate is
extreme. Some believe that what the President has already done is unconstitutional.'

‘Reminds me of a heretic worrying about whether the knots of his bindings are comfortable while the flames are about to scorch his nuts.'

‘You can't ignore public opinion, not in a democracy. And it's all very well going on about the United States' refusal to fight the war, but what about the British?'

‘What about the British?'

Winant loosened his bow tie, feeling constricted, unhappy at the direction this was taking. ‘The way many Americans see it,' he replied slowly, ‘is that ever since the British Army got pushed out of Norway and France you've shown a distinct reluctance to get stuck back in. You fight the Germans at a distance—in the air, on the sea, in the Middle East. But not where it is truly going to matter, on the mainland of Europe. Even the Russians are saying so.'

‘Don't quote me bloody Marx and Stalin!'

‘I could quote you a dozen US Senators. You have no troops on mainland Europe, so why should we?'

‘We are in this war, up to the hilt and to the death! You've walked around the streets of London, of Coventry, of Liverpool, of Portsmouth'—he was pounding the table with every name—‘of Bristol, of Birmingham, of Cardiff, of Plymouth. You have seen us crawling out of our basements and bunkers,
brushing the debris from our eyes and wondering which of our loved ones survived the night. We are in this war, every man, woman and child of us. But America? Are you in, or out? Are you Spectator, Umpire or Player?'

‘For my own part, Winston, you know that I would have us with you tomorrow but—'

Churchill rode roughshod over his attempt at pacification. ‘The President told me to my face that he would find a pretext, some provocation that would justify you coming into this war. Your ships get attacked and sunk with devastating regularity, yet—'

‘The
Greer
? Well, she was scarcely an innocent bystander, Winston. She pursued the U-boat for four hours in the middle of a hostile engagement. That's why some are saying the President's already gone too far, and most others agree that the German provocation hasn't gone far enough.'

‘Provocation?' Churchill exploded. ‘What more do you need? Hitler has murdered half a dozen countries for far less. You are blind, blind.' The fists came crashing down upon the table once more. ‘Can you not see what he's about? “One by one”: that's his plan, that is the guiding rule, and with it he's already enslaved a vast proportion of the world.'

Winant tried to respond but Churchill held up his hand.

‘I warned, I warned so many times. But no one
would listen. They all stood idly by while Germany rearmed. Austria was occupied. Czechoslovakia subjugated. Poland crushed. The Low Countries and the Scandinavian countries wiped from the map. France humiliated. Even this year, I pleaded with the Balkan countries to stand together and save themselves from the ruin by which they are now engulfed. But, one by one, they were undermined and overwhelmed. Never has the career of pillage and plunder been made more smooth. And now he inflicts his slaughter upon the peoples of Russia, after which it will be our turn in this country. And then what, Ambassador?' With a sweep of his arms he pushed away all the cutlery and glasses on the table in front of him, leaving nothing but chaos. A glass of old wine had toppled, spilling its dregs across the table top; he ignored it. ‘When all the rest of the world has been reduced to a featureless swamp of untold suffering, that Devil's butcher will call you Americans to order. Oh, I do not doubt that you will give a good account of yourselves. You will exchange vacillating pacifism for the brightest jingoism and you will bring all your might to bear. You will promise to defend your independence to the death, and Hitler will do his best to grant you that wish. But even if you were able to withstand the onslaught, what then? What would there be left in your world apart from the piteous cries of ghosts? You will look back and beat your breasts and
proclaim that you should have seen sooner, moved faster, listened more carefully, understood that lonely little Britannia was fighting for your cause and the cause of all free men. But don't you dare say you were never warned.' His finger was jabbing down the table at the American. “‘One by one!” “One by one!” History will never forgive you if you allow that monster to become master of our world!'

Sawyers was at his side, making a hash of refilling his balloon of cognac, deliberately distracting him. ‘Sorry, zur.'

‘Bugger off, Sawyers!' the old man snapped. ‘I've got business to attend to.'

The servant, having watched the performance from the wings, had wondered whether Churchill was ill or too far in alcohol, but one look at his steady and voracious eyes told him otherwise. He could not save Churchill from himself and there was no point in trying. With the briefest nod of his head, Sawyers withdrew.

‘I went to meet your President wanting war, Gil. But instead I got an Atlantic Charter that talks about some far-off and fanciful peace your country would like to impose upon the world, even though you will not fight for it. So I ask you to understand my sense of overpowering disappointment, to indulge my suggestions that the position of the
Americanus Ostrichissimus
is undignified and wholly immoral, and I ask you—as a friend—to forgive anything I have
said that has gone beyond the immoderation that should be permitted between us. But I tell you this, Gil.' Churchill pushed himself to his feet, staring down towards the American. ‘Your country will enter this war. You will have no choice in the matter, for if you do not decide for war, then there will be others who will make that decision for you. You will not be permitted to stand aside.'

Winant's dark, angular features appeared more than usually severe. His eyes filled with puzzlement, as though he were not fully certain of the meaning of what he had just heard. ‘As a friend, my dear Winston, I forgive most willingly. As a diplomat, I understand both your passion and your argument, even if I cannot travel all the way along that road with you. But I feel bound to point out what many others will rush to remind you of, if you try to push the President too far. Your own words. “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” They will hoist you with your own rhetoric, Winston.'

‘Tools, tools, the tools of war!' Churchill rasped. ‘Not motor cars and bloody refrigerators.' With that, he threw down his napkin and stalked from the room.

Sawyers helped him undress silently that night. The silk pyjamas were laid out on the bed, the eyeshades on the pillow, the whisky, cigar and matches on the
table beside the bed. He helped the old man out of his dinner jacket and watched as Churchill climbed unselfconsciously into his nightclothes.

It was only after Churchill had hauled himself into bed that he spoke.

‘You think I went too far.'

‘You're the politician.'

‘Yes, and I ventured way beyond the limits of safety. All but cut my own throat.'

The valet busied himself with tidying Churchill's clothes.

‘The problem with committing political suicide, Sawyers, is that you so often live to regret it.'

The Empire Stadium, Wembley.

‘Thought you might like to see it,' Churchill growled out of the side of his mouth. ‘Our version of a Nuremberg rally.'

Winant bent to bring his ear closer, deafened by the roar of a crowd that numbered more than sixty thousand.

‘They seem to love you,' Winant shouted.

Churchill gave him a mocking glance. ‘The only reason they cheer is because they know I won't be making another infernal speech.' He continued to wave, raising both his arms high, his fingers extended in his two-fingered V-for-Victory salute. ‘They tell me that if I get the fingers the wrong way round it means something entirely different,' he continued, ‘the sort of thing that should be reserved exclusively for the Germans.'

‘Which way round is that, then?'

‘Buggered if I know. They seem to cheer whichever way I do it. Look!'

And to prove him right, the packed crowd continued to roar its approval, while the military band parading on the field below struck up the tune of ‘For He's A Jolly Good Fellow' and the song began to roll around the concrete expanse of the national stadium as they waited for the start of the game between England and Scotland.

‘My God,' he said as at last he resumed his seat in the VIP box, ‘if only we could fight them here, the Germans would never stand a chance.'

Winant smiled, deeply impressed—as it was intended he should be. Churchill had little interest in the sport of football but the international at Wembley was an ideal opportunity for him to make amends for the previous weekend—‘and to have some other Englishmen apart from me shouting at you,' as he had told Winant. He also wanted to give the lie to the rumour that they were all beginning to turn against him, not just the press and Parliament, but the people, too. Not that their ovation meant anything; they would cheer just as loud if a chicken ran onto the pitch.

On the way to the ground Churchill had insisted that they stop at Buckingham Palace to watch as some of the railings were torn down. The Minister of Works himself, clad incongruously in goggles, heavy leather gauntlets and three-piece pinstripe suit, had posed in front of photographers with an oxyacetylene cutter. All around the country railings,
fences, gates, saucepans, pots, prams—even entire cars and old refrigerators—were being melted down for the war effort. Widows were sending Churchill their wedding rings with painfully scrawled letters about how ‘my dear husband, who fought in the last one, would have understood'. So the Palace railings had to go; it was important to show that the burden was being shared.

‘They'll be melted to make a Buckingham Palace tank,' Churchill had declared as the wrought iron clattered to the ground. Another bit of nonsense. The metal was far too meagre in both quality and quantity to construct a tank, but Winant was no engineer, and Churchill was the most experienced of salesmen.

An hour later they were in the stadium in the midst of a forest of waving caps, scarves and rattles, when a sudden hush fell across the crowd. A drum rolled. As one, they stood for the national anthem. The band struck up the music and sixty thousand voices competed to lift the refrain high. ‘Send him victorious…' Never had Winant heard the words delivered with so much passion. The mood of the crowd was infectious and the pride that filled their hearts and swamped many an eye began to touch Winant, too. He was visibly and deeply moved. Churchill saw this, and was content. His outburst of the previous weekend had startled everyone, including those old hands used to his volcanic
temper, but whatever damage it might have inflicted on his friendship with the American seemed to have been repaired.

The match proved to be a one-sided affair. Even after the depletions of war, the English side could still muster names like Stanley Matthews and Denis Compton, and they were a goal up within fifteen minutes and threatening more.

When they scored for the second time the crowd erupted yet again, most in celebration, a minority in Celtic despair. Winant was applauding but Churchill seemed not to have noticed. His mood had grown heavy.

‘Winston, where are you?'

‘Forgive me, Gil,' he answered morosely. ‘I was just looking at the crowd. Reflecting.'

‘May I be allowed to share in your reflection?'

‘It is simply this. That for every man who stands here today, Hitler has killed one of their neighbours. Not soldiers, mind you, but defenceless civilians in their homes, in their streets, in their places of work and places of worship. War no longer has boundaries, it no longer respects distinctions of class, or age, or sex, or creed. It spills everywhere, and in blood. There is no front line any more, nothing but one limitless and interminable killing field.' He gazed around the vastness of the stadium. ‘So many. Where will it all stop? How many more will die before it is all over?'

In front of their box, two young boys were jumping up and down, bursting with innocent joy, sounding their rattles and hugging each other in friendship.

‘They ask for little more than a quiet life behind a solid oak door, yet they have become statistics. Cold-hearted numbers. That's how we wage war nowadays, with charts and graphs, where an upward arrow means hope and a downward slope is disaster. Yet every squiggle, every flicker of the line, is measured in the lives of brave men. Men such as these, Gil.' He began pointing at them, as if counting. ‘A crowd as vast as this, yet it is nothing but the first fraction of the price of victory.'

Winant hailed from New England where they take pride in their restraint, but behind his dark eyes he was a deep and sensitive man who possessed neither the thickness of skin nor the hardness in his heart to resist the passions of this moment. Around him, men and boys were joined in innocent fellowship while beside him, Churchill's hand was falling as he counted, like a metronome ticking off the number of the newly dead. One by one.

‘I understand the point, Winston,' the ambassador responded quietly.

Churchill looked at his guest. His task had been completed.

‘Good,' he said, getting to his feet. ‘Two-nil. That's enough. We know who's going to win here. Let's
get back to the other game. See if we can sort out who's going to win that one.'

The Prime Minister turned to Harriman.

‘So, how was our friend, Joe Stalin?'

‘Bloody.'

‘Stalin is a bear with voracious appetites.'

‘And then some,' Beaverbrook chipped in from the other side of the dining table. ‘Never seen a man put away so much alcohol at one sitting. Pepper vodka, white wine, red wine, champagne, brandy—Russian, mind you, not the French stuff. He either has an extraordinary stomach or a very short life expectancy.'

The Canadian's light tone didn't seem to sit well with Churchill, who merely grunted. Harriman and Beaverbrook had arrived back from Moscow to receive the usual peremptory summons to come straight to Chequers, where they had found the Prime Minister in a strangely restrained mood. So far he had failed to throw upon them the accolades that Beaverbrook had been expecting.

‘And caviar, I suppose, Max,' Churchill enquired distractedly.

‘Buckets of it. Tables piled high with everything you could want. Sweetest suckling pig I ever did taste. I tell you, if that's Communism, I'm a convert.'

‘He has far more extensive tastes, Winston,'
Harriman interjected, failing to pick up on Beaverbrook's enthusiasms. ‘He wants planes, tanks, transport, raw materials, the lot. He's also, deep down, very scared. Insists on a second front. Says that a British Army that doesn't fight is useless.'

‘Damn him.'

‘He also wants you to shoot Hess.'

‘What?'

‘Thinks you may be doing a secret deal with him.'

‘A secret deal…Whatever gives him that idea?'

‘Says you're obviously up to something because you've been so damned silent,' Beaverbrook came in once more. ‘One night—oh, it was after a bellyful of toasts—he told me that Winston Churchill had been known to keep his mouth shut only about two things—his drinking habits, and Rudolph Hess. Stalin's exact words. He doesn't understand why you haven't stood him against a wall in front of a firing squad.'

‘Doesn't he, now?' Churchill muttered, sounding more fascinated than offended.

‘He'd heard somehow that I'd been to see him. Kept wanting to know why.'

‘What did you tell him?'

‘That you were keeping him as a hostage in case the Germans captured Randolph in action.'

‘Did he swallow that?'

‘No. Said that from the intelligence reports he was
seeing, Randolph was getting plenty of action but none of it anywhere near the front.'

Churchill grunted.

‘Trouble is, Winston—I'm damned if I understand about Hess myself. When I saw him he said nothing he hadn't told us a hundred times before. Why in Hell's name did you send me?'

‘Perhaps because I'd hoped you might be able to weave your magic, Max,' Churchill said, his tone liberally sprinkled with disdain.

‘What's bothering you, Winston?' the press baron growled. He looked up from his plate to find himself confronted by Churchill's piercing blue eyes.

‘I send you to Moscow, Max. It is a capital under siege. One of the greatest battles of all history is being fought before its gates. I have implored our own people to go without in order to assist the Soviets. We starve. We struggle. Our seamen risk their lives to bring us the basics of life. But what do I read in the newspapers about your priorities?'

Beaverbrook's brow wrinkled in confusion.

‘Caviar. I pick up my morning newspapers and read that Max Beaverbrook has gone to Moscow and he buys twenty-five pounds of caviar.'

‘Oh, that,' the Canadian mumbled. ‘Silly story. You know what these press men are like. Hell, the stuff wasn't for me.'

‘So I read. Apparently, according to the
News Chronicle
, it was intended as a gift for me.'

‘Winston, you know how they work. They found out about it and started pestering. I might've mentioned I was going to bring a little of it back for you but…'

‘They found out about it. You realized how it might look. So you saved your own arse by thrusting mine into the fire.'

‘No, Winston, that's ridiculous!'

No more ridiculous than the mutterings that had been appearing in the press, pushed by Beaverbrook's most intimate friends. They'd been suggesting he should become the man in charge of all production, the Czar of the Home Front, responsible for every detail of domestic matters while the Prime Minister was left to handle foreign affairs. Beaverbrook would run the war, Churchill would fight it, so the rumours went, two old friends in harness. But it might not end there, of course. Beaverbrook, the imperialist, had now become the new friend of Russia, a man of all seasons. It made him the natural choice to replace Churchill, when that time came. And with his friends everywhere in the press, that time might never be much further than the next edition. He seemed to have forgotten all about the Ambassador's job; perhaps he had set his sights on an altogether more powerful position. Churchill's. Trouble was with Max, you could never be sure.

‘Then, Max…' Churchill continued.

Beaverbrook found himself pierced on the other man's gaze.

‘Then, Max,' Churchill repeated, ‘I apologize. Most profusely.' But the eyes didn't flicker and both men understood that no apology was intended. ‘You will forgive me, and understand why at times like this I might have wanted rather more from your trip to Moscow than headlines about fish eggs.'

‘Dammit, it's me who should apologize.'

‘No need, Max, no need. We've known each other too long for such trifles. The war is the only thing that matters, and winning is everything.'

‘I'll drink to that.'

It was time to step back. They had known each other for decades, in and out of affection, and always found themselves pulled together like magnets. In old age, perhaps a little rust had settled upon their relationship. Time to wash it away. They raised their glasses.

‘Anyhow,' Churchill growled, ‘since we can't drop the bloody stuff on them and wipe out a few Huns, we may as well eat a bit of it.' He turned and bellowed loudly enough for his voice to blast its way through the closed door. ‘Sawyers!'

Weekends at Chequers were inevitably surrounded by an element of chaos. The front door constantly swung on its hinges as guests arrived and others left,
as despatch riders brought more pouches and official cars drew up laden with more boxes. Telephones rang at all hours and the radio blared with the latest glimmerings from the BBC. Churchill tried to keep track of everything that happened, but the war was taking place elsewhere, and increasingly he felt a pace or two behind.

Max Beaverbrook departed, rather earlier than expected, claiming travel fatigue and taking the rest of the caviar with him. Pamela arrived, along with many others, and a doctor, too. Harriman was feeling off colour. He'd suffered from sinusitis on the journey back from Moscow and was clearly in need of a rest, but he refused to take to his bed.

He went in search of Churchill and found him looking deep into the flames that flickered in the hearth of the Hawtrey Room. A single sheet of paper hung limply in his hand.

‘Am I interrupting, Winston?'

‘If you are, it will be the only agreeable disturbance of my day.' He waved the paper. ‘It seems that the Government in Tokyo is on the point of crumbling, split between those who wish to pursue the diplomatic route, and those who would prefer a bloody good war.'

‘Then it may be good news.'

‘I doubt it. The name of General Tojo keeps bubbling to the surface.'

‘Who's he?'

‘The Minister for War—and with good reason. Through and through a military man, an exponent of the theories of total war who has spent time training in Germany. A few years ago he was the Japanese Army's chief of police in China—you may remember the stories—when Japanese troops tossed around babies for bayonet practice. I suspect General Tojo is not much given to the ways of patience and diplomacy.' Churchill looked up from the flames. ‘This is the moment I've feared most of all, Averell—more even than invasion. We have reached a point, a climacteric, where the Soviets may be almost out of the war, the Japanese almost in it, and America is nowhere to be seen. Invasion I can fight—and may yet have to. But over events in Russia, and Japan, and America, I am utterly powerless.'